Path: typhoon.sonic.net!not-for-mail Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.pagan.magick Subject: Discussions About Magic (Rudiments, Paradigms, Components) References: <8d9826c7.0406280648.28d1fa05@posting.google.com> <40E2A53A.C384D98E@luckymojo.com> <8d9826c7.0406301245.68ee84ce@posting.google.com> <40E39F63.EEBC175F@luckymojo.com> <8d9826c7.0407011605.4f8e5246@posting.google.com> <40E50B8A.BFE96679@luckymojo.com> <8d9826c7.0407020915.59c37ef8@posting.google.com> <40E62CC6.15E4B020@luckymojo.com> <8d9826c7.0407031223.3d85fc16@posting.google.com> <40E7A6B5.6BEBA787@luckymojo.com> <8d9826c7.0407041318.61b669f8@posting.google.com> <40E9C430.A1FB7C12@luckymojo.com> From: nagasiva Reply-To: spam@luckymojo.com User-Agent: nn/6.6.0 Lines: 249 Message-ID: <3SsKc.2963$54.37542@typhoon.sonic.net> Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2004 11:07:43 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 208.201.242.18 X-Complaints-To: abuse@sonic.net X-Trace: typhoon.sonic.net 1090148863 208.201.242.18 (Sun, 18 Jul 2004 04:07:43 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2004 04:07:43 PDT Xref: typhoon.sonic.net alt.magick.tyagi:47887 alt.magick:380073 alt.pagan.magick:41584 50040718 viii om Nihilist: >>> We are expressing different views of magick. more properly, you are discussing different views of magic, of which magick (Crowley's) is one which is enjoyed and promoted by his cultists. some have made it clear that they are not of those who have succumbed to the great aura of the Beast, believing his writings because they found them so amusing. an interjector: >> You, Nihilist, do high magick - if you like the >> scientific study of the mind and its powers. You >> are like a physicist. You seek Silence as a >> route to knowledge. IOW a mystic using 'magic' to get somewhere. the term "high" prepended usually implies the religious aspect (moral, approved, of greater value, etc.). sri catyananda : > [Nihilist] is not like a scientist so much as he is like a > religious adherent. He enters the field with an a priori > "authoritative" set of assumptions about what magic is many practitioners of skills or users of technology do this. it is a kind of rudimentary attempt at theorizing, in which a single paradigm is absorbed and set up as a Known, hoisted up for others to knock down. sometimes this never happens, for whatever reason. one can see the same thing happen in the realms of philosophy and religion, with which these philosophical and technological discussions sometimes intersect. > and what tools and techniques it employs and what results > should be forthcoming if he follows the rule-set and > system in which he confides his faith. indeed. so one is left with: a) accepting his lexicon and limited perspective then responding to it or asking questions within it or b) employing another and ignoring him. >> Cat is a witch. Not a magician. She follows rules of thumb, >> and sometimes manages to get results, or she would say so. > > I am neither a witch nor a ceremonial magician. as if the termsets are all coincident. by my (biased) termset you're a witch, but that doesn't surprise me, nor, since we have discussed this, does it surprise me that you say you are not a witch, given what you think witches are (quite rational, and given your meaning I agree with your assessment -- it can be fun to assign all these terms meanings and then apply them across the spectrum of the observed cosmos; I did it early on as an extension out of role-playing games, which have some of the best magical-metaphysics descripts). > Note that i said "ceremonial magician." There is a reason > for this: One of the basic Crowleyan cooptions of the word > magician, built into the Crowleyan rule-set, escalated by the more modern and illiterate use of the term 'magickian' I would add. > is that a magician is one who practices ceremonial magic > in emulation of Medieval and Renaissance European urban > magic. This definition is peculiar to Crowley and his > followers. I'm curious. don't you think the Golden Dawn did it too? what about John Dee and the subsequent Enochian mages? what about Solomonic mages? > It is not a good working definition of magic which do you prefer? we've talked about this before, but few actually get down to the nitty-gritty and convivially ask these kinds of questions, plus many of us are changing our termsets over time, refining them, so I'm curious. > which does not serve > well those who use the word magic in a scientific, > anthropological sense. by this you may mean the sociological? i.e. academics who believe that it achieves no more than some limited societal conscousness-change? or are you pointing to something more attuned to the hyperskeptics trying to push down practice until they see the Randi Challenge bested? > Furthermore, it can be demonstated, > by an inspection of the writings of Çrowley, that his > peculiar delimitation of the term magick (with the final k) > was not always what he himself was referring to when he > wrote of magic and magical acts. correct. this is most obvious in his "Magick" (/Liber ABA), in which he differentiates "White magick" from "black magic" based on whether or not it includes his angelic mysticism as part of its overall aims/effect. I gather he obtained this generally from the GD and other Rosicrucian mages (that if it wasn't mystical it wasn't good/white/authorized/recommended). correctons welcomed. it wouldn't surprise me if this wasn't something that was transcultural and employed by theurges to co-opt magic as I am using the term (see more below). > What is important is your announcement, at the begininng, of > the rule-set "Silence is a route to knowledge." it relates to the zennie contention that shutting up and reflecting is sufficient to transmute the ego into something superior, reconfigure the consciousness into something admirable, and thereafter go on to alchemical glory (itself a kind of modern syncretism of grand proportion). > I have nothing against Neo-Buddhist Physics, and i'm sure > Crowley would have loved it.... he was apparently taken with Buddhism initially but he and his instructor Allan Bennett apparently didn't always see eye to eye on the matter. eventually Crowley seems to have put Buddhism down because it wasn't egotistical enough for him (LOL). corrections welcomed. I note that LOTS of Thelemites (/Crowleyans) enjoy Buddhism and have focussed a good bit of energy into it -- compare the OSOGD). > For me, for instance, the distinction between magic and > witchcraft is anthropological rather than philosophical or > theological. anthropologists have seemed to arrive at some consistent usages of the terms, which is helpful. we could compare some of them in this newsgroup set if you like. > I see it .... > as being so based in cultural tradition and so difficult to > dissect from the observer's underlying paradigms regarding > race and class politics, that to even seek to speak with > "authority" about what form of magic or religion "works" or > doesn't "work" is folly. the term 'work' would need be concisely defined. the process by which such contentions would be either undermined or affirmed would also need be concisely specified. tests could be carried out. the skeptical might rejoice (but I doubt it). 'form of magic or religion' will of necessity be dependent upon the characteristics assigned to each. there is a good volume of discussion on the meaning of these terms and what qualifies for them, both within the anthropological literature and within transcultural practitioner contentions. within this newsgroup a number of helpful starts have been achieved in coming to identify the characteristics of magic as compared with anything else with which it might be confused. those lexicons which do *not* distinguish are usually religious (in the sense of dogmatic, contentious, and biased). > Two examples of such folly should be enough to > demonstrate the matter: > 1) There are and have been great Christian magicians I'm not convinced. there are stories of great Christian theurges. in general Christians can't do magic without it becoming the responsibility of the God, from what I can see. ultimately, like most religious, they leave it up to the religious (/moral) authority to sanctify the operation in question. arguably this is theurgy and not thaumaturgy (which I regard as magic proper -- the God is the essential magician *for* the theurge, and this is even true amongst the Hermetic Homo-Est-Deus-ians who pose as Thelemites ;>). who are your favourite historical Christian magicians? > -- but > Aleister Crowley, stunted by continuous rebellion against > his wounding Plymouth Bretheren upbringing, would have us > believe that is impossible.... arguable. he identifies one of the Logoses as "INRI" in his "Liber Aleph", so arguably where he overlays Krishna and Kristos he makes it possible for those operating by the stated formulae to do a kind of Christian magic. he does not state that those of previous aeonic authority (old aeon) cannot do magic, only that they may be some- what hampered if they do not coordinate with the New. > 2) > There are and have been great and powerful indigenous > magicians in many cultures throughout history granted, mostly we come to know them by virtue of rumor, legend, and religious glorification (a further argument for the Power of the God as Magician Behind the Scene). > -- but modern > European and American observers have claimed that since the > regions or nations in which those magicians dwell are not > exploiting natural resources to the extent that our nations > are, their poverty can be taken as a sign that there is no > "real" magic in those cultures or, alternatively, that the > magic is at best a "primitive" or "low" form of "power" > seeking -- the same terms by apologists for imperialism and > economic hegemony when they seek to justify destruction and > rape of the regions and nations whose resources they desire. a lovely argument. > This is a definition of magic from the barrel of a gun: "Our > nation won, so our juju is stronger than yours." .... this is in part what comes from identifying magic with any kind of technology. if we can do more than you our magic is superior. if magic is the ability to spit, or blow one's nose (as in Crowley's Magical Link illustration, amusing), then anybody is a "powerful mage" and again whatever I can do better, intentionally, than you, is my more powerful magic, and especially where our wills are in contention (in this case 'might makes magical-superiority' which can just as well fold magic into science/engineering just like the sci-fi writers like ACClarke and academics like Thorndike enjoy). if magic actually requires some structural and content- based aspects or characteristics (which I contend must be if we are to speak rationally on the subject), then we can begin to look at what magic is, what it can do, what it has been attributed as causing, and whether any given culture can be said to have 'more powerful magic' than another merely on the basis of imperial might; control over resources, knowledge and physical technology; or the foresight to win exploitation rights. :* nagasiva