Light-Lending
I’ve been writing a lot lately about the theory of animism, and I think it’s about time I started talking some about the practice. It’s simple to say “Just be aware of and interact with the spirit world around you”, but that’s a broad enough proposition that it’s quickly overwhelming. Tuning into everything at once is such a grand proposition that, even if it were possible, it’s hard to imagine that doing so would have any results beyond a sort of transcendent wonder. As I’ve touched on before, when speaking of Bondwork, what’s important to me is individual connections. Today I’m going to talk about a tool that helps build those connections.
Light-lending came out of a daydream. One of my favorite ways to sort through metaphysical topics is to take a walk and let my mind wander. Sometimes it drifts off far into imagination, and in one of those times, I thought about a world where different people have magical knacks, and one knack (the one I had) which manifested as simply the ability to project glow in simple abstract shapes. This wasn’t seen as particularly useful by folk whose knacks are more physical, the sort that one can build upon for more direct power in the world. But it turned out, that knack could be built upon in a whole different way, because it wasn’t really about “making things glow”, it was about illuminating magical energy.
My best model for magical energy is that it is the same as attention. So, focusing on a particular shape means putting magical energy in that shape, and the knack simply makes that magical energy easily visible. And (as went the daydream) that effect also worked on magical energy that wasn’t my own. It could give an observable shape to what someone else is doing, and help them refine it or systematize it. And, for spirits, beings made entirely of magical energy but perhaps not traditionally sensible… it could give them a form for me and others to see. The real power in this knack wasn’t to make my own illusions, it was to lend light to the otherwise-invisible world.
It was a fun daydream, but of course it was a daydream. To my experience, in this world we can’t affect physical senses with any sort of magical effort, much less make physical changes. Still, the idea of “light-lending” stuck with me beyond that fantasy on that walk. The more I thought about it the more it seemed not only resonant to my esoteric practice, but in a sense actually directly applicable. Before long, I tried applying it directly when I wanted to deepen my experiential relationship with a spirit. I’d focus on the connection between us and push energy and attention into it, and this in turn would make my experience of the spirit more clear and vivid to the kythe-side of my senses.
Light-lending, in this-world practice, is directing attention and sharing energy with a specific orientation: it’s not feeding a spirit or powering an effect, it’s providing the start of a structure for the subject to inhabit, and the resources to fill in the detail. In my mind’s eye, it’s a flow out from me, as I guide glowing strands where they want to go. My intuition gets them to somewhere near where they need to be, close enough that whatever I’m lending light to can finish the job, being the authority on the specifics. In this sense, it’s a collaboration between me and the target of the lending; I don’t know the details, I’m just providing the glow for something else to be made manifest. If I’m lending light to a spirit, it helps a lot to act out being physically there with them, a task that gets easier as the lent light fills out my mind’s-eye picture of them. If I’m lending light to a ritual, the activity of doing so will tend to lead me to take a more demonstrative role in the ritual, using space and motion as I seek to spread the glow to wherever it’s needed.
One thing I sometimes ask myself even when I’m doing this is: “Am I just play-acting?” Certainly, if I was guiding someone else into this practice, that’s where I’d start from: “Imagine this is an ability you have. How would you use it to enhance this ritual, or get in touch with this spirit? See yourself feeding energy into it, focussing on it until it feels as real as it can.” In psychology and in magical theory alike, this is called “acting-as-if.” A psychological practitioner would argue that the play-acting is all that’s happening, the magical story being told is just a way to motivate physical actions that then convince the subconscious that something magical is going on. But my own perspective is more complicated.
I think it’s exactly true that imagining it, having the story, helps the work. That’s why I bothered to give a clearly-fictional context as part of this explanation in the first place. But for me, acting-as-if serves another purpose: It’s a scaffold that helps support the work under the pressure of anxiety, uncertainty, and the internal critic. “Fake it until you make it” might be a better phrase, and one that’s recommended when someone is having trouble with physical-person relationships as well. Pretending to do the thing can have the same effect as doing the thing. Even if it were nothing more than play-acting, light-lending would still have the same effect on the energetic and relational reality between myself and the subject, and in my animist perspective, the relationships are the most important part.
An aspect of light-lending that I’m still exploring is how it works in group contexts. In the fictional conception, this is a key part of the skill: it’s there to be helpful to others, to illuminate things that aren’t typically visible. I have done some of this in group ritual, turning my own sense of ritual participation toward “I’m highlighting the vibe of what everyone is doing” and it’s certainly effective to at least immerse me in ritual performance, and make sure I’m fully present when I’m the center of that performance. It’s also just congruent with good ritualcraft in general, “selling” what’s going on. The trickier thing I think would be to use light-lending to evoke a spirit for others who are present. This would be different than invoking or aspecting; I would want the spirit to be in the room, not inside me, with my actions and energy helping others experience them as well. In so doing, I’d be in service of multiple relationships: The one between me and the spirit (as in a more individual light-lending interaction) and the relationships now more possible between the spirit and the other physical observers.
From its beginning in a daydream, through to my current explorations in how to make it real for other people as well, light-lending has been an indispensable part of my spiritwork practice for years. It’s my way of drawing and keeping my attention on what I do, a reason and reminder to focus my intent and engage my senses. But I’m always doing my best to remember that I am lending the light. The point of this isn’t me, it’s whatever I’m lending to. It’s a singular sort of offering, to use my attention, my energy, to make a relationship deeper and more real.