Serious question: ghosts, demons, witches, wizards, warlocks....and what else should I know about?

Thanks for the answers I may have a few places to start.

What were the earlier major 'religions' or 'belief systems' that hold weight today?

originally posted by: gell1234
What do you mean by real magic vs Harry Potter magic...

Can someone explain the difference please?

What you see in Harry Potter is a weird amalgamation of ritual magic, hedge witchery, 'classic' witchcraft, sorcery, and alchemy. I'm not sure what Rowling was reading or using for recreational drugs but you usually don't mix it up like that. Plus, she made it intentionally vague where the users were getting the mana for these very over-the-top reality manipulations.

From an outsider's perspective, and from one who is pretty skeptical about it actually being more than confirmation bias and magical thinking mixed together, an 'actual' magic user, by that I mean someone who's studied their preferred style a long time, had their system's initiation rite, worked their way up from ground zero and is in the journeyman stage of practice and not some goobery teenager who saw something on TV and found out about grimoires this week, causes reality to conform to their desire by moving mana from one part of the system to another, in favor of the transition they'd like to cause. So you don't so much wave a peachtree switch around and yell 'hakuna matata' and your enemy turns into a pile of gravel.

As, say, a vodoun operator initiated into the mysteries and with a proper hounfor, maybe a spirit guide and on good working relations with my Loa, I would be able to functionally perform what looks like a religious ceremony to a non-initiate, but is more like making a phone call to a Voudounist. In that ceremony, I would be able to ask my Loa or spirit to assist me in taking mana from one part of the system and redistributing it in favor of my client, who might need protection from another Loa, or a change in the bias of random chance in his/her favor and so on. The system having been altered, the client's problems, if I rearranged things correctly, should now be biased in their favor. The changes will seem to occur naturally, and might be fairly rapid depending on how screwed up things were before.

However, if you believe you're being supernaturally manipulated, it would be a lot quicker to find 'professional' help and be done with it.

If I need the toilet fixed, I don't need to take years learning the plumbing code and becoming a journeyman plumber with a union card. I pick up the phone and call one.

eta: that said, you need to be careful finding a decent practitioner. There are a lot of crap people out there who will just relieve you of your money and don't know anymore than you do about it. A proper houngan or wiccan circle don't try to rip you off. The local bunch back home will do minor work for free, just for the practice for the newer members. Houngans generally make their living doing it, and some of the materials are expensive, others not (apples, for instance) but still, they're not going to ask for thousands of bucks. An Appalachian folk magic practitioner would do it for a meal or something.

If you're the same guy who was posting this set of questions the other day, you can get a paperback copy of Long Lost Friend for 7 bucks and just carry it on your person, if you're worried about minor curse work.

I would not mess with any invocations or beings until you know how create a circle to work in and protect your self.
Also you should start by learning some type of banishing
The lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram is widely used. LBRP
You have to start with the basics other wise you end up in trouble.
I would start by asking yourself some serious questions about what you're intent in all of this is. Is it to play around with forces because your bored or is it to know thy SELF?
Anything else you want to know is easily found on the internet. Information on the esoteric is right at your fingertips. But anything of value you must learn yourself.

Hey, we all pitched in and gave the OP great starting points, if he/she wants to blow themselves up ya can't stop it.
Darwinism....

I found my answer elsewhere thank you.

witches, wizards, warlocks, demons, necromancers, jinn, wraiths, mages, sages, specters, familiars, phantoms, elves, shamans, shadow men, devils, vampires, werewolves, imps, sorcerers, enchanters, magus’, goblins, ghouls, bogeymen, nymphs, fairies, gnomes, mummies, unicorns, wendigos, skin-walkers, black eyed children, chupacabras, sasquatch, yeti, reptilians, insectilians, tulpas, chimeras, nephilim, ogres, orcs, goatmen, krampus, jackalopes, jersey devil, manticores, cyclopes, zombies, sea monsters, mermaids, harpies, dragons, doppelgängers, aliens, ITEs, cultists, summoners, demi-gods..

Simple.

originally posted by: gell1234
I found my answer elsewhere thank you.

witches, wizards, warlocks, demons, necromancers, jinn, wraiths, mages, sages, specters, familiars, phantoms, elves, shamans, shadow men, devils, vampires, werewolves, imps, sorcerers, enchanters, magus’, goblins, ghouls, bogeymen, nymphs, fairies, gnomes, mummies, unicorns, wendigos, skin-walkers, black eyed children, chupacabras, sasquatch, yeti, reptilians, insectilians, tulpas, chimeras, nephilim, ogres, orcs, goatmen, krampus, jackalopes, jersey devil, manticores, cyclopes, zombies, sea monsters, mermaids, harpies, dragons, doppelgängers, aliens, ITEs, cultists, summoners, demi-gods..

Simple.

See you didn't need us at all you put in your own effort and reaped the reward. Whatever it may be.

Thanks for adding cyborgs too.a reply to: SolAquarius

Now I have to re-read the more advanced suggestions...

a reply to: gell1234

critical thinking - it will enable you to discount the list in your OP

You have another thread almost exactly like this one only about magic....

My question here is the same there, why don't you use google?

Do you not understand how it works or?

You can find plenty of catagories there as well...

Or you could click on the "paranormal" tab here and read through....

You don't want to do the leg work to google something but you're going to make catagories?

I guess I just don't get it....why try to do something that's already been done when there are literally 100s of 1000s of pages on google

originally posted by: Bedlam
I might add, though, that the original Christian church had some wild ass magical practices and a lot of non-stated beliefs that did not make it into the King James except in little fragments.

It's my own idle speculation that if you wanted something personally useful and with some really whack-ass ability to it, if you could ferret out THAT secret (and of course, it presupposes something there to figure out) then you'd be Harry Potter-ish. If, that is, there actually wasn't a Yahweh that controlled its use/abuse.

So true, I always wanted a more in depth history of Solomon , alas the king James writers apparently didn't want that master of demons to be talked about much

originally posted by: Vector99
a reply to: gell1234

Shamans are actually real things...err people that is. They typically were the spiritual leader that got the tribe safely high as hell, then they would see the visions (hallucinations)

Witches aren't real.

A lot of what you think might be real isn't bro. Sorry to be blunt, but that's how it is.

Spend more time on science, and keep the pseudoscience as a hobby.

Alternatively he could follow the David copperfield route

originally posted by: gell1234
No I've read at least one book of myths and found pseudoscience on Wikipedia with related terms but if only one person had answered my question, it would have saved me half a day, and maybe also have weeded out the less popular fiction from 'fact.'a reply to: hey1212

Ummmm it's pretty much all considered pseudo science...hence the term paranormal

And if all you found was one book you must have only looked at one google link out of the 1.00s of pages

a reply to: peter vlar
Great post!

Indeed it should be years of study, at least a year to get a solid base of understanding in what separates one area or myth is from another...

And then subsequent studies delving into each specifically

Alas it seems our dear OP is looking for the "for dummies" paperback short version

originally posted by: romilo
Humankind it self is mystical being, they can turn into any kind of monsters

Without wanting to be more flippant than normal, I've always wondered why the stories were always about humans turning into something else. You never hear about... oh, I dunno... rabbits that turn into honey badgers in the light of a full moon or something.

originally posted by: ManBehindTheMask

originally posted by: Bedlam
I might add, though, that the original Christian church had some wild ass magical practices and a lot of non-stated beliefs that did not make it into the King James except in little fragments.

It's my own idle speculation that if you wanted something personally useful and with some really whack-ass ability to it, if you could ferret out THAT secret (and of course, it presupposes something there to figure out) then you'd be Harry Potter-ish. If, that is, there actually wasn't a Yahweh that controlled its use/abuse.

So true, I always wanted a more in depth history of Solomon , alas the king James writers apparently didn't want that master of demons to be talked about much

Well, you think about all the 'miracles' - it's another name for 'magic', from Moses turning his staff into a snake through Pentecost and little sidelines like Ananias and Saphira that you don't often get in Sunday school. That one's cast as "poor Ananias just died of shame when he found out they knew he was a momzer" but in truth, he lied to some first generation elders when he was applying for membership and they killed him Goat style. And his little wife too.

Now...where should I start studying magic?

Wicca...Greece?

originally posted by: gell1234

Now...where should I start studying magic?

Wicca...Greece?

I don't any of this is serious, or you aren't 30 sorry I just don't

This s all just seems off , you already had the one thread on how to learn magic and where to find books that went on for at least 18 pages

a reply to: gell1234

you send me 50 thousand GPB - via western union - and i shall telepathically beam you " magic tuition "

PS - the lesson is non refundable - and if you fail to download my telepathy correctly - its your fault and i keep the money

agreed ?