Multimedia Magick

[Cybernetic_Jazz]

I wasn't sure which was the more appropriate folder for this - it's Ceremonial Magick in its context, it's Chaos in form. I'm also considering precaution on the 'and to stay silent' side of things so I'll go over the skeleton of this idea.

I've been working on an angle of invocational work for the last month or so by way of computer multimedia - mainly in making sigils that move, morph, revolve concepts, and these can either stay as a slide show, have a binaural beat to further brace them, or if it gets complex enough I can go to Windows Movie Maker or something of the like to make the arrangements I need.

I'm finding that this does work like a charm for me and the fact that it's on a computer screen doesn't seem to have any negative bearing. If anything I have the ability to use photo-editors to make sigils and images of a particular quality to where if I'd tried to make these in my garage it would take thousands of dollars of craft equipment let alone pricy raw materials that I don't have but can Google more than easy enough.

I'm hoping to keep working with this through the fall and into next year unless something major shifts my focus. If this keeps advancing in a good manner, and particularly if I get really good with the photo editor I'm using, I might consider posting an instructional on it. I'm throwing the idea out there right now just to say, for anyone whose considered doing this kind of thing and has the spare time to dedicate themselves to it - from what I've experienced so far it's worth trying.

[cyberdemon]

There was someone a few months ago who had a link with a simple flash of one sigil being repeated over and over in a circle.. Apparently that worked for him too. This seems to be a good new area of research of occult techniques. I'm going to be following, so please do post all your updates and thought processes and work processes and everything! It seems interesting!

[Cybernetic_Jazz]

One thing I can offer off the top:

The symbols themselves are easy enough to pull from tradition and enrich. Also if you're doing anything Qabalistic it's pretty easy to make the colors (even the speckled colors) of each of the four planes in a photo editor and have that woven in. If you do a more involved project you can have a lot of tricks, stunts, and turns that almost give the video the feeling of the universe itself, or a non-corporeal intelligence, I don't know if the right term is 'trying to seduce you' but definitely drawing you in close to its orbit of influence. Putting yourself to that kind of work can also lend itself to some strange runs of raw inspiration and creativity - ie. it would suggest that whatever is on the other side of the communication, when you're building a project, will expedite your work if it likes your cause.

[magari]

I convert a lot of symbols to digital form.

Another fun exercise is to create a folder to store your sigil and then adding files (music, movies, pictures, text, ect) to the folder that you connect somehow to your sigil. Take your time here, let things come to you, you'll know when/if its related.

When I feel like its finished I'll compress it, encrypt it, throw it on the cloud, let it cook.

Or maybe I'll copy the sigil to a bunch of different places that I scroll through often.

Another technique I've used is the digital collage. That can be really powerful and a lot of fun too.

[Cybernetic_Jazz]

Yes!

I feel a lot of times when I'm doing this, as something sits, new ways to interconnect it, ways to strengthen symbol sets, etc. sort of crop up by intuition. For sound I usually use binaural beats, one piece of music can get dated.

My own feeling for any kind of conscious contact with anything is as if I'm tuning a radio receiver to get a particularly rusty AM channel and I'm able to sort of psychically 'dowse' the area of the channel (for the lack of a better word) through pictures and symbols which gets easier when they're evocatively built.

[RoseRed]

[grin]

This is just basic Craft. We evolve with the times. I love my countertop chopper. You guys that grew up with computers have cooler/different/newer stuff to play and experiment with.

[Haelos]

It's unfortunate many of these things are still in such infant stages in the occult world. A lot of research is, and has to be, done by the current wave of occultists and magicians.
There's a lot you can do with these things, and to work these styles of magick are taking more and more skills as they evolve. It's a fantastic and interesting thing to watch grow.

I rarely convert anything to multimedia form, although I do use various pre-made forms of media in my work. Binaural beats and isochronic tones, as a notable highlight.
There's a particular music video by Shpongle called Tickling the Amygdala that is absolutely fantastic for journeying to. Very quickly, it induced a level of vision where the entire video seems to be three-dimensional, and it's as though you're traveling through a story.

I'm particularly interested in how the combination of sound and color can be used to alter or enhance states of mind without being 'hypnotic' in nature.
There is a lot going on with the waves, and we have a lot more to learn before we really understand how to use them in the most effective ways possible.

[Cybernetic_Jazz]

I'm particularly interested in how the combination of sound and color can be used to alter or enhance states of mind without being 'hypnotic' in nature.

If my own soul lets me stay with BOTA for another five years or so I've got a course coming up just on that subject. It was mentioned to me by someone who'd completed the course that it was one of the stronger lessons. Should be interesting to see what they offer on that.

[magari]

The important thing to understand here is how the internet and computers work.

Once you have a fundamental understanding of what exactly is happening to your media its a lot easier to focus your intentions.

Scripts can become servitors.

Websites can become altars.

This is a nifty tool I've been looking into. https://ifttt.com/

Basically its an app that allows you to connect and program any app, device, or service you use on the internet. Its incredibly powerful and can do anything from sending text messages and emails for you, to controlling the internet devices in your house or your car.

Personally I think working with computers and the internet is something that can't be ignored considering its the main highway for human communication now. Our entire culture has gone digital and with it our knowledge of how the universe works.

Like Douglas Rushkoff says, when the written language was invented. Those who couldn't read or write were ruled by those who could. Those who don't understand how the internet and computers work are taken advantage of by those who do. Programming languages are so simple nowadays most people don't have an excuse in my opinion.

Its also incredibly liberating once you understand whats going on. You no longer fear those who are in "power" and who might be abusing the technology to their benefit.

The other thing the internet brings into perspective is the value of the individual. Honestly its not worth much at all in the digital landscape. However, the information regarding a million individuals becomes incredibly valuable. Those who abuse the ownership of this information, lose their users, so in reality those in power are trying to provide more services for less everyday. This is a benefit to the individual overall, as long as they aren't committing treason. [wink]

A good example is Amazon prime. I think I pay a few dollars a month for free expedited shipping and unlimited movies, music, and tv shows.

In order to get this service I sign away my right to privacy, but the benefits make me a more efficient member of the market, I get the deals that matter to me faster, preventing me from wasting cash and time. When something comes out that improves the lives of the target market I'm a part of. I'll be the first to know and be able to purchase at the best price available.

Kinda ran off topic, but I guess my point is a magicians power in the digital landscape depends immensely on how they use and understand the landscape in which they work.

I move through this landscape without fear, confident in my skills and my knowledge of the technology. It has paid off in massive dividends and even on the front lines of Afghanistan I utilized the technology and my skills to the benefit of my unit, essentially becoming a force multiplier and adding a tactical advantage on the battlefield.

[Haelos]

@Cybernetic Jazz, please post some updates as you learn more. I'm definitely interested in learning anything you could have to offer.

@Magari, this little app and program is fantastic. I'm going to make some good use out of it.
I have a couple points to make though.
Everything you pay to get on Amazon, you can get for free just as easily (except material goods). The news you receive could be gotten without paying as well.
Just saying.
There are also very different things concerned between being afraid of those using technology negatively, and acting safe *because* those people are doing so (going back to that previous thread we commented on.) Just because I act with cation, does not mean I act out of fear.

I'm curious to know if you'd be willing to share some of your methods in working with PCs. Maybe over PM, if you don't feel comfortable about writing them here.
I'm not very much of a programmer, although I've given plenty of go's at it in my days. Your good word may promote me to learning a language sooner-than-later. I'm very interested in this topic, and I could probably provide you with some intriguing conversation, if you were interested in sharing such?
I'm still trying to work out the ways I can make my phone more useful my practice.
(Also, you should have posted that app to this thread.. http://www.occultforum.org/forum/viewto ... =4&t=37778
I'm sure many others' would find it just as useful as you and I.)

[magari]

One of the things I've learned is the first hurdle for most new users is integration.

I still talk to people who just received their first "smart" phone a few days ago. These individuals were competent users of their old phones, texting, making phone calls, and even using email with ease. These individuals also tend to have a really good understanding of the internet and how they use it on a computer at school, work, or home. They go on using their "smart" phone just as they would have used their old phones. They also continue to use the internet only through the PCs they've been used to.

The learning curve here is integration. The simple fact is that the device this person carries around with them everywhere more often then not has much better access to the internet than their PC does. The problem faced by developers is how we translate the internet from the old monitor/keyboard/mouse interface to the new touchscreen interface.

The ideas on how to do this are endless, so frameworks were developed for people to write apps to control how they interact with their users through a touchscreen.

It can be a bit scary for some to attempt to do something they've been doing religiously for years, through an entirely different interface, but after practice we find ourselves more efficient users overall.

The other fact remains that everything we can possibly imagine is being connected to the internet. Our ability to interface with the world we are building will be limited by our own ability to use the technology. Once we are comfortable with the interface the next step of integration is essentially the sharing of information between all the external technologies we interact with. This is your email, bank account, media, news, weather, facebook, cloud storage, games, stock quotes, school work, art work, online store, accounts with amazon, apple, google, ect.

The trick here obviously is to prioritize what technologies can share information, with whom, and how much. The rule of thumb has always been if the user's efficiency, ease of use, and enjoyment of the experience can be improved, then the information is shared as securely as possible.

Not all technology is made the same. Your account on a porn website is generally far less secure than your account on google or amazon. However, we need to also understand that if we link our amazon account to our less secure account, then the strength of our amazon account diminishes a little as well. Its all relative, since once the information is transferred, you are dependent upon the systems holding that information to keep that information secure.

Security doesn't always mean privacy. It means it will be there whenever you need it as long as you have the means to access it.

Thats the next step. Improving our access to our technology. The individuals with the greatest access not only have the most power over the technology, but are generally capable of bending the technology to their will.

This is why cloud computing is exploding right now. With datacenters in every time zone, amazon and google can provide you with storage for pennies that you can access on almost any device imaginable. This storage is duplicated and synced across all devices and you'll never have to worry about losing that data either. The stability of your data is now dependent upon one of the most efficiently designed network storage systems with redundancy and backup.

These are just examples, technology is an extension of humanity. It should be an extension of the magician as well.

[Haelos]

Yes, but the more connected we are, the more vulnerable. But this is a discussion for another day, and another thread.

I was of the lucky generations to grow up with computers in my schools since at least middle school, so I've had a lot of time to develop skills in using PCs. I took a couple cracks at learning C++ and Java, but I never made it very far with it. The most impressive thing I've done is make a program to convert temperatures, and that was a lesson out of my book (C++ for Dummies, brah. Never fails.)

Since I always carry around such devices like my phone and my PSP or (in the past) my DS, I do my very best to hack the living hell out of them.
There's a lot you can do with an android, but at the end of the day, I use the damn thing for video games more than absolutely anything else, including making calls. I'm trying to change that. With IFTTT, I'm getting a huge jump-start by setting lots of new auto-commands for various things.
I personalize my game systems a lot (and that's all my phone is to me most days) and my phone is probably the most edited out of anything I've ever owned.
Obviously it's rooted, but that was only the first of many tedious changes. To get a better idea of my phone, I relate you to this video. I'm going to link it, because I don't like how big the videos seem here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt4sYnIPQgg
This is several hours of work, and it's still significantly changed since then. There's a lot more going on under the hood too.
This theme I created is based off of the fictional operating system called Altimit OS, from the anime, manga, and video games called .hack// (dot hack). It's completely independent of Google without having a custom ROM and kernel.
This phone is becoming my portal to the universe, so I'd like to know as many ways that I can enhance it as possible.
The only thing visual I'm missing is a custom bootloader, for two reasons. The first is that I simply cannot get one to work, and the second is that none exist for Altimit OS, and I do not have the proper skills needed to make one myself.
I need more apps. I have a decent amount of the business crap I would need to take care of under wraps, but like I've said before, almost nothing is really useful to any type of practice I do. If anything, they're purely detrimental to me growth.

I'm really just hoping to get something more along the lines of an FMD to conduct experiments with. Google glass is not sufficient, by any means.
Oculus is coming close, but again. I can stick a smartphone up to my eyeballs without dropping a grand+.