Tips for visualizing what clothes you wore as a divinekin, if applicable
Clothing and presentation has always been important to me as a God, so it's also always bugged me that my "appearance" in terms of clothing never felt right. After all, it's how I presented myself to lower beings! It's important they get the right impression, no?
So here's some tips I brainstormed on how to figure that more out. Could also be used as help for character design, I guess.
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General Tips:
Throw away stereotypes. Not every god and angel wears flowy white and gold clothing, and not every demon wears dark reds and black. Go with what feels right to you.
Try to seperate skin and clothing. Maybe your skin has patterns on it or has fluffy bits/fur, and it's not a piece of clothing!
Trust your instinct. Often, your gut is correct when it comes to this type of stuff. If you look at an image and immediately go, "No, that's more something an angel would wear where I come from, so that's probably not at all like what I wore", congrats on the kin memory! But also, it's probably right.
Determine whether looking at external sources will aid you or not. For some people, looking at things like pinterest or picrews may help them visualize or trigger kin memories. However, for some it may give undue influence over what they're already trying to visualize. So, determine if you're more of an internal or external type of person.
Visualize. If you can visualize inside of your head, try meditation. While meditating, imagine yourself as a seperate entity to talk to. Imagine mirrors, imagine your "home." If you can't visualize inside your head, try pinterest, google, or character creators like picrews. Or, if you can, draw!
Consider your domain, if you know it. Fictional example, but, look at the gods of Kid Icarus. Palutena has white and gold flowy clothing, and a large pendant on a necklace resembling a sun. Her colour palette and symbolism make sense as she's the Goddess of Light. Contrasted with Viridi, who wears saturated magenta, red, and purple (much like that of a flower) with a more faded leaf-green. Parts of Viridi's outfit look like they're made out of wood, her shoes resemble leaves, and she has a flower crest on her dress. Naturally, Viridi is the Goddess of Nature. To put a long story short, your domain may have a heavy influence on what your outfit looks like.
Make a distinction between general feelings and specific details. Is that EXACTLY what your top looked like, or do you just have the general idea that you had a bare chest showing? Is your skirt EXACTLY that long and has EXACTLY that many layers, or do you just have the general idea that you wore a long flowy thing as a bottom?
The Senses
Often, the question you're trying to answer is "How did it look?" But if you're having trouble with that, we can turn to the other senses.
How did it feel? This is probably the most important one. What material was it made out of - silk, cotton, wool? Was it soft and smooth, or was it more fluffy and comfortable? Was it heavy, or light?
On the contrast, how DOESN'T it feel? Where do you not feel your clothing? If it was a cold or windy day, which parts of your body would you feel it the most in? This can help with narrowing down the shape of your clothes and where it covers and doesn't cover.
How did it sound, if at all? Is it silent, or do parts of your clothing make noises as you move? Maybe you have jewelry or adornments that clack together or jingle as you walk. If you were to rub against different parts of your clothes, what sound would it make?
Taste and smell are a little weird to talk about when it comes to clothes, but they have their uses. Maybe you're struggling to figure out just what part of your outfit you're imagining or being reminded of. If so, you could take this part and imagine what it tastes or smells like - if it tastes/smells metallic, it's probably jewelry, etc. Smell could also hint at the material, like if it smells naturey, maybe it's made out of leaves and wood.
And lastly, like I said before, trust your gut! Don't take everything in this post as absolute fact that must apply to you - these are just guiding tips to hopefully get you closer along your pathway.
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Autodemonolatry
What is autodemonolatry?
As an autotheist venerates themself as a god (or as God), an autodemonolator or autodemonolatrist venerates themself as a demon. Similarly, an autodiabolator or autodiabolist venerates themself as a devil (or as the Devil).
Why practice autodemonolatry?
Autodemonolatry includes a variety of spiritual practices and beliefs, united by the common thread that the practitioner recognizes and venerates themself as a demon.
Reasons to practice autodemonolatry can include otherkin, alterhuman+, or plural identity; spiritual practice, such as self-apotheosizing Left Hand Path or Draconian practices, chaos magic, and soul alchemy; demonic possession; or Madness. This is not an exhaustive list.
How to practice autodemonolatry
Autodemonolatry should be a Self-centric endeavor. It's a form of Self-veneration or Self-worship. These are my suggestions based off of my experiences with autodiabolist worship and practice.
Trust yourself. Let yourself be your guide and master, and believe in your own intuitions. Doubt is important in moderation, but don't be fooled into thinking excessive self-doubt is a virtue.
You are a demon if you say you are. Rejoice and hail yourself!
Make an altar to yourself. Start with a surface dedicated to you – this can even be the top of a box or a windowsill. As you have the desire and means, display objects of significance to you. Include things like favorite colors, favorite crystals, trinkets, toys, journals, images of your demon self, or anything else you like and associate with you. You can put your magical tools on your altar to charge and cleanse them with your energies.
Make offerings to yourself. Traditional demonolatry offerings include candles, libations of hot tea or alcohol, and meat or slices of meat. Candles are typically offered to demons in their entirety. There's no shame in using tealight candles - they burn longer than little colored candles.
Due to fertility associations, fruit and fruit juices have deeply devotional, even sexual connotations as offerings for many demons: like blood offerings, fruit offerings can create deep connections between demon and practitioner. Cultivate your bond to yourself as deeply as you like, but be aware that fruit offerings and blood offerings may cause strong sensations.
If you're a famous demon, you might find lists of suggested offerings for you online.
Accept offerings from yourself. You can claim offerings or allow your demon self to claim them. If you choose to accept offerings, focus on them and imagine yourself claiming, consuming, and processing their energies.
Claiming offerings may affect you energetically, and different offerings may affect you differently. Record a log of your offerings and observations to help you develop preferences.
Learn energy work, pathworking, and other spellcraft.
For learning energy work, I highly recommend New Energy Ways by Robert Bruce, freely available here. This instructional guide can rapidly teach you to start feeling and manipulating your own energy.
Pathworking involves leaving your physical body, in whole or in part, or visualizing your ritual space flying through other realms with you. You can start pathworking at any experience level. This tumblr post is a good introduction to pathworking.
Be the mage you want to be; practice the craft that feels most magical to you.
Create, remember, or find your demonic name, seal/personal sigil, and enn.
On names:
Name yourself. Choosing a name is powerful.
Try out a demon name generator (or two or three).
Calculate and use your ruling "evil demon name" as generated by Agrippa's operations.
To remember a name, use trance, lucid dreaming, pathwork, or astral work. In trance, ask yourself for a memory of someone saying your name. In a dream, ask a mirror or a character who looks knowledgeable. While pathworking or astral projecting, consult your demon self or one of your guiding spirits.
If you are/were a royal demon, I recommend checking the Ars Goetia, the Book of Abramelin, and the Dukante hierarchy for familiar names. The Book of Abramelin also includes the names of royal demons' servants.
On seals:
If a famous demon's seal has your name on it, only use it as your own if you want to be one with the demon represented by the seal.
If you have a seal not recorded on Earth, retrieve it using trance work, dream work, astral work, or automatic drawing.
Design a personal seal by making a sigil and encoding your name(s) and/or epithets. Check out this article and this one for guides to sigil creation.
On enns:
If you are a famous demon, try to find an enn for yourself online.
Otherwise, I recommend using dream work or astral work for discovering your enn.
You can also offer yourself a candle, let go of your inhibitions, and vibrate silly noises until you feel the sounds tugging at your soul.
Invoke yourself, as you would invoke another demon. Here is a simple ritual to start with:
Place any offerings on your altar. Include a candle, optionally carved with your seal or a ZD sigil.
Cast a magic circle.
Light the candle, saying, “to [Your Demon Name Here]” or “to myself”.
Burn either your seal or a ZD on a piece of paper in a fire safe bowl, using your candle's flame. Do not burn your seal if the idea makes you uncomfortable. Use fire safe tongs to light the paper – metal scissors can work. Once aflame, put the paper in the bowl.
If you know your enn, chant it. Otherwise, focus on yourself and chant, “I invite [Your Demon Name Here]” or “I invite myself”. Vibrate your chanting, with gentle and deep inhalations in-between. In general, I recommend 9, 27, 81, or 108 repetitions, but many demons will have other numerological associations. Don't worry if you lose track of count – just err on the side of more chanting.
When you've finished chanting, assume the invocation worked. You're with yourself.
Give thanks to yourself for your presence. If you plan to consume your own offerings, thank yourself for them. Consume your offerings or allow your demon self to consume them.
Meditate, listening for messages from yourself. You can also use divination tools to receive messages.
When you're done, thank yourself once again and close the circle.
Unless you're trying to play around with ego death, do not try to banish yourself. That's you. If your energies become a problem, gather them back to your altar, consume them, or use them to cast spells or charge your tools.
Create your own realms. According to the Lemegeton, Marquis Sabnock “builds high towers, castles and cities”, and President Malphas “builds houses, high towers and strongholds”. I know of no contemporary reports of superstitions about demons constructing cities, so I interpret these passages to concern the practitioner's spiritual realms (sometimes called “astral temples”) or paracosms.
A paracosm or astral temple can allow you to perform elaborate rituals without physical materials, erect powerful astral self defenses, and communicate with spirits in a safe personal environment.
In the future, I'll discuss creating and maintaining inhabited realms, but for now, that's outside the scope of this post.
Make of yourself an idol. This is the core of autodemonolatry. Develop an idea of your domains, talents, and energies as a demonic being. Write prayers, sing songs, and make devotional art for yourself, in whatever ways make you the happiest. Recognize all of your traits, wanted and unwanted, and always remember you can change; you can be who you want to be.
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