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"Stupid" magick, religion and spirituality questions

  
  

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Less searchable M0rd4nt
09:33 / 28.05.07
Thanks for that post, Saturn's Nod. A perspective I'd never really considered, expressed eloquently and beautifully. Much to think on.
 
 
Quantum
11:06 / 28.05.07
I can totally see how developing new skills using software, or creating collages and artwork would absolutely be “magical”. Apophenia

Mi lolcatz iz magiks? w00t! I din't realize!

I've an observation- the best posts IMHO are the ones that come from the core of people's practice, describing the stuff that's important to them (e.g. Saturn's post on compassion and limitations above). Whether someone is writing about elemental summoning or dreams or the LBRP, if it's something they are really into then the experiential interesting writing sorts itself out, I think the passion shows through the words and conversely the dull stuff is often idle conjecture or musings on pretty random stuff.
They do say write about what you know for a reason after all.
 
 
illmatic
11:57 / 28.05.07
Mi lolcatz iz magiks? w00t! I din't realize!

Actually, Quants, that is a kind of answer to Daytripper's last post. If "everything is magical" there's no place where do you draw the line, say something is rubbish or have grounds for critque or improvement. Everything becomes a big blur.

If every act of creation is magical, how or why is the Sistine Chapel superior to lolcats?
 
 
Quantum
12:05 / 28.05.07
I'd agree (except that my lolcatz are way better than some stupid old ceiling mural), I'm drinking coffee right now, is that magic? Having a poo? Going for a walk? I personally distinguish magical from mundane, and although the idea that everything is magic is appealing, it doesn't match my experience of real life. Although anything *can* be magic, actually not many things are.
 
 
Saturn's nod
12:32 / 28.05.07
I'm drinking coffee right now, is that magic? Having a poo? Going for a walk?

Drinking coffee: it's magic if it's fairtrade, or if you ade the mug you're drinking out of, or if you bought it in a paper bag.

Having a poo: it's magic if you know where it's going, and it's an appropriate sacramental recycling of nutrients.

Going for a walk: it's almost always magic, in my opinion. You're strengthening your body, entering the real world you live in, giving yourself an opportunity to meet all kinds of beings, how could it not be magic?

I've though for ages that I had no idea what 'magic' means, but your words above made something precipitate in my mind. I think any act of love-making and justice-making creativity is magic. Any act which summons forth the world in which sanity and truth prevails is magic to me.
 
 
Unconditional Love
12:54 / 28.05.07
Magic can be used to mean god, i have no problem with that.
Maybe because i have experienced that it is all god and there is no division. So yes it is all god and the multitude of expressions that are god are magic. I find that very simple.

I think we draw distinctions because we dont want to see god/magic as being the things we dont like. war etc. Its that problem of wanting magical/god like things to be only ethical moral and good. It isnt the truth of the matter as i find it.

I accepted that all the most abhorrent parts of experience were also god, reasonable or unreasonable and submitted to that, societys need to carve god in a certain image for social function, god/magic is outside as well as inside those conceptual carvings and sculptures. But even external/internal is not an actually division.

The real challenge is whole hearted submission to take things as you find them without trying to change them. Challenging the self puts the image of self at the center and not the source of the projection, which always is and is so easily given in to once accepted. Magic then becomes the way of not doing by giving it all up to god/magic with trust and faith. I find it simple. The only thing that need be applied is awareness to see the greater will as it moves around you, submit to it and change with it as it changes.

Sometimes i create a challenge, emphasise a part of myself , reflect a demon or devil, pretend a part is the totality, create a distinction, so i can learn to see through the distinction/illusion to the whole picture again. (tricksters at there best are teachers)

I still call it god, thats magic enough.
 
 
Unconditional Love
13:06 / 28.05.07
Magic as challenge as self conflict, does have a currency at the point where two forces clash, but even then that is a submission into the whole part being played internally or externally if it manifests as such. Binary systems are in essence emanating from one point in my vision of things.

Awareness gathered and gained from life is experience, whether it is currently practiced or rememberence it becomes experience as it is applied. Thinking is experience, experience does not have to be a big challenging act, it can be as simple as making coffee or tea with rapt attention or lazy unawareness, no matter where the substance may come from. It is all god/magic, no distinction, the friction that some people need to emphasise the coming together is an action in the totality of all experience.
 
 
Papess
13:48 / 28.05.07
Having a poo: it's magic if you know where it's going, and it's an appropriate sacramental recycling of nutrients.


There are actual mantras for this to "make pure offerings" of one's waste. It may seem disgusting and distasteful, but it shows that with awareness and intent, we can make every act a magickal act with applied some effort.
 
 
Quantum
13:59 / 28.05.07
we can make every act a magickal act with applied some effort.

Well yes we *can*, but we actually *don't*. It's like art, you can make art out of anything and make virtually anyhting art, but everything's not art.
Example- I just made some soup (tofu & miso, mmm) and that wasn't magic. If I'd dedicated the soup to Erzulie or deliberately used the ritual of preparing veg to calm me down or invoke the Kami of Onions or something, then it would be magic. But I didn't, so it was cooking, which is a noble pursuit in it's own right and doesn't need to be relabelled as magic to make it worthwhile.
I like what you said, Saturn's Nod, about bringing more sense and justice and such into the world, but I don't call that magic. Environmentalism, or positivity, or saning the world or awareness of consequences or lots of other things, but not necessarily magic.

In a nutshell, if I go through a mantra while pooing to consecrate my waste or thank the spirits of the food or something that's magic, if I don't then it's just having a dump. There is a difference IMO.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
14:36 / 28.05.07
Well said. "Magic is present in everything" can be a worthy starting point, but here's a massive difference between concluding "...so I need to look creatively at the way I live my life and the kinds of magic expressed within it," and saying to yourself "...and therefore I can sit around stroking my harbl and call it magic, talking about the topic at great length and occasionally having a pop at anyone who suggests different."
 
 
Papess
15:49 / 28.05.07
Example- I just made some soup (tofu & miso, mmm) and that wasn't magic. If I'd dedicated the soup to Erzulie or deliberately used the ritual of preparing veg to calm me down or invoke the Kami of Onions or something, then it would be magic. But I didn't, so it was cooking, which is a noble pursuit in it's own right and doesn't need to be relabelled as magic to make it worthwhile.

In a nutshell, if I go through a mantra while pooing to consecrate my waste or thank the spirits of the food or something that's magic, if I don't then it's just having a dump. There is a difference IMO.

Quantum, that is exactly what I mean by "with some applied effort". (Sorry about the earlier typo.). If one just relabels something, without appyling some effort to doing anything differently, (and with magickal intention), then nothing has changed it. Sorry for not being more specific previously. I thought I had been clear.
 
 
This Sunday
19:56 / 28.05.07
If "everything is magical" there's no place where do you draw the line, say something is rubbish or have grounds for critque or improvement.

Well, just using Barbelith as an example, there's been at least one lolcat post where the poster immediately critiqued their own work and intentions, and then other people did some outside critiquing as well. An lolcat with a specific goal, which when it may not have hit that goal, resulted in reconsideration. (NB, I thought that lolcat did a job fine and was pretty funny.)

I'd assume most people critique, judge, and try to make better everything in their lives as they notice things. I mean, if the water's too cold, you heat it up, right? If the soup* needs pepper, the soup gets pepper and if somebody else in the room looks like they need it more than you, you offer a bowl before you take your own.

I think I just use 'magick' as a term of appreciation or to denote the astonishing level of things. I am continually made absurdly happy by silly little things. I stop and look at birds every day, unintentionally, just because they're there. I can't separate something like putting out a plate for the local dead from petting a stray cat, working up a string of ties for a healing, or enjoying an afternoon nap.

The heart failure, thing's got me a bit misty-eyed at the moment, but I keep thinking back to when I was a kid. Somebody'd found out from my mom that my heart had stopped before I was born, they got me out and got it started again. I don't know how they found out, really, I'm just assuming, but they asked me why I thought I came back, and hungry and poor, I told her it wasn't enough time to want to stop being here.

If waters weren't magick, nobody'd ever want to go stare at the shoreline for hours or have a glassful now and then. If your job wasn't magick, you'd never remember the names carved in the underside of the front counter, or miss coworkers' particular haircuts. If your life at this moment wasn't magick, you'd not feel the need to critique and adjust that life. And we all do, whether we do it well or not, even the silliest of things are almost never just tossed out by people, and if they are, there's usually a short delay and then some critique and adjustment. We all say or do things trying to help someone, and then consider if there was a better way to have handled the situation. Or when we're pissed off and do something about it, and then sometime down the road figure if we could have taken it easier or gone down a more severe path. Magick isn't any bigger or better than living real life or when you're off the clock, and I'm hoping I'm just missing the point.


*Old Testamenty Jacob buys his brother's name for a bowl of red soup, and since that's then all the brother has then, that becomes his name. I'd wager that's what happens on some level, to anyone who's been a little flat and had to cop a bowl or glass of something off a friend or family member, good intentions or not. Having a friend pick up the bill is magick, and they can take that magickal potency and do all sorts of good or bad things with it.
 
 
This Sunday
20:00 / 28.05.07
Meant to include in last, and didn't: Saturn's Nod, really, damn good post. Always fine to see some optimistic magickal stuff, instead of all 'combatting spiderdemons so bad they peel the paint off the walls and collapse your reality tunnels!' magician-saviours.
 
 
illmatic
21:32 / 28.05.07
Daytripper: See also my point about personal challenge above. "Everything is magical" sometimes feel to me like a get out clause re. practice and challenging oneself. As I said previously I don't want to be didatic here, but magic is tied in with personal practice for me, and personal practice means something a bit more than greeting the world with a smile and enjoying the scenery. If you ain't got a solid committed practice to draw on, you're not doing magic in my book.

Gazing at the shoreline and enjoying the birdsong are both very fine things, but they are not necessarily magical practice. YMMV obviously - magic is a floating signifier as I said. I actually don't like being as rigid in drawing boundaries as this as I am, but it feels like the only way to get my point across, as I feel like I'm being continually misunderstood here. We may both use the word "magic" but I suspect we are talking about different things.
 
 
This Sunday
21:36 / 28.05.07
True enough. I figured I had to be misinterpretting, so I started a thread to spin off the conversation. Magick's a bit too amphigory, even if it is part of it's allure as a term, but hopefully something useful will come out putting models up to each other and considering.
 
 
illmatic
21:47 / 28.05.07
i think it's possibly the difference between this: I think I just use 'magick' as a term of appreciation or to denote the astonishing level of things and this: magic is tied in with personal practice for me.

I agree with you that appreciating the world's beauty, but I'm just trying to differentiate a point between appreciation and practice, I guess.
 
 
illmatic
22:09 / 28.05.07
To add to this a little bit: Say, you want to learn more about your dreams. Best way to do it is to put pen and paper next to your bed and make the effort to write them down in the morning, for an extended period of time. That's all I mean by "practice". And I think if you're going to engage with magic, you need to practice in some way for some time. Ideally you need to practice in a variety of different ways to see what suits you best.
 
 
Unconditional Love
22:38 / 28.05.07
Its the total and utter submission that creates the change in perception, without that its easy to end up fighting for what you think you want and immediately create a dualistic perception through the act of struggle.

When you stop and realise that you pretty much have everything you need, theres a magic in that. I detest the self improvement books and courses that abound these days, because at a certain point you come to understand that the self has no essence, the body rots, whats to improve? After the acceptance of death however thats experienced whats to long for or hope for? whats to magic into existence that isn't already there? To progress where? what can i possibly take with me that i have here. From my experience nothing.

So why try? Submit and see what comes your way, the magic of not acting at all but steadily moving with life's changes and wanting for nothing but a roof some food and company. I get all the support i need from being nobody and made of reflections of every person i encounter, read about or perceive, fact fiction or otherwise, it all blurs into a notion of self that continually changes as it lives. The idea that it moves from one static signifier to another is in my experience a horrible experience and leads to conclusions like, today i am liked and yesterday i was not.

What is there to change, to challenge in the totality of being where you find yourself. Love is not separation, a conflict of view points or a challenge, it is acceptance and submission to what is what ever may come, magic like love is inclusive and accepts all as it finds them. T o frame magic from a certain position is to cast judgment on those we want to be outside of, how we wish to conceive of our own magical thinking, how we wish to compare and judge others to create separation.

We decide in our opinions to become judges and forget where we began or shall constantly initiate a beginning again. opinions and judgements have a shorter life span than the majority of human beings, but get cast around as if magic/god can be spoken and belongs only to humanity.

As the self from the point of improvement casts judgment on itself it creates a negative about its being to improve upon. first the negative must be internalised for improvement or be desired. I must first learn to hate a part of myself before i can be better and face the challenge.

Submission only requires self acceptance and hopefully a wise enough heart to extend that to other people and situations we encounter, knowing the world can never be made in a perfect vision and submitting to how it is, loving things and seeing the magic in things as we find them. Magic becomes humility patience and tolerence and a careing eye cast on those we share the company of .

There is nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to be, being something is an obstacle to adapting to change as it arises, attachment to an idea of how self should be, is just as much an obstacle, not only to awareness, but to magic. There are no results of magic (or anything else) that survive death, just as there is no proof, why all the fuss? Why practice? Why not submit to the magic as you find it?

Is there a fear that without somekind of practice there will be no god or magic or love? Its there as long as i have the awareness to relate to god, magic or love. It does not take special knowledge or tools, just an open mind and heart.
 
 
Papess
12:23 / 30.05.07
There are no results of magic (or anything else) that survive death,

You can't say that for certain. What do you think all those Chöd and Po-wa practices are for?

just as there is no proof,

Kind of hard to make a definitive statement like you did above if there is "no proof".^^^

why all the fuss? Why practice?

Daily practice is simply good-housekeeping - keeping your spiritual affairs in good standing. It may mean a lot more as one keeps their practice, but that is the reasoning, at least to me, to do daily practice.

Why not submit to the magic as you find it?

I can't see any reason why one can't do that, as well as do daily practice!
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
12:38 / 30.05.07
Yes I may be jaded. In fact, I definitely am with regards to this board. I am annoyed with the limits to change imposed by the software and I am definitely growing apart from it. This is the longest post I’ve written for an eternity. However, what I’ve written above is a honest response to your posts on this forum. This is my reaction and it isn’t all simply me being a an old cynic. If you put stuff on a public forum, people are going to respond to it, snipe at it, disagree with it, react to it. Otherwise, why be on a discussion space?

I don't have a problem with sniping and disagreeing and reacting; I much prefer that to backslapping about how "my opinion matches with your opinion" because that doesn't really expand on anything other than consensual reality, and if it's all the same then I don't really need confirmations (though they are nice).

What I have a problem with is the expectation for me to move you; I think it's already been mentioned that because something is worthless to you, it's not completely worthless. If I woke up one day and decided that I'd like to fly, it'd be pretty pointless to complain if there wasn't a hurrican outside, not to mention being stupid and lazy as well; it'd be much better for me to change myself, making a set a wings or storm chasing or even just appreciating the gentle breeze on the back on my neck, than to expect circumstances to suit me to begin with.

In a sense, I’m trying to push for experiential, exciting writing on the board, rather than vague abstractions.

So what experiential, exciting writings have you contributed to the board lately? How have you inspired and moved others as of late? I'm not calling you out and saying that you haven't (it's not my style, nor do I have the encyclopedic knowlegde of barbelith needed to do so) however what I'm trying to do is suggest that if it's not working for you, than change it. While I can appreciate that calling out people to stop doing what you don't like is a necessary step towards getting what you do like, I think that actively practicing what you preach is going to have a greater result in terms of the quantity to quality ratio, and more importantly in moving and inspiring people just as you want to be moved and inspired.

All of those grabbed my attention immediately. And I think a report on any one of those experiences, or a discussion of the issues and questions arising from them, could make a great thread (lots of sensitivity required with the second, obv).

Well the second two were included to harness the energy of attention and use it towards fulfilling them, kind of like a sigil; beyond mentioning them I don't want to discuss them, the second because of the sensitivity (plus there's also a similar thread available that hasn't taken off anyway) and the third because i'd feel a bit silly, and that's pretty personal. Not to mention the whole flag waving thing as mentioned down thread, though you did ask and I'm always keen to answer questions. The first one I'm keen to discuss though, so I will start up a thread.

I'm getting kicked out of the net cafe, so I will address the rest of your questions later.
 
 
Ticker
12:45 / 30.05.07
Hey do we gots a Zen thread I just can't find?

In particular I had a fascinating if intense conversation last night about how different philosophical/spiritual approaches inform one's approach to The State of The World and one's actions in it and the other party involved in the discussion mentioned believing the World Is. This wasn't framed as some sort of epic cope out for not acting to improve things but just the perception of the struggle as inherent in the nature of things so one should not get overly invested in improvement. Perhaps I do have an overly developed sense of Making Things Better but I'd like to understand the idea of 'The World Is'. I've got a pretty good internal concept of Eternity but I guess I see the World as a finite fragile thing worthy of freaking out over as it gets trashed.

How's a Zen approach work differently?
 
 
Unconditional Love
13:10 / 30.05.07
i must admit that i do practice, but i do have to question it as well, and question the value of it.

I drum on a drum dedicated to the peacock angel in front of a brass peacock candle stick, incense, candles, water , mirror, an altar of sorts, recite prayers, have created various letter and number tables for the peacock angel and generally continue my research into communication with angelic intelligences.

i practice alot, but not on a regular basis, as the mood takes me to drum at my altar and invoke, i dont believe in making practice a routine affair, it has to feel intuitively right.

That may seem like hypocrisy to the above or paradoxical, it is in a sense but the above post informs how i am as well, i cannot tolerate anything that feels enforced in magic, even coming from me it feels like, no is, self abuse. I dont do discipline or rigid orders very well, i prefer to submit to myself as i find myself and learn to love that. Easy lazy magic rather than self punishment and self abasement to be a 'better' me, how can i possibly be a better me through beating myself up for self improvement? (plus for obvious reasons i react to what appears to be outside force as if it is harmful, and often it has its intrests at heart and not mine)

Surely submission to what is and tolerant acceptance create an attitude of greater self appreciation and love, self acceptance, warts and all.

Self improvement is heavily tied into the idea of original sin, from what i can see, as if human beings are some how flawed and should be constantly nagged by self doubt, advertising comes to mind as well, which seems to play on the same sense of being incomplete or flawed.

I think basically it comes down to, i wont be told what to do by anything that isnt god. As childish as that may appear, my experience tells me its a better rule than any self serving human attribution.
 
 
Quantum
13:31 / 30.05.07
Y'know, I thought 'Of course we've got Zen!' but after some looking I could only find this 5-year old Headshop thread. I guess any other threads are too old to find due to boardquakes but I think that means it's time for a new one.
 
 
illmatic
13:32 / 30.05.07
IWhat I have a problem with is the expectation for me to move you; I think it's already been mentioned that because something is worthless to you, it's not completely worthless.

I don’t think I said, I want to be moved, did I? I said I’d like to read writing that inspires me, informs me, and that I can learn from. Is that too much to ask? ‘Cos if it is, I’ll stop reading right now. There is a ton of writing in The Temple archive that has done this for me and which I still refer to, but I have to ask myself why am I looking at older discussions rather than current ones? If I can articulate what I don't like about the way a discussion is going, without indulging in meanspiritedness and bad temper, should I not do so? Might it not be useful? For instance, I think the points I’ve made in this thread about unexperiential discussion and magic as an act of perception contrasted to “magical practice” stand and are useful.

it'd be pretty pointless to complain if there wasn't a hurricane outside, not to mention being stupid and lazy ... than to expect circumstances to suit me to begin with.

I don't expect circumstances to suit me, as if the board is always going to generate quality content without any effort on my part. However, I don’t think it generating a substantial amount right now and in part this is my way of attempting to make things better.

So what experiential, exciting writings have you contributed to the board lately? How have you inspired and moved others as of late?

The last piece of writing I contributed to the board that I was actually pleased with is here. And it hasn’t flown – no responses and I’m wondering why. A variety of interlinked issues - the board is technically hamstrung, older members are fed up with this, the new members process is really slow etc. All this stuff makes me wonder if Barbelith can actually be redeemed, or if I should just shift to something new and more exciting the moment it comes up. I'm veering heavily towards the latter at the moment.

The first one I'm keen to discuss though, so I will start up a thread.

I could possibly contribute to this. I've experience in both weightlfting and Chinese martial arts.
 
 
Quantum
13:35 / 30.05.07
Self improvement is heavily tied into the idea of original sin, from what i can see

For me it's an offshoot of the idea of evolution, or possibly progress, nothing to do with sin original or otherwise. I like to improve, not because I think I'm bad but because I want to be better.
 
 
illmatic
13:38 / 30.05.07
I should probably add that the slowing down of the board is something that's been noted by a lot of other people and it isn't unique to this fora - for instance, several people have mentioned this with regards to Headshop recently. There's a lot of material in Policy if you want to bring yourself up to speed on all the issues.
 
 
Unconditional Love
15:28 / 30.05.07
I am not sure about that, i see a common line between scientific notions and christianity, both look mostly outside for answers and judge by what comes from the outside in as a process, improvement seems to be a reaction to reflection and not to the self, early ideas of science sought to (from christian cultures) understand god and his creation and have inherited some basic assumptions about how the outside acts as a measurement of self.

It seems similar to the notion of devotion to that which is beyond man, rather than man and everything else as a condition of what is.

If you look at the new thought movement and for example the author of positive thinking, and read or listen to enough self improvement material you can clearly see christian origins in the material, the same with inherited view points in science, and assumed method.
 
 
Quantum
17:21 / 30.05.07
I want to be better than I am. How is that science? Or religion? Wouldn't it come under 'education' or 'practice' or 'motivation' or something?
 
 
This Sunday
18:16 / 30.05.07
I agree with all the improvement and pushing new territory and refinement sentiments here, I just feel it's putting the cart before the horse to say it's whether you call the thing science or magick, or whether some people can use a term to excuse laziness or bad work, that is most significant. Some people can use any term to defend their position of no progress and no effort. It could be magick, it could be science, psychology, Catholicism, spiral dynamics, apathy, American-bred consumer culture, the death of Kurt Cobain or Immanuel Kant...

I just don't think that's most people. Most people do things that don't matter and still try to refine the practice. And not to get all William Jamesy, but yeah, for me, appreciation has to come hand in hand with any practice. It's all extropy of one sort or another, even the stuff that pretends to want to take giant steps backwards. Because there isn't really ever any backwards, culturally or individually, just new formats that sort of resemble some old ones.
 
 
Unconditional Love
20:39 / 30.05.07
Now thats interesting, because giving up actually takes a huge amount of effort, setting aside all those desires and aspirations and settling for what comes is alot of work.

In some ways its much easier to keep busy and keep moving, than it is to really kick back and relax with no aspirations at all, in fact it takes alot of practice. i seem to have been goaded from one thing to another by a search for something, and to stop searching and just be, is alot of effort.

To be well and truly lazy goes against all my internal expectation, to just stop trying to be and be what i am is rather alot of effort, when the socialisation process would have me being half a dozen of one thing and half a dozen of another.

Being really lazy is really hard work, loafing is kind of half of the course, but its not total and utter submission, giving the self over to what ever may come.

Work and practice are the easy option, just follow the scripts, give up the idea of a script and you just have random events to laze into.
 
 
Unconditional Love
20:43 / 30.05.07
The sense of nonsense can be a good guiding principle when none of the work is working.
 
 
Haloquin
23:39 / 30.05.07
Self improvement is heavily tied into the idea of original sin, from what i can see, as if human beings are some how flawed and should be constantly nagged by self doubt - Raniel

I really dislike this sentiment intensely.

I do a lot of work on 'self-improvement', and I reject the idea of original sin completely. I, in fact am trying to regain 'states of being' that I believe I had originally, that have been, as I see it, socially conditioned out of me because the society I live in has many many unhealthy patterns related to gender, sex, money, personal power, etc etc etc.

But then, my idea of self-improvement is recovering my core Self, improvement of 'self' i.e. the self I show to the world, is filtering out the unhealthy, useless ways I interact with the world from my sets of masks/tools/methods of interaction, in order to allow the Self that is most me to shine through.

At core I completely and utterly reject the concept of original sin, it never felt even remotely right, even when I was being brought up with Christian family, and yet I still recognise, and actively embrace the possibility of being more me in my daily life, of learning new skills, and of improving how I am in the world.
 
 
Stigma Enigma
02:01 / 31.05.07
A few months ago, when I began consciously practicing magick (I italicize because before I was practicing certain things without calling them magick...) I also started having an overactive thyroid. So my metabolism has been hyped up and I've lost 12 pounds in two months, but I am taking medication and seeing a doctor and taking care of it. A lot of my girlfriends are jealous because I'm losing weight with little effort and they want to kill their thyroids now, its pretty funny.

That said...I don't want to blindly read into this and just assume some underlying connection between these two events, but I'm wondering if anyone's had any sudden physiological change like this as they became more actively involved in their practice. I don't really believe anything is "just" a coincidence but I want to get some outside takes on this, hence the post.

Other than that little issue I'm healthier than ever, physically, emotionally, and spiritually...which also went along with the intensification of my practice.

Thoughts? Similar experiences? I would have just asked my doctor but I don't think she's into that sort of thing, heh heh. Barbelith on the other hand....!

Thank you for being the only people that, at this point, I can address these types of concerns to. I used to go to Catholic church once a week, now I visit the Barbelith temple at least daily and its not as guilt inducing.

E
 
 
Imaginary Mongoose Solutions
04:41 / 31.05.07
"When you stop and realise that you pretty much have everything you need, theres a magic in that."

I can't say that I disagree there, but...

There's a lot of the rest of what you say that really rubs me the wrong way. To connect self-improvement with original sin just seems vaguely reductive in the extreme. (And my bias may be showing as I pretty much find the concept of Original Sin to be morally reprehensible.)

I mean Tyler Durden said "Self improvement is masturbation" and it's no more an insightful piece of wisdom now than it was then. Yes, people CAN engage in self-improvement in unhealthy ways, but that's not the end of it. Of course much self-improvement is also basically unlearning things that society has instilled in you, sure. But that doesn't make the drive to remake yourself in your own image any less real or valid.

The world is a wonderful place and (in my book) the only heaven that we will ever have. But still, people suffer, people struggle with addiction, oppression, violence (physical and ontological), and all number of ills. And while, I can acknowledge these things as part of the world, that doesn't mean that I won't struggle against these forces till my dying day.

The world is system, and it is a working system, and it is a system that gives birth to so many new and wonderful things... but the only way those new and wonderful things will continue to be new and wonderful is if people keep striving and making them work. This can mean many things, but for me, it means a certain amount of action In The World.

Or, since I'm quote-happy, it's like Ani Difranco says, "but god's work isn't done by god it's done by people". We *gestures around the room* are the hands of god and we are the only hands around to catch us if we fall.

And certainly, even should some disaster befall us, things will still be and the world will still be the best one we have... but I don't see how accepting the beauty of the world prohibits someone from trying to fashion a better one. I mean, yeah, if I can escape the poisonous ontologies of the society I find myself in, I can either be an island unto myself or I can reach back for anyone who wants to come with. Hell, it's my responsibility.

Which is kind of at the core of my magical practice.
 
 
Unconditional Love
16:28 / 31.05.07
i would ignore my outbursts of utter fucking bullshit sometimes if i were you, they seem to have been happening rather alot lately, until this post now.
 
  

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