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Magick Q&A

10:52 / 13.11.03

I think it's about time we had a Q&A thread for the Magick, so here it is. Please ask any questions you may have about anything magicky and our combined expertise will provide a variety of answers (probably contradictory but y'know, 'Anything that can be believed is true').

So, I'll start;
The Otz Chaim, the Tree of Life of the ten Sephiroth, can be considered as three pillars- the spheres of each pillar sharing certain qualities- so what are they? I vaguely remember the middle pillar being the Mystic path (instead of the magicians zig-zag lightniong bolt path) and the left and right being feminine and masculine, can anyone shed some light on it for me? I know there are qaballistas here, don't be shy...

15:06 / 13.11.03

To answer my own question, Binah-Geburah-Hod is the pillar of Judgement on the left, Hokmah-Hesed-Netsah is the pillar of mercy on the right, the middle pillar is the pillar of mildness.

I don't quite get it though, the left hand pillar of Judgement is female/passive/negative where the right hand pillar of Mercy is male/active/positive. How does that work?
I would expect it to be the other way round, can anyone explain?

17:41 / 13.11.03

I never just accept what my web research tells me... so I tend to discard all that "mercy" and "severity" denotations and try to find something better that fits with current linguistic context.

What works for me is actually turning the tree on its side, with the mercy-masculine pillar as the top row.

Instead of focussing on the "climbing" apsect of the tree/ladder, putting it on its side helps me see the movement of energy as it "falls" from the top row directly to its bottom row partner. The first sephira is unity, duh. It's the universally manifested all sides-of-time God. Next, it's the column of universal divine abstractions, of things that work in the use of the "it" pronoun. Chokmah is the Change of IT while Binah is the Shape of IT. More importantly, the top row is about WHY a things is, and the bottom row is about HOW a thing is.

Compare this with the second column in the sideways tree, Chesed-Geburah. This is the column of abstractions that exist in the context of a people, a group or a collective... of things that work in the use of the "we" pronoun. Chesed is the Work/Giving of WE while Geburah is the War/Judging of We. Work and Giving is WHY, and War and Judgment is HOW -WE exist.

Next is the Sephira of the Self, the Holon of the Ego, the sephira that denotes how we are both one whole and yet a single part amongst many. Thus, Tiphereth HAS to exist between the column of the WE, and the column of the ME.

The third column is the two abstractions that exist within each individual. The first is WHY the me exists, infinite star of emotion and love that constantly heats and flavors thought. The second is HOW the me exists, by building truth and reasoning that allows for us to commune with other individuals.

Sephira Nine is the interface that the ME has with its singular experience in Sephira Ten, the Manifested Reality.

18:16 / 13.11.03

Traditionally speaking, the right hand pillar under Chokmah is called the Pillar of Mercy. The pillar is so named because of it's central Sephira, Chesed, though it may be more accurate to call it Gedulah - Love. Chesed is the recipient of the Will of God (the energy of the Supernals) refracted through the Prism of Daath. It is the first manifestation of form, although in a very subtle state. It is Love as the primordial manifestation below the Abyss. Thus the pillar is the Pillar of Force as each of it's Sephira are manifestations of the primordial energy exemplified by Chokmah.

The left hand pillar under Binah is called the Pillar of Severity. It is named as well for it's central Sephira, Geburah. This sphere is where the subtle form of Love is given motion under the judgement of karma, the correction of the formative element. Love under Law. The left hand pillar is thus the Pillar of Form, as exemplified by Binah.

The central pillar is the Pillar of Beneficience, or Balance. It is Balance in that it is the median between the left and right pillars, but also that it is the path of ascension for the balanced soul. Note that the central Sephira is Tiphareth, the Mirror - another form of balance between the upper and lower tree. This path also includes Daath, the ultimate balance between the Absolute and Creation.

21:53 / 13.11.03

Earlier Magick Q&A here

Just for a looksee.

22:56 / 16.11.03

If you find the columns make sense better on the opposite sides, just remember that the tree is upside-down with it's roots in the air.

Do evoked entities have physical quality?

01:11 / 17.11.03

Do you?

Boy in a Suitcase

04:03 / 17.11.03

Evoked entities will often appear as people post-summoning, and then you just won't be able to get rid of them, no, not in the slightest.

14:22 / 17.11.03

Thanks all! Thanks Trix for the link to the older Q&A too.

Adam Kadmon, anything more specific? Some do, some don't, some will manifest as noises and some as a person (cf. BiaS above) do you mean a physical presence as an object or as a physically causal agent?

And another question, why is an Athame (magic dagger) called that?

18:27 / 17.11.03

Traditional forms of Evocation use props like smoke for the entity to appear in, the goal being a visible manifested form you can identify. So yea, if done right, they can gave physical form, or at least convince you that you saw one (more to the point). Evo = outside of the self, where as Invo = inside.

18:43 / 17.11.03

The best I could web-fu on Athame is a link to an Arabic word "i-dalm", which means "bloodletter", and is related to a modern term for knives.

I suspect Crowley was responsible for that when he worked with (or wrote outright as a freelance work, depending on the account) Gardner's Wicca.

10:32 / 21.11.03

Ta cusm, the mystery continues... I asked at Boscastle Witches museum where they keep a load of Gardnerian correspondence and stuff but they had no idea either. Crowley's brain (or possibly Gardner's) seems to be the most likely origin I've found so far, it's got that faux-classical ring to it.
But it's shrouded in mystery, I thought it was a simple question I just couldn't find the answer to- guess not.

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

04:18 / 28.11.03

Ok, here's a question I've never gotten a good answer to:

What the hell is Orgone?

09:16 / 28.11.03

It's been a long time since I've read Wilhelm Reich but isn't orgone an energy? I would love to see a Reichean therapist at work. The all-pervasive energy that people call different names like bioplasma and that. I keep meaning to construct an orgoneaccumulator pyramid to place sigls in but I always seem to procastinate. Could you say chi is the same thing as orgone? Should read him again....

09:28 / 28.11.03

It's 'Life force' really, or the star wars Force.

Her's an Orgone website and a handy article

"Franz Anton Mesmer called it animal magnetism; Charles von Reichenbach called it odyle. To Henri Bergson it was the elan vital, the "vital force;" while to Hans Driesch it was the entelechy . Sigmund Freud observed its functioning in human emotions and termed it libido. William MacDougall, the great British - American psychologist of a generation ago, labeled it hormic energy. Dozens, if not hundreds, of lesser - known scientists have recognized its presence and have given it a name to characterize its special properties. Among the 20th-century proponents of the concept are, for example, Doctors Charles Littlefield and his vital magnetism and George Starr White and his cosmo-electric energy . Mechanistic science in the 17th through 19th centuries embraced many of its essential qualities in the concept of the ether, while mystical human beings have embraced other essential qualities of it in the concept of god.

Orgone energy is Wilhelm Reich's name for the substratum from which all nature is created. The best definition this author can provide for it is this: Orgone energy is the creative force in nature. "

09:53 / 28.11.03

Yup, correct, Orgone is indeed Reich's term for energy. Reich was an Austrian psychoanalyst, who was a studied with Freud. Freud's psychoanlysis makes much use of the term "libido" as the force energising neurosis and so on - a kind of psychic economy if you will.

Reich took this metaphor as something very literal and based his theories and experiments on the investigation of this energy, with the ability to discharge of excess of damned-up and excess energy in orgasm being the acme of health from a Reichian viewpoint. Reich called this orgiastic potency, thus Orgone. "Reichian" or orgonomic therapy is based on breaking down muscular blocks (tensions,usually with their origin in childhood, that we have become unconscious of) to allow the free flow of this energy through the body.

He went on to study how this energy might manifest itself in living organisms through doing experiments with protozoa, and he felt that the pulsations he could see were an expression of orgone. Eventually he concluded that this energy and had a parallel with the charge and discharge that he saw in the human body. These experiments eventually led him (can't recall how exactly) to conclude that this energy was also present in the environment and could be manipulated through a device called an "orgone acculmulator", which he used to treat a variety of ailments. Orgone went on to play a central role in Reich's rather odd cosmology, and the use of the acculmulator eventually got him in trouble with the FDA, leading to his imprisonment. He dies in prison in 1957.

It all sounds like crazy stuff but it's worth investigating. For one thing, Reich took a much more systematic approach than most of the people who bounce around the term "energy". For more info see Reich's Function of the Orgasm or Myron Sharaf's biog. Fury on Earth.

11:52 / 28.11.03

Macrophage: It's been a long time since I've read Wilhelm Reich but isn't orgone an energy? I would love to see a Reichean therapist at work. The all-pervasive energy that people call different names like bioplasma and that. I keep meaning to construct an orgoneaccumulator pyramid to place sigls in but I always seem to procastinate. Could you say chi is the same thing as orgone? Should read him again....

While there are distinct differences between chi concepts and many conceptions of "bio-energy", there are many parallels between the chi concept and the orgone concept. I find it interesting that much of restoring orgone energy revolves around dissolving blocks. This is a very close parallel to the chi concept, as cultivation of relaxation and the releasing of blockages in meridians are considered essential to restoring chi flow in many systems. There are taoist schools, however, that believe that the best way to cultivate chi flow is through "allowing", simply allowing the energy to restore itself through "wu wei", or non-interference.

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

23:49 / 28.11.03

< It all sounds like crazy stuff but it's worth investigating. For one thing, Reich took a much more systematic approach than most of the people who bounce around the term "energy". For more info see Reich's Function of the Orgasm or Myron Sharaf's biog. Fury on Earth.>-Illmatic

Actually, it doesn't sound crazy at all. What it reminds me of, and I could be totally offbase here, is the energy that gathers in chakras throughout the body. It sounds very much like a scientific name for the natural power/energy/whatever that living things put off into the environment.

07:49 / 29.11.03

I mean it's pretty freaky from an orthodox scientific POV. Reich still gets wheeled out by the Skeptics association (whatever there called) as a poster boy for all things insane and unscientific. And, to be fair, some of his writing, espcially Cosmic Superimpositon where he gives a cosmology based around Orgone, is a bit mad to be honest. Though if you did want to test some of the ideas you should be able to find nstructions re. orgone acculmulators and so forth , online pretty easily.

09:33 / 29.11.03

So has anyone tried the "hollow metal poles in the ground" storm attracter?

15:33 / 29.11.03

Not that one, but I've played with an orgone generator. It felt like a cool wind blowing throgh my hand when I passed it over. It also struck me as feeling just like Reiki. Reich, Reiki, Reichi... That's too funny. I might have to start calling Reiki Reichi for that

Its also a feeling you can get playing with a tesla coil. There were some experiments with combining the two to create orgone generators, unsuprisingly.

00:02 / 25.12.03

Here's a tough one: what is magic?

(I prefer it without the k for some reason.)

08:21 / 25.12.03

Why is that tough? Magic is a) changing reality in concordance with one's Will b) an acausal connecting principle or c) other, personally defined. Take your pick.

12:11 / 25.12.03

Question for forum *memebers (*Does that word make more sense to others spelled that way? Not my actual question, BTW):

Would others here like to participate in a discussion on polyamoury and magickal paradigms? Would I be just be asking for a boxing of my virtual ears and booting of my virtual butt? I am asking in advance because I will need some time to mock something up fairly intelligent and cohesive, (not to mention, relevant to magick) before posting it here...it will take some effort, as intelligent and cohesive do not always flow easily from me.

So, what do you all think? Ya ready?

trouser the trouserian

14:46 / 25.12.03

yeah, go for it May!

23:12 / 25.12.03

I'd certainly like to hear what you have to say about it... I'd hazard, however, that the set of people who practice both polyamory and magick is a pretty small intersection of two pretty small sets, so things might get awfully theoretical...

23:43 / 25.12.03

Go for ya life, May. As Tommy says, it'd be a bit theoretical (for me at least - I've only ever had monogmaous relationships) but I'm sure it would throw up some interesting stuff.

17:06 / 30.12.03

Thanks all. I will be writng something in longhand initially then posting it here as soon as I can. For now, I have made a segue in the Head Shop to the issues I wish to discuss here. Cheers! Later magickal dudes!