Entity Taxonomy
Definition
A guide's classification map for presences, beings, and intelligences encountered behind the veil, used to respond with clarity, boundaries, and care.
Literal meaning
A taxonomy is an ordered way of naming and sorting. Entity taxonomy names the practice of sorting visionary presences by how they behave, what they seem to communicate, and what kind of support the seeker needs.
Esoteric meaning
In veil work, a seeker may meet figures that feel symbolic, ancestral, autonomous, multiversal, shard-like, protective, deceptive, or entirely unknown. Netism does not require the guide to prove what these presences ultimately are in the moment. The guide's duty is to hold Ma'at: protect the seeker, keep the encounter bounded, and help the person return with their identity intact.
Allegorical meaning
A lantern and a field guide carried into a strange forest. The guide does not own the forest, but the map helps them notice tracks, weather, and warning signs before anyone wanders too far.
Extended meaning
The Veil source text describes several working classes. Symbolic intelligences mirror the seeker's psyche and teach through image or metaphor. Autonomous presences appear to have their own will, voice, or initiative and must be met with respect and boundaries. Multiversal intelligences feel radically unfamiliar, as if the seeker has touched another layer of reality. Soul-shard encounters carry the feeling of meeting another life, version, or aspect of oneself. Unknown-class encounters remain uncategorized and call for humility rather than forced interpretation. The taxonomy is therefore a tool for discernment, not a license for grand claims.
This term should stay practical. It does not prove that every encountered presence is objectively external, nor does it dismiss the seeker's experience as unreal. It gives guides a sober language for care.
Usage
Use this term when discussing veil-breaking, mirror-state work, visionary guidance, presence discernment, or post-session integration.
Ritual usage
In guided sessions, entity taxonomy helps the guide choose the right response: allow, question, ground, protect, cleanse, seal, or bring the seeker back to ordinary identity.
Comparative tradition
Comparable maps appear in Tibetan bardo teaching, Christian angelology and demonology, Islamic and folk discussions of jinn, shamanic spirit work, and ceremonial magic. Netism uses its own categories and emphasizes safety, consent, and grounded return.
Science correspondence
Psychology may frame some encounters through imagery, dissociation, trauma memory, archetypes, or altered-state cognition. Netism can use that caution without reducing every experience to pathology.