Naming a Spirit

Despite my skepticism, it pleases me to experiment with Tyson's as yet unproven hypothesises. Skepticism seems wholesome, robust and right. Morally, I think we should be skeptics about everything, save goodness and love, in which we should be true believers. Credulity is a big problem in H. Sapiens. We must question, or we seem like ants. People will vote for Trump only because they lack skepticism. He is confident, sure. He is more confident than he really should be. Is he right? Is he good? People don't bother to look past the bravado. They want their tribe, Republicanus, to win, and "Trump=Win" seems to be the thought behind all the brouhaha. Well, Hillary is a known quantity and, I suppose, predictable. Boring, I think, is better than Bad. Perhaps people have forgotten. History provides us with many examples. But I digress.

Skepticism seems a tedious pose to maintain long-term among believers, and I feel swamped by believers in various things that don't make much logical or physical sense, and there seems no real harm in indulging in a bit of magic, whereas there would be real harm in supporting a bad politician. So, although I don't believe very much, I suppose I can manage to pretend just a little bit, sure. Perhaps pretending is what this thing is all about.

I shall attempt to take notes of my ongoing experiments. Based upon my reading, I believe imagination may be the best interpretation of what magic is to the believer. Whatever one thinks of, if it seems to arrive from an external source, might be, instead, a communication of sorts or even a divination. Intentions, motivations and environment seem to be relevant. Good attracts good, evil attracts evil, and so on.

Unlike Wiccans, I do not place much stock in rituals, spells or suchlike, which strike me as silly and ridiculous, especially in this modern age. It seems like so much nonsense and rather debasing and primitive. If Tyson felt free to deviate from tradition, then why not deviate further, and dispense with much of the nonsense, forging one's own way, provided it seems right or makes sense to the user. One seeks a dignified and original approach. After all, languages and cultures vary, and so too will words, inflections and practices, so I don't think any of that matters very much. Thoughts matter, if anything, but not specific formulas of words or marks. Tyson's treatise on sigils gave the game away. None of that really matters. The sole purpose is to inculcate patterns of thought in the user. That can be done with or without sigils, and the shape of the marks clearly is irrelevant.

I have thought about certain words that seem interesting or meaningful. The first name that occurred to me was Fra. It is convenient to have a monosyllabic handle, no? This is in accord with Tyson's recommendation to have a name for one's familiar. Apparently, it is possible to manufacture one.

A second word, Mishante, occurred to me whilst walking in the rain, and may or may not be a name. I think, rather than a name, it may be a subject and an action verb, as in, "I sing," or "Me chantez," which is poor French grammar. It could also be méchant, or wicked, but that is a depressing and paranoid thought and not at all what I felt when the word occurred to me, for I felt good then, even though it was raining. The rain does not bother me. I like walking, and I did have an umbrella after all. I prefer the "Me chantez" interpretation, because rain is the way that water "sings", and presumably Fra is of water, so there is a bit of poetry from Brother Fra.