Yeah I have to report back and say that "request" seems to be not firing the same force of will as the word "command" does with the NAP. Its deeper than that though.
In this case, the wording is for us, not the spirits. Lets face it...even in the long winded 4 page, no punctuation Renaissance Solomonic orations, it's about the magician not the spirit. Inflaming himself with prayer etc
Generally speaking, anthropomorphizing the spirits is a mistake...that goes for what we think they may or may not feel about us, how they may or may not be "offended" by our wording etc. Honestly, I don't think angels give a shit about us...I don't think they
can. They have functions and your business either fits in with it or it doesn't. I could be wrong...anyway, clearly it works "as is" and changing things around to make us feel better about being polite from a human perspective just seems to neuter the whole exercise.
Lets face it...command in this instance is about defining without mistake, our intent. The orations are not much more than a few lines so they have to get to the point and the POINT is you...not the spirit. It's one word....it's not like we're issuing curses or whatever.
Here's a bad analogy but it's the best I've got right now: say I'm across the busy city street and you want me to get your dry cleaning on my way to your place. You wave and get my attention...are you going to yell so your intent is made clear...or are you going to speak quietly because yelling might give me the wrong idea and I could be offended by your use of volume and take it as some kind of display of aggression? Chances are...by the time you're done over thinking it I've walked on...or just not understood your intent over the damn traffic!
I think the idea of language and "relationship" is out of step here. These are NOT disembodied people with our cultural sensibilities. They don't have personality disorders or inferiority complexes...they are what they are and nothing we do or say is able to threaten that for them. Unless you are brimming with adversarial hostility and hatred to wards the entity...the use of the word "command" is not going to convey negativity. Not in the slightest.
I think our experiment shows that, at the end of the day you get your intent across or you don't, you invoke and raise the energy within you or you don't and the language YOU use requires a commitment from you and a focus. Due to the preciseness of the small oration...watering down the language seems to equal watering down the
invocation process.
Invocation is very important here as well as in other forms of
evocation...how often do we hear terms like "inflame thy-selves in prayer" or feel charged and full of fire after and during a purposeful oration etc...the same principle here.
Just how I see it after the experiment.
Slater