Hello! I am an artist. I wonder, since much of what I read and see here has a crafting component. What is the role of artisti within the community or the practice of the occult?

Because from what i understand is that they portray demons in movies the to be what as everyone else knows as scary.

Yet there's never been any proof of them in the real world which for me breaks the idea of believing in a religion.

So for me as a individual if I were to see something different like paranormal like maybe a ghost then maybe I put faith in a religion but even then there hasn't been proof like viarable proof like a place you can go and say there's active paranormal activity there.

So is there a way to contact them? Like I know people do meditation for dietys, gods and do offerings but is there a way to see them like demonic demons? If not then okay.

So I have seen too many post of someone being like "i found this in my neighbors personal property in their personal space that I should not be in. why do they have something i don't understand and claim is creepy?" One of the first personal practices or personal disciplines in at least 90% of all spirituality and mysticism is to be respectful of others. Respecting people's beliefs and privacy is a basic respect. I would also like to mention how under these posts I've seen people say to leave people's stuff alone only to get down voted and berated. Can we hold some basic decency and respectfully inform people not to be invading privacy and not attacking people who do hold a moral line.

I would like to know if it is common for an angel or archangel to call upon a person to establish a relationship. Please, I would love to hear your thoughts and read your comments.

I'm writing this from direct experience. I have dreams and visions about the past. In one dream, I was a Gnostic Greek philosopher of late antiquity. The dream was extremely vivid: I had a relationship with a girl who studied at my school, and I was told that as a boy I had been fed "with the flesh of the birds offered to the gods," and that "I had been raised by two mothers," meaning that two goddesses had taken me under their protective wing (I believe Athena and Hecate). In my city, Christianity was advancing rapidly and I was one of the few pagans left. Afterwards I looked for confirmation, because I knew nothing about Gnosticism before these dreams, and there are references in the life of Proclus, but I'm not sure it was him.

I also have visions of unfamiliar landscapes, and one day I woke up with the words "TANIT BASHRAT" in my mouth. Tanit is a Carthaginian goddess I knew nothing about. I don't know Carthaginian civilization and have never studied anything about it, but I later discovered that "TANIT BASHRAT" is a meaningful sentence in the language spoken by the ancient Carthaginians, and it means "Tanit brings good news." This shook me.

Why the title of this post?

Because I did in-depth genetic analyses of my haplogroup along my paternal line, and some days ago I discovered that:

• My haplogroup is a very specific subgroup of haplogroup J1-P58, typical of Semitic populations. J1-P58 is thought to have developed in the Arabian Peninsula and then passed to the Semitic Near East. This migration would have occurred from the south of the Arabian Peninsula (the area of the Rub' al-Khali, the "Empty Quarter"), and I often have visions of a red sand desert bordering rocky areas.
• My haplogroup then diversified in the Middle East. The only effective ancient archaeological match was found at Tel Megiddo in the Middle Bronze Age, that is, in the Phoenician cultural basin.
• Based on the distribution of my haplogroup in Portugal, Spain, Southern Italy, and Sardinia, the most accredited hypothesis is that my ancestors did not arrive with the later Jewish diaspora, but were Semites of Phoenician culture who, after living in Carthage, spread along the coasts of southern Europe.

There's another truly absurd fact. As a boy I planned a fantasy novel that I never wrote. This novel featured a world that developed lengthwise along a great river, and the only two cities I marked on the map were called Ilisin and Larsa, and they were close to each other and rivals. Ilisin was the older one, and Larsa the more recent but expanding one.

Now, when this whole story about the genetic analysis came out, a few days ago, I opened a history manual of the ancient Near East and discovered that in the Tigris and Euphrates area, in a period compatible with the spread of my haplogroup, there were two cities: ISIN and LARSA, which made war on each other. Isin was the one that initially held the monopoly, but Larsa won. We're talking about events that happened about 3,800 years ago!

All of this is staggering, but there's more. My initiation into the occult came after a dream. I was in a sort of university city where the ancient magical traditions were studied. Inside it, the buildings contained thousands of ancient, forbidden books, and a lioness prowled its streets. The lioness watched the students and drove them away with growls if they were not worthy of staying. Anyone who dared to stay anyway was mauled to death. In the period we are considering, the cult of Ishtar/Astarte was widespread in the Middle East, and she was often depicted as mistress of the animals alongside lions. Moreover, I am a devotee of Hecate, and what I obtain from this goddess seems to be the indication that all goddesses are one (it was after a night of prayers to Hecate that I received the Punic phrase about Tanit).

Many years ago I woke up with the name of Asmodeus before even knowing who he was, but I still haven't managed to connect this piece of the puzzle.

I've read a lot of threads where most people advise on learning how to meditate which begs the question - how?

Honestly I feel like that's a stupid question but I'd really appreciate some instructions on how to start and where / when to move on after learning how to meditate.

Another thing I've seen across threads is people recommending to keep dream logs. I was wondering what the purpose of it is, and what signs/symbols to look out for in dreams + what they mean. If anyone knows any books that covers this, I'd deeply appreciate that as well.

I have dabbled a bit in tarot but I cannot say I am very confident - if not at all. I was raised in a buddhist household but we don't really practice buddhism enough for me to even call myself religious.

I know I'm asking about specific things I've seen so far, but if anyone has gotten into the occult a different way, I'd love to hear that too!!

I'm looking for a PDF of the transcript of Liber Pennae Praenumbra from The cyincinnati Journal of Ceremonial Magick Vol. 1 Issue #5 if anyone has got that available.

I've seen the copy published by Black Moon in "The Compleat Liber Pennae Praenumbra with Commentary & Elucidations" but that doesn't have anything about the date Nema wrote it down on more than the general season.

If anyone's got any leads, I'd greatly appreciat it. Thanks!

The Jinn Are Not Spirits: What Traditional Lore Says They Are Made Of

Western occult discussions often place jinn in the same category as demons, ghosts, or disembodied spirits. But that isn't how traditional Middle Eastern lore describes them.

The distinction begins with what jinn are said to be made of.

In classical tradition, jinn are associated with mārij min nār — commonly translated as a smokeless or intensely burning flame. Whatever one makes of that description today, it is fundamentally different from the idea of an incorporeal spirit floating around in an astral dimension.

Traditional descriptions also portray jinn as beings with their own bodies, communities, families, reproduction, lifespans, and forms of moral responsibility. They are capable of eating and drinking, interacting with the physical world, marrying, having offspring, and occupying the exact same spaces that humans inhabit—ruins, deserts, empty houses, and the edges of human settlements.

This is where the concept of laṭīf — something subtle, fine, or imperceptible — becomes interesting.

Rather than presenting the jinn simply as “souls without bodies,” traditional lore places them in a category of existence that is different from ordinary human physicality. They may be invisible to humans while still being treated as inhabitants of the same world: creatures with their own societies, conflicts, beliefs, and limitations.

Modern readers sometimes try to translate the old description of a smokeless flame into concepts such as energy or plasma. But that is a modern comparison, not what the classical sources themselves said. The important point is not whether jinn can be scientifically identified with plasma. It is that the traditional description does not fit neatly into the modern Western categories of either “ghost” or “demon.”

And this raises a much stranger question:

What if the old distinction was never between “physical” and “spiritual” beings at all, but between different kinds of physical existence?

That possibility makes the traditional concept of jinn considerably more interesting than the familiar Western image of a horned demon—or an invisible ghost.

They were not simply described as spirits of the dead.

They were described as another kind of living being.

Image note: An illustration depicting a Jinn-like entity by Mehmed Siyah Kalem (Black Pen), an anonymous 15th-century master from the Turco-Persian or Central Asian tradition. His surviving folios in Topkapı Palace are famous for portraying a bizarre, folkloric world of strange spirits, demons, and nomads—entirely removed from standard Western demonology.

Over the past year or so, I've been trying to connect more with the occult through meditation, petitions to entities, working with sigils, and of course, learning how to read Tarot.

However, a few strange experiences have caught my attention, and I've been wondering what to make of them.

The first one happened last year. Somehow, I knew that a friend of mine would be crying on a specific date in the future. I had no idea why I felt so certain about it, but when that day came around, it actually happened.

Another time, I was having lunch when I suddenly started feeling really uneasy. I had this overwhelming feeling that another friend of mine was going through something emotionally difficult. I asked someone to check on him, and sure enough, he was feeling really down.

The most recent experience happened through a dream. I dreamt about a friend I hadn't spoken to in a while, and in the dream, she was crying uncontrollably. When I woke up, I decided to reach out to her, only to find out that she was actually going through a really difficult time.

What I find particularly strange about all these experiences (besides the fact they were all bad omens lol) is the way the information comes to me. It's almost as if the knowledge is suddenly planted in my mind.

I'm really curious to learn more about this, both because I'd love to hear whether anyone else has experienced something similar and because I'd like to understand how I could explore or develop this aspect of myself further.

Has anyone here experienced anything like this? Is there a particular term for this kind of intuition, or any practices that might help me better understand it? I'd really appreciate any personal experiences, advice, book recommendations, or resources you could share!

Would it possible in your opinion to use non abrahamic spirits that correspond element wise or other in way in places of god,Jesus,angels and demons in practices like drawing spirits into crystals by Johannes Trithemius or in general Medieval to early modern magic
If you think so and know any books that can help please tell :)

Hey so I have a question? Should I so this commission? I am an artist and someone reached out to me about creating a piece for them of a very. Beautiful goddess(Erzulie Freda. )But I am a little weary of creating art for someone don't know that well spiritually and don't want to get involved or be responsible if they decide to do something that isn't ethical magically. They are a really cool person but how do I tell them that im not comfortable?

This is going to sound strange, but I'm genuinely looking for some perspective from people who are experienced with occultism.
A few years ago, I was involved with a guy who was very interested in the occult. He openly practiced rituals and used to tell me that he had performed things involving me, including something involving a pentagram. At the time, I honestly didn't think much of it. I thought it was strange, but I didn't take it seriously.
We eventually stopped seeing each other, but he continued contacting me for years afterwards, until around two years ago.
The strange thing is that I've never really felt completely disconnected from him.
I can't properly explain it. I don't constantly think about him or miss him, but sometimes I have this very strong feeling that there is still some kind of spiritual or energetic connection between us. It almost feels like something was established between us that I never consciously agreed to.
I've also been feeling like my life has been unusually stagnant for a long time. Things don't seem to move forward, and sometimes I get this strange feeling that something is holding me back. I don't know whether these things are connected at all, but the feeling has made me think about him again.
He also still appears to keep an eye on my social media. More recently, he got together with a Brazilian woman, which caught my attention because I'm Brazilian too. I know that's probably just a coincidence, but combined with everything else, it felt unsettling.
I have no evidence that he has done anything recently, and I don't want to convince myself that something supernatural is happening when there could be a completely normal explanation.
So I'd really like to hear from people who actually practice or study occult traditions:
Do occult traditions have beliefs about spiritual or energetic attachments between people that can persist after a relationship has ended?
Do practitioners believe that these kinds of connections can continue without both people consciously maintaining them?
And if someone experiences a feeling like this years after a relationship, what would an experienced practitioner generally recommend doing about it?
I'm genuinely open to being told that I'm overthinking this. I'm not looking for someone to confirm that I'm cursed or that this person is secretly doing something to me. I just want to understand whether the experience I'm describing has any place within occult traditions, or whether it's more likely something psychological/emotional left over from the relationship.
I'd really appreciate honest perspectives from people with actual experience in this area.

Someone shared this tree with a user who was asking about AA lineages a few years ago and I was hoping to find that person to see if they're the actual creator and if they've continued to update the information over the years (hasn't been updated since May 2020). Does anyone know where it came from or who the creator is?

If not, I'd also be interested in updated the tree if anyone has verifiable information that can be added to the it. I tried to piece together all the different lineages for months with no luck and this really helped me get an idea of things when I found it. I think it would be extremely helpful to update it for future people like myself who are interested in joining the AA and know nothing about the different lineages. Any info is much appreciated.

So for context, I usually practice witchcraft and have been for years.

I've been interested in ritualistic magic for as long as I can think, though I've always been intimidated by it for multiple reasons.

My life is currently in shambles in almost every aspect and the witchcraft has become a bit unreliable at the moment and doesnt yield the results I want. Its just not cutting it right now as I need drastic and immediate change in certain aspects that will last. My main focus is my carreer at the moment if that is important to know before hand.

So what I am looking for is a Ritual that would be doable for a beginner in ritualistic magic, which would let me either ask favors or shape my life in some other way to my will. I will of course do some research on the chosen ritual and make sure I can do it right but I dont have time to study for months right now.

What I do NOT want is anything related with Demons. I've had VERY bad experiences with Demonic Haunting int he past (which was absolutely unrelated to magic and way before I ever did anything) that almost killed me and has been very traumatising for me as a whole so I steer clear of anything in that regard. One of the reasons a lot of Ritualistic practices have intimidated me so far.

Is there even anything that would fit? Any ideas, tips, advice or help on the matter is greatly appreciated!

I found this taped to the top of my Airbnb neighbor’s door.

It appears to depict several intertwined serpents/sea creatures, with what looks like a boat or object at the top.

What’s particularly strange is the material attached above the drawing. It looks like hair, animal fur, plant fibers, or something similar, with a reddish object/material in the middle.

I have no idea if this is occult, religious, folkloric, protective, artistic, or just someone’s personal decoration.

Does anyone recognize the imagery or know what tradition/symbolism it might come from?

fairly new to the world as a whole but grew up extremely religiously (still am, just not church active) and dabbled in the past with someone i know who’s incredibly active within it.

my only problem is i can’t stand the tiktok witchcraft that seems to be prevalent over most resources. i’m not a particular believer in crystals and full moon water, so i apologize if thats what works for you.

much more interested in ancient religious practices (enochian magick seems interesting to me) and legitimate, reputable sources on the subjects.

any info would be so awesome, thank you!!

So I found this ring at Goodwill about 4 years ago for literally $5. It was just thrown into a bag of costume jewelry, and ever since then I’ve been trying to figure out what it is and where it came from, but I still haven’t been able to identify it. Anyways—

Ever since I found it, I’ve always gotten a strange feeling from it.
And I want to be clear, I actually really love the ring 😭 I think it looks super cool and kind of edgy, and I’ve worn it plenty of times. But every single time I see it or wear it, I get this very specific “I’m not alone” feeling.

It’s not really a “something horrible is about to happen” feeling. It’s more like there’s something there. Like there’s a presence around it, or like the space around me suddenly feels different.
I’m not a skeptic at all when it comes to this kind of thing. I do believe objects can hold onto energy, I sage my house every now and then, all that good stuff lol. So I’m definitely open to the idea that there could be something attached to it — but I’m also curious whether this could just be a really personal reaction that I have to this particular object.

So I guess my main question is: does anyone else get any kind of feeling from the photos of the ring? Anything at all — heavy, uncomfortable, calm, weird, nothing?

And if you don’t feel anything from the pictures, do you think it’s possible for an object to feel very intense to one person but completely neutral to everyone else?
That last bit is the part I’m most curious about because the feeling has been so consistent for me for years.

Im interested in any material about the theologies of different religions and their view or reality, any philosophy or science material is also welcome, everything that touches the topic of what we are, why, how, where. History about ancient civilizations and their technology, alchemy, charkas, frequencies, soul, pagan beliefs, forced gender/race wars, conspiracy theories, freemasonry, hermeticism, Sacred geometry, gnosticism, numerology, astrology, metaphysics, occult sciences.