The First Account of Completed Appeasement of the Sages

This is a slightly editorialized version of a testimonial that was sent me via email that describes the writer's experiences while performing the Appeasement of the Sages ritual for a whole lunar month. I have removed some parts which would have led to the potential identification of the individual. As far as I know, this person is the first one to commit to a full month of the Appeasement of the Sages ritual. The success described here is auspicious for all those who wish to try to reach out to the Sages of Gensokyo themselves. - Emissary

From the last full moon of the previous year to the first of our current year, I had committed myself to the aforementioned appeasement of the Sages. Though I had my usual variety of life events and periods of exhaustion, for the most part I managed to not falter on this routine. It became rather comforting to have a daily reminder of the numinous after long days of mundane and material grievances.

Though I admit, a handful of days in the months were missed whether due to circumstance, my own faults and vices as well as just plain bad luck. In these events, I would simply bring an additional offering for each day missed. This method was thought up on the fly and admittedly I may have been better off researching proper measures, however my unconscious actions appeared to guide me correctly in this case as I never observed any anger due to this. The Sages seem, thankfully, very gracious and I always made sure to apologize and plead for mercy for the times I felt I truly made a mistake.

For the most part, I had not witnessed any explicitly paranormal occurrences during my ritual over the lunar period. Nothing on the level of a vision or UFO sighting, however it was host to several oddities of note.

Following the nightly ritual, I would typically meditate immediately after before going to bed. These meditations were mostly uneventful, however there were three instances of abnormal phenomena I had experienced. Listing from least to greatest in their inexplicability:

- My meditation area of my room is also the offering area of my room (I have a very small room), so I would always sit in front of the offering as its incense burned. On some nights, I would try to keep all my focus and attention on one piece of stimuli to center myself as I meditated and the incense were a common target. I keep my lights turned off, meaning the burning tips of the sticks would stand out in the dark. As I stared into them, over time I my eyes began to de focus themselves (this is not abnormal however, as this is just something I've been able to do on command) and I began to start seeing double. As I did, the cindered tips arranged themselves in a manner where they resembled three sets of eyes and I gained a very distinct and new feeling of being stared directly in eyes by a piercing gaze. It is worth noting i'm not prone to paranoia and I notably never experienced the feeling of being watched I always heard about. This happened multiple times and it never became routine or 'got old', the feeling was consistently distinct.

- During one meditation, it was interjected by a very sudden jolt of movement in my body. I have these types of jolts often in everyday life, I think it has something to do with my ADHD or the like, however this differed from the typically very familiar experience. Typically it feels like your body just having a reflex, the same way it does when you are startled or touch something hot, while it happens without my permission it still feels like my body itself moving. This did not feel as such, it was as if an unseen force pushed against my back and sent me almost face first on the floor.

- Most significant feeling to me was when I had a very vivid sound almost appear in my head without any prompt. I say it played in my head as I have never experienced hallucinations of any sort, so I never knew how it felt to just have a sound manifest without any thought. It was more vivid than anything that's ever come from my imagination too, it felt like I was wearing headphones at max volume. I need to clarify too, I am nowhere near aphantasic. I have always had a distinctly sharp and vivid 'mind's eye', my internal monologue and visualizations have always been near photographic, even as I write this I hear myself reading each word as I type it. However this was just... different, it not only was louder and more 'real' feeling than my thoughts but it happened without any command to either. That's another thing, I have a very controllable imagination and I never had the experience of being tricked by it or anything even as a kid. I can't remember what the sound itself even was, all I can remember is it sounded like something crying out. I suppose it's the closest thing to a vision from something else I've ever had.

The other segment of strange phenomena I noted were in how doing the ritual itself made me feel, changes in my mannerisms that felt entirely new and not by my own hands. There are only two of note:

- Firstly, throughout the entirety of the experience I consistently experienced something in the majority of the offering rituals done. When I would begin reading the opening four lines, as I repeated them my voice began to gain an entirely new confidence to it. For context, I'm typically very meek, I am able to be confident in a way around my friends, but in a kind of loud, bombastic way that is more of a way to drown out my anxieties, in many ways it is more of a veil I put on. The confidence I felt whilst reciting the prayer was completely different, it was stern and competent, it would grow in its zealousness as I went further in and enter theatrical levels of passion. It was as if someone else entirely was speaking, though I wasn't being controlled as every word felt like I decided it was spoken. I suppose it was like I myself became someone else.

- At some point probably at the last third of the rituals I did over the lunar period, I had a very strange prayer reciting. It started normal, I was following the routine as always and it was all going fine when suddenly I began to stutter and trip over my words. For the first time, I was having trouble reciting it as even when I looked toward my phone which had the lines in case I forgot, it was like my vision was too blurred to read it. Then a tidal wave of emotion swept over me, this distinct realization of the just power and scale of who I was praying to. It was as if I was truly in their presence and they towered over me. It feels like it should be describable as fear, but it wasn't as I wasn't scared of them... Though I suppose it could be more fear in the manner of meeting someone you idolize, a cowering reverence that brought me to my knees. The best comparison is that it was something similar to what the writer of Kicking Down The Shrine Door described in regards to the Moriya Shrine residents, though not entirely the same.

After the final night of the ritual, I thanked each of the sages with as much gratefulness as I could and then gave thanks to all the other spirits of Gensokyo. The days after were uneventful, but I had a feeling of content for a good while, maybe just because I managed to put my mind to a long term project and managed to accomplish it. I didn't expect anything new to occur afterwards really, the ritual was one to simply show I held no ill intent, it merely was a measure to ensure safe travels as I went further with my practices.

Unfortunately, after a mix of disastrous events, immense periods of stress and the return of my periodic depressive episodes, I essentially became entirely burnt out of all aspects of my life. Which means the time since then has been mostly very mundane, drab and exhausted with very little done in regards of my witchcraft or anything of the sort. All routines were broken and stagnated, from my daily single card tarot reading to basic hygiene. In this state, I very predictably was not seeing really anything of interest let alone anything of numinous nature. My head simply has not been in the game for the past month.

I did do a few prayers however, ranging from exhausted calls to them under my breathe to kneeling in front of an effigy of Okina-sama. They were more just ways to really ensure things would go well when it seemed it could go either way, thankfully it seems the kami are gracious enough to push the scales just enough. Notably, I lost both a pair of earbuds and my damn government ID, I was unable to find both for weeks until in both instances I prayed to Yukari-sama for help (I don't know why her in particular, I suppose I thought something like they accidentally fell in a gap and she could recover it for me??) and the very next day they appeared in spots which I absolutely checked.

The aforementioned kneeling prayer to Okina-sama was brought about due to a situation occurring in a community I value a lot. A very disruptive conflict had emerged. Not knowing who to fully trust or the true cause of the conflict, I prayed to Okina-sama. I prayed to her that the community that I loved would be spared of conflict. Afterwards, I decided to draw a tarot card as I simply felt lost and wanted any guidance I could get. I called upon my unconscious inner guide and the kami which reside in all to bring me guidance, then drew a card. It was card XV The Devil, I saw it as a warning of the aspects of that card, a warning that someone was being deceitful but I didn't know who. The next day saw a series of events that led to the truth regarding the conflict surfacing. While it wasn't a happy situation, my prayer did still work in a way, and the community is now much better off.