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"Meditation = Insurrection (?/!")

  
 
Chiropteran
18:29 / 10.11.03
The following is condensed from a notebook of mine where I've been doing some brainstorming re: magick and anarchy (paraphrased for concision and clarity):

"Meditation can insulate one from and reduce one's reliance upon the authoritarian control systems which promote and exploit social paranoia, instant-gratification consumerist appetites, uncritical acceptance of the media-generated image of "reality," reactionary emotional-political positions (i.e., the demand for more stringent law enforcement and surveillance "for our protection"), etc.

"Meditation is free and requires no apparatus or energy beyond the body of the practitioner. If taught freely between individuals it requires no contact with capitalist economy or control.

"Therefore, the practice of meditation is [can be] itself an act of personal insurrection."

[For the record, the meditation technique specifically being discussed is pranayama.]

So, how does this sit with people? It's part of a train-of-thought-in-progress, so I haven't taken it all the way through yet. It is important to the above points, though, that meditation isn't to be abstracted from daily life as an "end" in itself (the dreaded "navel contemplation") - it has to be applied as part of an active struggle against domination.

More generally, do [you] people see magick and the advancement of personal freedom as more or less interconnected? How so?

Is magick compatible with domination (in its many forms), or does it seem to have an innately anti-authoritarian slant? I'd like to make a distinction here, if possible (??) between magick and magickal groups, which may be more or less authoritarian. It's the magick of the individual practitioner that I'm talking about (or the consciously insurrectionary magickal cell?).

I should also note, for the sake of discussion, that I'm currently writing from a perspective of desire-based insurrectionary anarchy (reasonably relevant link: venomous butterfly).

Thoughts? This is just something I've been thinking/writing/reading a lot about lately, so I'm looking to bounce some ideas with people.

~L
 
 
cusm
19:03 / 10.11.03
I don't think you can link magick with The Revolution, as magic itself is just a tool and way. Its the religion of Thelema that has had the effect of promoting personal freedom, directly and through offshoots such as Wicka. The idea may thus be common to modern magicians, but this is more due to social pressures than the magick itself. Magick can just as easily be used to control another as it is to free the self.

But interesting thought on meditation. You paint it as rather subversive, in a way. I like that The idea there seems to be more that spirituality itself is subversive to consumerist culture, due to antethetical approaches.
 
 
Chiropteran
20:24 / 10.11.03
cusm: Magick may just be a "tool and way," but (as is so often asked of other technologies) is it truly neutral, or is the nature of magick(al practice) such that it tends toward either repression or insurrection?

I think that, to answer such a question, it will likely be necessary to make distinctions between different traditions and practices. In the context of Thelema (so far as I understand it?), magick is a function of the Will - by definition it is liberatory, because the Will of the individual is placed above the dictates of society (and likely insurrectional by extension, because the dictates of society don't like to be displaced). But is this true of magick in general? I know many Wiccans who are very willing to use their magick to reinforce the state's powers (for largely reactionary reasons), and who uphold "legality" as a strict limitation on "permissible" practice.

Both of these examples deal with magickal religions, though. What about "secular" use of magick, or deity/spirit-related magick outside an established religious framework?

The more I think about this (as I write), the more varied "magickal worldviews" occur to me - I'm coming to think that my earlier formulation of the question was too broad. Maybe, instead, it would be more fruitful to ask if magick can be truly subversive, insurrectionary, even revolutionary? Personally, my bias is to say yes, very much so, but I'm interested to hear other opinions, especially critiques about ways in which attempted magickal insurrection could conceal counter-revolutionary pitfalls.

~L
 
 
SMS
22:28 / 10.11.03
I don't think you can link magick with The Revolution

A bit ironic on Barbelith, don't you think?

I believe that magic and religion are very dangerous things. And they should be.

In common life, there are many ways that people can be very strongly influenced (controlled). Most of us would submit to something we do not want to do if the threat were great enough, out of fear. Most of us would submit to something we thought wrong if the reward were great enough, out of greed. And there are any number of other weaknesses whereby I might act contrary to how I believe I ought to act. But if I have great strength of mind and a healthy spirit, which is sometimes called being deeply religious, then none of these threats or bribes or appeals to my weaknesses will have any effect on me. I might still follow certain rules (I might obey the law), but I would do so for other reasons. I might believe that it is right and moral, for instance. Tyrants should fear such people, who are aware that their servitude can end by a simple act of will.

But then cusm's concern about magicians using magic to control others comes in, because not everyone who has a strength of mind will have it in every respect. One may have no fear of torture for hirself but have a lust for power or wealth that will lead hir to abandon all morals to gain power. Or xe may have false beliefs about morals (or if there are no true morals, may disagree with others), or xe may have false beliefs about the world, and thus act improperly. These dangers are magnifed when humility is not cultivated and diminish when it is cultivated.

The idea there seems to be more that spirituality itself is subversive to consumerist culture, due to antethetical approaches.

I think Magic/Religion/Meditation/Prayer/&c. are subversive on a more general level than this. It is subversive to all means of coercion.
 
 
Quantum
08:16 / 11.11.03
do you see magick and the advancement of personal freedom as more or less interconnected? How so?
Magick is an expression of personal freedom, and the magician by defining themself as such defies the narrative of authoritarian control. It is harder to feel oppressed when you believe you have power the average person doesn't, and you're less likely to buy into the mundane power structure. What does political power mean when you have astral cities to construct?
I'd say magick 'seems to have an innately anti-authoritarian slant'. An act of magick is an act of defiance, doing the impossible against the belief of the majority.
 
 
illmatic
10:47 / 11.11.03
I think this a really interesting topic - nice one! I don't have time to respond in depth right now but I'll try and do so over the next few days. It's funny to see a quiet and introverted practice like mediation as potentially revolutionary, but I think it can be, if it lead you to question your received ideas and attitudes. These are going to be both personal knots from your own history as well as internalised values and attitides, I think meditation can potentially do this but isn't guareenteed to do so, it's difficult but it can be done. I suppose the question is, from a hardcore revolutionary point of view, does this lead to real change? Does personal change lead to societal change - does it matter? Is it "revolutionary" if it doesn't?

I'm thinking of an amazing documentary that was on the BBC last year about how the initial revolutionary potential of the 60's became subsumed into psychedlic introspection, when it became clear how dangerous these potential conflicts were. The documentary drew a link from acid to the Esalen Instiute through to EST and thence to shallow self-help and the consumerism of the 80's "me" generation. It was good stuff.

I believe there's quite a bit of theorising in the psychoanlaysis of the 50's and 60s about it's revolutionary potential - Marcuse and Norman O. Brown being the two names that spring to mind (as well as personal hobbyhorse Wilhelm Reich). I think I'm veering off topic maybe, but I'm just trying to point out moments when introspective practices have had anti-authoritarian revolutionary implications. This post in now 5 times the length it was meant to be (and 5 times less focused). More later.
 
 
macrophage
13:11 / 11.11.03
Depends on what viewpoint you hold speaking as a sort of anarchist I would say yes - but what about them doughnuts who are well into their cranky neo-nazi stuff with their magickal paradigm? Liberation of thee self means not oppressing en masse, we have to learn from the mistakes of the past. I am not very stringent in my politics, in the olden days - I was far more right-on. But I still believe we each have a birthright to have our piece of cake. But not to obfuscate and go down the abyss of Nietzscean Superman Idoelogies, Will = Freedom , Will does not equate with the cesspits of fascism!
 
 
Chiropteran
17:13 / 11.11.03
I think that Quantum's point about "powers the average person doesn't [have]" and macrophage's point about cranky nazi doughnuts (*Woot!*) lies at the root of the "problem" of magick, from a "revolutionary" perspective:

While magick may certainly have anti-authoritarian potential, does it also encourage (or require??) a sense of separation and elitism (or vanguardism, in the case of "magickal activism")? One's self-definition as a "magickian" (etc..) may place them "above" concerns of external authority, but how does it affect their alignment with the rest of the exploited?

Recent critiques of "activism" (per se) have drawn attention to the "activist" as "a specialist in social change" - an "expert" who simultaneously leads an action while (as a result of their status and role as "professional revolutionary) remaining above or outside of the struggle itself. The activist and the community of activists form an elite that is percieved as being more capable and "in the know" than the "common" member of the exploited community. Is the magickal revolutionary open to the same criticism?

I'm sure that there will be at least as many individual answers to this as there are individual magickians, but can we plot some trends and tendencies? (The question of magickal elitism vs universality is worthy of its own thread, if there isn't already one kicking around...)

For a preliminary response, I would turn to the recent "new forms of magick" thread and some of the comments that were made about expanding the social role of the magickian in the community - echoing Phil Hines's defintion (or was he quoting? Damn, I can't remember) of a shaman as, more or less, a "useful person in the community."

Perhaps this is the shift that's needed, at least for "typical" Western-style magickians. Victorian and early 20th C. magick was largely institutional, even where it encouraged personal liberation. Then A.O. Spare and the chaos magick set broke away from the trappings of the magickal cabal and sought intense individualism and magickal self-reliance. Without intending to dismiss chaos magick or its achievements, it is possible/plausible to view the chaos magick "movement" as a transition period necessary to shake off institutional and authoritarian dogma (as well as the commercial occultism of the New Age set) in preparation for a return to a more community-oriented role devoid of the usual religious authority vested in traditional "priests" and other professional wonder-workers.

I don't think that was where I was going when I started typing this but there you are.

Meanwhile, in response to Illmatic's question, there is an anarchist perspective which decries any organized "mass movement" as essentially counter-revolutionary, in that it has an intrinsic tendency to become bound to and led by ideology rather than an immediate and relevant appeal to the desires, passions, and outrages of the individuals involved. The "Revolution" has to begin, according to this line of thought, with acts of insurrection by "indomitable individuals" and groups brought together by affinity rather than ideology. To illustrate: the actions of a group that wishes to "advance the cause of anarcho-syndicalism" (for instance) because it seems like a rational and efficacious means to bring about social change for the "good of all" will never match the fury and passion of individuals who joyously fling themselves into insurrection because they, themselves, find their immediate circumstances unbearable under rule. The link I made (for reference) in an earlier post is to a magazine dedicated to this species of anarchy.

From this perspective, then, I think the liberatory potential of meditation (and other technologies of spiritual growth) for the individual can have relevance to the greater Revolution.

I'm not going to type any more until I have a chance to think a little more.

~L, who's doing all this while "on the clock"
 
 
trouser the trouserian
07:41 / 12.11.03
The activist and the community of activists form an elite that is percieved as being more capable and "in the know" than the "common" member of the exploited community. Is the magickal revolutionary open to the same criticism?

I would say so - over the years I've witnessed various 'elitist' groups & individuals turning up at pagan gatherings and attempting to imposed their way of doing things on those present - purely on the presumption that they know best. Of course its easy for magical folk to feel 'elite' on the basis that they are doing magic/have crossed the abyss/faced down choronzon in a cellar or whatever.

As to the community-oriented role of magicians, I feel that it's an idea which has been gaining ground over the last decade or so. However, a great deal depends here on how one deals with the whole issue of what consitutes 'community'. I would argue that there are probably lots of 'magical' people out there who are providing sorcerous support, in various degrees, to other people - be it within extended friendship networks, transient communities (I'm thinking of the camp scene - like the Earth Spirit festivals, here) or within their local area. Just getting on with the job, y'know? But until you get into a community, they're going to be invisible. An old friend of mine was very well-known in his locality for "doin' stuff" - partly through the local magical scene but mostly 'cos word had gotten round to the point where if you made noises in the right ears about needing some sorcerous assistance, you were pointed in his direction. But to most people, he was just this eccentric old dude with a weird-lookin' walking stick. He never asked for money, but on the other hand, he was never short of a nice bit of black hash or hooch.

If that's wandered off-topic, my 'pologies.
 
 
Char Aina
08:04 / 12.11.03
i have two cents, these are they.


magick is a revolutionary tool, but that doesn't mean it is a tool of the revolution.
its revolutionary like steam power was revolutionary; because it does a lot more than any similar amount of effort otherwise could.
this effort can go towards any end, and that need not be anarchic.

magick would have to be all about freedom for that to be true, and much of it is not.
 
 
_Boboss
10:53 / 12.11.03
could do with a bey quote here i think, i'm paraphrasing from memory, so sorry if i get it wrong:

'the blind panopticon of capital is still most vulnerable in the realm of sorcery - hermetic action at a distance' from millenium i think.
 
 
Chiropteran
13:35 / 12.11.03
Khaologan23ris: thank you for bringing Bey into this...

I'll be back to post more later when I have more time -- thanks, everybody.

~L
 
 
cusm
15:48 / 12.11.03
But to most people, he was just this eccentric old dude with a weird-lookin' walking stick. He never asked for money, but on the other hand, he was never short of a nice bit of black hash or hooch.

That's just the guy I hope to be one day when I'm old and crazy.
 
 
pachinko droog
15:50 / 12.11.03
Lepidopteran: Just to make sure I properly understand you...

Magick + Anarchy = holistic freedom? Evolutionary freedom? The freedom to mutate according to one's will, and by extension, cause society to mutate in a viral fashion along the lines of feedback--iteration/As above--so below?

(In many ways, this is analogous to an update of the 60's term: "The personal is the political". Except now it might be termed: "The personal is the Magickal is the political.")

PS: Just thought of a great image to go with this:

Superimpose The Fool from the Tarot over The World, so it appears he's just about to step off the top of the globe. Replace the bundle he's carrying with a red & black "circle A" anarchy banner. It would be very easy to do this in Photoshop...Maybe make up stickers from it?
 
 
Chiropteran
16:57 / 12.11.03
Back again briefly...

pachinko droog: more or less, yeah, as long as you leave the question marks where they are. I'm really more about exploring the issue than making statements about it right now.

I wouldn't suggest the "equation" as being the best form to describe it, though (I know you were probably just using it for shorthand, but it's worth noting) - what we've been talking about can't, I think, be reduced to addition, and it's not an automatic or formulaic phenomenon.

The [questioning of the] role of magick in insurrectional anarchy could maybe be likened, somewhat, to the role of computer technology in insurrectional anarchy: "Can computer technology be used as a means/tool for insurrection, or does it have inherantly counter-revolutionary tendencies (this one has gotten asked a lot)?" Or for a different comparison (more like the meditation example above): "Does the practice of (say) permaculture necessarily constitute an act of insurrection?"

The answers are likely to be ambiguous, and also depend heavily on what kind of scale the question is being asked on (in time or impact). Obviously, skilled hackers can disrupt state and corporate functioning up to a point, but the computers they work on are manufactured using damnably pollutant methods by major corporations. Where are the lines drawn? Does it make a difference if the computers are stolen?

To bring things back to magick, I think part of the reason I started off on this train of thought to begin with was a feeling of defensiveness that crept up whenever I thought about "magickal activism" - the sense that it wouldn't/shouldn't be thought of as a form of "direct action." Now, if one simply doesn't believe in magick, that's pretty obvious: No Magick = No Magickal Action. But if one does believe that magick works (which I think is a reasonable working assumption at least here in the Magick forum), then it gets a little more muddy.

We haven't actually mentioned The Invisibles yet, but might there not be some useful grist for the mill in there? At least as far as posing questions, if not suggesting answers?

~L
 
 
pachinko droog
18:06 / 12.11.03
The equation was more or less me just thinking aloud...I meant it as something akin to memetic engineering splice n' dice.

That being said, I agree with most of what your're going on about. But I don't quite understand the whole "defensiveness" angle. What is there, really, to be defensive about?

Hasn't it been amply demonstrated (by Morrison among others) that modern advertising agencies routinely use NLP techniques, for example, that are analogous to magickal attacks on the unprepared mind?

In that sense, the tools of magick are exactly as you portray computers to be. They can be used for good and bad purposes (though of course, the concepts of "good" and "bad" are value judgements based on individual subjectivity); or more precisely, to either uplift/propel humanity forward on the spiral path of evolution, or to keep humanity in a holding pattern and retard development/evolution/beneficial mutation.
 
 
Chiropteran
19:11 / 12.11.03
The "defensiveness" is the result of my conditioned need for external affirmation - the self-imposed perception that [it actually matters whether or not] my magickal actions would be seen by other "revolutionaries" as "legitimate" forms of insurrection and that I therefore would need to either give them up or form rigid ideological defenses to batter back any nay-sayers.

The thread was not intended to indulge that defensiveness or project it onto Barbelith - my mention of it in my previous post was the (real-time) realization of what was troubling me - it seems that so much of what I've said (and asked) in this thread is darned near self-evident to many of us, yet I've felt the need to grind on about it as if it were a point of contention. I think it's a question of my own insecurity. Reading back I see that I expressed that incompletely in my last post; I lost steam and just sorta stopped writing.

It doesn't make the questions any less relevant, though...

To Continue:

It seems well-established that magick, like almost anything else, has both advantages and disadvantages as a means of insurrection. Maybe we can nudge the topic in a slightly different direction and start talking specifics? Does anyone here have experience with "magickal activism?"

I think probably the two most obvious applications are binding and cursing. Has anyone here ever worked a binding on a particularly odious public figure, or a corporate binding? What were the terms?

How about other, tactical uses?

~L
 
 
macrophage
11:49 / 13.11.03
Magickal directed action - a good idea against the corporate state!!!!!
Unfortuneately, I tend to think that leaders are just mere pawns of a vast complex of oppression and that their psychic self-defence would possibly be aided just because they are closely guarded people and are always in the eye so to speak. They don't do owt for the planet that's for sure - I imagine George Bush when he comes over for a visit will be in for a hell of a chaobolting!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Keep it tight.....
 
 
Z. deScathach
04:37 / 14.11.03
It would seem to me that magick as a tool of insurrection would truly depend on the magickal methodology used. Still, I believe magick in general to be an insurrectionary tool, here's why: The powers of the state are held together by law. Any cursory examination of the legal system will show that it is based upon a phenomenon called "evidence". "Evidence", in a society that refuses to acknowledge the existence of acausal effect, i.e., "magick", primarily deals with clear cause and effect on a physical level. Magick is rooted in belief of the possibility of acausal effect. Let's assume that magick is real,in short that it is possible to produce acausal effects through it's use. The state cannot counter these effects, as the state operates on the rules of causal effect, i.e., evidence. Doing a working against an odious corporation is insurrectionary in more ways than one. That such a working cannot be countered by the state is obvious, a plaintiff coming in with the complaint, "They threw a curse on us," would be laughed out of court. The working repesents acausal effect, and therefor does not come under "rules of evidence". There's a deeper point to this however. If magick truly works, and acausal change is actually being achieved, this bypasses many of the states control measures. It bypasses not only legal control measures, but economic ones as well as societal control measures induced by religious norms. Think about it. The church teaches that homosexuality is a "sin". It tells people to "hate the sin but love the sinner", knowing full well that this flies in the face of human nature. Human beings naturally equate action with essence, it is part and parcel of how we order our world. The upshot of this is that many gay people are beaten or killed. Local police forces often "slack" on pursueing these crimes, unless of course it's so heinous that it garners the attention of the press. Let's say that you have a gay person in a small town. This person is harassed and threatened on an almost daily basis. They perform a ritual to stop the harassment. The ritual works and the harassment has stopped. How it is stopped is really immaterial. It is stopped, and it remains stopped. What has happened here is the individual has taken back their power, and circumvented the power structures. Whether the police are sympathetic makes no difference. Whether the courts are "sympathetic" makes no difference. Not only that, the individual has nuetralized the enforcement arm of the religious policy, (a study in anthropology will quickly show this to be highly fueled by religion), the gay bashers. If it is possible to do this, it's possible to bypass any enforcement arm. The real question to me isn't whether magick can be used as a tool of insurrection, as it clearly has great potential to be one. The real question is, will it be used as one. There is also the obvious fact that magick operates from a very different "belief system" than the power structure. While it's true that some very brutal power structures had evidence of practiced occultism, the actual enforcement mechanisms are very causally based, so magick, while it may be used to uphold those structures, offers the option to opt out of them, and even to work against them in a way that the system is unable to counter. Sounds insurrectionary to me. The real question is, if it is a given that magick actually functions, will enough people engage in it to topple those structures? If the practice of magick became a matter of course, and produces acausal efects, that level of practice results in an over all belief "field" that enhances it's effectiveness, (an argument could be made that this is possible, if one mind is able to bring acausal change in the midst of many minds that do not belive that such a thing is possible, then the basic premise of magick is a given, and a majority of minds projecting this "belief" will strongly enhance that premise), the entire system becomes moot. The big danger here is that the system will hunt down and kill all practitioners. Still, if it's use reaches a certain level, as was stated above, those enforcement arms could be circumvented, (i.e., across the board practice to nuetralize the pogrom).
 
 
Char Aina
04:51 / 14.11.03
The powers of the state are held together by law. Any cursory examination of the legal system will show that it is based upon a phenomenon called "evidence".

i'd be careful with that there, as there are countries who base their laws on the word of god as spoken by his prophets, and others whose laws are expanded upon versions of similarly divine works.

most of them require proof, but that doesnt mean the laws themselves are founded in 'reality' or empirically provable fact.


i guess you were talking about your country, and i guess that it is the US or the UK?
 
 
Z. deScathach
06:34 / 14.11.03
While those laws may be based upon religion, they are still enforced by councils. In short, there still is a body that determines whether an individual has "sinned", and thusly is deserved of punishment. In the example of the gay individual that I gave, there was not even a "legal" enforcement body. The actual enforcement arm is actually "illegal" in the context of the legal system, (I am speaking of a democratic country, but catalogueing the structure of every legal system in the planet is impossible in a message board post). The legal system simply turns the other way. This is no different from the murder of women in Islamic contries for various infractions of Islamic law. Technically, these acts are illegal, and yet the governing body looks the other way. When I was talking about "evidence", I was refering to the rule of law, but even in Islamic countries such as the ones that you speak of, some sort of evidence is presented to a ruling body. One instance where the rules of "evidence" actually do not exist is in fascism, where people are shot on mere suspicion. Even in that area, magick, (under the assumption that it works), would be able to circumvent the system. If enough persons work magick against the system, and magick is functional in causing change, it can theoretically topple even such a system as that. The reason for this is that magick supposedly causes acausal change in conformity with will. Therefor, if it is the will of the people that the system come down, and they perform magick, the system will come down, provided that magick actually does what it purports to. Enforcement may vary in the particulars, and in the various "mechanisms" of enforcement, but it still operates causally.
 
 
Z. deScathach
06:50 / 14.11.03
There is one more thing that needs to be considered here. Many laws in the US are based upon nebulous principles. What is the rational behind laws forbidding nudity? Is it based on empirical fact? Anything more than a cursory examination shows these laws to be based on religion. Law and Evidence are two different things. Law is the statement of a rule. Evidence is what is used to prove that the person broke that rule. That statement of rule can be based upon things as nebulous as fear, religion, taboo, or any number of things that point more to the minds of those in the society than any empirical fact. In my country, assisted suicide is illegal. It is ilegal because of a certain "philosophy". In other cultures of the past, (fuedal japan comes to mind),suicide was not only legal in certain situations, it was required. Therefor, I would hold that law in democratic countries can be based on things just as nebulous as that of a theocratic one.
 
 
Chiropteran
12:36 / 21.11.03
Sorry I kind of dropped out of the thread for a while - things have been hectic.

I'm just dropping back in for a second to pull together some strands from my other recent threads (re: Otherkin and Halloween) - some of my reading in lycanthropy is mirroring my reading in eco-anarchy and 'wild' anarchy. I think there is definitely enough common ground that an eco-minded were' could find a good outlet for their particular abilities in direct action.

*sits back for a moment, picturing a pack of ELF werewolves tearing their way across a gene-tech test field...*

Of course, White Wolf already touched on this in Werewolf: The Apocalypse with the clan struggle against the Wyrm, but I think that's just another expression of the natural and intuitive connection between were's and the wildness of the natural world (which agricultural/industrial society has always feared and represented as monstrous).

Just a thought.

~L
 
  
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