At a festival, very intoxicated, had lost track of my friend. I drew a circle in chalk on the ground, sat cross legged in the center, and placed my palms on the ground. With all of my mental focus I inwardly chanted his name while visualizing pulses of energy flowing out of my hands and away from the circle. A few moments later he tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘I went to Jimmy John’s to get us some sandwiches’. Most magical turkey tom of my life.

I went to a party once where the main event was a “medium” doing a large group (~15) reading. It was painful to sit through. I remember it taking a little over 2 hours and this dude just kept fishing for something to latch onto so he could do his thing. He had a couple people kinda go along but he pushed them away when they weren’t perfectly aligned with what he was looking for. I am familiar with public speaking and tried teeing him up with answers and even that didn’t work. I was looking for a way to politely leave when it finally wrapped up

I was already a sceptic thinking most mediums are bullshit artists and this only further solidified my views, as much as I tried to be open minded

I only use !askouija@lemmy.world

My mother wanted to do a Cuban purification ritual. She was into it, I didn’t mind

For world building purposes, I recommend Real Magic by Isaac Bonewits. He hits the highlights and commonalities that permeate most ritual magick practices. It’s a great place to start if you’re trying to build a ritual system that feels authentic.

My parents held a seance with a “medium” (a grifter my mom knew), trying to contact the spirit in the house named Edward (the man who built the property and lived there until he died in a fire he started while drunk).

I was 10-12 or so and it was really dumb. They recorded the session on a boom box (this was the 90s) and importantly I rested myself on it throughout the whole thing so I probably ruined the whole thing because the only notable anomaly on the tape was a heartbeat, and it was probably mine.

However, as a result of all the chatter around the supernatural, I had “unexplained occurrences” for the next couple weeks due to being attuned to that sort of thing which I’d normally have blown off. Im not religious, not spiritual, and don’t really believe in supernatural phenomenon, other than “we cant explain this but it definitely happened” sort of stuff. Many of the things I experienced the following weeks I’ve been able to explain as my knowledge of the weird natural world expanded, so…

How would you explain it? Is it the afterlife you’re communicating with or with the disembodied souls of those roaming the earth? What are they doing here, if it’s the latter? And what are you basing this on if it’s the former? Western European mythology, meaning either Elysium/Valhalla or idk whatever forest fairy kingdom Germanics believed in? Or are you going full Semitic monotheism, Heaven and Hell stuff? Cause idk if Jewish or Muslim tradition allows for seances. 🤔

Anyway I’m just being too serious for no reason, lol, most people wouldn’t drop a book simply because their cosmology is nonsensical. I would, though. 😅