Magic: The Gathering - An Experiment

[bakeneko]

This is intended as my "personal experiment diary" for some of the ideas from this thread:
http://www.occultforums.net/ceremonial-magic/677-theory-advanced-thoughtforms.html

For some background please read there (especially the quote about Tarot magic on page one and the 2 links I provided on the second page).


I put it here, because it is more Chaos than anything else for me.


Today I got a bulk of "new" cards, which I purchased from ebay. I could have gotten them a bit cheaper I guess, but well it is still okay.
It was quite a interesting feel getting the package - energizing with a mix of joy for the possible upcoming adventures.

The cards themselves proved to be a rather mixed block. Ranging from mint to uhm "unmint" *cough*
There are some cards I did not even think of until now, some exciting ones and quite a few boring ones. And there are far too many double, triple, quadruple, you name it...

Highlight is maybe a Japanese Streetbreaker Wurm . Have no idea what he is doing there...
Many Kamigawa and Guildpact - Silverstorm Samurai, yay. Cylian Elf too.
Some Elf Zombie (eh?). The Nim Shrieker I wrote about before (hm.. not so hot as a card, I only mentioned this critter cause it is such a ugly weakling).
And finally a Hobgoblin Bowling Team...WTF?

There are no lands... even though my plan now is to skry first some land area to get a better feel for the world(s). I think maybe I can use some pictures instead, since I do not really summon the lands themselves. There are only a few land cards, which I think of as interesting anyway.

[bakeneko]

A short path working experience: The Forbidding Watchtower

I was using a image of the Forbidding Watchtower from the tenth edition (there is another version with drastically different visuals in the Urza's Legacy deck). There seems to be not much info available, except that it is a mix between a land and a creature - but this are card properties. I could not find anything, which would have been helpful with my pathworking experiment( as some background information). So I decided to be a bit careful ( probably better to not mess with a living watchtower, right?)

It was rather short, but I will outline the "outer parts" too.


Making my body lighter and lighter I rise up to the clouds, which form a veil of fog before my eyes. As the fog dissolves again I am a bit suprised to not be at my usual entrance position.

I find myself in the swamp part of the woods/jungle area. Disfigured trees block most of the view upwards, so only a bit of light can come through and illuminate the ground. It is day time, which likely is better for some reasons (which I will not explain here and now).

I levitate and simply fly out of the jungle. The sun is rather low in the skies as the plains lie below me. Somewhere in distance I hear voices, even though this should be a abandoned place. Still I decide to not check upon this.
I fly towards the mountains and land near my work place.

This part is rather personal so I will not describe it.

Entering my library I feel the urge to inspect some of the books. Being done with this I go to my dark mirror in the back of the room. As high as the room itself it is made of perfectly black obsidian.
I let the surface change to a image of the Forbidding Watchtower.
Touching the surface with my right hand, it becomes liquid.

I step through. Turning around I let the mirror vanish with a movement of my hand.
Then I look around.

The land is barren, in a rocky area. No woods ir any vegetation to speak of.

The Watchtower rises high. A enormous building. Much bigger than I had imagined. No one is to see. The place looks lifeless, only the sounds of a few crows are to be heard.

I go down and towards the tower. As I come near it looks even more impressive... and not in a good way. So I decide to not go any further.
Now I see, that is it placed near a cliff, which was invisible in the picture. The ocean is nearby and for some reason I know merfolk lives there.

I decide, that I saw enough for now. With a movement I let the mirror appear. Showing a image of the library the surface becomes liquid one more time. I go through to find myself back where I started.

I summon the clouds right into the library to bring me back.


In summary it was maybe not a experience with tons of action, but a good first try and quite impressive. Even the visual part was good too, with lots of immersion. The odd starting point gives me something to think.
Maybe some strange hint. I don't know.

[bakeneko]

For those who are interested from what visual source I did work:
Wallpaper of the Week: Forbidding Watchtower : Daily MTG : Magic: The Gathering (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/arcana/1424)

[Elelem]

Bakenenko I used to play this game many moons ago! (competively)
that card is actually very good.

What did you exactly do on the link you posted it's just art of the card

[bakeneko]

Well, I use the cards which I have totally different than they were intended. The mentioned link(s) explain this quite a bit.

For the pathworking that I did, the art was enough as it provided me basic information - somewhat like a address where I could travel to (see my "travel report" above).
As I said, it is a provider of some visual info. If I had the card itself I could have made a more close connection to its energies. But so it was good enough for a first try, I think.

[Gazeeboh]

alternitavly, you could use the creatures as servitors or something like it. They are already constructed for you and people all around the world have put energy into them (especially during intense game sessions) .

Just think of what you need, find the card, and make offerings of the elements but with actual representations of them rather than land cards. Or just burn the card to release the esscence or soul of it into the ether to do what you need.

[bakeneko]

Well, this is a concept Saeiane thought out in the other thread.

Basically I want do this at some point. But I want to start slow and hone my skills again a bit.
My current interest for the lands is mostly to get attuned to the system, get a feel for it and gather some information. And it is quite a interesting experience - much better than TV :P

Personally I would not burn the card as I see it as both a embodiment of the spirit/concept and as a gate.

[isis]

i have those card i have a lot of those cards lol i cle... thouse cards and many other cads for my kids they like to play those...

[bakeneko]

@Isis: Yeah...and I plan getting more. Even though it is for other reasons haha Basically I build my own library now. If every card has only the the information inside it, which I accessed in my example pathworking above - then each card is a page of a huge book...and some would be books of their own.



This could also be looked at from a solipsistic standpoint. There is a mythos and lore surrounding those cards and the creatures and beings depicted on them. I think it would fall under the same onus as literary solipsism. So all those things already exist for someone to call upon at their leisure.

Exactly. All this exists at least at the mental plane to call up. And I highly suspect that there lies wisdom and insight in these worlds which was not accessed before, as those things tend to evolve on their own at some point.
For the summoning of creatures the big pro is that they already exist and get mentally fed. They have a background and attributes and so on.
The con is...quite the same. See Saeianes experience with the Reiver Demon.
Because of this I basically approach this not so light heartedly. And it is more fun for me this way - it is a huge world to explore and not so different to the elementary realms.

[bakeneko]

If anyone still wonders how I did what I did so far, this link might be interesting to you:

A Short Course in Scrying (http://www.hermetic.com/browe-archive/ashort.htm)

I also experiment with shamanic travels, but for me this tends to become rather disorganized, so for the purposes here I prefer above technique.
If you look closely, you will recognize that I used the basic technique for Tarot cards for a Magic cards. For the environment this works good, a test with any creatures is still out.

[bakeneko]

Yesterday I had some more fun by getting my second card lot. This time including foils lol.

At night I visited the Forbidding Watchtower again. This time there were some human-like beings around the tower.
I went down the hill a bit to get a better look at them. They wore armor under white clothing. I decided to not go any closer or mess with them...so I observed them for a while until I withdrew.

[Saeiane]

I apologize in advance for any typos or strange occurrences, I'm having virus and adware problems which are drastically slowing down my computer, I'm trying to refocus myself by doing this

I'll post my own experiment here as I conduct it, this will be in the summoning of MTG Entities. For this experiment I will be using the Sylvok Explorer.

I draw from my Elves deck, 2 basic green land cards and the Sylvok explorer card. The base theory I'll be working on here is that the land cards hold within themselves, the energy that will tally a favor from the Explorer,plus I chose him because- he seems like someone that enjoys experiencing a new world lol.



The circle has been cast and the area cleansed, I open a mental gateway and project it on to the card. I open a portal through the card, and summon energy from the lands. Two murky green orbs of energy float from them. -I get interrupted from 3 trojan detections, and move on- I call on the spirit, and offer the energy. He materializes above the card. Wearing sandals of an interesting material, it looks like bark but much, much softer. His clothing is rusty green. Leave-like bracers on his arms show much wear, his helm is also of a sylvan nature. A mix of metal and plant is how he is best described. Vines are drawn around his arms.

"What is your name?" I ask
The reply is a smooth, calm, if not relaxing voice "Dedric"
"What is this place?" He asks.
"A world different from your own, but parallel" I answer.
"I see" comes his reply "Why have I been brought here?"
"To serve a purpose, I need nothing of you, just your presence for the moment"
"Understood"

"What is your world like?" I ask
"Diverse, wild. There are many creatures set after many goals. The world that I experience most often however, is that of the trees and roots" he smoothly replies.
"I see. I have many more questions, but for now. I send you back"

He nods and steps from the still swirling gateway, I raise energy and focus it, the portal grows.
"Step through, and you will be returned"
The explorer does as instructed, and in a small flash of light, he is gone, the portal slowly dwindles until I fully close it

That worked better than I thought it would, really. I kinda winged it. But, he was as real as any other entity I've encountered... Strangely he looked much like his card, save for the sandals and a few smaller things in his appearance. Was also unaware of this world, which seems kind of strange to me.

That was sobering, and extremely exciting. He produced some "Green" mana just standing there. ( the vines )
Any thoughts?

[bakeneko]

Impressive :)

My thoughts on certain differences: I think it works similar to Platon's concepts about ideas and manifestations ( how often did I mention this now?).
So basically the card image is a copy of the "master idea"...while the actual being has the same properties, it is not 100% the same.
A popular example for Platon's concept is the following:
There is a "master copy" of "tables" in the "heaven of ideas". It has the main properties of all tables that can and will ever exist.
Now all material tables will be essentially the same as this "master copy"...even though they differ slightly...tables of wood, tables of metal, large tables, small tables. Everything that qualifies as "tables" still refers back to the "master copy".
Maybe "master copy" is the wrong choice of words, but I could not think of something better right now...

[bakeneko]

Meeting a creature - Fylgja

A fylgja is a old norse protector spirit. The name itself is a unchanged derivation of the verb fylgja - to follow.
The Fylgja card depicts a northern landscape with mountains, some wood, a river, a person fishing in said river... and a bear going towards this person.
The mythological fylgja was thought to appear usually in the form of a wild animal and only sometimes as a human.

I prepared everything at usual and took some time to meditate on the card.

In my library I project the card into the black mirror. Touching the mirror the surface becomes liquid. I step through.
I find myself in a landscape not too different from the one depicted. I stand a bit higher on the ground at a hill. A lot of snow. It is everywhere around me.
I decide to change my clothes in something more appropiate.
For some reason my vision becomes weaker and I have to enforce it. I look down at my body to some grounding in the vision, watching my new shoes made of fur. Actually the fur is on the inside to keep my feet warm.
The same principle for the rest of the clothes. In summary I am pretty much dressed as the person on the card.
I descend the mountain. A new problem with my vision. I think quickly if I should abandon the vision and try it totally a new, but something helds me back.
So I go on. At the sky above me something flies... at first I think it is a bird, but it appears to rather be some flying dinosaur(???).
I reach a river. Something tells me there is danger and I decide to not go near it. I see some of what I thought to be ground near the river to actually be just ice. Parts of it break away and float now in the river.
I go on. On my left side is a mountain (the river is on the right with just a small path for me).
I reach the end of this mountain and see a parallel path.
I look a bit more forward.
There is a tree in a short distance. I go towards it.
It appears to be dead. A piece of armor hangs at a high spot of it.
As I watch the armor I hear a sound behind me.
I turn around and a bear appears from the parallel path.
It is quite big and white as the surrounding snow. Something seems wrong with it and as it approaches I know what it is.
The bear is almost transparent.
It stops before me and looks at me.
I say the name fylgja. Nothing happens. So I test it with the hand of light (a protective gesture with I found in its basics in a old book about runes and developed it slightly further). There is no further reaction and no change in the vision.
I say the name again. Finally the bear groans. It looks at me a bit more then turns away and goes further on the path.
I decide to go back. On the way back there are no further problems of any kind. I reach the hill, activate the gate and go back.

[Saeiane]

Very interesting
perhaps we do a joint experiment Bakeneko? I summon, you travel?

I think for my next experiment, Tel Jilad Archers will do. It will be some time before I am in good enough spirits to conduct the experiment however.

[orca2313]

hmm, couldn't one use a sorcery card to cast an actual spell? I'm thinking in specifics of "healing leaves", a green card that give you 3 life, being used to heal a an injury or cure someone's problems that cause emotion pain.

[bakeneko]

Very interesting
perhaps we do a joint experiment Bakeneko? I summon, you travel?

I think for my next experiment, Tel Jilad Archers will do. It will be some time before I am in good enough spirits to conduct the experiment however.

Nice idea. I wanted to expand this anyway...so, yeah, why not. Just my time is a a bit on the scarce side right now (and won't change much the near time), so I will be slowwwwwwww...


@orca: Well, I think it would be possible. Just have now no clear idea how to do it. I think the most easy would be to summon some being that is a healer. Working with spell and artifact cards seems to be a bit more difficult. I only know a process as this from Tarot, but there is a strictly limited number of cards with clear functions. Magic is IMO a quite different beast in this aspect.

[Lady Dunsany]

Actually you can summon Gods using the cards. I have a set of Cartouche cards and when I need a specific Egyptian Deity to come and help me with a particular problem whether health, money, personal I select the card, put it to my forehead and communicate. The God or Goddess talk to me in my mind and gives me the answer to the question. The only problem is be carefull what you ask for as if they think it is selfish they will turn the energy back to you. So far I have been lucky, a friend of mine was not.

[Gazeeboh]

To use them as spells just think of them as a talisman.

Or a precharged sigil, like a battery. Just release the energy in it how ever you like.

Or, using radionics to focus the card for you because machines are wonderful and make life much easier.

[Saeiane]

To use them as spells just think of them as a talisman.

Or a precharged sigil, like a battery. Just release the energy in it how ever you like.

Or, using radionics to focus the card for you because machines are wonderful and make life much easier.

Another way might be (for instance if one needed emotional healing) to focus on the energy of the card and draw out the energy.

More and more good thoughts and ideas on the subject, I love this haha

@ Bakeneko, yeah I as well have been finding less time to get things done- haha. But I'd like to throw out an experiment if anyone wants to try it

To communicate with the Sky
needed: The Sun, Moon and Star tarot cards from any conventional tarot deck, a wand or tool of communication (not necessary, but recommended)

Firstly, focus on the Sun card, use it's energy to cleanse the room, take the wand and point it towards the sky and say " I connect to and merge with the Solar energies of life, harmony and fair luck. " take a moment to merge and then point at the card, speak (mentally or verbally) and listen. (mentally)

repeat next with the Moon card, ( "I connect to and merge with the Lunar energies of beauty, serenity, and knowledge." ) last with the Star. ( "I connect to and merge with the Cosmic energies of thought, communication and divination." )

customize the invocations as you see fit to mold with your belief system.

Anyhow, the point of this ritual is to enable communication with the energies of the planets and stars directly, not through a spirit of the energies. Which if you've done this before- you know is much more powerful and extremely rewarding. I've learned things straight from the moon that no teacher earthly or otherwise could have shown me. Also I did a variation of this ritual once before, I forget what happened or what the purpose of it was, but I do remember having extremely powerful results. Most of what I remember is a flash or two- I connected to my shadow, I had a fourth card set... I was using the Tarot of the Dead. I used my wand, and the rest is blocked.

Hmm.

[bakeneko]

Well, I have not been here some time due to some personal problems...
But I tried Saeianes ritual and it works good.
Currently I try to get into evocation, but it seems this needs more time. For now my rather simple technique seems to works more efficient for me.

What interests me now is what happens if one makes contact with one of the more defined beings - heroes depicted in the novels etc.

[Mojito]

All this success in the use of M:tG has me wondering what the use and exploration of any of the Mana Battery cards would yield, let alone various aura cards (the Shadomoor set coming to mind right now), or a creature card like 'Drove of Elves' for protection.

Even more interesting would be to hold some kind of dialog, similar to what, Saeiane had described, with the above mentioned card, or one with similar effects.

For reference, Drove of Elves produces a 1/1 Elven Warrior counter for each Forest you have in play. Would be very interesting to hold a conversation with and learn what one can from such a source, including differences in personalities, dress, opinions, etc.

[bakeneko]

Damn, I wasn't here for a looong time.

Well, I think some of the aura cards could be handy and can be utilized. Still am figuring out a way for this though.
Most of them are suited to the battle stuff...so not much use for me personally.

[VIRAL]

Magic The Gathering can be an awesome power source. I used to have a lot of cards and one of my favorites was Entropic Spectre. for a little bit of energy (mana) carry a land of one of the 5 basic land types on your person wherever you go. One thing a friend of mine and I "discovered" was that there were 5 barbaric languages associated with the 5 colors. For instance the "fire" language had words that sounded like "Geshuraz!" or "Rishobathar! Vrikashas!" using lots of R's etc. We called these 5 toungues "The witche's languages" and found them to have powers reflective of their 5 elements. Red was chaos and destruction. White was angelic and life energies. Green was nature and growth. Blue was the psyche/ astral/ mental. Black was death and evil. The barbarisms seemed to invoke the corresponding energies.

[chronazon]

Magic the gathering fascinated me as a child.
NOw I still think you can draw much inspiration and get many good ideas from what they do. I've got a few decks kicking around somewhere, I stupidly traded all of mine for 14.00, which I spent on some elemental fire incense and a pack of egyptian cigarettes

[VIRAL]

Ooh, egyptian cigarretes! What are they called and are they any good?