Chapter 15: Practitioner (6)

Finding the book and the remains of my half-eaten sandwich on the coffee table, I began to read.  I rapidly flipped through the pages.

A passage.  A summary.  That could help me put reason to this new world I was part of.

I found it in ‘Fundamentals’, right beneath the ritual.

–new practitioners be forewarned that they will be subject to a new world view which could leave them paralyzed.  Opening of the Third Eye means that the practitioner can now see the more spiritual aspects of the world.  Ethereal manifestations of supernatural creatures that were invisible to the mortal eye can now be observed with the practitioner’s naked eye.  This is especially true moments after the ritual, when the practitioner is most vulnerable, due to reasons outlined below.

The awakening of a practitioner draws the attention of the supernatural.  The foremost among them, but not limited to, spirits (p106) by the very nature of them being spirits.  As such, it is advised that the ritual be carried out in a safe place, under the supervision of an experienced practitioner with sufficient protections in place.

It should be noted that although the changes are not limited to the visual; the third eye includes all the other senses.  Being a fully realized practitioner means that now, they straddle the boundary between the mortal world and the magical.  Visual cues are accompanied by: auditory, olfactory, gustational and somatosensational senses.  At times, practitioners have been observed to show enhancement of one, or a combination of these senses when it comes to the supernatural.

Spirits.  Were those things Spirits?  Attracted to the RV by my ritual?

But then what made spirits… well, Spirits? How come I could see the Bird-creature from before but not the Spirits in question?

“Doesn’t matter.”  What did matter was that what happened to me just now was completely normal.

Another question: Could I control it?  I turned back to the book.

New practitioners may find it difficult to close their ‘Third Eye’ at first.  The closing of the ‘Third Eye’ should come as second-nature; and if not, should come with enough time.  Note that even when closed, practitioners may experience other symptoms when in the presence of otherworldly beings.  It is almost impossible to be oblivious to the extraordinary once one crosses the threshold from mortal to practitioner.

So it could be controlled.

…Did I want to control it?

If there was some serial killer on the loose, wouldn’t I rather be aware of the killer’s location than be clueless?  The same went for spirits.  If these spirits were malevolent, and I had no doubt they were, wouldn’t I rather know their location?

It’s always better to know, than not to know.

Preparation is key for practitioners and knowledge is the first step.  My mother’s words.

Page 106.  That’s where the information on these ‘spirits’ were.  If that’s what they were.

The classification of spirits has long been a point of debate for practitioners; precisely due to the very definition of what a spirit is.  However, it can be largely agreed that Spirits is a category which refers to beings with an ethereal body (regardless of their ability to create physical manifestations).  Common spirits are ghosts, haunts and nature spirits.  For more on spirits, refer to–

It cited another book.

I closed it in disgust, recognizing a cul-de-sac when I saw one.  This book would point me to another one, which would point me to another and then down the rabbit hole I would go.

That’s the whole thing with self-research.  It’s easy to find material.  It’s hard to know what to cut away and stop; telling yourself that you’ve covered enough on the subject.  What I needed wasn’t books.  What I needed was someone who could give me direction.  Someone who could–

A familiar.

I scrambled over to the circle.  All the mental exercises were tiring, but rewarding.  It felt like I was caught in a web of knots, plucking at each string, until the knot came loose when I finally found the right one to pull on.  I was beginning to understand why my parents had filled the bulk of their letters with directions.  This whole magic thing was overwhelming, and I’d been a practitioner for less than thirty minutes.

Whoa.

I just said that, didn’t I?

I just called myself a practitioner.

“Accept it.  Move on.”  I told myself, rereading my parent’s instructions.

My mother cited two books.  Prerequisites and Musok: Bestiary.

I had to assume that Prerequisites contained multiple volumes.  From what I saw, there was the Standard volume, which I had just used.  Could there be a volume dedicated to Familiars?  I crawled over to the bookshelf, all quiet like.  Somehow, I felt that any sudden movement might set off the things that were watching me from outside.

Found it.  Prerequisites: Familiar, an even thinner book than the Standard.

Being the obedient son that I was (which started about an hour ago, so pretty much my entire life), I skimmed Prerequisites: Familiar.  It reminded me a lot of the ritual which I had just performed.

Circle.  Symbols.  Chant.

The more powerful the familiar, the more complex everything became.  In addition, I had to prepare an offering in the middle of the circle.  In the event that we did not form a familiar contract, the offering was there to compensate them for their time.

“Like I tip.”  I commented.

The book made these things sound human, with their own personalities.

In summary, there were three things.  Again, with the number three.  It felt like this number kept coming up.

One.  The Circle, which included all the arts and craft part of it.  Lines, symbols and all that.

Two.  The Chant.  This too, would change depending on what I wanted to summon.  The book didn’t go into too much detail, pointing me towards another more detailed book (called ‘Chanting’).  It placed a lot of emphasis on pronunciation and stressing certain syllables, citing things like Iambic Pentameter and Sonnets.  It looked like I was going to have to study up on what a ‘Scansion’ was.

And three… the symbol and offering.

I paused.

Did I really want to do this?  By myself?  With no one to guide me?  What if something went wrong?  Worse, what if a lot of things went wrong?

It was all so… daunting.

“But then how will you learn all the other stuff?”  I argued to myself, “There’s less than a week.  There’s no way you can digest all this.”  I gestured at the book shelf.

“Yeah, but what if you mess something up?”  Myself countered.  “What if those… things, outside are the fluffy puppies and flowers version of Spirits?  What if you call something you’re not ready to handle?”

“Jesus.”  I shook my head in response, “That’s precisely why I’m doing this.  Because I need help.  And this is the only way to get some help.  The easiest way.  I think..”

“Easy?”

“It’s like cold calling.  I ask them if they’re interested.  And if they’re not, give them a piece of salami and they go their way.”

“Fucking A.  Real genius you are.”

Noticing how crazy I sounded, I stopped talking to myself.  Totally not because my voice was rising and I was scared that the things outside might hear me.

But my other self was right.  Was I prepared for this?

But without this, I’d never be prepared for anything.  At least not in time to be ready for the trial.

“Enough thinking.  Man just and just fucking do it.”  I said, talking to the previous two selves I just spoke to.

…Been a mage for less than an hour and I was already Moe, Larry and Curly.  All I needed was a theatre and I could sell tickets to my one-man show.  Maybe I could do it in this RV.  Nice and cozy.

“Christ.”  I swore, shaking my head and grabbed three books.

Musok, Shamanism: Spirits, and the Musok: Bestiary.

The first hour, I pored over Musok, and Shamanism: Spirits.  I knew that I wasn’t ready to look over Musok: Bestiary yet.  Not even.  Too many unknowns.  Too many variables.  I wanted to get a sense of what these spirits were, what they were capable, what they were like before learning what kinds were out there.

You don’t start zookeeping by picking what animal to take care of.  You have to have an understanding of what animals are first.  Then you start by learning what zookeeping entails.  That’s what I spent the first hour on.

Finally, when I thought I had the barest minimum of fundamental understanding of what Shamanism and Spirits were about… I opened Musok: Bestiary.

It was insane.

The book was divided into two parts: Spirits and Mythical Beasts.

And the more I read, the more doubts I had.

There were a couple of reasons.

One.  This familiar contract was for life.  Did I really know enough about who I was, what I needed in the future and what sort of situations that a Practitioner faced to choose a partner for life?  Hell, from what I was reading, there was no ‘dating’ phase of this relationship.  You just say a couple of words and bam, that was it.  Married for life with no options for prenup or a divorce down the line.

Two.  My mind kept circling back to the part about my mom being a Shaman.  The book she recommended, Musok: Bestiary, was basically a compendium of spirits and mythical beasts from Korean folklore.  The drawings looked fit in a children’s tale, a nursery rhyme manifest into picture books.  I didn’t even speak Korean.

Again.  Was this really the right choice?  Just jumping into it?

Buyer’s remorse sounded like hell of a thing to have with a creature that was supposed to be something like your spouse.

I put the book down and stared off into space.

I needed to think.  Maybe thinking wasn’t such a waste of time.

The key word to this whole thing was preparation.

I was ill-prepared.  How could I be better prepared?