Inspiration from Fiction

In various magic and energy working circles one will sometimes encounter people drawing inspiration from a work of fiction.  A symbol from an anime, a spell from a novel, etc.  The opinions on this are most likely varied, but I am of the opinion that it's not necessarily a bad practice.

Many fictional concepts can be developed to work in the real-world, such as being used in an actual spell or energy working technique.  I think that this would be most obvious in Chaos Magic where users are prone to incorporate anything and everything into their practice.  Energy working is another "anything goes" type of practice in which anything that can be imagined can be utilized.

It's important to recognize that you are borrowing or taking inspiration from something fictional though, rather than trying to pass it off as a real tradition.  Drawing symbols to invoke changes in matter is not how real-world alchemy is done, but if you can find something to help you in a fictional representation of alchemy then I see no problem in using it.  It is, however, important to make sure you aren't incorporating detrimental things into your practice.

Then we have the converse of the above:  People mistake real-world concepts for the inventions of fiction.  Examples that come to mind are ki and chakras.  Just as we may take ideas and inspiration from fiction, so do the creators of fiction take ideas and inspiration from real-world occult traditions and practices.  I usually only see this brought up when ignorant people try to deride someone else's practice for being "made-up" or "fake."

You may not be in favor of taking ideas from fiction because of the confusion or derision it can draw.  I happen to be a fan of "If it works, use it," but I most often draw the line at incorporating fiction into serious practice, mostly because of the issues it can cause.  If you do intend to adopt fictional concepts or ideas into your practice, be aware that this won't always be met with a warm reception.

Trolling as a magickal tool.

The idea hit me earlier that maybe the time-honored tradition of Internet trolling could be used in magickal practice.  It would, of course, probably be better suited to those of a "left-hand" path as it could be morally dubious and it also utilizes strong emotion.  I believe the difficulty might be in channeling all of that Internet rage into your work, but using a computer in your working shouldn't be that complicated for those with enough ingenuity.

This is essentially co-opted group focus, in a sense, similar to an ordinary magickal group working.  Instead of having a group focusing on your magickal goal, they are focusing their strong emotions towards you.  Your job then is to channel all of that attention being given to you into your working.  Since I'm becoming so fond of sigils I'll use that as an example.

You would need to prepare your sigil (or ritual, etc.) beforehand.  Once you have everything set up then you can begin co-opting the energy you need to make your sigil particularly potent.  I figure that there are two ways of charging a sigil in this way.  The first one would be to use your sigil as your avatar or display picture in a forum or chatroom so that the energy is flowing directly to it.  The second way would be to devise some method of channeling the energy into your working such as keeping the sigil on your computer or using your computer in the ritual (if you're taking the ritual path).  This is where your ingenuity comes in.

How do you incite the strong emotions though?  If you're dealing with Wiccans then point out how Gerald Gardner plagiarized Aleister Crowley (see this previous post for more info).  If you're dealing with followers of Crowley you can call him a deviant drug addict.  Obviously this only works on specific groups.  If you're working with a more eclectic crowd then you'll probably need more general triggers.  I would avoid things like "Magick isn't real," as this could work its way into your own subconscious and potentially subvert your goals.  Anyone that's had much experience in these types of crowds should be able to come up with something to stir emotions.

All of this is morally questionable, perhaps reprehensible, but I thought that it might be interesting to folks even if they never actually try the idea out.  I enjoy thinking of new ways to look at old things and solve problems.  With this much negativity on the Internet, someone may as well try to put it to use, right?  If anyone does try this then please let me know how it turns out.  This is frontier stuff right here, I think.  Exploration and experimentation is encouraged.

I also apologize for the flood of magic(k)-related topics lately.  I know that probably not everyone enjoys reading about this stuff but I've been getting back into it lately and I feel that the best writing comes from personal experience.  So there you go.  I'll try to post about more diverse topics in the future.