Thread: Servitors in General

Originally Posted by S33k3R

My understanding is that as a servitor grows and becomes more powerful, it becomes an Egragore...able to sustain itself independent of its creator.

Not exactly. An ordinary servitor can be weak or powerful depending on the skills and needs of its creator(s), but is still a servitor however powerful it becomes, and a servitor of any power level can possess independent existence by design, or "go rogue."

An egregore is something different. It's composed of the collective thoughts and beliefs of a large number of people. It's the functional equivalent of a god, but just like "servitor" does not imply weakness, "egregore" does not necessarily imply strength. The qualifications for an egregore are that it must be known by a large number of people and be capable of being "personified." Any god automatically qualifies, as does any named folkloric entity, such as Santa Claus, Jack Frost, Uncle Sam, etc. Certain fictional characters can also qualify, provided they have a significant cultural impact. Examples of this category include such entities as Cthulhu, Paul Bunyan and Darth Vader.

It is in this later category that a route is found for a servitor to evolve into a true egregore. The servitor must become widely and generally known within a culture, and invoked or summoned by a large number of unrelated magicians. This has happened a few times. Ellis and Squat are widely enough known to qualify, and Fotamecus seems well on His way.

Ok cool...Egragore is a group thing.

But now that you've brought up Santa Clause, heres something I've always wondered about...

Has anybody successfully summoned him?

I mean, of all the cultural mythos figures in humanity, who has more reinforced belief than Santa?...hell even if you don't "believe", a shedload of energy goes into him as a concept...worldwide.

He would represent materialism over spirituality in society...this a massive energy at the moment. If Santa Clause doesn't "exist" now as an abstract being or Egragore by now, then I've missed something. I realize he wouldn't be a particularly coherent structure because the belief that goes into him comes from millions of people all doing their own thing...but SOMETHING has got to result from all that?

So where the hell is he?, (please, nobody say "in the north pole" I know he is, with the reindeer and all the little elves etc etc....)

Hey, I think I see a thread here...

PS: I do a lot of long distance driving, I use Fotamecus to make the journeys seem shorter... remarkably usefull.

I've used Santa Claus as an aspecting focus, assuming His avatar. It was the year I was volunteered to play Santa for the library.

Also, "He would represent materialism over spirituality in society..." All gods have positive and negative aspects. You've named Santa's dark side. In the positive sense, He represents generosity of spirit and the joy of giving.

...life imitating art imitating life....

My thought on the "banish or not":

When you actually create a servitor I see different choices. In the "classical" literature on the subject (e.g. Bardon) there are 2 distinct types: a fairly low one which is more like a simple computer program and a higher evolved one which is like a "magical child".
While I have no problem to just set the low one to perform a task and then dissolve, the higher ones are from the beginning designed to stay there a longer time and to evolve. And there comes a thing called responsibility into play. So, you create a kind of "magical child" and basically raise and educate it and give it a task. So you are responsible for your actions. If you do your work good...why should you "banish" it? If you mess up, why "banish"? If your child in the physical plane would misbehave would you kill it?
(Well, if things go *totally* wrong you should still get rid of your servitor)
When you summon some entity that qualifies as a egregor or tap into its energies you are on a different ground, as banishing would just kick it out the door

Just some thoughts...

To add to Bakeneko's comments... if individuals who create entities of whatever kind have those entities go dysfunctional and crazy on them, they should technically not have done so in the first place, instead developing themselves before choosing something like so; but then again they are mostly unable to perceive such an issue.

like the posts but dont know anything about this and dont know were to start lol i will find out later lol

Banishment is not the only option. You can,of course, create them to expire naturally after a period of time. This is a good solution for weak, one task daemons that you don't intend to maintain. For the more powerful, self willed servitors, you can reassign them to continue their work indefinitely, or until a preset condition is attained. For example, a guardian daemon might be set to continue to protect a house for as long as it stands, regardless of who actually lives there. If and when the house is eventually taken down, the daemon expires. Another option is to model your daemon on an existing mythology, and return it to that paradigm when it's no longer needed. For example, a daemon in the form of an angel returns to heaven when its task is completed. My own primary familiar is a dragon created with the Chinese legend of a carp promotion and will return to the Celestial Bureaucracy upon my death.

Originally Posted by S33k3R

Ok cool...Egragore is a group thing.

But now that you've brought up Santa Clause, heres something I've always wondered about...

Has anybody successfully summoned him?

Look at any marketing during the Christmas season.

Serious magick going on.

i believe that servitors i practically like a Igor to a Frankenstein he is the go-to-man does all the dirty work like drawing energy and such.