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Underground > Temple >

Experimentation

09:41 / 23.12.03

I'm getting heavily into dressing up my magic with pseudoscience (largely, though not entirely because I get to use phrases like 'paracausal phenomononomy'). Using this filter has gotten me thinking: is it possible, or advisable, to go about experimenting with techniques sans statement of intent, just to see what might be useful when you actually want to apply something?

A simple example might be seeing how your mental state changes if you trance out with a musical instrument in an appropriately spookified candlelit environment. More generally, one might want to go through a new type of ritual with no particular statement of intent to explore its efficacy. On the one hand, this might allow one to determine whether a technique is a good one rather than wonder if one simply did it wrong; on the other, it might be a colossal waste of time.

Tryphena Absent

10:27 / 23.12.03

Okay, here are some questions for you, most importantly why do you think that magick is about application rather than pure practice?

What precisely do you mean by dressing it up with pseudoscience?

What type of magickal background do you think you come from?

trouser the trouserian

20:13 / 23.12.03

is it possible, or advisable, to go about experimenting with techniques sans statement of intent

Of course it is - not all approaches to magic are based on the idea of the necessity of having a "Statement of Intent" -in fact I'd say that the whole S of I business is a fairly recent development.

07:14 / 24.12.03

By dressing in pseudoscience, I basically mean that instead of developing a working image of myself as a sorceror, I'm developing more of a 1930s pulp mad scientist persona. I want to use discredited (and plain made-up) scientific theories as explanations and starting points. I'm renaming things left and right: the creation of servitors is now Platonic Engineering in my notebook, gods are extra-dimensional intelligences (EDIs), the runes are the geometric and psionic insights of an ancient culture, and so on. The primary reason, other than just to amuse and inspire myself, is because I find it easier to blend my math studies with my occultism (mathemagical theory!) using a mad science lens.

As for your other questions, I don't really have a firm background; a teeny amount of Wicca when I was about 11, then no magic until learning about chaos magic via The Invisibles a dozen or so years later. That might answer your first question: that whole 'results magic' concept has left me mostly thinking of magic as 'causing X to happen' rather than just etherically riffing.

13:20 / 24.12.03

Perfect Tommy: I love the Mad Scientist angle, seriously! If you don't mind, I'd love to see/hear a little more detail on that.

And as far as experimentation goes, as has been said above: "why not?" Just remember the tragic flaw of terminal hubris that infects your usual mad scientist type ("ah, but I am no typical mad scientist - I am a Towering Genius!! Mu-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!) and take measures to protect yourself. Even if you have no truly grandiose intentions, the role you're taking on carries psychic baggage. In the meantime, though, have fun! (And if firebreathing giant weevils destroy civilization as we know it, I'll be sending you the bill.

)

~L

"Why me?"
"Because you're perfect."

17:40 / 24.12.03

Here's a post from my LJ that goes into it a little more in depth. My main source is a roleplaying game supplement which I picked up for kicks, but I am now reading as a serious magico-philosophical text.

20:20 / 24.12.03

I wrote a long post about the Sons of Ether and Mage and the ether ate it. Then you posted on it, so i's probably for the best.
Check out Paradigma.com fo load of useful stuff abot the Etherites- I just got published there (Around the World with Arcane and Attention Quotiometer).
Coincidentally, I'm a Mage fanatic interested in real magic based on fictional sources, and I use it a lot in magical work- we should talk...

For example, to affect someone I might envision them encased in the BEGOOD (Behavioural Engineering Guarantor Of Obedience Device) which makes an exellent focus.

Nietzsch E. Coyote

06:41 / 26.12.03

I think that lj post of yours is sheer mad genius. I have used mage materials for "real" magick before but I have been trying to adapt Unknown Armies materials instead.

Pilot wave precursor monitoring suggests that this developing philosophy of yours might lead to your researches to make a leap to a higher energy level.

06:46 / 27.12.03

Thanks! Perhaps I'll make a post on Weird Science in specific when I'm less alcohol-addled.

To return to the topic of experimentation: What try-it-and-see experiments have we performed? What is interesting to observe about yourself when trying something new?

08:45 / 27.12.03

I think experimentation with altered states or whatever is great fun and should be done just for it's own sake. I've tried a couple of experiments with NLP type techniques to introduce altered states. Really powerful stuff. You can find the details on this in the back of Jan Fries' Seidways. Also tried lots of freeform visualistion stuff, Austin Spare's Death Posture (the starting into a mirror bit, not the suffocation), differing techniques of prayer and found them all valuable experiences.

02:19 / 29.12.03

This sort of open-ended experimentation often involves drugs rather than traditional ceremonial occultism. Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, for example, seem to have had interesting results with their acid tests and their creation of a spiritual "forcing house."

You might want to check out Tom Wolfe's book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test for examples. In particular, check out the chapter comparing the Pranksters with Leary's Millbrook group, which much more closely resembled classical ceremonial occultists.