Engaging The Doppel As Shadow Work

Engaging the Doppel as Shadow Work

The work I am presenting here is not a replacement for therapeutic practices administered or recommended by a professional. If you do not have any previous experience with Shadow Work, I urge you to have a conversation with a professional, such as a therapist, or a trusted and seasoned practitioner and decide whether or not it would be most beneficial to do this work on your own. I would also strongly advise any magical hero to have a strong foundation in grounding and shielding practices before engaging in any Shadow Work.

In the mobile game Puella Magi Madoka Magia Side Story: Magia Record we are introduced to the concept of the Doppel. According to the official Magia Record website, "Magical Girls in Kamihama City can summon a power known as a Doppel. Only awakened Magical Girls have this ability, which allows them to invoke a portion of the Witch power in their Soul Gem when it becomes fully tainted."

In the Puella Magi Madoka Magia universe, a magical girl typically becomes a Witch when their Soul Gem turns completely black from developing too many impurities. When they use their magic, experience strong negative emotions, or sustain physical injuries, the magical girl’s Soul Gem gathers impurities and becomes progressively darker. Generally, the way to rid a Soul Gem of its darkness is to extract it with a Grief Seed or Grief Cube but inside of Kamihama City, however, the ‘Doppel’ power can be invoked instead.

If a Doppel is summoned, a subconscious confrontation occurs between the magical girl and their Witch self, in which the Witch attempts to convince the girl to give in to their inner darkness and relinquish control. Usually, the Doppel user will reject their inner darkness and the Doppel will be semi-autonomous; but by fully accepting their flaws and achieving a catharsis, a fusion referred to as a Doppel Version can be achieved in which the user is fully in control of their Doppel powers.

Doppels are extremely powerful, making them useful in battle, but come at high risk to its user. This transformation is only possible because of the trauma a magical girl is forced to endure, whether as a consequence of their wish to an Incubator or by merely existing. Most of the time, we need to suppress our traumas and anxieties just to get through the day but the Doppel System is a stark reminder that we can become over-encumbered at any moment. (Not to mention that in its semi-autonomous state, the Doppel will thrash about and attack without abandon, potentially causing serious harm to its magical girl and those around them.)

So, as magicians and magical heroes, how can we utilize the Doppel System in a healthy and constructive way? How can we harness the power of meeting our inner darkness and bringing it out for good? The most obvious, and arguably most difficult, method I can think of is engaging in Shadow Work.

The goal of Shadow Work is to bring suppressed personality parts back into our consciousness and learn to accept and even love them. This is easier said than done, as Shadow Work forces us to confront parts of ourselves that we rather not know about and then actually take responsibility for that which we judge in ourselves and others. Like the Doppel System, Shadow Work asserts that the solution lies not in the permanent avoidance of our darkened soul parts, but in their full acceptance and approval.

Shadow Work a process of acknowledging the ‘ugly’ parts of ourselves and learning to love them despite our judgements or fear of them. Our shadow parts can look like many things in our conscious lives including:

Jealousy

Addiction

Depression

Anxiety

Codependency

Self-sabotage

Excuses

Lies

Procrastination

Resentment

Passive-aggressiveness

Bitterness

Aggression or Anger

Violence

Victimization 

Guilt and shame

Lack of confidence

Issues establishing or maintaining boundaries

Shadow Work is also trauma work; many shadows are created as a result of developmental or attachment trauma when we were children and didn’t have the resources to deal with our emotions fully and so are stored in our bodies and in the stories we tell ourselves. Your shadow can control your life and will keep presenting you with uncomfortable opportunities to integrate it, as Witches and the Doppel System threaten to do.

As our shadows form and present themselves in different ways, there is no set approach for dealing with them. Shadow Work can be practiced by:

Self-observation and mindfulness Practice being present and conscious of your reactions. Identify your triggers; when your reaction to an event or someone’s behavior is out of proportion it is usually rooted in your past and in your shadow.

Practicing emotional inquiry Develop a sense of curiosity for your inner emotional world and view your emotions as information.

Journalling Start with a prompt that forces you to identify parts of your shadow or go with a stream of consciousness.

Analyzing your favorite stories Make a list of your favorite media and jot down their rough storyline. Think about the characteristics of your heroes and how they might relate to you, your unfulfilled potential, or secret desires. This is an intuitive way to explore your shadows by looking for symbols and archetypes in the stories you resonate with most.

Sitting with your shadow in meditation Learn to sit with yourself in silence. Just being able to be with yourself, your thoughts, and your feelings is a powerful way to get in touch with your shadow parts and sit with your emotions.

Inner-child work Since most of our shadows are created during childhood development, there is a lot of potential here for healing and integration. There are many guided meditations out there that can help get you started on this particular journey.

Seeking therapy and/or coaching

By working in these ways, we can essentially tap into the Doppel System and achieve untapped magical potential by integrating and purifying our shadows.

This post is part of my Magi Praxis series. If you have any suggestions for future topics, or you have attempted anything I have shared and want you share your experiences, please send me a message! I am always happy to go back and provide further explanation as well. ☆

What is a Witch’s Kiss?

In Puella Magi Madoka Magica and related works, a Witch's Kiss is a marking, the personal symbol or calling card of a Witch, used by a Witch and its Familiars (or Minions) to control the minds of humans and to mark their Labyrinth. These markings can be used to exacerbate pre-existing negative emotions and thoughts, change personalities, make people commit crimes or self-harm, or lure them into a Labyrinth to be consumed by the Witch inside. Some of these actions may not necessarily lead humans to being consumed: some Witches may merely desire to spread evil and misfortune regardless if they get sustenance. Furthermore, a ‘kissed’ human may not always die from it. Familiars can also kiss humans well outside of the Labyrinth they hail from in order to bring them to their Witch.

Note: In the magical hero community, I’ve heard these markings referred to as ‘sigils’ as well, but I hesitate to use that terminology for this case because I think it can cause unnecessary confusion for practitioners who regularly use sigils in their own magia. I can acknowledge that a Witch utilizes their Kiss as a sigil for their own gain, however.

If a puella magi or other magical hero is in possession of a Witch’s Kiss, it generally means that they came across it somehow in their day-to-day or astral travels and took note of its components for later exploration into the corresponding Labyrinth. The Kiss can contain visual elements that reveal attributes of the Witch including her appearance, nature, or even aspects of her Labyrinth or Familiars; this information is extremely helpful for any magical hero who is preparing to engage in magical combat with a Witch. The Kiss itself can also be used as a portal into its owner’s Labyrinth.

As a chaos magick practitioner as well, I assert that one can also reverse engineer a Witch’s Kiss for their own spellcraft. Is there something that you want to combat magically? Sigilize components of whatever you want vanquish and create a Kiss. This, in turn, can help conceptualize the trouble you are facing into a Witch and thus easier to focus energy towards defeating.

If you need a template for understanding or documenting a Witch, whether found or created, I recommend this format that was used for many of the Witch Cards that were displayed on the original Japanese website for the Puella Magi Madoka Magica anime:

[NAME], the [DESCRIPTOR, NOUN] Witch with a [DESCRIPTOR, ADJECTIVE] nature. The Witch is mainly colored [COLOR], is [DESCRIPTOR, SIZE], and resembles a/n [NOUN]. This Witch is [DESCRIPTOR, STRENGTH] and her weapon is [NOUN]. Her Labyrinth resembles [NOUN/DESCRIPTION] and her Familiars are named [NAME].

You can also add any additional information that helps you further visualize the Witch and its influence.

This post is part of my Magi Praxis series. If you have any suggestions for future topics, or you have attempted anything I have shared and want you share your experiences, please send me a message! I am always happy to go back and provide further explanation as well. ☆

Banishing

Okay, so let's talk banishing. What it is and how to do it.

What is banishing?

This is admittedly confusing because the standard banishing rituals are not intended for banishing. A banishing may cleanse a space but often it is a side effect. More on this at the end...

A banishing ritual is a ritual that prepares you to do magick.

Think of it as your badass magical girl transformation sequence. It calls together all your robot lions. It readies your tools. It calls in the energies you will need to do the work.

Some solid aspects of a banishing ritual:

Knock you out of normal consciousness

Mark out your working space

Invoke something into yourself

Evoke entities/forces that you may work with

Use tools you will use whether they be physical, astral, or just hand gestures.

Examples of banishing rituals include the Gnostic Pentagram Ritual, Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram, the Star Ruby, and calling the quarters... but I recommend that you develop your own banishing ritual to suit how you work and whatever paradigm you work in. It's good to start with some established rituals, but then adapt them. Don't call on angels if you don't work with angels. Your banishing should call on whatever you actually work with.

How to banish?

Practice. I can't repeat this enough. Practice your banishing. A well put together banishing that includes aspects above becomes the foundation of your work. It is how you develop the power of your magick.

Now, you'll need to figure out the details, but here's the gist of it.

Do something to mark that the banishing has started. A shout, a clap, taking a stance, picking up a tool, making a gesture... the ways are endless, but have something that you do that marks the start. With practice you may find that just this one action may by itself carry the full weight and association of the full ritual!

Next turn focus inward. Do something to bring energy in or open yourself up. Classic approaches are bringing energy down from above or up from below. Both if you like. Or you could make gestures over you body. Touch your forehead, throat, heart center, etc.

Next turn focus outward. Turn to the quarters or physically walk around your space. The stuff you are working with is out there. It can be a central altar or four quarters, or divide it up however makes sense to fit in the elements you intend to work with. Some people add above and below, or within and without.

If you have too many things to work with to sort into four quarters then you might be working with too many things. It is okay to have multiple banishing rituals or mix it up depending on the work at hand.

Once you have done whatever outward motions are needed, bring it back to center. A finishing gesture is good here to connect up with the opening and tie it all together.

But what about actually banishing?

So, here's the thing. Once you get started with work like this you will likely find that whatever you might want to banish just disappears. You sense bad energy or a spirit with ill intent and so you ready your tools and find that they just got the fuck out of there.

Bad woo woo shit also tends to prey on or be attracted to people who are vulnerable. It's the classic formula like demon that feeds on fear starves when you stop being afraid. Practicing a daily banishing that focus on building up your power is a great spiritual immune system.

A word of warning

The primary danger of this work is becoming ungrounded from reality, the world, and the people in your life. Magick requires a bit of obsession to get good at it so it is easy to get wrapped up in the work in an unhealthy way. Beware identifying with a delusional egomanical version of yourself. If you are on the right path you should find the work helps you be more secure, engaged, and connected, not less.