A.A.O. - On the Mechanism of Gods, Godesses, Servitors & Egregores

On the Mechanism of Gods, Godesses, Servitors & Egregores

Frater E.S. A.A.O. in Class C

DCCCLXXXVIII

SERVITORS

ARE

PURPOSEFUL

CONSTRUCTS

designed to carry out specific actions for the practitioner, with more focus and energy being required depending on the complexity of their form and assigned goals. In many ways, they represent a further level of basic sigilization, in that a Servitor is most often treated as a living, thinking entity which is attuned to a definite visualized form of the practitioners choosing, such as a humanoid, animal or a mixture of both in correlation with its programming and various attributes. As sigils are most often utilized to find, empower and drive a specific desire deep into the subconscious mind so that it may flourish there, Servitors entail the sometimes hefty creation of golem-like thought forms which are believed into being for one purpose: to serve the practitioner. Although often sharing the same basic charging procedures as sigils, Servitors are a desire which is purposely given animation and sustenance by the practitioner, usually alongside a description of its appearance, characteristics and other details which may increase its individual likeness and perceived independence. The sigil of the servitor is thus kept within immediate memory and is not forcefully forgotten as is the method of Sparian sigilization. The creation and charging of a Servitor is not much different from that of a basic sigils, though the methods utilized to change a personal desire into a being meant to fulfill that desire, or a being meant to carry out any such activity may vary. For some, it entails the collection of road kill, animal carcasses or animal bones and utilizing them and their symbolic attributes in a ritualized transfer of energy into the Servitors sigil. For others, it may be as simple as channeling visualized energy into the Servitor, or for others still, smearing one’s own sexual fluids onto the sigil of the Servitor in question in order to grant it life. In all ways, however, the Servitor remains tied to the essence of the practitioner, even if perceived as wholly external.

The practice of creating and maintaining Servitors however carries along with it some stories of grave concern. If the Servitor is empowered to such a degree as to assume lasting independence it may manifest itself as a psychosis or worse when the practitioner has decided to cancel its ongoing operations. For one practitioner, this had resulted in a few stitches on the scalp, though some may experience a more subtle means of the Servitor attempting to maintain independence, such as personal sabotage, negative voices in the head, or a strangely consistent stream of bad luck. Most are, however, able to control their own Servitors and not much difficulty is had when it is decided that they should return to the body of the magician. On the dismantling and visualized taking back of a Servitor, the author most often visualizes the energy returning from it and back into himself along with some hand gestures illustrating the transfer, and then burns the sigil in whole, reducing it to ash. For others, the act of burning a sigil seems to be a form of charging it. As was said, it is the individual procedure itself which most counts, this form of personal style being the greatest attribute in the practice of manifesting one’s own inner world out into perceived reality. For most, the cultural, handed-down techniques usually suffice, though the A.A.O. encourages the chasing, deciphering and understanding of one’s own individual style. Do not take your own personal mythology for granted. On a slightly more advanced level, there are Egregores. This entails the creation of a “being” utilized within a group format or structure and is usually considered to be of a higher status than an individual Servitor, and just as well, is usually granted more freedom by those who empower it, though sometimes with tighter restrictions by way of its own agreed-upon attributes. An Egregore is fed and sustained by the collective utilizing it, and in this way is said to feed back information and energy to the group which keeps it. A powerful group Egregore may quickly become an object of worship if not kept

in check, and in this sense is well on its way to becoming an established Godform, though specific worship of these entities is discouraged by many practitioners, including the A.A.O., as the relationship may quickly become perverted into a matter of servant and master depending on the nature of the Egregore, with the practitioner most often taking the role of servant. These instances are, however, rare, and are usually the product of a group dynamic with no attributed or focused goal within their own foundation, or one which is built upon the foundation of manipulating others. As a general rule of thumb: an Egregore tends to amplify and send back what they take in from the group that feeds it. Some modern examples of wide-spread and, perhaps over-empowered Egregores may be Jesus Christ, Ronald McDonald, Mickey Mouse and other such religious or corporate masks. If Servitors are fashioned as golem-like psychic servants, then Egregores would appropriately take on the distinction of group maintained proto-Gods. In this sense, the argument over whether God or any God actually exists in an objective fashion becomes irrelevant, as they have always, without question, existed within the confines of a group or individual psyche - surely a mass delusion, but no more of one than a group of people who ultimately prefer Coke to Pepsi. Even if one does not place such a preference upon either or any brand, they may ultimately place one upon another such higher ideal or attribute found within themselves or their own intellect; it is naught but a function of the mind, and even atheists themselves may be included here. The difference, of course, is that fans of Coke and fans of Pepsi, despite each brand being equally comforting though detrimental to health, do not engage in holy wars over their personal tastes. What we’re literally dealing with in the context of egregores and servitors is the bizarre practice of designer divinity; creating a temporary or lasting “god” or spirit and believing in it for as long as one feels he must in order to harness any results which it might bring;

these so-called results most usually only manifest as personal breakthroughs, revelations or otherwise emotional or intellectual phenomenon. Even rarer experiences, by unknown variable, may yield more inexplicable and even terrifying results if left unchecked, though it appears that not everyone is this sensitive. Make no mistake; we do not all operate from behind the control panels of identical clusters of grey matter, and evolution rather prefers a great many types and varieties through such avenues. One practitioner may be more susceptible to entities than others, whether they are self-created or otherwise. This, however, raises another question, and that is “why did humanity feel the need to invent Gods or spirits in the first place?” A valuable question, and whether one takes the side of genetically-derived predispositions, the existence of a “God gene”, as it were, or the condemnation of our previous cultures as antiquated systems of mere superstition, the answer remains as slippery as ever. I for one do not tend to think that the mindsets of our distant ancestors may be accurately explained via the methods and styles of thought which are characteristic of our modern lifestyles and modalities. A primer is needed, and that primer may be found in some related, though more subtle examples of existent though proven phenomena. The placebo effect may be a good example to begin with. Although it maintains the almost paradoxical definition as being “medically ineffectual” though being regularly responsible for a “perceived or actual improvement in a medical condition”, we may at least say for certain that the logically derived mechanisms for its effectiveness are somewhere rooted within thought itself, or, believing that the placebo will actually do some good. This belief-derived effect has sometimes manifested itself in the stimulation and activation of the immune and nervous system, almost as if they were being sent the message to “prepare themselves” for the faux-medicine. With this fact in mind, it becomes quickly apparent that consciousness itself may have

a direct impact on the physical, material body. As a revision of that thought, it may be more correctly assumed that the body itself is a participating member in the whole of, and is connected to what we tend to convey as consciousness, whatever it may or may not truly be. In this sense, it may have been necessary for early man to externalize his most pressing worries and desires in the form of Gods; aggregates of thought which were granted governance and supremacy over various aspects of the human condition, and by way of some manner of religious surrenderance, ritualistic re-internalization or perceived divine contact, they might have occasionally managed to bridge the mirrored aspects of that particular god within themselves. In other words, the imminent juxtaposition between that which was birthed from the internal, made external and given the mask of an anthropomorphic personification of some desire or trouble, connected back to, understood through its own voice and by means of some primordial placebo effect might have indeed aided the species in regards to their budding acclamation and comprehension of such alien subjects as agriculture, mathematics, metallurgy, more fair and concise political and cultural systems and the continued and burning libertarian ideals of the civilized human agenda. Big stuff, indeed, however… Even today we live alongside various Gods and spirits, although we may have abandoned the practice of their anthropomorphization, but even this is not always the case. One may easily argue, given this point of view, that the ideal and concept of Liberty had been anthropomorphized into one of the best known and most recognizable Goddess monuments in the modern world; the statue of liberty. If one were to really get into the subject, he or she may become astounded by the sheer measure of calculation and pretentiousness demonstrated by the Freemasons and others in the laying out and architecture within Washington DC, with many historical buildings and monuments being made and placed in accordance with the constellation and symbolism of

the Goddess Virgo. Some still may be taken aback when learning of the rituals held by the Bohemian Grove, an exclusive club where the wealthy and powerful meet to gather around a gigantic carved Owl statue, likely symbolizing knowledge and sacrifice. The practice of externalizing psychic concepts into symbolic figures and totems is not yet completely out of style, even amongst the rich, the powerful and the rational. Most of these modern practices of God or Goddess reverence as they pertain to the externalization of symbolic concepts may be quickly brushed away as nostalgic divergence; the question is whether or not it might hold a positive effect or any effect at all, in which case the only real path towards an answer is: try it for yourself. For the A.A.O. and many other occultists, it is not that we concede our higher functionalities of logic and reason in favor of archaic superstition, though we do travail to read between the lines to such an extent as to attempt to catch a glimpse as to the “why” of our collective heritage as human beings. Faith, indeed, takes the back seat. If one is facing a problem, he creates an artistic expression which represents that problem, whether in the form of a sigil, or otherwise. He externalizes the problem; he creates it a mask, and a mouth with which to speak. He utilizes the whole of his self in the attempt to converse with the externalized issue and in this sense, comes to understand the whole of it, sometimes even being offered plain advice in the form of dream or breakthrough. For one reason or another, if it had simply remained internal, such a discussion and comprehension could not be appropriately comprehended. A sort of childish play is sometimes required in order to unlock the door desired. We shall take a step back now and look upon the totems of our ancestors for an applicable answer. Within these older civilizations we may look upon the statues of Gods and Goddesses within a lens befitting of historical reference, but what were they, really? If we tread back far enough then we may see that these externalized conceptual

authorities, which we call Gods, or perhaps idols, were designated to specific areas of human concerns; mainly crops, childbearing, leadership and even some forms of early science and mathematics. The very knowledge that our ancestors could have believed in such a thing at face value seems preposterous today, a sort of embarrassment, but perhaps our worn, highly logical, reductionist and anti-metaphorical hands are not able to wrap themselves around the whole story as it pertains to the psyche of these ancient peoples whom we call ancestors, just yet. We may, as modern peoples, utilize our own highly prized mechanisms of logic and rationalism in the detailing of this phenomenon. If we were to adequately describe it within any modern sense, we may conclude that these were naught but imaginary friends for a primitive and frightened people, lacking any means or sense of what “reality” truly is, in so far as what it means to us, today. Some philosophers posit that human beings at around the age of the Greeks, and for a short time onwards, literally thought differently than we do now. This theory in particular illustrates a few interesting variables, one of which is that the very idea of “I” or “myself” was not as hardened within our ancestors as it is within us today. Sudden bursts of inspiration or creative ideas, even going so far as messages being transmitted between the right and left hemispheres of the brain were thusly perceived as “messages from the Gods”, the attribution being laid upon whichever God or Goddess deals with the aggregate of knowledge at hand, again, mainly crops, child bearing, perhaps politics, relationships between friends and family, and all other sorts of specialties which the early entities, indeed, were deemed to govern. These instances of personal revelation were both the product of some deeper faculty of human consciousness which we today, oddly enough, despite any real measure of increased knowledge, accept as a common fact and truism of the human condition, as well as being attributed to the governing bodies which dealt, by their very nature, with the

concerns held within vast bodies of human knowledge, externalized as symbolic, though invisible, anthropomorphic representations. We shall then propose that it may not be as ridiculous as it at first seems, given the vantage point illustrated here. It was never that these anthropomorphic totems were believed to be literal and external spirits at the start, although as with any culturally sanctioned belief, whichever archaic pond it had naturally arrived from, the vast majority shall take nearly everything at face value. Might we solely blame the ignorant? Yes, we may. This may seem out of place, but yes, we may. Despite this, there does seem to exist, as with anything, a form of hidden structure beneath these totems which govern practical concerns, and such a structure must, and always will, lie within the psyche. The first trick of discernment here requires the ability to disconnect these totems from the external, and allow them to be seen internally. A God of crops then becomes nothing more than a statue which is symbolic of that portion of the human intellect which deals with such processes governing the science of crops; planting, cultivation, and harvest. If such is the case, then why did our ancestors externalize the informational aggregate into the form of a statue, a concept; a God? Herein lays the loophole, repeated. By externalizing any internal informational body and treating it as an external, giving it a mask and a mouth with which to speak, one is thus enabled to empower and converse with it in a manner which was previously impossible if the concept had remained internal. By this mechanism it becomes transpersonal; the body of knowledge is offered up unto the mass of a culture and is no longer hindered by individual assumption. Gods and Goddesses were, in this sense, our earliest forms of wrapping a circumference around a body of knowledge; our earliest form of books. Although knowledge, in this sense, was not written down via the technology of visual codex, but was rather passed down through oral tradition and purely symbolic forms of early writing; hieroglyphs,

pictograms, and plain works of art wherein the “subject matter”, say, crops, was expressed via a depiction of a wholly imaginary form in the artistic guise of a man or woman with paranormal attributes, say, a lion’s head or other forms of animal symbolism which were also reminiscent and symbolic of the main function of the God or Goddess. But then, alright, say that this were true, why did our ancestors feel the need to pray towards, conduct ceremonies towards and treat them as “real” beings? For this, I will only give a simple account. Mike wants to write a horror novel, although he is struggling with it. No matter how hard he tries, he cannot invent a brilliantly frightening story on his own. He’s tried everything; he clears his head by going on long walks, he even gets drunk now and then while staring at the blank page in front of him. Try as he might, he just can’t bring himself to come up with a truly scary story. But then, he has an idea. He’s going to spend a week completely enveloped within previously successful horror books and movies. The concepts therein do not reveal themselves at first, but he later comes to understand that Frankenstein symbolizes the fear of science gone wrong, that Freddy Kruger symbolizes the inborn fear of madness which issues forth from the psyche, and that the Alien and Cthulhu symbolize an inborn fear of the wholly unknown and unexplainable. These concepts are wrapped up within characters which, after viewing or reading, may be utilized as vehicles in order to explore his own means of delving those regions of his mind which naturally synchronize to the masks he has come to know. Whether he sees it or not, he is accepting the help of psychic forms, each with their own personality, in order to accomplish the task. Is it any different that a so-called God of the crops, Goddess or fertility or God of mystery would stimulate those same corresponding regions of our psyche if properly exposed to and addressed outright?

Herein illustrates the loophole, and also the catch; there are no Gods, nor are there any Goddesses outside the self. They are naught but the externalized, sometimes anthropomorphized symbolic source of inspiration which the practitioner might engage with, routed back into his own faculties, given the stimulation and tease, seemingly issuing forth from a place outside of his own ego, which then offers, plainly, a means of immediate acceptance without relentless scrutiny. The trick therein is two-fold; these things must be treated as existent both within and without the practitioner. Such a mechanism has spiraled into the recent prolonged debate between atheists and religious types over whether or not “God” exists, the only tragedy therein being that people of such high intelligence would even think to engage in a debate which is routed in the duality of mental processes. But such is the nature of duality; neither explanation will ever be truly correct, and will only leave both parties with egg on their faces. For as much as we try but fail to understand our own beginnings, we neglect the responsibility to understand ourselves; the very seed from which all that we know and cherish was birthed. As our collective culture, and indeed, you, the reader, will soon discover, it is not enough to engage in logical debate over fairly recent masks which only serve to hide a much deeper origin, nor is it enough to completely disregard the logical process in favor of slack-jawed, unquestioning faith, but that a higher form of wide comprehension is required, and never without compassion. After all, my mystery is also your own, and it is the very same mystery which allows us to question it in the first place. We’re all in the same boat, we’re all afraid, no single civilization has its finger on the ultimate truth, we’re trying to do the best we can, and no one is getting out alive. With this in mind, neither nihilism nor authoritative dogma shall relieve this particular brand of stress. Think big. Think bigger; bigger than yourself, bigger than history, bigger than your own conception of what “bigger” means, and then, ah, we’re almost there…

All details considered, what I want to say to you is this, and quite simply, after all is said and done, only this: question everything. It is not enough, as it seems and quite rightly so, to go head-long with either the stupefying assumptions of the underground or occult community at large or to dive head-first into the stifling pool of reductionism in which our current and unfathomably deadly culture crisis finds itself. No, this the age of the individual, and all strings end here; the individual shall be the decider of the new morality, the individual shall be the decider of the new politic, the individual shall be the decider of the new societal ideal, and also that of the new and literal meaning of existence itself. All the pieces of the puzzle fall before our feet within this age, and we are the only ones rightly equipped to deal with them. It is a make or break situation, I’m sorry to say, although in saying that, I also purposely allude to the meaninglessness in all such callings, for we simply do not have a choice. This does not mean to become a treatise on free will, though it does mean to say that nature, itself, will not allow the entire game to run down the drain so easily. For occultists, this takes on a different meaning, for they have, somehow, always known that by improving and upgrading themselves and their consciousness that they are already doing the world, and nature itself, a grand favor. So then, if you find yourself to be an individual who feels a lack of participation within the supposed grand scheme of things, all you need do is rearrange the furniture. By evolving yourself and your own perception, you are contributing to an unforeseen impact. By accepting yourself for what you are, and by natural result, accepting your own inborn, universal nature for what it is, you are, without a doubt, turning the unseen wheels which make the entire world go round. It is only by creating a new language, that is, a new and mutually agreed-upon dialect that we might create a new and widespread reality. This new reality will in turn fuel and generate the new language, and will fix the new

reality into place so that it becomes, more or less, a part of everyone’s reality. By no other means than simple logical progression, then, the new reality shall literally re-make the world within the image of those who hold it within their hearts and minds. You are not without a reason. You are the center of your own mandala, which is, in turn, the center of the world, allocated towards your own sensory organs, psychological complexes, chemical variables, genetic structure and irreplaceable identity upon this earth. Now, knowing that, we return to our regularly scheduled programming.