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Magic
Sept 21, 2009 7:15:06 GMT -1
Post by littleraven on Sept 21, 2009 7:15:06 GMT -1
I'm quite prepared to accept 'magic' as a form of inner work, of changing consciousness, of embodied prayer, or of symbolic connection to natural forces; but the idea that there's some mysterious undiscovered natural force out there that Debbie from Plymouth can harness with the aid of two green candles, a stick of chalk and a seashell is just bollocks IMO. Thing is, I agree with you. I just think it goes that bit further. Perhaps it's the mechanism that allows miracles to happen, I certainly don't come anywhere near to thinking this is something that is accessible to whoever has bought the latest teen Wicca offering. As an occultist, I am fully aware that the vast majority of material and practice, from whatever tradition, is designed to bring about personal change and it's only when the appropriate change is brought about that higher level workings can be achieved. Even then, we see that it's the actions of spiritual beings that bring about these changes, not the tiny, arrogant human.
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Magic
Sept 21, 2009 7:25:57 GMT -1
Post by littleraven on Sept 21, 2009 7:25:57 GMT -1
Loads of threads in one here - I'll stick with the easier one I think. What is magic- we use the term as though it's obvious what it is. I'm not so sure it is. Can you give me a few examples of what you think it means exactly. We all know the basic drill. Raise energy, manipulate it and direct it at will. Energy in this context is problematic. I don't think we're talking about the same thing that can be measured in Joules, is at all times wholly conserved and the measurement of which is ultimately scalar. I think it's very unfortunate that people have used the word "energy" to describe the intangible magical effector. It gives the mistaken impression of a basic familiarity with what we're talking about, and is a complete red herring for the many who go looking for "scientific" explanations. What can magic possibly mean? What are the sorts of scenarios, with plausible chains of thought to the consequences, that we could describe as being obviously magical? Would it be a trivial matter to even recognise any act of plausible magic. I don't think so... I don't know what magic is - but I'm sure it's not miraculous. I don't know what the limits of possibility to magic are, but, although the belief sits uncomfortably with me, I believe the upper limit of magical possibility is certainly greater than zero.... So again I'd ask anyone to give me an example of what might be a magical act. Not necessarily anything you've seen/been involved with/believed happened - just an example of what you think magic might be. We use the term so loosely - even carelessly - and without definition, that I'm not sure we're all talking about the same thing - so it doesn't really make sense to declare a belief in its existence or not. How about Crowleys' definition: "the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with the will."
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Magic
Sept 21, 2009 7:30:26 GMT -1
Post by megli on Sept 21, 2009 7:30:26 GMT -1
I'm just going to reproduce part of a reply here which a friend wrote on my blog to a piece on the same issue, rather than writing it all out again. The original comment that got me thinking was this:
The reason men in general don't need religion is because society has been structured to suit them for thousands of years. Even today the vast number of mediums and psychics are women and gay men. Imagining you have access to mystical powers takes the sting out of the fact that you are denied real power. Magical thinking is a refuge of the powerless.
James wrote---
My problem with the quoted comment isn't that it's untrue - there's no question that magical thinking is a textbook example of maladaptive use of coping mechanism in a lot of cases - but that its argument can be expnded to argue with any kind of religious or even political ideology. It's a great argument to use because it can be made to fit all forms of belief; particularly those that hope for redress or justice at some point in the future. It's certainly true of the early Jewish Apocalypses, most forms of Christianity, some forms of anarchism or socialism ('come the revolution...') etc.
In some ways I think this is a strong corrective to the problem of teleology. You might not know that until recently I used to volunteer at a soup kitchen in London - I gave up because this sort of thinking was plain endemic. 'When X comes out of prison I can stop drinking...', 'When winter comes I'll go into a hostel and clean up...', 'My mate Y is getting a job at Z and has promised me one...' It's all teleology, all the time, and, of course, it's never their fault they're in the situation in the first place - and therefore they can wait until someone else gets them out of it. And this is the same problem that affects miserable teenage witches, and poor-me middle aged tent-women - deferring action until some paradise allows them to have the perfect life, and all the more sad because a number (though not, I think a majority of them) genuinely _believe_ that they're bringing about that change.
But I feel an impulse to defend magic, partly because it's so much a part of my background, and partly because I still use it every day. I don't know if what I call 'magic' falls in to one of the fudges you talk about, or whether it's at least half-located the metaphorical/poetic systems of thought you reference. I don't truly see a divide between them, at least for me. But at the same time, I don't recognise all the ego inflation and cursing as a part of it - a lot of this comes from the notions of magic as a form of science, where 'the world is bound with secret knots' and the correct recipe will allow you to cheat the world around you to your preference. Whereas, for me, magic is closer to Iamblichean theurgy, even having soteriological implications like tikkun in the Kabbalah; and sometimes that active performance of magical ritual - designed to draw godhead down into the self and actively experience the mysteries - can have profound effects in the external world.
To me it's closer to some of the practices of vajrayana or vamachara tantra, in that it's an active form of mysticism which doesn't seek to remove or disentangle itself from the world, but live in it, and make change in it. I could go on and on about this - but the thing I want to note is its focus on the Mysteries. There are some people who talk very well about their devotion to their gods and magic very well - Stephen Grasso is one (a quick google should turn up some of his writing, on voodoo and devotion). Phil Hine has started writing some stuff on similar issues here, and it's nice to see the traces of some critical conversations we've had turning up in his writing - Phil has made an interesting move from chaos magic to tantra and devotion, which makes a lot of what he writes fascinating.
I replied:
I suppose part of what I find so depressing in magic---and in paganism, and in religion---is a crushing literalness; and as you say, this is also to be found in any argument against any kind of belief that invokes a bluffly middle-englandish 'realism' to condemn the inchoate longings and innate procratinations of teleological thinking.
Most of atheist/religous dialogue embodies this kind of literalistic enantiodromia: one the one hand, the atheist mocks the idea of (say) transubstantiation, asking why we can't see red corpuscles if we put the consecrated host under the microscope; on the other, the retro-Catholic affects horror and surprise at the impudent 'heretic' who finds the idea improbable. Over-literalism, in both cases.
Similarly the sceptic would dismiss all magical, symbolic work as nonsense, whilst poor Debbie tucks bryony root bought off the internet into her bra in order to get herself a new job in sales.
Real magic, if I might put forward such a thing, might mean living with one foot in the 'real' world and one in Corbin's mundus imaginalis ---but oh how hard, even for the inspired poet! Putting it another way, we might say that faith resides not in the will, but in the imagination. That sense of 'magic' I can wholly and happily accept, as an appropriate response to and filter for the mysteries of the deep psyche.
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Magic
Sept 21, 2009 7:49:21 GMT -1
Post by littleraven on Sept 21, 2009 7:49:21 GMT -1
ROFLMAO - 'poor me middle-aged tent women': Druid camp anyone?
Thanks for posting that, some excellent thinking there, and essentially I don't have any problem with any of that, at all.
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Magic
Sept 21, 2009 8:19:06 GMT -1
Post by arth_frown on Sept 21, 2009 8:19:06 GMT -1
I agree with magical thinking is for the powerless. To me magic is asking the Gods/spirits/ancestors to intervene. As the saying goes on the CCG Beowulf film "don't ask the gods what you can do yourself" or something like that. So to look backwards at it means only use when you are powerless to change the issue.
I think a lot of people have been influenced by the TV when it comes down to magic, thinking that the magic comes within humans. Wave a stick in the air grab some ingredients and hey presto you have changed the outcome. Personally I never seen any results from that.
Then there's combat magic which seems to only have a negative affect on the person using it not the intended victim. There seems to be a huge personal price with this type of magic.
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Magic
Sept 21, 2009 8:36:10 GMT -1
Post by Francis on Sept 21, 2009 8:36:10 GMT -1
How about Crowleys' definition: "the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with the will." But wouldn't; (I'm assuming by "the will" he meant the will of the conjurer) Even then, we see that it's the actions of spiritual beings that bring about these changes, not the tiny, arrogant human. just be a subset of Crowley's thought - leaving room for the arrogant, tiny human to sometimes be the effector of the change?
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Magic
Sept 21, 2009 8:44:20 GMT -1
Post by megli on Sept 21, 2009 8:44:20 GMT -1
ROFLMAO - 'poor me middle-aged tent women': Druid camp anyone? James is such a bitch---and that's coming from me.
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Magic
Sept 21, 2009 8:47:45 GMT -1
Post by Francis on Sept 21, 2009 8:47:45 GMT -1
Good news everyone
Debbie of Plymouth has found a boyfriend!
She'd had to travel all the way to Notting Hill to find a supplier of the purple and green striped candles she needed for the "Find Love Spell" on page 126 of "Tie-dye fluff teen love witch", and met a very nice young gent from North Wales at the bus stop on the way home! Turned out she didn't need the candles after all!
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Magic
Sept 21, 2009 9:06:05 GMT -1
Post by littleraven on Sept 21, 2009 9:06:05 GMT -1
Well done Debbie! And from North Wales too, such kudos for her!
Coming next: Debbie does the Dead - a study in Necromancy.
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Magic
Sept 21, 2009 9:21:19 GMT -1
Post by megli on Sept 21, 2009 9:21:19 GMT -1
Good news everyone Debbie of Plymouth has found a boyfriend! She'd had to travel all the way to Notting Hill to find a supplier of the purple and green striped candles she needed for the "Find Love Spell" on page 126 of "Tie-dye fluff teen love witch", and met a very nice young gent from North Wales at the bus stop on the way home! Turned out she didn't need the candles after all! Ah, but magick operates beyond ye boundaries of tyme and space. Her meeting the young man was a result of the magicke that she had yet to do; her magycke was so powerful that its effects reverberated back into the past and attracted the young man. he in turn was drawn to the impalpable aura of majycke surrounding her, our wyse wyccan wytch!
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Magic
Sept 21, 2009 9:29:42 GMT -1
Post by dreamguardian on Sept 21, 2009 9:29:42 GMT -1
Nah, she obviously had desperation written all over her face & our cunning northwalean siezed the opportunity ...!!! ;D
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Magic
Sept 21, 2009 10:15:34 GMT -1
Post by Lee on Sept 21, 2009 10:15:34 GMT -1
necromancy: crack open a cold one.
thank you very much... im here all week. try the veal!
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Magic
Sept 21, 2009 10:21:25 GMT -1
Post by clare on Sept 21, 2009 10:21:25 GMT -1
Don't mock the powerless. When we or someone we love is affected by a terminal illness we'll remember mocking people who had lost control over their lives.
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Magic
Sept 21, 2009 10:33:48 GMT -1
Post by megli on Sept 21, 2009 10:33:48 GMT -1
Yes, miss!
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Magic
Sept 21, 2009 10:39:27 GMT -1
Post by Lee on Sept 21, 2009 10:39:27 GMT -1
i think Crowley's definition works well. though i think it more an art than science, and perhaps the work 'synchronicity' needs to be there somewhere.
i am comfortable with it being two things:
*something the effects a change on the personal and internal which then has some sort of outward expression. achieved however you fancy, even Debbie from Plymouth style
*a direct intervention by the 'other' in this reality
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Magic
Sept 21, 2009 13:08:19 GMT -1
Post by potia on Sept 21, 2009 13:08:19 GMT -1
For some reason I have difficulty with this area. I think it's because while I will occaisionally do what I call spell work it's always for someone else and with that person's permission (or a parent's in the case of a child). When I do such things (and it's usually for healing or protective purposes) it is usually because I can't offer anything else in terms of practical support often because I'm too far away. In my case I usually craft something that I then send to the person the spell is for.
I don't really know if it works. It makes me feel better to be able to do something no matter how small - does that mean I'm fooling myself? I think from feedback received it makes a difference to the recipients if only because it is a tangible reminder of someone else caring about them. Is this the sort of thing you mean by embodied prayer Megli?
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Magic
Sept 21, 2009 13:19:15 GMT -1
Post by megli on Sept 21, 2009 13:19:15 GMT -1
Yes, precisely so: prayer done with the hands and with physical things, as much as in the silence of the heart.
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Magic
Sept 21, 2009 21:21:29 GMT -1
Post by Francis on Sept 21, 2009 21:21:29 GMT -1
I think the word Magic is used as an umbrella term for a whole set of really very different facilities. Obviously the most easily accessible, and the one most comfortable for all rational folk, is that of instigating shifts in perception at will – ultimately just qualitatively the same as the whole glass half empty or half full stuff. (Obviously I’m talking about producing shifts in perception that are more involved than just declaring your choice to see things differently – it’s not as trivial as that!) But there are other possibilities too. I think many of these become obsolete as technology increases and long established ecosystems degrade as human cultural relationships with the natural world rapidly change. I've burbled on here before about my ideas on how the sentience and consciousness of Spirits of Place arise out of a system analogous (maybe even homologous) to that of human consciousness itself arising out of the complexity and organisation of (non-conscious) neurones in the brain. (That consciousness, awareness, sentience and even memory and the perception of experience arises out of the physicality of the brain, rather than some ethereal, separate independent “ghost in the machine” is pretty conclusively demonstrated by observation of brain injury patients – there is no separate lodger in the physical body.) Swap neurones in the brain for individual organisms within an ecosystem. My path involves an emotional dialogue with these Spirits, and in brief moments of particular lucidity (that unfortunately I don't have the technique to sustain, or even initiate at will on most occasions I attempt) the exchange can reach beyond merely the emotional. A relationship of dialogue and exchange with the Spirit of these Sentient “Places” is what I’m looking to build. They are by any other name local gods. There are limits to my ability/power to take part in relationship with any entity – people, animal, ancestor, spirit, god whatever. There are limits too to the ability of any of the entities suggested above to dialogue or exchange within their relationships. The power of this sort of magic is finite and very context specific. Once upon a time one of the central themes of magic would have involved the very vital and precarious acquisition of food – things that had an apparent element of both logic and luck to them. A successful hunt is perhaps the sort of ‘gift’ or embrace that the small tutelary deity of a forest (or other 'eco'-system) might offer to those who know the “magic” that enables such a precise emotional/dialogue of relationship to be achieved. If that sounds far-fetched i.e. “why would a lovely wood 'guide' you to the successful hurting of a lovely feathery wood-pigeon?” - then think of the bloke who takes a knife and cuts his arm to offer blood as part of his relationship with his patron god. His apparent self – his consciousness – that has arisen out of the mindless individual neurones of his brain – (all of which are independently alive, although can’t live without the whole human system working together – just like the independently alive individual organisms, albeit not all mindless ones (but certainly even the higher organisms like the mammals of the forest have dramatically less sophisticated conscious selves than a human- the simpler ones the bacteria, fungi, plants? are by most definitions mindless) – anyway back to the bloke making the blood sacrifice, his conscious self has directed a coordinated communication of cells triggered by those of his brain to sacrifice, damage even kill other cells belonging to the system of cells that makes up his person. (None of the human cells involved, from the initial complex neuronal idea to the nerves and muscles of his hand as he cuts himself, has a knowledge, or understanding, of what their current activity is manifesting on a stage of human theatre wholly unknowable, and incomprehensibly unreachable to their individual limited perception) Hunt magic is to my mind a possibility. And I believe a case can be made for other similar forms of magic. I feel bitterly disappointed that I’ve only managed to describe the above so poorly, and in such bizarre over-nested parenthesis! Anyway my point (I do actually have a point!!) is that from the more intimate, hands-on relationship with the Spirits of Place that our more ‘primitive’ human ancestors once had came the concept of magic. As we grew away from that intimacy with the natural world we kept the idea of magic – the concept is part of our culture- almost every human culture. But here’s the thing - nowadays much of what many would hope it could be used to manifest, it just plain can’t. No mechanism exists - no relationship exists - that could bring about much of the fantasy people of an industrial, urban society hope for. As we grow away from nature the possibility to involve magic in our day-to-day lives recedes. We’re left with a cultural echo or memory of a useful power in our lives, and we misunderstand and misplace the possibilities of that power onto things that just aren’t feasible. Debbie of Plymouth probably can’t take part in a magical dialogue and exchange with the city of Plymouth to find her a partner. (For a brief time I once almost thought you could make a similar argument – but the Spirit of Place of a town is qualitatively different – though not without certain possibilities or potentials to power.)
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Magic
Sept 21, 2009 21:22:44 GMT -1
Post by Francis on Sept 21, 2009 21:22:44 GMT -1
Clare – I would never mock Debbie, I have so much sympathy for the powerless and clueless that it genuinely hurts, but I can’t help them…. The shits that I mock and dislike are those fuckers who write books that declare false potential scope and utility to magic and ritual.
That pedlar of dodgy ideas and nonsense Philip Carr-Gomm for one. At best he seems like a confused hawker of dodgy goods, with a business model he doesn’t quite understand – when I’m feeling charitable I see PGC as a sort of spiritual Del Boy Trotter, with dodgy rituals for sale out of the back of a three wheel van, but basically just an affable buffoon intending no harm- but most of the time I see him as a cynical user of the Debbies of Plymouth and her peers to feather his own financial nest and lifestyle.
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