As for this being “pure nonsense” or not: I have a VERY healthy respect for all of these – let’s put it this way, for want of a better term – “spiritual technologies”. I doubt they subsisted for thousands of years (and still do…) if they didn’t have some utility, whatever it might be. Even if you do not subscribe to any supernatural explanation (and I would be hesitant to completely dismiss the supernatural as a legitimate path of inquiry), we know enough about persuasion, hypnosis, neuro-linguistic programming, conditioning, brain-washing etc… to suspect that much was at stake in all those methods of magic. I have extensive knowledge of “techniques of transformation of the self” from the East, and particularly the Daoist (and to a lesser degree the Buddhist) tradition, and I can recognize a lot of the same “analogical similarities”.
It wouldn’t cross my mind to actually reproduce some spell or summoning technique in an RPG book. Plus, they are widely available on the internet without us having to take responsibility for its dissemination.
[ edit: YES!! I did see the thread of Al Barqan’s advice on a … water problem resolution! 🙂 ]
