Question on spirit familiars

[RelicRavenEye]

I recently read a book called Familiar Spirits: A Practical Guide for Witches & Magicians by Donald Tyson.

It is a very interesting book, but I wanted some opinions on the validity of it.

His view on calling spirit familiars to you is through a system of glyphs and creation. The glyphs are his own, and I personally do not have any problem with that, any symbol can have power if you believe in it in my opinion.

What I am wondering about is his view on "creating" spirit familiars.

I do not want to go into to much detail, as that would be infringment I suppose, but more or less his way is this:

Make a sentence of what you hope to gain from the familiar.
Reduce the sentence to a word using the first letter of each word in the sentence. this word is the familiars name.
He has charts that take into account number of letters, which letters, etc, to figure out elemental correspondence, gender, planetary correspondence, etc etc, to determine the characteristics of the familar, right down to how it looks.
The glyphs are used to create a sigil for the familiar(among other things).
You then use a picture or draw a picture that represents the familiar. You then make a home for it(an altar basically) based on its correspondences.


Supposivly this will call this familair to you. His explanation is that all familiars come from the same mass of energy, but are usually formless unless given form. He says by doing these things(along with meditation, etc etc), the right energies wll come about to make a spirit familiar that goes along with it, thus "custom" creating a spirit familiar for your needs.

Does this sound valid? I have very little experience in dealing with spirit entities, and none with familiars, so I was hoping for some opinions.

[Garden of Eden]

Strangely enough... While I was in my astral temple today, I discovered a room I'd never been in before (bit weird, since I created the temple in my mind, you'd think I'd know what was in there!) and in the room... was a cat.

The white cat spoke to me (without opening it's mouth) and told me his name was Oocedra (I think that's how to spell it... I didn't want to ask...) and that he was a spirit guide... That was about two hours ago and I'm still a little surprised. I've never encountered anything in the temple before except the things I put there... :foh:

I think we create the familiars (or guides) up to a point... but they way you described sounds far too mechanical to me... They quickly take on a life of their own after we create them!

[Shanti]

That perspective may very well work. Spirit energy of course doesnt have form until it wants to and the way he speaks of it, it may be that you are providing an idea thats comfortable for you, and the spirit energy, if it chooses, may take the form for you.

Anything is possible.

Garden of Eden, I would like to inform you that your banner is to long and is not within guidelines of the site. I mention this because it messes up the layout of my pc screen, thus I took notice. The width can only be 300px and yours is 656px. I see you are new and may not be aware of the rules.

[Faeawyn]

This sounds like creating a thoughtform. Basically, your create a mass of energy, give it a shape that appeals to you, and call it when you need assistance. I've done quite a bit of reading on it. You can have it look like a statue on your altar and it can dwell within the statue, or in a box, or where ever. They also need to be used often or their energy can dwindle and you'll have to rebuild it.
I think I have info in my BOS on it.....I'll look :D

[Seren_]

This sounds like creating a thoughtform. Basically, your create a mass of energy, give it a shape that appeals to you, and call it when you need assistance. I've done quite a bit of reading on it. You can have it look like a statue on your altar and it can dwell within the statue, or in a box, or where ever. They also need to be used often or their energy can dwindle and you'll have to rebuild it.
I think I have info in my BOS on it.....I'll look :D

Or they can take on a personality of their own and start causing havoc if you keep them around for too long. :woah: But they are handy. Magical use of Thoughtforms, by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki and J H Brennan is very good on the subject.

[Bittersweet_1896]

Make a sentence of what you hope to gain from the familiar. Reduce the sentence to a word using the first letter of each word in the sentence. this word is the familiars name. He has charts that take into account number of letters, which letters, etc, to figure out elemental correspondence, gender, planetary correspondence, etc etc, to determine the characteristics of the familar, right down to how it looks. The glyphs are used to create a sigil for the familiar(among other things). You then use a picture or draw a picture that represents the familiar. You then make a home for it(an altar basically) based on its correspondences.

The idea of making a sentence and reducing it is popular practice in chaos magic. I've seen multiple ways to do it, removing certain letters and what. So for the question of the process to obtain a familiar by this method I would think that it would work. However, a chaos witch or mage would do some other continue with a different process.

[Stephanie Taylor]

Magical use of Thoughtforms, by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki and J H Brennan is very good on the subject.

And there's also the book The Witch's Familiar, by Raven Grimassi, which deals with spirit familiars, thought-form familiars, and physical familiars.

[mtpathy]

This sounds like creating a thoughtform. Basically, your create a mass of energy, give it a shape that appeals to you, and call it when you need assistance. I've done quite a bit of reading on it. You can have it look like a statue on your altar and it can dwell within the statue, or in a box, or where ever. They also need to be used often or their energy can dwindle and you'll have to rebuild it.
I think I have info in my BOS on it.....I'll look :D
i completley agree with your statment,but it does seem that many people havent
learned to tell the difference between sentient entity,and servitor/egregor i personally
think thats where alot of misunderstanding comes from.
[QUOTE=The idea of making a sentence and reducing it is popular practice in chaos magic. I've seen multiple ways to do it, removing certain letters and what. So for the question of the process to obtain a familiar by this method I would think that it would work. However, a chaos witch or mage would do some other continue with a different process.[/QUOTE]
ive read some on chaos magick,and imo its not much more then a variation of kabbalah
practices,creating a sentence,breaking it down removing letters,smashing it all together
and pulling energy into it like pouring water into a cut is one process of creating a sigil
which is only one method of creating a servitor,it is NOT creating a familiar.

[SacredWithin]

The process sounds familiar in a different book I've read. I've never heard of the use of symbols when askig for the help of familiars, but that's what was written and you seem to have come across that too. But who knows if that should be the basis to determine validity. Only you can tell.