Bonding with Black Arts spirits

[Adrasteia]

There's a lot of edgelords around, it seems. Terrible enough that I have to use the term edgelord.
"Oh, look at me, I'm so cool and powerful, I work with BA"
I have beings myself that were declared as BA, from several sellers, and I am aware and know they're DA.
Which means I, at least, am able to handle not being one of the 'cool guys' who has a DA misclassified as BA, yay?

I see, some sections are slowly becoming reddit tier sh*tposts. Well, I'm still glad though that he fell for that marketing trick and isn't in danger.

[Aprophis]

I see, some sections are slowly becoming reddit tier sh*tposts. Well, I'm still glad though that he fell for that marketing trick and isn't in danger.

I wish people wouldn't have started muddling up the definition.

BA - highly dangerous, CANNOT BE KEPT, destructive, completely malicious, doesn't care about respect at all, will laugh in your face if you respect it and tear you apart while giggling.

If it's not that, it's DA.
I've met one and really, there's no way you can mistake them. Not from the way they truly act (of course, they can trick you) nor from how they feel like.

[Ericslexi]

I personally have a true demon. He is BA. We respect each other and it works! Now, I could understand being wary of the ones where the practitioner warns that they WILL ruin your life, and will probably destroy everything you love (surprisingly, I HAVE seen those).

So we have come to the point where the BA that were declared BA because they were so dangerous are now called insidious arts?
Why don't we keep calling them BA and call everything somebody can work with as DA, even if they can be very dark?
Why do people insist calling clearly DA beings, even serial killers and mass murderers are 'just' DA, BA?
Is it the coolness factor?
If I tell you, no matter what the seller told you, that being is DA, why would you not say: Yeah, he doesn't hate me and wants to kill me and torture me, he's got to be DA.

There's a lot of edgelords around, it seems. Terrible enough that I have to use the term edgelord.
"Oh, look at me, I'm so cool and powerful, I work with BA"
I have beings myself that were declared as BA, from several sellers, and I am aware and know they're DA.
Which means I, at least, am able to handle not being one of the 'cool guys' who has a DA misclassified as BA, yay?

I appreciate your frustration with what you are saying, but at no time did I think that I was "cool" or "powerful" for working with BA, lol. That seems rather silly to assume that. These spirits decide to work with US, not the other way around. We cannot force them to do anything. So working with them does not indicate power or a coolness factor.
I am not sure exactly why this convo is getting so heated. It should just be a conversation, not something where accusations and character assassinations are thrown. BA means different things to different people, clearly. I stated what it means to me. And you have stated what it means to you. So now everyone knows and hopefully, this can get back on the OP's topic.

[Ericslexi]

I think the 'arts' system has been simplified to the point of complication when we just apply it broadly across all species of beings. We end up needing to extrapolate over and over again. It is best to get to know behavioral patterns and nature by race, then further distinguish it by trends, and finally to the individual entity in question. So this means each species has it's own unique spectrum, and subjects are dealt with on case by case basis which will further the range of knowledge shared in this community, and limit repetition.

For instance:

I work with a group of Lamiae, their nature is quite wicked, seductive and manipulative --their 'norm' differs from ours in that certain sacrificial or violent acts of vampirism are part of their earliest traditions.
However, there are elders and there are 'youth' and it is usually the case where the elders hold more to violent traditions that do not align well with human civilization, while the youth are more fluid in what they will engage.
One specific elder, however, is very understanding and respectful of the way we live and doesn't care to interfere with that as long as we don't interfere with her. And one specific youth is a completely mischievous out of control troublemaker. Another middle-aged lamia has drained humans in the past but she doesn't anymore.

^In this example while we see that there are common traits and foundational attributes of the species, there are variables when you look more deeply into it. Suddenly we have a worthwhile discussion.. it's magic!
If we actually discussed beings this way we would be learning about them legitimately, and no matter what someone were to label a being -- 'BA, WA, DA', we would be able to understand what we are getting ourselves into and what to expect in a universally relevant fashion. We've dumbed down the complexity of these existences a little by over-categorizing them.

Compare my above assessment of the lamiae to this:
The group of Lamiae is DA, but some of them really seem BA, only they aren't because they are DA and who knows they may surprise you with darker or lighter behaviors.
One particular lamia should be BA and yet if you don't mess with her she really doesn't care about you, making her more like DA. Another is DA but she is such a pain in the ass to have around unless you are going to keep her entertained, much harder to deal with than that last one. Another used to engage some very BA behavior even though she was always DA but you need to know that you are involving yourself in BA if you have her in your life, regardless.

So does it make more sense to use real descriptive-quality terms to discuss beings, or to just call them '(insert) Arts''?
This scale we are using does not fundamentally exist for these entities, we made it up, so already a lot is lost in translation. It became more of an issue when everyone started to use this in a completely different way, making it entirely meaningless.
Because if some practitioner offers a binding and says it is WA and describes what WA means to them, but you disagree with that interpretation, then why does it even matter in the first place? A system meant to streamline things has just turned into tedium.

With that said, it's pretty clear that if a being is properly described to you, you should be able to then use deductive reasoning to figure out what their nature is like and how to bond with them effectively or if they can be bonded with at all. You should also be developing your senses so that you can discern well for yourself. If you don't have any decent means of divination or direct interpretation of the incorporeal entities you are engaging, you should not be working with them.
This is not to say asking for outside perspective is wrong, but you are the one with that direct link to the individual being and your relationship is entirely unique, so half the time no matter how solid the answers you receive from others are, they will be useless for you.

Thank you! This makes so much sense and it is well written. I appreciate the time you took to explain this. I agree completely. This is why I get irritated when people say "don't work with BA". It means different things to different people. And on top of that, beings that were labeled "*** arts" don't necessarily act like their classification, which means that we really should be looking at the individual beings, and not the classifications that WE place on them. Thank you again!

[Likes2Read]

The word “edgelord” has crossed my mind while reading this thread, too, so don’t feel bad.

I like the CH version of WA/DA/BA, though I’d have called DA “Grey Arts” instead of “Dark Arts” to allow for the infinite number of gradations of intent between WA/BA, but that’s just me. But regardless of the labels, the bottom line is their groupings are “Beings that will never choose malice”, “Beings that can choose good or choose malice”, and “Beings that will ALWAYS choose malice”.

Beings that can choose whether or not to go the malicious route CAN behave like a WA or a BA if they want. The difference is that they can decide for themselves whether to maintain that course or switch teams at any point in time. Look at Noc’s example of the Lamaiae changing their behavior as they see fit.

Personally, I think hanging out with anyone who’s All Malice, All The Time is like storing nuclear time bombs in your garage: not worth the risks of seeing yourself and everyone close to you come to grief. And I just don’t see how “purely malicious” and “bonding” can coherently be used in the same sentence, since the whole concept of bonding is finding that common ground where you and the spirit mutually love and/or respect one another.

But some folks learn more readily from hands-on mistakes than from others’ advice. At which point, I say “get a TON of protection for your loved ones, your pets, and your work colleagues; do lots more protection for your belongings, your job, your home, and your workplace; put the HD and other meta practitioners of your choice on speed dial, and only THEN should you start hanging out with beings whose only goal will be to entertain themselves by destroying you just for the lulz”. But I’m cautious that way.

[Aprophis]

BA means different things to different people, clearly.

And that is the problem. It shouldn't.

If we both were for example talking about money and you do work for me and I paid you in broken eggshells, because money for me means broken eggshells, would that be ok for you because it means different things to different people?

Or if I talk about 'Hey, don't go to this place, there are BA living there' and you think 'Ok, cool, time to meet some new friends, I just have to approach respectfully' and then you get torn apart while they throw your respect into your face, because they don't make friends, would that be something you'd want to happen just because BA means different things to people?

Definitions are very important in communication, they have to be the same to be able to talk about stuff, or otherwise you'll just end up like the people in Babel. Nobody will know what the other is talking about.

Because definitions are so important for language and communication is a reason we have dictionaries and thesaurus'. Otherwise those things wouldn't make any sense.
Communication is all about common definitions.

[Likes2Read]

I see, some sections are slowly becoming reddit tier sh*tposts. Well, I'm still glad though that he fell for that marketing trick and isn't in danger.

I wish people wouldn't have started muddling up the definition.

BA - highly dangerous, CANNOT BE KEPT, destructive, completely malicious, doesn't care about respect at all, will laugh in your face if you respect it and tear you apart while giggling.

If it's not that, it's DA.
I've met one and really, there's no way you can mistake them. Not from the way they truly act (of course, they can trick you) nor from how they feel like.

My biggest fear, centered around sellers who call a super-dark-DA being "BA", is that someone will get those bindings, think, "Hey, I can handle BA, easy peasy if you know how to approach them", and then find out the hard way that inviting an ACTUAL BA into your life is a disastrous decision. I don't want to see folks nuke their lives that way.

[Adrasteia]

When will some people realise that a rather lax definition of BA can be negligent? Another manner to distinguish BA from DA is their energy. I doubt that OP and many other people have felt that malicious, sickening and intrusive energy. Okay, great. We now know of an apparent very DA demon that is being called BA. But it's still not wise to openly express this naive view in a forum with people, who have gone mad from BA or very dark DA manipulation.

[Ericslexi]

I appreciate reading everyone's opinions. It is very interesting seeing the different views.

[Alys-RaccoonReadings]

I personally have a true demon. He is BA.

What is the definition of BA as you are using it here? Describe it, so we all know what you mean?

The root of the confusion is this: Most of the people on this board use "BA" as associated with the definition I set in the quote box earlier on in this thread. As referenced in that post, not all practitioners use that definition. Lilith from LTT certainly doesn't. She uses a different definition. But she makes it clear what her definition means More dangerous than she is willing to bind for certain clients. That is quite a different definition from our default one here! Further muddying the waters, CH uses both the definition I mention as the default AND one like Lilith's--something along the lines of, "As a generalization, this class of being is too dangerous for us to bind in good conscience for most clients."

Now. Now we get to demons. Which gets even more confusing. Most of us define demons as a diverse class of beings having some broad characteristics in common. We can all argue about what those characteristics are, but that's less the point here. Most of us are using a definition that, for the sake of argument, is slightly along the lines of "dark beings who value free will with whom respect must be earned." I'm not saying that's THE definition. But it's closely enough in the neighborhood of the majority default that I'm using it as an example. OTHER people use different definitions of what constitutes a demon. And in those OTHER definitions, we see some conflation with differing definitions of BA. Some people think "demon" means what I used as my definition of BA. As in, all beings described by that definition are "demons." Others think that "demons" are just "generally too dangerous for most of us to work with."

Do you see how confusing this gets??? Unless someone is either using the majority definition of a word or explicitly defining what the word means, we are all talking past each other. If you say you are eating fruit and you mean a tomato, I'm not picturing a tomato. And I"m not going to understand some of what you say about that tomato until you describe it as a tomato.

That is why it might feel like the conversation is getting heated. The frustration is mounting because some of the people in it realize that there is a difference of definition and are asking for clarification while other people in the conversation are refusing to give them the clarification they need in order to continue to have a meaningful conversation.

If someone who says "BA" does not mean that term as I defined it above, then most of us have no idea what that person really means when they say BA. I'm not saying there's a right or wrong definition, either. I'm saying that we don't understand what you are saying if you are using a different definition without elucidating what that definition is, and then when we ask you to you respond without doing so.

It's a feedback loop of frustration that can only be broken by making your definitions clear. Tell us what you mean, and it breaks. More to the point, OP needs to tell us what they mean or accept that they are going to get this reaction basically every time they say BA. Which, for this OP, at this point, boils down to, "TELL US WHAT YOU MEAN OR WE ARE GOING TO THINK YOU JUST LIKE ATTENTION."