what is the general census?

[sylas vael]

do you believe that spirits such as those found in grimoires are pre-existing entities, or that they are created by the conjurer during the act of evocation?

[EtuMalku]

Spirits, daemons, devils, gods, angels etc. are all ancient archetypal images buried deep within our unconsciousness and are brought into our consciousness through techniques of symbology. In certain cases they become personifications of Principles found in either objective and/or subjective universes.

They are as real as you need them to be and it is WE who empower them, not the other way around.

[BlackShroud]

I tend to believe a little differently here.Many of them (in my opinion) are pre-existing entities.After all,saying that humans are the only sentient species anywhere in existence seems to be a little arrogant.Of course,we can create new entities through ritual effort and will,however i doubt that every entity in grimoires was created by man's efforts.

This is my general feeling about it. We have got to learn to let go of our anthropocentrism, otherwise you might as well be a solipsist and claim all other people are merely manifestations of your ego.

"In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them."
— Aleister Crowley (Magick in Theory and Practice)