There are several varieties of Shamanic Ally, the most familiar of which, at least to Americans and Europeans, is the “Familiar”, which is anything but familiar to most folks. The Familiar is an equal member of a magickal partnership.
In the case of an XDA, the partnership is equal, but magick is not generally the term used among interdimensional voyagers. The actual word used means more like, “we are communicating across one or more Parallel Universe Branes and other boundary-contained domains, with beings whose real identity and purpose remains forever unknown to us, even should we meet them face-to-face”.
That, unfortunately, is the best we can ever do.
I’m sure you know the Sufi Test to find the Town of Truth-Tellers when you get to the crossroad between the Town of Liars and the Town of Truth-Tellers, but this is not a children’s story. The entities contacted by you are no more trustworthy, even over a long period of relationship, than someone you meet on the internet.
In fact, the social media playground is a great arena for the mastery of relating to unknown entities somewhere unreachable and perhaps even unknowable.
I can’t think of a situation in which complete unwavering unquestioning trust is justifiable or wise, and I think that anyone who is more than just your average Saint would agree.
Sure, there’s all that about trust and such in the high spiritual teachings, and when that trust is placed in You-Know-Who, of course I have no problem whatsoever. She can be relied upon to be consistent.
So the bottom line is, you are in contact with someone or something who claims to be whoever and/or whatever they claim to be, and they’re probably telling the truth. My point is, they might very well be “spoofing” or imitating someone else.
That’s why, when Groucho was asked if he’d like to ask his Uncle Arthur anything, he said, “Yeah, what’s the capital of South Dakota?”.
The answer most folks would give is “Bismarck”, but they’d be wrong — that’s North Dakota. The capital of South Dakota is “Pierre”, and if you were the right kind of Buddhist, you’d have to go back and do it all over again if you failed to answer that question correctly, because some Buddhist sects demand that you know everything about life on Earth before you pass on to the next level.
That’s not how I wrote it; you only have to learn everything about your present life on Earth before you d…d…leave it.
Okay, the byword is “caution” when dealing with any entity that uses an alias or assumes a body or wears a mask. Even at midnight, at the unmasking at the masked ball, when you see the face, it tells you nothing.
None of this should catch you by surprise or propel you into a state of permanent wonder, since you deal with unknown people with hidden agendas, both in person and on your cell phone or browsing the internet; you also are known to occasionally act and speak behind a stand-in figure called an “avatar” at Prosperity Virtual Ashram, and you’ll have done the same playing any 3D game on the market.
Just as on the internet, you can’t really penetrate the anonymity factor; you don’t really know the person who clicks on the word “friend”, and frankly, until you’ve lived with someone for a year or two, you’re crawling into bed with a total stranger. You have no idea what someone is actually like while they’re on their “best behavior”, which is what people are on when they’re “courting”, which is the senior, very obscure and very, very obsolete word for “trolling”.
Singles Clubs are the real test for instinct. Can you pick the real ones from the creeps?
It’s a trick question; don’t bother to answer, because real folks just don’t end up there. But my point is that you don’t really get to know someone deeply by dancing and having a chat over the din of a 350-Person Occupancy nightclub that exceeded the people limit hours ago, and it’s only the first set of the night.
Okay, the Standard Danger Warning has been posted. You can’t be sure who it is on the other end, no matter what they look like, sound like, or how friendly they seem to be. If you’re not hungry, you can’t be had. If you ask a question of an unknown entity, it’s best if you already know the answer.
That having been said, what exactly are the various Shamanic Allies?
1. The Familiar — The easiest to acquire and care for, yet the most complex of all. Generally the Familiar is from the cat family, although there are many variations of Familiar, and you’ll find bonding and relating between human and many different species. The trick is not to bond with a cat, but to “conjure”, “invoke” or “contact” someone in another very specific Brane. If you’ve never been to Brane-Power, I’ll explain briefly: the now-commonly-used word “Brane” refers to the skin, or membrane, of another nearby parallel universe.
In short, we have the precise address and cell number of the designated or intended contact entity, and that’s the number we enter when we place our call. Think of a contact ritual as the same sort of thing you do every day whenever you make a call on your cell phone — you have to make magic passes over the face of the smartphone, don’t you?
Well, those same magic passes work just as well on the Virtual Cell you have with you, if only you could remember how to invoke and use it.
The PTP Course is designed to give you back the “I” pad that controls your life and destiny. Part of the course work is to learn to care for a Familiar, and you’ll be instructed as to which type you need to work with; everyone has different totems, and they must be “read” by divination, not chosen at random.
Divination is not exactly “magick”, either. Don’t be disappointed; we’re not talking about Santa Claus here. Divination properly used as intended, merely gives one a glimpse into the workings of the Great Machine, aka “the world”, also known as “The Map”, which is what it was originally called, until people got involved. You get a Divination Machine when you earn your first Familiar.
2. The Elemental — Elementals are in general tricky little bastards; they’re fun-loving, like Gremlins, but they have no concept of danger, and they’ll mislead you by not understanding the trouble they’re causing. Apart from that little quirk, which can lead to giant tsunami waves, solar storms and the occasional side-swipe with an asteroidal body from the Kuyper Belt, they’re fun little critters and easy to care for, if you somehow manage to survive their help.
3. The Cockatrice — Your average Cockatrice is about the size of a small chicken, but it isn’t anything like a chicken, if that helps you place it in the animal kingdom. It has a strange mask-like face, which helps you remember that it isn’t the mask, but the face behind the mask — a face that you will never see. A Cockatrice is an excellent “Home” or manifesting ground, for the Orion Group and Astarians, both of whom are friendly enough, if you get along well with Vogons.
4. The Basilisk — A Basilisk is the First Choice for a Magickal Laboratory Guardian, and it’s the best receptor for most XDA (Extra-Dimensional Ally) companions you might decide to work with. Problem with the Basilisk is that they need handling, and their habitat must be carefully balanced to assure good health and happiness, both of which are vital to any contact entity; it makes things work better if the body is not sick, same as with you.
5. The Dragon — If you want an easy time of it, make friends with a dragon. Dragons are misunderstood in the modern world, and were even more misunderstood in the ancient and medieval worlds. They’re fun to work with, incredibly intelligent and very helpful in the matter of lost treasures and Interdimensional Voyaging, but they must be taken out for a daily walk.
You can bond more fully with your Dragon by participating in the pillaging, ravaging and scavenging of the local countryside. Just kidding. Dragons are very docile and friendly, and are among the easiest shamanic allies to work with and care for. They are meat-eaters, so you’ll have to keep a fridge-full of fresh live virgin snacks for him to munch on. Just kidding again; God, you don’t really still believe those Disney fairy stories about dragons, do you??? Dragons are real, but tend to be invisible to the average Homo Sap.
Caring for these “fleshly houses for your shamanic allies” is a serious matter.
It isn’t enough to dump someone into a cage and put some food and water in there for them. You wouldn’t like it, and there’s no reason to assume anyone else would, either.
Cages are for medieval torture chambers — we don’t buy cages, we build habitats. A well-designed habitat does not feel like a cage, most of the time. Inevitably, even you, an upright biped with two and a half barely functioning brains, will bump up against the cage wall now and again, depending on set, setting & dosage.
There are more types of shamanic helpers, but these five are a whole lifetime’s worth of learning and working with a variety of entities and intelligences who are able to manifest through these creatures, just as you are able to manifest through an ape-descendant opportunistic tool-user that only another ape-descendent could love. These are the Big 5, and they’re a handful to handle.
I should mention The Living Rock. This amazing creature is highly telepathic and can communicate well and clearly over long separative distances between Branes. This level of care and feeding is only required on the Graduate Level, and will be your Thesis Project.
You can apply the PTP Course Units to your Doctorate Degree Course for a D.D., but you must complete the L.R.S. Course concurrently, or indicate your intention to complete the LRS within one year of completion of the PTP Course to qualify for graduation points.