I saw someone talking about tulpamancy and I didn't want to sea lion into their blog with my demon fundamentalism
Like, I straight up don't believe tulpas/egregores are a thing in the sense that people talk about. I think that's a child telling themself that ghosts and monsters aren't real because they're having trouble getting to sleep.
I'm sorry if that sounds condescending. I'm trying to take Lucifer's advice to be less of a jerk. *deep breath* This is a completely normal reaction for a materialist atheist, who has awakened to the spirit world, but doesn't want to blow their entire religion to bits.
Like, I did a spot-on predictive tarot reading for a friend, and she was visibly uncomfortable with the fact that I had invoked Lilith. Then she started talking about some egregore she was fond of, and I was like, "I don't think you can just make a goddess, I think it gets lonely down there and someone is indulging you and saying okay this is the mask I have to wear in the 21st century, fine."
I've said this before: if you're so damn certain my patrons don't exist, light a candle and incense, pour two cups of good whiskey and put together a fruit plate, and say these words while contemplating this funny picture.
That's it: because unfortunately 12-year-old-you-when-they-were-sure-there-was-a-monster-under-the-bed was actually right. You're afraid of losing street cred by getting religion, yes, but mainly you're afraid of the devil like every Christian is. Like all of them, deep down in your hindbrain, you know he's real, and I'm here to tell you that he's actually a charmingly eclectic group of people who are eager to make your acquaintance.
I'm not saying anyone's practice sucks or that they should switch to theurgy. I'm a warlock, you're a wizard, it's fine. But you know, if you are doing something that every occulist a few centuries ago would categorize as summoning, assume you're not talking to a chatbot. Plenty of magic isn't theurgy, but this is.
I think chaos magic is genius because it frees you from old rituals which aren't going to work for you anyway because they don't put you in the right headspace. And having an agnostic jargon for entities is useful because religion is extremely divisive. But like in the Spellmonger books, while not every mage is a theurge, most magi bump into dead people and gods from time to time.
