Vetting an Unrecorded Entity
Some of the most common advise I see around social media for vetting an entity and establishing its trustworthiness relies on asking the entity questions about their mythology and comparing it to recorded stories and history. That’s all well and good when the entity gives off signs associated with a well documented mythology or folklore that you can go research. But what do you do when nothing lines up, or they give you a monicker or name that you can’t find anywhere? Some people might tell you that means the entity is dangerous, or a liar, but I’ve found in my decades of spirit work, particularly with my own Forgotten Ones, that is it far more likely that the entity has just never been written about, or that anything recorded info about them didn’t survive.
In my experience any one who engages in spirit work long enough is going to run into an entity that doesn’t have a recorded mythology or history. Maybe that entity will be like my Forgotten Ones and have no record at all, or maybe it will be a case where they entity can be sorted into a well know category of spirit, but there is no record of this individual.
My personal vetting process really developed when I began to work with the entities I would eventually call the Forgotten Ones, and it consists of just two things, Communication and Observation, deployed with critical thought and time.
Ask the entity about themselves, multiple times, and watch out for inconsistencies. Some small variations are normal, like anyone telling a story it’s hard to say the exact same thing every time, but are the major points generally the same?
What would you like me to call you?
What _______ are you associated with? (Fill in the blank with things like animal, plant, color, scent, weather, anything that the entity might use as a sign.)
What is your preferred method of communication?
What offerings, sacrifices, or devotional acts would you like me to devote to you when I choose to do so?
Tell me a story about yourself?
This is where the time comes into play. Think of yourself as a nature documentary team and just observe the entity as it naturally is. Then think of yourself as an anthropologist and see how they act and interact with you. In the best cases their behavior will back up their answers to your questions, in the worst cases they won’t and you have to dig more and communicate more.
How does the entity act around you?
How do they react to different behaviors from you?
How do they interact with the environment?
How do they interact with the people and animals around you?
How does the environment react or change when they are present?
How do you feel when they are present?
What is their personality like?
What communication methods do they seem to prefer
How do they act when defied or told ‘no’?
Do impressions you get from them change over the course of time? If so how?
You may see that there are repeats under Observation of questions I recommend under Communication, and there’s a good reason for that. An entity, any entity, may lie or obfuscate when asked a direct question, but changing their behavior long term to match that lie or misdirection is much harder to do. Remember that not all lies or misleading is necessarily malicious or harmful, spirits have as many reasons for it as people do. But if entity answers a question one way, then their behavior contradicts that answer it’s worth having a conversation about what it true and why their words and actions don’t align.
The success I’ve had with this process is why I feel that vetting an entity is a process that is best done over time. You can contact a spirit once and ask them questions, and everything might seem to check out, but you won't know who they really are and how they really behave until you've maintained some sort of relationship with them for a while. If initial conversations tells you that an entity should behave one way, but your interactions with them show them acting a different way that is something to question. Is this a different aspect of the same entity? A different entity all together? Did you make a mistake in your interpretations? You won't catch those nuances in one single encounter or conversation. My standard vetting process, for instance, ranges from 3-6 months, and is very much like getting to know a new neighbor, coworker, or classmate.
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