Occult Lore: A Systematic Approach

Prologue

This book is intended for the young students that wish to know more of the occult, ever since the beggining of the realm, and even before, this world has been full of things hidden from the sight of normal people, in places only the bravest dare to explore; this is called the occult and is so vast we would need more than a book to understand it, but this book will have the basis of everything you need to understand the basic secrets of the occult, and some extras for the most experienced ones, so this book is ideal for those who wish to leard, know or explore the world of the occult regerless of their skills and previous practices, we assure you that you'll find theis book worth the time and money, and find in it a lifetime help in your workings with the unseen. with that, we wish all and any student of the occult the best of the lucks and the highest of the merits, for the occult is something no mere mortal can learn and those who do, are indeed beings or renown and respect.

Chapter I: The history of the occult

Talking about the story of the occult is talking about the story of creation itself, for we know the many gods and spirits rule over it. lets begin explaining the story of the occult and then we'll speak of the spirits that rule over the creation in chapter X.

Even when we know little about the old occultists, we know many old cultures possesed a certain degree of occult lore, it was this age when spirits and people where very close, in some places it is said, this communion was so close humans and spirits lived together like family, although many discard this theory as false. This old civilizations had ways to deal and commune with the spirits, most of them included sacrifices, offerings and wars in their names, most of this cultures where heretic to a extend, as this spirits come from the great dragons and their power springs from them, as they are the creators of all that can be seen or felt. this old cultures had a very common way of communicating to their "gods" and were by all means the firsts heresies in creation, that heresies thought, were not meant to last long as the truth would soonbe know; this mean was the spirit summon, we strongly suggest this rituals are only used by someone who has seen and knows about this rituals and is skilled in the arts of the occult, students and researchers should not try this workings if they have not the necessary skills and knowledge, for most rituals will not work at best, and great cause great dissasters in the hands of the inexperienced.

Spirit Summon:

By using presents in the form of sacrifices, any priest, shaman or witch can invoke the presence of a spirit, this gift can be anything, but the more important and precious it is, the more content and nice the spirit will be; this spirit would only come and stay for as long as it wishes, therefore any gain or loss from this encounter is up to the wits and charisma of the summoner, some spirits are by nature very kind and some can be just as dangerous; most spirits can be found near a place they rule upon, finding a water spirit near rivers and seas, and a tree spirit in forests and gardens, one must have in mind that summoning spirits away from its place of influence is both recless and dangerous. Some modern occultists use very good sacrifices to summon and to please the spirits, some others claim that the present does not need to be a sacrifice, that any offering would call the spirit; the truth is the only but few have dared to try such a madness, and they remain silent about its results.

With the coming of the Anathema, many spirits lessened in power, and the hideous Anathema made people from all the five poles bow its head to them and their unclean patrons, the dark forces their powers come from. and this was an age of darkness and fear, where no mortal dared to even think about the occult, for fear of the unholy powers that lurked around the face of creation, this was indded, and age of sorrows; and it was during this age that the people called for justice and freedom, for hope and rest from the torments of the demons, and the dragons heard the people's plea, and they sent their campions, their descendants and chosens to free the people from the oppresion and unfair kingdom of the Anathema, and the rightfull forces of the champions of the earth marched against them, many perished but in the end, the winners were the children of the dragons, and they were to led the people to an age of golden glory, but the hideous Anathema's dark patrons spread a curse, and horrible illness that decimated the face of creation from most of its innhabitants, many spirits of the dead merged from their unfair death and many cultures dissapeared forever, and te few who remained after the great contagion was over, began to communicate with the spirits of their deceased loved ones, to ask them for insight, protection, and in many cases... love; this new kind of summon was as dangerous as the summoning of a spirit, and again, we advise not to try this summonings without the proper preparations and knowledge.

Ghost Summon:

Ghosts were alive once, and they recall the times when they where alive, this connection they share with the living ones makes their summoning more easy than that of spirits, but no one should trust themsleves to this, as ghosts sre beings full of passion, both good and evil, and will go over any lengts to fulfill their ages lost missions, this way, an occultist can summon any restless dead by drawing symbols of life and death, and old words of greetings in chalk, wich is a common material and singing funerary chants, to make a connection bettwen the lands of the dead and the lands of the living. most occultists use a sacrifice of blood to make the summoning easier, as ghosts hunger for blood, this is both helpful and hindering, as more than once the blood only makes them more frenzied at it and might attack their summoners just to have more of the life sustance.

Just after the Great Contagion passed, and when creation was weak; just when the people, guided by the mighty children of the dragons began to rebuild their homes and citied from the ashes of the contagion. massive swarms of chaos and wyld monsters attacked the few who survived, leaving even more chaos and tragedy in their wake, devastating anything they touched, the forces of chaos advanced through the realm, treathening to consume all the efforts and hopes from its the inhabitants from the few cities that remained, and people from creation became even less numerous, but not less desperate, and they asked the dragons for help, soon their prays would find answer as a soon, the mighty and powerfull Scarlet Empress raised to claim the all the power and rulership of the realm. this age was the age of chaos, Where the forces of the wyld, the raw chaos that lurks beyond the borderes of creation attacked and revolted the order of things, where its feral jaws opened to smallow all creation, altering the face and fate of many places, and destroying more than one prodigious city of the old, where the occultists had to learn to deal and speak with the forces of chaos, in hopes to lessen their anger and hunger. often with dissastrous consequences, this summoning is really dangerous and should never be used, those who had dabbled with the forces of chaos have suffered from their choices, and asking the wyld for help is as dangerous as helpful, and even more.

Summon Fae:

By using old words of freedom and lust, and chanting in songs of joy and celebration the attention of a fae can be attracted, and insanely dangerous task, the neccesity of this ritual is always debateable, the nature of this ritual makes it very hard for it to work, unlike with the other two this one relies only upon the fleeting attention of the creatures of the wyld, and uses no sacrifice other than the willingness to give something vary important to the forces of chaos in exnace for trivial help, no occultist who has made this ritual hes ever been the same, and the only advise we can give is this. Don't summon the fair folk unless you are ready to lose your will and feelings, for their ways are still unknown even to the most skilled of the occultist.

The lore of the occult has seen many progresses from that time on, though the most powerful rituals are hidden or kept away from the unwary, both for safety and power, most of the discoveries in the field will be explained later in Chapter X. for now, we'll give deep explanations and rituals concerning the three tipes of spirits we just talked about, the students now should have a general idea about what traits and origin this sprits have, improving these knowledge is the whole meaning of the following chapters.

Chapter II: Essence, the fabric of Creation

Essence is the energy that froms all that exists, neither physical nor completely energy, from the imperial mountain to the swirling chaos of the wyld, and even in the lands of the dead, everything is made of essence. and its very important, even necessary to know more about this wonderful energy, that is all over the world.

Essence is by nature, neutral, and it holds neither conscience nor will. It is often heard that essence obeys the will of anyone who commands it, but doing so rewired and inmense force of will, for if it where easy, this world would be collapsing at the whims of the unworthy. Raw command of essence has been rarely seen to be possesed by mortals, but more than one prodigius one has been able to do so, we'll first begin explaining the basics and then we'll move to more complex terms and will finally give some interesting uses for all this knowledge, we have to mention that the most complete and throughtful knowledge of essence is to be found in the well known white treatise, this book only intends to give a strong basis for the reading of that book, as is not easy to digest. we advise the students to read this chapter and then read the withe treatise, we hope this chapter helps to better understand the basis of the occult lore that the more ancient books handle.

Basics of Essence.

As everything is made of essence one is to assume, that indeed knowledge of it is knowledge of the very bricks of the matter and energy, it can be seen moving in the form of wind, flowing as water, running as stallions. One might think this means essence is manipulated this way, when one walks, eats, and breaths; that is right, to some extent, but the truth is that raw essence, in its pure from is much more than any other material of energy can, or will ever be, and its command can't be compared to any other sensation one can feel. we know essence makes everything, but how? well, most scholars believe and some even assure that the free flow it it makes the energy, moving and spiraling, dancing all over the world it is energy, even when confined to a physical object, it is always moving; in contrast to the active "energy" essence, the material one is that we see when we take a walk, metals, stones, plants, animals and even the elements are made of "physical" essence. we call essence just essence regarless of is behavior, however, when using the term essence one is to expect the temr is speaking of the "energy" essence, talking about objects, people and any object is to talk about "physical" essence, this "energy" essence has been measured by many scholars studying its behavior, and have concluded that there is but one way to measure it, by small units called "motes", to get a better idea of what a mote can do one can do lots of thins with but a single one, however, the commanding of essence plays a vey important role here, for a lot of essence is lost if not "weaved" properly, any student should have in mind that self control is incredibly important if one is to work with raw essence; having covered this section let's talk about more complex matters.

The flow of Essence.

Essence flows around is vast torrents of power, it dances around the buildings, and moves like the wind; there are some places where this flow joins other currents of essence, making that specific place become a demense, demenses are places where the flows of essence concentrate imbuing the place with mystic properties, however, all this energy can be concentrated even more to make what we call heartstones, which are very high energy materials, where by means of Geomancy, the art of working the mystic properties of Creation and geometry, are made. It is important to mention too that, if essence makes everything, it should flow around everything freely, and this can be seen in the form of animas, wich are the extention of the essence that is in every physical object, normally it can't be seen, but can be felt, as we have too anima, this anima of ours can touch and sensee other animas, but paying attention to and using the anima is a task only the most dedicated mortals, and all exalted can do, any one can try this from of awareness.

Essence awareness:

Percieveing the flows of essence around in the shapes of animas is not a simple, nor easy task, but is very rewarding. feeling the animas around is only a matter of communing and feeling the inner essence flowing around our own person, coming from the inside and moving freely to the outside. and slowly, other animas around can be felt, as the personal anima is tied to oneself, this knowledge of the surroundings is specially useful when the light is little and need is great; it should take as long as needed to feel the surroundings the first time, then the time can be shortened by practice, masters of this art are aware of their surroundings at all times, making this very useful to learn.

About will and Essence.

We have stated previously that essence can be commanded by will, both conciously and subconcioulsy. this particular and interesting effect is actually very helpful to understand, so we'll make enphasis on it. will moves essence and even shapes it, however, the extend of this "weaving" is different from mortals to exalts and other creatures, while it occurs in a natural, and harmless way with mortals, it is very different to what other beings do. Mortals shape and weave essence to a basical degree in the shape of physical objects and to a mystical one with wishes, hopes, and passions. unfortuantely, Fair Folk, ghosts and demons seek to consume that essence by depriving or forcing such feelings in mortals; it is rare to see a mortal weaving essence in its raw from, for it is too powerful for them to control, amazingly enough, some incredible mortals have been able to do so, and such ones where the subjects of more than one legend; the fact is that anyone with enought knowledge of the occult can do prodigious tasks. it is only more easy and safe for an exalt to do so. Exalts for their own side are more prone to learn the workings of essence, for they know how to manipulate and command it by birthright, and their ways are those that always lead to the dragons and the mastery of any skill they find, and any mortal should seek advise in them, as any wise occultist will always do, the command of essence is never simple, for one who commans it has the command of the world itself, knowing our own limitations helps us to grow more, and make them farther so that here is and art that helps knowing our own limits.

Essence Gather:

By using pure will, anyone can focus the free motes of essence in a cloud of swirling energy, focusing on its flow and then willing it to move around and stay this cloud can be very small of inmensely big, a good way to know our command over essence; this cloud has many uses, for one side it makes the fabric of creation concentrate around the occultist, making the works and arts more easy to perform, and also preventing any unexpected side effects to manifest, it also makes the essence aware beings more calmed, but on te downside, this can also be a way to find the artisan and the the essence hunger beings might be attracted by this cloud of energy; even with all this, most occultists use theis art to help on their arts, because the gain is often bigger than the loss, if used wisely.

Essence Ward:

Once the knowledge and method for the Essence Gather art has been learned, it can be shaped in two ways, lets look at a defensive mean. If there is something that can protect from essence is essence itself, based upon this truth, the occultist uses the essence to make a revolving sphere around, this sphere has the same property a cascade would have against a rock, while not completely defending, it can lessen the strength of any essence that comes in contact with the occultist, either harmful or helpful;it is said masters of this art can extend the protection to others, but no one has ever proved that, and no one might.

Essence Burn:

One of the most dangerous uses for essence is indeed, the use to harm, it is not only dangerous, but reckless as well, still its the duty of any occultist to see that knowledge is never lost, yet that it never falls in the wrong hands; this art can be leardne only by the most devoted and the ones who have incredible self-control, we feel that anyone who can do that will surely at least use this power wisely, and this art requires as much wiseness as possible. Using the flows of essence any skilled occultist can attempt to focus these flows into a subject, overloading it with the raw energy of essence, this overload causes the subject to feel inmense pain, as it becomes too much energy to hold inside, however, not only this is unethical, it is also dangerous, for the essence burns as it flows back to the occultist, suffering too from this art. We strongly advise not to use this art unless in the most difficult of the situations, and its uses is still debateable.

Having talked about the basis of essence and essence workings we can proceed then, to the practical uses of this knowledge, the following chapters offers only small guides and quick references, if the reader is interested in knowing more about should do by geting a specialized book for it, lets now move to the Arts Chapter.