making something magic

What makes something “magical”?

I know that’s not something that you generally see paranormal researchers talking about at any kind of length. There’s a general sense in this community that topics like this are best kept at arm’s length. The point, it seems, of modern paranormal research is to push it into the mainstream, to legitimize it, to turn it into an accepted science.

This push has been ongoing for decades. Read, for example, Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson. It was believed then (the late seventies) that science was on the very cusp on accepting and enveloping what, to this day, would still be considered pseudoscience at best. Sure, the government has openly admitted to psychical research on and off throughout the last two decades (1) but science is no closer to recognizing this particular field as anything close to legitimate. It sucks, but I think we’re deluding ourselves in thinking that it’s ever going to happen.

With that in mind, then, I think we should be allowing ourselves to entertain the idea that not being able to explain exactly how or why something works is perfectly fine. If you get results (and that is, results that actually make sense and seem to be legitimate), why does it matter whether or not the tool you’re using was supposedly created through means magical or scientific? As I’ve said before, the paranormal at large seems to operate via less than scientifically verifiable methods (you can’t quite trap a ghost in a bottle and poke and prod it, this stuff operates as it pleases). I mean we’ve all heard stories of hauntings that are very well-documented by one group or another, then a new group comes in or a new family purchases the property and suddenly nothing is being reported anymore (2). It seems, then, that the scientific method may never be able to be applied to this topic. There are plenty out there who would then say that this field of research should thus be thrown out, ignored, and never touched again as that surely means that it can’t be real. Modern humanity, I think, is too quick to follow rules and too sure of its infallible logic, but I digress.

I’ve written here before about making something magical (see “Esoteric Made Easy!”). I’d like to try something like that again. This time, however, we’re going to make a tool for a different type of investigation. It’s going to be strange, and I’m almost certain you’re not expecting where I’m taking this.

I want to ask you, again, (I think — watch me have never actually asked) do you believe in bigfoot?

What do you think bigfoot is? Do you believe people who say they’ve seen one? Do you think you have? If you’re reading this and you feel so inclined, I want you to respond. I want to know what you think about it. I don’t want to argue or start any kind of serious discourse (unless that’s what you’re hoping for) — I just want to know what you think.

So, for me, our next investigation has yet to happen (if you haven’t already figured it out, I tend to write these a week or two in advance). (3)(4) On February 2nd, we’ll be somewhere around the Wheeler Wildlife Preserve out near Athens, Alabama (5) looking for bigfoot. For you, I think, it’ll have been almost a week since it passed (unless I change the publication order before this one goes out). Maybe we found one. Maybe we didn’t. I’m intending to go live for a time that night so maybe you’ve seen part of the investigation! For the most part, I think you won’t see much of the bigfoot footage until we start releasing episodes (which may be as soon as this summer). Because of this, something I’ve wanted to do for a while is involve you all in the “making of” process. If you’ve signed up for my monthly newsletter (which you should if you haven’t; form for that is at the bottom of the page) you’ll know that I’m going to start replacing one blog post a month with footage reveals and investigatory data from these filming dates as they’re being edited to be included in future episodes.

Well, this blog post isn’t one of those. This one is something special.

I want you to come along with me as I make a tool for our bigfoot investigation.

If you know anything about modern bigfoot investigation methods, you’re probably familiar with the idea of tree-knocking. If not, basically, one of the researchers grabs either a bat or large tree limb and will strike a tree with it. It produces a knocking sound that is fairly commonly heard during bigfoot encounters. What exactly the point of this noise (or how exactly they make it) isn’t really known. It’s been suggested that it’s possibly a way to mark territory or communicate their presence to other individuals in the area as it frequently elicits apparent responses from other bigfoot. Theories on how the noise is made range from, well, using tools like the one we’ll modify in a moment to, interestingly, the possibility that they make it by either clapping their hands a certain way or, otherwise, with their mouth (think something like popping your tongue on the roof of your mouth, just somehow much louder).

Either way, a seemingly good way to get the attention of a sasquatch seems to be through tree-knocking. We’ll be using a small wooden bat (the same kind that deep sea fisherman would carry) that I bought from Cabela’s some time ago. Most researchers seem to be in agreement that this type of bat is the best possible choice for our intended goal.

The exact bat used here as seen on the Cabela’s website. Great price, right?

As I’ve said in my previous DIY article, and as you may know from your own research, it appears that there is one rule paramount when it comes to making something with magic in mind: intention. If you frequent the sorts of circles that I do, that teaching may be tiring to you at this point, but it’s one that we need to burn into our brains. Set and setting (physical and mental) rule over the success of our attempts in this matter so we need to do our best here.

I’m taking my future squatchknocker (that name which only the most reputable and trustworthy bigfoot hunters use to address this type of bat) into the quiet of my bedroom as we speak. It’s here, at my desk, amongst the trappings of my research and my craft that I’ll work on preparing my bat for this almost ritual use.

I light a candle, set some music playing to help drone out any noises of the city (today we’re hearing Liege and Lief by Fairport Convention), open my window, and light a little cone of patchouli. All of this is important as it helps get us in the mindset that we’re doing something important, something outside of our normal routine. Beyond that, my choices for doing so are important, too. Bigfoot, to me, is the ultimate representation of humanity’s wildness. Bigfoot is a reminder that the wild will always be close at hand, that we can not tame every aspect of the world (and of ourselves), and acts to teach us the importance of not forgetting that. We are a part of this wild, a part of this world. Beyond this, as I always say when filming stuff for the show, we can’t forget the importance of play and incorporating that into our daily life and whatever practices or studies happen to comprise that. What’s more fun, what’s more playful, than goofing around with your friends in the woods, howling into the dark forest, banging our impromptu wooden drums, and enjoying each others company around a fire under a starry sky? So then, representing these different aspects that I’m trying to evoke, I’m burning patchouli (which smells woody and musky, reminding me of this connection bigfoot has to the primitive aspects of ourselves and our world), I’m listening to folk music (which can be rowdy and jaunty, playful and fun), and I’ve got my window open (connecting me directly to the nature that abounds outside—I’d be happier if it were raining, but we get what we get).

If you do something like this, keep that kind of stuff in mind.

Now I get to the fun part.

What I’m planning with this squatchknocker is to emblazon it with something: a symbol of my own design that will represent my intentions with the device. It will help me, when I see it and while I’m beating the hell of whatever tree I happen upon, make that subconscious connection of what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, and what I’m putting out in to the world as I do it. It might seem kind of out there, but I promise this kind of thing works. I’ve had general success with using similar symbols in ghost hunts.

I’m going to make this particular sigil using futhark runes due to the ease with which you can carve these types of symbols into wood. A common method of using runes to design sigils has the user pulling out all vowels from a fully transposed runic phrase. The remaining runes are then superimposed upon one another. See the below photo as a guide.

Note how I narrow it down to just a handful of symbols, then combine them into a single symbol bearing some representation of every other symbol

Now, you obviously don’t have to use this particular methodology. Make the symbol however you want, this is just how I’m doing mine. You also don’t have to combine so overtly and plainly. Feel free to change the comparative size, focal rune, or whatever you want when it comes to laying out your sigil. Again, keep intention in mind as you design it. For instance, I created one that we carried on us during our UFO investigation. That sigil was designed to look something like a banner being struck by lightning (as the intention was to attract instances of high strangeness and unexplainable phenomena). In my example above, the final greetings sigil isn’t one I would ultimately use in anything since its appearance seems to run counter to its purpose (a big crossed out line doesn’t really scream hello or give an air of welcome).

For my squatchknocker sigil I’ve chosen a design that will look something like this:

It’ll be refined, but I think this is a good starting point. A sigil works best if you can look at it and immediately remember what it does and what it says. This one contains all the right elements, seems to represent the intention pictorially (it looks to me a little like a man waving, standing amongst bare-branched trees), but it’s lacking in conciseness. As time goes on and we get closer still to our investigation, I’ll alter it a bit, pull it together some, and make it look more like a single image (since, as it is, the pieces look a little disparate).

Once I get the image done, I meditate on it for a time. I want to mentally tie that image, in my mind, to what it represents. When I feel like I’ve done that quite enough, I’ll get to carving it into the bat and highlighting the image I’ve left on the wood. I might paint the carving, I might just use a sharpie. If I had a wood-burner, I’d etch it directly into the bat and save some time. The point of this part is physically, using your hands (computer driven wood altering tools seem less useful for this part - yes, it makes it easier, but you have less of a connection with the process), irrevocably altering the bat. We are taking this piece of wood, originally made to kill large fish, into something completely different.

Something magical.

If you followed along, I wanna see your bat! I’ll post mine sometime after I finish it (as I’m still refining my sigil; I just can’t quite get happy with it).

Hopefully this will work fairly well and I’ll have some cool, bigfoot-related, data to share!(6)

Sorry about the lengthy footnotes! They’re worth the read, though!

Stay weird!

-Scott

(1) Project Stargate. Starting, at the latest, sometime in the 1970s (although I’d swear I’d heard earlier dates in the past) the U.S. Government attempted to determine whether or not so-called remote viewers could use their apparent preternatural capabilities to spy on targets of their choosing. The goal, obviously, being spying through entirely undetectable means. According to reports from the CIA, the project was only given up when, despite their viewers seemingly actually being able to psychically spy on their assigned targets, the resulting visions weren’t producing enough actionable data. The CIA thought it was cool that it seemed to work, but their remote viewers couldn’t exactly give them a point of view as good as an overhead satellite.

One doesn’t have to look that far back, though. Lue Elizondo (if he is at all trustworthy) claims that the U.S. military still employs and makes use of remote viewers. Other recent whistleblowers maintain that U.S. military assets regularly make psychic contact and interact with unidentified flying objects. Again, whether or not any of that is true has yet to be seen, but certain communities on the internet are all abuzz about it as I’m writing this.

(2) This can be hard to explain. Most likely, I think, is (as I discussed previously) the idea that that people are haunted, not places. That or, maybe, ghosts are shy and only come out if they like you.

(3) Lotta footnotes in this one.

(4) I don’t want to break up the flow that I’ve got going in this particular article. Obviously, if you follow the site or my socials, there was no investigation during the 2/1 weekend. I ended up coming down with covid and, for the fourth or fifth time, this particular investigation was postponed and will be rescheduled. That whole ordeal resulted in my previous post which, as I mentioned then, pushed this one forward. I know there’s some crossover between the two (the topics discussed in both were just on my mind at the time) and I apologize if you’re getting any deja vu from that. I think the bigfoot trip is probably gonna happen in early spring (or at least closer to spring) but I guess we’ll just find out when we get there. The article, despite being unfinished up to this notation prior to my recovery from covid will be finished with this is mind (that I now I have no idea when the trip is to happen) so I apologize for any discrepancies in viewpoint or style that you may pick up on or that escape my notice.

(5) I wanted to stipulate here that the Tennessee River Valley does, indeed, have a history of bigfoot sightings. Not all of these are ancient, either, they happen frequently and up to the present day. Most sightings in this region happen, understandably, in the very rural parts of the area, though occasionally sightings happen within Huntsville City Limits. For instance, Green Mountain and Monte Sano both are rife with encounters. I can’t think of any off the top of my head in the Athens area (this is more due to my tendency to focus on other towns and cities in the valley — Athens has never been super local to me), but all the ingredients are there. Plus, the location we’ll be at has a general history of high strangeness unrelated to bigfoot encounters and, as most paranormal enthusiasts know, these things often congregate and occur within the vicinity of each other. This is one of many things that leads some to believe (myself included) that there may be something larger at play that we don’t quite fully understand.

(6) I don’t know if I’ve quite explained how I feel about bigfoot. Bigfoot, as a story, is very important to me. This was my first true fortean obsession. It was in researching local sasquatch sightings that I made my first contact with other researchers, that I got serious about trying to catalogue and record data, and that I would have my first unexplainable encounter outside of the safety of my childhood home. This encounter shook me to my core and left me thrilled — I’d truly caught the bug that day. With that in mind, though, I’ve come to wonder over the years whether or not bigfoot is an actual, physical, flesh-and-blood kind of thing. I, in my heart of hearts, want that to be true. I want there to be local, migratory bands that call out to each other through howls and tree knocks in the dark, almost primeval corners of appalachia. Whether or not this is true remains to be seen and, as I’ve come to say, I don’t think it really matters that it can be proven one way or another. I sometimes wonder, as of late, if bigfoot isn’t something more akin to an egregore. Maybe he’s a thoughtform created by those who believe in him. Maybe he’s a ghost. Maybe he’s some archetypal representation of the wildness that we seek so frequently to cast off from ourselves in our attempts to modernize humanity over these many centuries of industrial and technological revolution.

Whatever he is, he’s out there. We still see him. I want a better look this time.