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Author Topic: Salamanders? Salamanders! Anybody know a thing or two about them?  (Read 1862 times)

Koudelka

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So, I did a thing without thinking, and did a spell incorporating Salamanders! Then later read in one of my books that they are extremely hard to work with, dangerous, and should probably not be worked with!

Here I am wondering how I should salvage this.  My first thought is to research them more, so here's my question to you guys: What can you tell me about Salamanders??
Besides the basic mythology from wikipedia... I've done that much research on my own.

I'm asking people who know how to work with them, and what past experienced people can tell me. Reference websites and books welcome!

So anybody got anything for me? Thanks! :)
My Jedi senses are tingling...


Tom

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Re: Salamanders? Salamanders! Anybody know a thing or two about them?
« Reply #1 on: March 16, 2017, 03:50:57 pm »
Quote from: Koudelka;203779
So, I did a thing without thinking, and did a spell incorporating Salamanders! Then later read in one of my books that they are extremely hard to work with, dangerous, and should probably not be worked with!

Here I am wondering how I should salvage this.  My first thought is to research them more, so here's my question to you guys: What can you tell me about Salamanders??
Besides the basic mythology from wikipedia... I've done that much research on my own.

I'm asking people who know how to work with them, and what past experienced people can tell me. Reference websites and books welcome!

So anybody got anything for me? Thanks! :)

 
What kind of spell in particular did you do that incorporated Salamanders and how were they incorporated in it? Did you call on it to help you out in the spell or did you have a representation of it? That information might be helpful.

Koudelka

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Re: Salamanders? Salamanders! Anybody know a thing or two about them?
« Reply #2 on: March 16, 2017, 03:59:10 pm »
Quote from: Tom;203781
What kind of spell in particular did you do that incorporated Salamanders and how were they incorporated in it? Did you call on it to help you out in the spell or did you have a representation of it? That information might be helpful.

 
It was a banishing spell. I called on them, and used fire to burn a representation of what I was trying to be rid of.
My Jedi senses are tingling...


HarpingHawke

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Re: Salamanders? Salamanders! Anybody know a thing or two about them?
« Reply #3 on: March 16, 2017, 04:19:09 pm »
Quote from: Koudelka;203779


 
Just wanted to let you know that staff's moved this thread to a more appropriate subforum.
"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self." - Hemingway

Koudelka

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Re: Salamanders? Salamanders! Anybody know a thing or two about them?
« Reply #4 on: March 16, 2017, 04:20:59 pm »
Quote from: HarpingHawke;203791
Just wanted to let you know that staff's moved this thread to a more appropriate subforum.

 
Ah ok! Thanks!
My Jedi senses are tingling...


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Re: Salamanders? Salamanders! Anybody know a thing or two about them?
« Reply #5 on: March 16, 2017, 09:20:30 pm »
Quote from: Koudelka;203779

Here I am wondering how I should salvage this.  My first thought is to research them more, so here's my question to you guys: What can you tell me about Salamanders??

[snip]

I'm asking people who know how to work with them, and what past experienced people can tell me. Reference websites and books welcome!

 
So, in general, as you've figured out, doing magical workings involving beings you don't know much about is often not ideal.

In this case, it's a little more complicated, though, because people approach salamanders (and elemental beings) in a bunch of different ways, and it's a place where your overall approach to other things in your practice may make things a bigger deal (or a smaller one) in implementation. So no easy simple answers.

Fundamentally, salamanders are one commonly referenced form of elemental being, traditionally associated with fire for some historically bad natural history reasons that I think other sources can tell you about. (Not searching because I'm travelling, and can't easily open more links.)

Here's the thing, though: context matters a lot. Some people view the elemental beings as pretty mindless or at least very instinct-based beings with limited scope. Some people think it's more complicated than that - there are many manifestations of fire, after all!

Some people work in a mode where the elementals are only seen as something to work with if you entirely control or command them. Other people work in a mode where you build relationships with them, and once those relationships are buillt (which is not quick, generally), they will aid you in the right circumstances.

Some people view them as multiple manifestations of the same core elemental nature (all elementals are one elemental). Others view them as beings like humans, with their variations, if coming more from a single point of origin and with a strong single-element focus (both in terms of how they act and what they can do.)

Obviously, various of these points are mutually exclusive. And equally obviously, magical methods from one approach may be really the wrong mode for the other.

(My own approach is very much the 'build relationships, request assistance, etc." but part of my getting there involved getting introductions to various beings - including elementals - via my tradition, and that's not a simple thing to do. It is, though, one of the reasons for traditions: the ability to build on other people's existing relationships with people and beings, and have them say "Hey, this is my friend X." As an entry point. If you ask more questions, I might be able to figure out some useful answers, but I'm not sure I can usefully explain it from square one.

I'm mostly mentioning because I suspect this is part of why the stuff about elementals in many sources is so uneven, because people are working from different modes, and because a lot of the 'build relationships' sources I know come from people who had the help of introductions from within existing practices.)

Reading:
Weirdly enough, I am going to recommend a fiction book here: Mercedes Lackey's "The Fire Rose". It's the first one in a series of books set in the late Victorian era where the plots are roughly based on fairy tales. (I am not giving away much that isn't on the cover if I mention this one is Beauty and the Beast). Elemental magic is the core of that series.

(Later books in the series are of highly variable quality, and especially on the magical theory side: there's one where I have to refrain from throwing it across the room because there's some especially lousy ritual theory in it. But some of them are pretty good about the dynamics of elementals and how that might play out in different situations, and like I said, the first one especially so.)

For elemental work in general, I've found it very useful to do elemental work with all elements and get a sense for what is hard for me and what is easy, and what I want to do about that. Training in my tradition involves a series of attunment exercises I can't describe in this context, but a combo of a short-term dedication to learning about the element and elementals, and a few simple specific acts that relate to that go a long way. (By short term, I mean 2-3 months, and by simple acts, I mean something like 'light a candle and spend time with it at least a couple of times a week")

I got a lot out of spending those couple of months mostly listening to a playlist of songs related to the element, and also reading things that related to it - so my fire reading had stuff about cooking and the development of cooking, some stuff about smithing, some stuff about stars, some stuff about volcanos, and so on. Lots of far-ranging non-fiction (and fiction, where appropriate) that caught my attention.

In general, for elemental practice, I like Deborah Lipp's books on this - The Way of Four, and the Way of Four Spellbook. Her approaches are generally pretty sensible without going into the fear and awe places that can also be a problem, and she's got some good exercises.
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sevensons

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Re: Salamanders? Salamanders! Anybody know a thing or two about them?
« Reply #6 on: March 17, 2017, 03:36:14 am »
Quote from: Koudelka;203779
So, I did a thing without thinking, and did a spell incorporating Salamanders! Then later read in one of my books that they are extremely hard to work with, dangerous, and should probably not be worked with!

Here I am wondering how I should salvage this.  My first thought is to research them more, so here's my question to you guys: What can you tell me about Salamanders??
Besides the basic mythology from wikipedia... I've done that much research on my own.

I'm asking people who know how to work with them, and what past experienced people can tell me. Reference websites and books welcome!

So anybody got anything for me? Thanks! :)

 
If you want to banish them buy one and give it deliverance.
Awaken myself alive and well loving to start learning today ahead a challenge set by the Gods. Haven't

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Koudelka

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Re: Salamanders? Salamanders! Anybody know a thing or two about them?
« Reply #7 on: March 17, 2017, 07:15:42 pm »
Quote from: sevensons;203808
If you want to banish them buy one and give it deliverance.

 
What do you mean by that? Could you explain more please?

Quote from: Jenett
So, in general, as you've figured out, doing magical workings involving beings you don't know much about is often not ideal.

In this case, it's a little more complicated, though, because people approach salamanders (and elemental beings) in a bunch of different ways, and it's a place where your overall approach to other things in your practice may make things a bigger deal (or a smaller one) in implementation. So no easy simple answers.

Fundamentally, salamanders are one commonly referenced form of elemental being, traditionally associated with fire for some historically bad natural history reasons that I think other sources can tell you about. (Not searching because I'm travelling, and can't easily open more links.)

Here's the thing, though: context matters a lot. Some people view the elemental beings as pretty mindless or at least very instinct-based beings with limited scope. Some people think it's more complicated than that - there are many manifestations of fire, after all!

Some people work in a mode where the elementals are only seen as something to work with if you entirely control or command them. Other people work in a mode where you build relationships with them, and once those relationships are buillt (which is not quick, generally), they will aid you in the right circumstances.

Some people view them as multiple manifestations of the same core elemental nature (all elementals are one elemental). Others view them as beings like humans, with their variations, if coming more from a single point of origin and with a strong single-element focus (both in terms of how they act and what they can do.)

Obviously, various of these points are mutually exclusive. And equally obviously, magical methods from one approach may be really the wrong mode for the other.

(My own approach is very much the 'build relationships, request assistance, etc." but part of my getting there involved getting introductions to various beings - including elementals - via my tradition, and that's not a simple thing to do. It is, though, one of the reasons for traditions: the ability to build on other people's existing relationships with people and beings, and have them say "Hey, this is my friend X." As an entry point. If you ask more questions, I might be able to figure out some useful answers, but I'm not sure I can usefully explain it from square one.

I'm mostly mentioning because I suspect this is part of why the stuff about elementals in many sources is so uneven, because people are working from different modes, and because a lot of the 'build relationships' sources I know come from people who had the help of introductions from within existing practices.)

Reading:
Weirdly enough, I am going to recommend a fiction book here: Mercedes Lackey's "The Fire Rose". It's the first one in a series of books set in the late Victorian era where the plots are roughly based on fairy tales. (I am not giving away much that isn't on the cover if I mention this one is Beauty and the Beast). Elemental magic is the core of that series.

(Later books in the series are of highly variable quality, and especially on the magical theory side: there's one where I have to refrain from throwing it across the room because there's some especially lousy ritual theory in it. But some of them are pretty good about the dynamics of elementals and how that might play out in different situations, and like I said, the first one especially so.)

For elemental work in general, I've found it very useful to do elemental work with all elements and get a sense for what is hard for me and what is easy, and what I want to do about that. Training in my tradition involves a series of attunment exercises I can't describe in this context, but a combo of a short-term dedication to learning about the element and elementals, and a few simple specific acts that relate to that go a long way. (By short term, I mean 2-3 months, and by simple acts, I mean something like 'light a candle and spend time with it at least a couple of times a week")

I got a lot out of spending those couple of months mostly listening to a playlist of songs related to the element, and also reading things that related to it - so my fire reading had stuff about cooking and the development of cooking, some stuff about smithing, some stuff about stars, some stuff about volcanos, and so on. Lots of far-ranging non-fiction (and fiction, where appropriate) that caught my attention.

In general, for elemental practice, I like Deborah Lipp's books on this - The Way of Four, and the Way of Four Spellbook. Her approaches are generally pretty sensible without going into the fear and awe places that can also be a problem, and she's got some good exercises.


I think I'm good on more questions you gave me a lot to think on, and it's appreciated that you went into so much detail to help me. Thanks!
My Jedi senses are tingling...


sevensons

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Re: Salamanders? Salamanders! Anybody know a thing or two about them?
« Reply #8 on: March 18, 2017, 02:15:31 am »
Quote from: Koudelka;203830
What do you mean by that? Could you explain more please.

 
What needs to be explained you should use google if unsure of words. it seems uncomplicated to me.
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Emma Eldritch

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Re: Salamanders? Salamanders! Anybody know a thing or two about them?
« Reply #9 on: March 18, 2017, 08:05:37 pm »
Quote from: sevensons;203835
What needs to be explained you should use google if unsure of words. it seems uncomplicated to me.

 
Hey, no need to get snarky. The OP has a right to ask for clarification when presented with an answer they do not understand.

Consider this a reminder to respect other members of the forum, please.

sevensons

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Re: Salamanders? Salamanders! Anybody know a thing or two about them?
« Reply #10 on: March 18, 2017, 08:56:06 pm »
Quote from: Emma Eldritch;203867
Hey, no need to get snarky. The OP has a right to ask for clarification when presented with an answer they do not understand.

Consider this a reminder to respect other members of the forum, please.

 
I didn't mean to come across as snarky I thought I was helping by saying look it up on google. if I wanted to be rude I would of ignored the OP.I couldn't of put it in a simpler form.
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Re: Salamanders? Salamanders! Anybody know a thing or two about them?
« Reply #11 on: March 18, 2017, 09:14:45 pm »
Quote from: sevensons;203869
I didn't mean to come across as snarky I thought I was helping by saying look it up on google. if I wanted to be rude I would of ignored the OP.I couldn't of put it in a simpler form.

 
It was also confusing to me. If something's confusing on here, we encourage people to ask about it (that's how people learn!) and telling people to Google something doesn't tell us what *you* meant by it.

(Also, what you get out of Google and what other people get out of Google can look quite different, so it's usually a lot more helpful to point at a specific resource that was helpful to you, or at least suggest specific search terms.) (See http://gleewood.org/seeking/learning/the-problem-with-just-google-it-and-look-at-wikipedia/ for an explanation of why.)

In this case, you said:
Quote from: sevensons;203808
If you want to banish them buy one and give it deliverance.

 
Here are my questions about what you said, explicitly, so you can understand where confusion might be occuring with this post (as with a number of your others, actually.)

Why did you assume the original poster wanted to banish the salamander? (Understand what they are, yes, but I didn't get 'I want to banish this' off the original post.)

Why are you suggesting "buying" one? That's a verb that doesn't make sense to me in this context, unless you're talking about the physical animal, which is not what the original poster is talking about at all.

Why are you suggesting "deliverance?" That's a term that has specific theological meaning in some religions and theologies, but again, is confusing here because it doesn't really seem to apply to this situation.

That's an awful lot of possible confusion for one sentence of reply, and a good reason for someone who is confused to ask for more info.
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sevensons

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Re: Salamanders? Salamanders! Anybody know a thing or two about them?
« Reply #12 on: March 18, 2017, 09:47:53 pm »
Quote from: Jenett;203872
It was also confusing to me. If something's confusing on here, we encourage people to ask about it (that's how people learn!) and telling people to Google something doesn't tell us what *you* meant by it.

(Also, what you get out of Google and what other people get out of Google can look quite different, so it's usually a lot more helpful to point at a specific resource that was helpful to you, or at least suggest specific search terms.) (See http://gleewood.org/seeking/learning/the-problem-with-just-google-it-and-look-at-wikipedia/ for an explanation of why.)

In this case, you said:

 
Here are my questions about what you said, explicitly, so you can understand where confusion might be occuring with this post (as with a number of your others, actually.)

Why did you assume the original poster wanted to banish the salamander? (Understand what they are, yes, but I didn't get 'I want to banish this' off the original post.)

Why are you suggesting "buying" one? That's a verb that doesn't make sense to me in this context, unless you're talking about the physical animal, which is not what the original poster is talking about at all.

Why are you suggesting "deliverance?" That's a term that has specific theological meaning in some religions and theologies, but again, is confusing here because it doesn't really seem to apply to this situation.

That's an awful lot of possible confusion for one sentence of reply, and a good reason for someone who is confused to ask for more info.

 
I also was confused I thought the OP wanted to banish the salamander so thought like for like buy the amphibian salamander and set it free. I am experimenting with my mind at the moment and I seem to have glitches in my mind. just need to take it steady instead of what seems like I'm rushing at 99 miles per hour.
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Re: Salamanders? Salamanders! Anybody know a thing or two about them?
« Reply #13 on: March 19, 2017, 05:24:37 pm »
Quote from: sevensons;203875
I also was confused I thought the OP wanted to banish the salamander so thought like for like buy the amphibian salamander and set it free. I am experimenting with my mind at the moment and I seem to have glitches in my mind. just need to take it steady instead of what seems like I'm rushing at 99 miles per hour.

 
If your own mind is glitching at 99 mph, think how confusing it is for anybody trying to follow your train of thought.

That said, I'm not sure it's a great idea to just release a little pet salamander into the wild.

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