[Tutorial] I'm creating a grimoire named "Alchemical Elucidations"

[FeyhoundAppreciator]

If anyone would be interested in reading it, I'm sharing it here. It's a ~50k-word google docs format, but I feel like it could be useful to a lot of people (especially people who meditate or regularly consider astral forms). I've included information on demonology, angelology, outlines of various gods, and several discourses on metaphysical rulesets and entities. No pictures as of yet (I am not an artist, although if anyone is interested in helping me then please reach out). All of the concepts are drawn from my understanding of intersections in psychology, political science, and philosophy.

If anyone wants, they can offer insights, as I've set it so you can comment on it. There are no practical spells, only foundational knowledge (some would say these are one and the same, and I can't fully disagree.) I would love to hear your (constructive) critiques, questions, or suggestions! I am not expecting everybody to agree with everything here, as it is a documentation of my understanding.

Here it is:

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[pixel_fortune]

So at the moment it really needs an introduction to situate readers (who you are, where this information comes from, how readers should approach the work, what they can expect to learn, that kind of thing). Currently it throws the reader straight into a tonne of information without setup or context and it's hard to know how to process it or what to do with it

It's an unfinished draft, and authors usually write the introduction last - how can you introduce a reader to a book when you don't totally know that the finished book is going to be? - so I'm not at all surprised you haven't written one yet, but it does make it hard as a newcomer. If you're looking for feedback, you might need to write an intro to help people understand what they're looking at, even knowing you'll probably have to completely rewrite it once you've finished the first draft

It looks like a lot of UPG (personal gnosis - info revealed to you personally, rather than being sourced from books or existing traditions) which is totally fine, but it means readers need to be given good reasons to really trust that you've discovered something real, you're not just writing a fantasy world. So giving details on, say, what rituals you did or something to receive this info, or your history of studying magic, or if it's chaos magic, where you create deities BY writing about them, then being clear that's what you're doing

There are a lot of different cosmologies and pantheons out there, so you need to show, "what does my cosmology and gods have to offer that isn't offered by, say, the Greek pantheon and cosmology? What will a reader get out of looking at the world through this framework?" Or "why is this more likely to be true than other mental frameworks?"

Again it is really normal to write that sort of stuff last! But yeah I think I would need a better understanding before I could process the text itself

Post automatically merged: Feb 27, 2024

I just want to correct my language - I wrote "you need to show..." - you don't need to do anything! Especially not while you're still writing it! Please change that to something like "readers would find it helpful if..."

 

[FeyhoundAppreciator]

So at the moment it really needs an introduction to situate readers (who you are, where this information comes from, how readers should approach the work, what they can expect to learn, that kind of thing). Currently it throws the reader straight into a tonne of information without setup or context and it's hard to know how to process it or what to do with it

It's an unfinished draft, and authors usually write the introduction last - how can you introduce a reader to a book when you don't totally know that the finished book is going to be? - so I'm not at all surprised you haven't written one yet, but it does make it hard as a newcomer. If you're looking for feedback, you might need to write an intro to help people understand what they're looking at, even knowing you'll probably have to completely rewrite it once you've finished the first draft

It looks like a lot of UPG (personal gnosis - info revealed to you personally, rather than being sourced from books or existing traditions) which is totally fine, but it means readers need to be given good reasons to really trust that you've discovered something real, you're not just writing a fantasy world. So giving details on, say, what rituals you did or something to receive this info, or your history of studying magic, or if it's chaos magic, where you create deities BY writing about them, then being clear that's what you're doing

There are a lot of different cosmologies and pantheons out there, so you need to show, "what does my cosmology and gods have to offer that isn't offered by, say, the Greek pantheon and cosmology? What will a reader get out of looking at the world through this framework?" Or "why is this more likely to be true than other mental frameworks?"

Again it is really normal to write that sort of stuff last! But yeah I think I would need a better understanding before I could process the text itself

Thank you so much for your critical and constructive input! This is an outstandingly helpful opinion and I definitely feel I can better the text by doing what you say. I am not sure as to the occult background of an idea that existing and widespread psychic forces can be given identity and psychic form in order to enable people to notice and control them. Or the idea that a person can glean this information directly from reality by exercising and training their psychic body. Would that information help? And, what occult background/tradition would that be described by?

Again, thank you for your help by giving me that information, and for any you might be able to further provide.

 

[pixel_fortune]

Even those couple of sentences you wrote there are really helpful

what occult background/tradition would that be described by?

So I think in this situation the background is how YOU developed this knowledge. Sometimes writers will make it like a little story. "When I first started practising, I thought XXXXX. Then [IMPORTANT EVENT] happened to me." Or "but the more I read about XXXXX , the more I began to ask YYYYYY" - whatever it was that triggered the change from your old beliefs to your new understanding. And then, a summary of your new understanding (which is what you have in the reply you just posted).
So the mini-story would be 1. Old situation 2. Trigger for change 3. New situation

That's just one way of doing it.

And then a general summary of the journey you're going to take readers on. So I'm vaguely thinking about writing a book on the rose in magic. My intro might say
"In the first section, I'll talk about the rose in mythology, including the rose goddesses of Ancient Greece and Egypt, in Christianity and alchemy. In the second section, I'll talk about it as a plant, and it's botanical history from a scientific perspective including the evolution from wild rose to domesticated "tea rose" and the magical implications of that evolution. In the third section, I'll give you a full set of ritual practices that draw on the power of the rose, that you can use as-is or alter to fit your existing practice."

That is very roughly written and half bullshit but you probably feel like you would kind of know what to expect now, right? Whereas if I just went "chapter 1, page 1: Aphrodite gave a rose to Harpocrates so he would keep silent", you would be like, okay, but why are you telling me this? You would feel lost and not sure whether to trust me with your attention. It's sort of like... If someone else is driving the car, you want to feel confident that they know where they're going

I have no idea if that's helpful but it is... long.

 

[FeyhoundAppreciator]

Even those couple of sentences you wrote there are really helpful


So I think in this situation the background is how YOU developed this knowledge. Sometimes writers will make it like a little story. "When I first started practising, I thought XXXXX. Then [IMPORTANT EVENT] happened to me." Or "but the more I read about XXXXX , the more I began to ask YYYYYY" - whatever it was that triggered the change from your old beliefs to your new understanding. And then, a summary of your new understanding (which is what you have in the reply you just posted).
So the mini-story would be 1. Old situation 2. Trigger for change 3. New situation

That's just one way of doing it.

And then a general summary of the journey you're going to take readers on. So I'm vaguely thinking about writing a book on the rose in magic. My intro might say
"In the first section, I'll talk about the rose in mythology, including the rose goddesses of Ancient Greece and Egypt, in Christianity and alchemy. In the second section, I'll talk about it as a plant, and it's botanical history from a scientific perspective including the evolution from wild rose to domesticated "tea rose" and the magical implications of that evolution. In the third section, I'll give you a full set of ritual practices that draw on the power of the rose, that you can use as-is or alter to fit your existing practice."

That is very roughly written and half bullshit but you probably feel like you would kind of know what to expect now, right? Whereas if I just went "chapter 1, page 1: Aphrodite gave a rose to Harpocrates so he would keep silent", you would be like, okay, but why are you telling me this? You would feel lost and not sure whether to trust me with your attention. It's sort of like... If someone else is driving the car, you want to feel confident that they know where they're going

I have no idea if that's helpful but it is... long.

Thank you, it was helpful. It helped me understand that my magic has mostly to do with using symbols and social psychology in synergy.