THIS CARD IS YOUR FRIEND
Congratulations on finding your Bizcard Buddy – a business card that is also a companion spirit just for you! Don’t have a Bizcard Buddy of your own? Join the Liminal Earth Patreon and we’ll send you one! Membership starts at just $1 a month.
Your Bizcard Buddy is a powerful way to play with your power of imagination, intention, and manifestation as you watch a seemingly dormant piece of cardstock come to life. Each interaction with the card is a way to remythologize and usher magic into your world; flipping the card reveals the entity’s needs, offering an opportunity to engage in a ritual, purge a negative thought, feed your goals, or provide rest. Read on to find out how…
But first, a little bit about Liminal.Earth. This very website is a crowd-sourced, curated map of the extraordinary and unexplained, where we celebrate the strange and wonderful events happening all around us. We collect stories from all over the world of real life paranormal and other mysterious experiences from people just like you – and then we put them on a map of the world for everyone to read! Does your town have an urban legend you’d love to explore? Have you ever encountered fairies, ghosts, bigfoot, time travelers, UFOs, or other oddities in a specific place? We highly encourage you to share your story with us, and we might just feature it on our map, contributing to our growing collection of global peculiarities?. We have hundreds of stories for you to read through! Go look! But don’t let your experiences fade away, no matter how unusual or strange— submit yours today so we can map them, talk about them, and decode the messages they might hold!
And now, let’s wake up your new friend! First, here’s a short video describing the process:
How To ‘Wake Up’ the Entity
First we need to use a bit of bibliomancy in order to discover the common name for your BizCard Buddy. Bibliomancy is the practice of seeking insight by selecting a random passage from a book. For this exercise, we’ll adapt it slightly to help you find out the name of your new friend.
Here’s what you’ll need:
A variety of books from different genres. They could be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, cookbooks, etc. The idea is to have a good mix that might provide interesting and diverse word choices. Any four will do.
Here are the steps:
1. Sit in a quiet and comfortable space. Take a few deep breaths and center yourself. Ask in your mind for the name of your personal BizCard Buddy to be revealed.
2. Randomly select one of the four books from your collection.
3. Open the book to a random page and, without looking, point to a spot on the page. Write down the first word that your finger lands on (skip common words such as ‘and’, ‘the’, ‘is’, etc., and choose the next interesting word). Do this for each book.
4. Now, look at the four words you have selected.
5. Use these words as inspiration, taking a letter from each to form the name of your imaginary spirit. You can choose the first letter, the last letter, or a letter that stands out to you in some way.
6. As you select each letter, speak it aloud, feeling its energy and vibration.
7. When you’ve chosen a letter from each of the four words, arrange them in an order that feels right to create a name.
8. Now hold the card horizontally in front of you in the palm of your hand or place it against your skin somewhere.
9. Close your eyes and take a deep breath, feeling the weight of the card.
10. Invoke the BizCard Buddy by speaking its name aloud. Say, “, I invite you to awaken.”
11. Flip the card into the air and let it land on a flat surface.
12. Open your eyes. The side facing you is now ‘active’, indicating the current need of the entity. The options are: Nourish, Harmonize, Engage, and Recharge.
Congratulations! Your Bizcard Buddy is now alive and well!
The Rules for Interacting With Your New Friend
At least once a day, pick up the card to determine the entity’s needs, flipping the card from a flat surface and letting it land naturally. The side closest to you shows what the entity needs.
Once you’ve addressed the need, you can flip the card again to determine a new need.
Continue to address the entity’s needs in this manner to keep the entity satisfied. If you fail to address a need, the entity might become upset (Section D: Consequences ?)
The Four Options and Corresponding Actions
Nourish (Feed): This option is to provide the entity with the sustenance it requires. It’s about nurturing your goals and providing them with the needed resources.
Action: Write down what you need to achieve one of your small goals for the day (for example, “do the dishes”) on a piece of paper. Fold it and place it under the card, feeding the entity with your aspirations. As you complete the task, remind yourself that accomplishing this small chore helps sustain your new friend. Don’t remove the card until the goal is complete.
Harmonize (Purge): This option is to cleanse the entity and the space around it, creating an environment conducive for growth and positive transformation.
Action: Write down a negative thought or obstacle you’re facing on a piece of paper (for example, “Stop biting my fingernails”). Place the piece of paper in a cup and cover it with salt, then top with water. Stir until the salt dissolves. With your Bizcard Buddy present, speak the following incantation over the cup while you stir: “In salt’s sacred presence, purity we mixie, cleanse and rebirth, oh little pocket pixie!” After doing so, remove the paper and place it in your compost bin. The salt water can be flushed down the toilet.
Engage (Play): This is an exciting opportunity for you to get a little outside help and a great way to interact with the entity and stimulate its curiosity and engagement. Bizcard Buddy’s love to give advice and learn about all your hot gossip – but don’t worry, they are very loyal and won’t share your juicy details!
Action: Write down a list of six questions you would like to ask your Bizcard Buddy. Each question is assigned a number from 1 to 6. Then roll a six-sided die. The number that comes up corresponds to the question that the BizCard Buddy would like to “answer”.
For the answer, the player writes down a list of six possible answers, assigning each answer a number from 1 to 6. This could be ‘yes, no, maybe, ask another time, results unclear, and C’MON DO IT ALREADY”. Or you can write down more complicated and explicit ‘answers’. Roll the die again to see which answer the BizCard Buddy gives to the question.
If you don’t have access to dice, you can use an app on your phone or go to this free website to roll
Recharge (Sleep): This option is to allow the entity to rest and regain its energy.
Action: Turn the card face-down and place a small crystal or stone or an important charm on top of it. Leave the card in a quiet space for at least an hour. Make sure to make time today for yourself – rest and relax and treat yourself to a small little gift!
Consequences
It’s important to be responsible with your new pet and we can’t be held responsible for what happens if you neglect this new living entity! Here’s just a small taste of what you might experience.
Sudden Cravings: The entity, feeling hungry due to ignored ‘Nourish (Feed)’ requests, might cause you to have sudden, inexplicable cravings for strange food combinations, like pickle juice and coffee creamer!
Sneaker Mix-up: Ignoring the entity’s ‘Engage (Play)’ need might lead to an amusing shoe mix-up. You could wake up one day to find all your left and right shoes have decided to switch places overnight. We tried to warn you!
Saucy Pockets: Disregard the entity’s ‘Harmonize (Purge)’ need and tradition says you may find a dollop of mysterious sauce appearing in your pockets or the discovery of produce in a place it should not belong (jackfruit in your pillowcase perhaps?). Just a friendly reminder from the entity to pay attention to its needs!
Meeting Microsleep: Ignoring the entity’s ‘Recharge (Sleep)’ need could lead to a “Nap Attack” at an inopportune time, like during a meeting or in class. You might suddenly find your head bobbing and your eyes closing as the world of spreadsheets morphs into a dreamland of fluffy sheep. Just hope your snoring doesn’t disrupt the budget discussion!
While these are the traditional responses from the species, each Bizcard Buddy is as unique as you are – so they may choose to try to get your attention in ways not addressed above. However, we guarantee they are absolutely safe – no card is strong enough to do anything truly harmful. The most you’ll experience is some mild annoyance as a reminder to keep them in your thoughts!
We’d love to know how you choose to play with your new friend! Send us a picture of you and your BizCard Buddy hanging out at home or out and about, or tag us on your favorite social media platform with the hashtag #BizCardBuddy. We’ll share our favorite buddy pictures, and may even send special prizes to our faves!