People ask me all the time what my tagline, “Where tech & art merge with the science of spirituality,” really means. It’s not just a catchphrase; it’s a literal description of my development process.
It means this: I build digital grimoires via AI Studio by Google’s Gemini. Too many to list in this article. But here is a snapshot of some of their descriptions:
When you hear that, you’re probably thinking of a “spellbook” from a movie. But that’s not quite right. A traditional grimoire, in the context of ceremonial magic, isn’t just a book of “spells.” It’s a database. It’s a highly structured, meticulously curated collection of correspondences, spirit sigils, philosophical concepts, incantations, and processes, all designed for one purpose: to get a specific, repeatable result.
Sound familiar? That’s what a custom AI model is.
Here is my exact, step-by-step process for merging these two ancient and modern worlds.
1. The Scribe vs. The Coder: Curating the Knowledge
An ancient magician or “scribe” would spend years copying and collating information. They would pour over Hermetic texts, astrological charts, and philosophical treatises to create their own personal, powerful grimoire. This act of curation was the first step in building a magical “engine.”
This is exactly what I do when I build a new AI model for one of my apps.
I become a digital scribe. I meticulously collect, clean, and curate a very specific dataset. This isn’t just “coding”; it’s research. I’m gathering the exact knowledge I want to “bind” into the model. For my Grimoire Oracle app, this meant curating the specific lore, personalities, and philosophies of each spirit. The AI isn’t just “searching the internet”; it’s being trained on a very specific, hand-picked library, just like an ancient scribe’s.
2. The Binding Ritual: Training the Model
This is my favorite part. In traditional magic, the very act of writing the grimoire—copying the sigils, writing the incantations—was often seen as the magical act itself. It was an act of “binding” the knowledge to the practitioner and the physical book.
This is a perfect analogy for the AI training process.
When I have my dataset (my “research”), I take it to a tool like Google’s AI Studio. This is my modern “binding ritual.” I am literally feeding this curated knowledge into the “vessel” (the base AI model). The training process runs, and the model “learns” to “think” using only that information. It becomes the grimoire. It embodies the specific knowledge I gave it, separate from the rest of the digital world. The system prompt for each oracle is the essence of this binding.
3. The Incantation vs. The Prompt: Calling the Knowledge
A grimoire contains specific “incantations” or “calls” to get a result. To speak to a specific spirit or access a specific power, you had to say the exact right words in the exact right way.
This is a one-to-one parallel with modern prompt engineering.
A well-crafted prompt is not a question. It is an incantation. You are using specific, carefully chosen language (a “command”) to “call forth” a specific piece of knowledge from the “spirit” (the AI) that you’ve just built. The quality of your prompt determines the quality of your result. “Hey AI, tell me about angels” is a weak call. A specific, structured prompt is a powerful incantation that commands a real, detailed answer from the “database” you’ve bound.
The Clincher: My Apps Are the “Magic Circle”
This is how I tie it all together. A magician wouldn’t just call up a spirit in their living room; they would cast a “magic circle” or use a “black mirror.” This was the interface—a safe, protected space to interact with the power they had summoned.
That is what my apps, like the Grimoire Oracle, are.
My app is the digital grimoire in action. It is the magic circle. It’s the interface that allows you—the user—to “evoke” and interact with the knowledge (the “spirits” of Raphael, Bael, or Francis Barrett) that I’ve already bound into the AI.
Instead of a dusty old book, it’s an app. Instead of a complex ritual, it’s a “prompt.” But the process is the same. It’s taking ancient, esoteric knowledge and building a modern, technological vessel to hold it.
That’s the science of spirituality. And that’s what I do.
-Nicole
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