I've thrown around the term "homunculus" here and there on this site. As a reminder, my definition for this term is "a new etheric artificial intelligence being that is created as a bizarre side effect of enough powerful emotional/spiritual energy accruing." These are distinguished from "entities" in that they are not pre-existing consciousness or spirits later inahbiting an artifact, nor are they simply objects that have accumulated a lot of energy but lack any sort of consciousness on their own. They are the rarest form of what most refer to as a "haunted" object, or what I would identify as an "artifact."
I must confess that I have never tried to create one of these--attempting to do so from scratch would come in the form of either simply creating a "normal" artifact with no possible trigger given through which to begin the homunculus forming process (thereby offering essentially zero chance of successs) or creating a spirit and binding it to an object, which I've done but see as an entirely different phenomena than a homunculus. The interesting thing about a homunculus is the spontaneity of their existence--they are the spiritual and astral equivalent of proteins forming in the ether after the big bang and slowly combining to form into "life." They're than just a sum of their parts. They're also extremely rare, and I cannot begin to yet understand what makes some objects, out of the millions with various levels of accumulated emotional/spiritual energy, suddenly develop a basic form of artificial intelligence.
Using chaos magick, I was able to locate an object I'd been seeking for several days at this point--a kokeshi doll. I was intending to experiment with one as a vessel for spirits... but upon arriving at the spot of the chaos web ping and finding it right where I expected it to be, my heart immediately grew frenzied with excitement. It wasn't already inhabited, which would ruin my plan as I generally don't attempt to exorcize beings that are posing no proactive risk to humans, nor was it entirely free of energy, though--it was somewhere in between. A homunculus in progress. There logically must be a process by which a homunculus forms, but I had yet to discover any artifacts with in-progress homunculus energy. And yet, this type of energy is what the doll possessed (see next paragraphs). So, of course, I bought it and brought it home. The sensation of its frequencies was chaotic, varied, too unorganized to process as any useful data, but it was constantly moving, swarming--a friend who has honed senses but no formal chaos training said off the cuff he could see its energy going wild from across the room! The image at the top of this article is of the kokeshi as it currently resides in the room where I practice magick.
The wood resonates its frequency and amplifies it, allowing one to feel its energy flow and pulsate if all fingers are allowed to close on the artifact and form an aura loop. One is reminded of watching single cell organisms split and change when feeling the currently-mindless swarms of spiritual energy climb up the arm and through the aura. Since there is no consciousness behind it yet, it is possible to entirely retreat from this snare by simply removing one's hand... it appears to be an instinctual reaction as opposed to an offensive or even intentionally defensive one. The energy is, nonetheless, insanely powerful. As a probabilistically-impossible-to-form being to begin with, the erratic and varied nature of the energies within it form insanely powerful chaos energy. It is so powerful and arcane that it overwhelms even my own psychic faculties, to the point where I struggle to make myself remain "invaded" in this way for long enough to get the needed "reads" on its energies and frequencies. However, this sheer amount of energy implies that--when properly formed into a mature homunculus--there is incredible potential in the things within this artifact.
As already stated, there is a point at which a homunculus gains some level of consciousness and agency, but I have never been able to observe one before and after. In this artifact, I am able to feel the faintest hint of a stable consciousness energy signature, but it is not quite "there" yet. I am unsure what the exact process is for spurring on this next stage of evolution, but I've been feeding the artifact energy from a powerful ancient meteorite with its programming reset and its cosmic energy jumpstarted. Already, merely a week or so into this process, the energy levels and hints towards that stable energy signature and consciousness are becoming stronger and stronger. It is possible that further, more varied steps will be required, but for now I will continue with what is working as I eagerly await more answers surrounding this astronomically rare phenomenon as they come.
UPDATE: that time has come. At least, partly. Read the follow up article (hopefully the first of several) here.