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Underground > Temple >

"Stupid" magick, religion and spirituality questions

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ONLY NICE THINGS

17:10 / 10.06.07

The Temple Sump, please. The Temple Sump. Failing that, there's a perfectly good thread now on pop culture magic to wee all over.

18:23 / 10.06.07

heya

do we have a thread on healing rituals and ceremonies? I've only done ones for myself and would love input from others how to do a collective mixed tradition one.

I'm trying to schedule one for this week for the wee kiddo Felix. While I have skillz for cat herding mixed traditions rituals I'd like ideas for specifically healing ones.

Is this a new thread topic?

*

18:55 / 10.06.07

Physician, Heal Thyself

Reiki

Shamanic Healing

*

18:55 / 10.06.07

These are the most applicable threads I could find. Maybe a healing rituals thread is a new topic.

19:16 / 10.06.07

I think a new thread on healing in general would be cool. Also, best luck to Felix and family, still sending out good vibes and healing intentions in the hope that it will help. His name means 'lucky' after all, I hope he is.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

22:05 / 10.06.07

By all means, start a new healing thread. Best to poor little Felix and all his family.

22:19 / 10.06.07

Cool, thanks. I'm thinking of a general purpose healing thread discussion. Part of my mystical bias unpacks: a magic user is crap unless they can throw down for the basics including healing.

00:52 / 11.06.07

Ooh, a thread on that as well please- the magical driving test, what are minimum skills in your opinion. Healing, divination, negotiation...

12:49 / 11.06.07

... being able to sleep, work for a living, and keep house in reasonable order? I do wonder about that question.

13:51 / 11.06.07

I do view magic as an extension of being a successful human. It is a toolset for creating change in the world and for most of us that's specifically beneficial change.

It is for obtaining our basic requirements, shelter, food, safety, health, quality companionship and assisting our community for the same goals.

If we look at the core components of magic it's all about calling in what we need, averting what we wish to avoid, and wrangling what shows up on the doorstep.

17:15 / 11.06.07

Tricksters: Actually, there's a great Eshu story that sometimes has a positive outcome for people involved, but in many versions doesn't. Here's one version. here's another version, and here's here's a third.

And Coyote is often the butt of a few stories where he starts out doing something villainous -- my favorite is one where he attempts to molest a woman he sees gathering reeds in a river by getting in the water on the opposite bank and stretching his penis out realllllly far under the water and trying to, essentially, force himself on this woman without her knowing what's going on. She's gathering reeds; she just takes her knife and cuts off the end of Coyote's penis and tosses in it her basket with the rest of the reeds.

In other words - they're not always funny ha-ha guys. They make trouble & test limits.

There's a Wikipedia article on tricksters that points out that they're sometimes malicious, but uses Loki as an example of that, which may be problematic. (There's also a problem with their outgoing links I'm about to edit....)

17:23 / 11.06.07

Wow -- I replied to the wrong page. Sorry.

Mako is a hungry fish

19:28 / 11.06.07

Well the conversation started off in this thread, so thats okay.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

00:55 / 12.06.07

I think it would be hard to argue that Loki is not malicious, at least at times.

Happy Dave Has Left

14:46 / 13.06.07

Hello, new to the Temple, so go easy.

I just got married, and my new wife was at one point in her life a practising Wiccan. I've not had much of a poke around in the Temple as yet, and haven't asked my beloved about that time of her life a lot. She told me she stopped practising because of an increasing prevalance of quote 'fucked-up people taking advantage of vulnerable, fucked-up people'.

I consider myself a spiritual person, but don't subscribe to any one set of rituals/practices/big stone buildings/places of worship, whether in large, mainstream montheistic religions, ancient polytheistic belief systems or anything else.

So, when I look at what seems to be loosely termed 'Magick' round these parts, I'm slightly bemused. How does all of this fit together? On first sight I'm seeing a blend of pagan traditions, new age spiritualism and reified mythology. Can someone explain it to me a bit?

Seriously not trying to question anyone's beliefs here - I'd just like to understand a bit more what it's all about, and where it comes from.

15:08 / 13.06.07

So, when I look at what seems to be loosely termed 'Magick' round these parts, I'm slightly bemused. How does all of this fit together? On first sight I'm seeing a blend of pagan traditions, new age spiritualism and reified mythology. Can someone explain it to me a bit?

Oooh methinks there are sort of two question in your question. Please correct me.

The first I suss out is really what is this Forum's approach to magic/k?

If so it's a varied wonderfuckcluster of approaches and styles heavy on the respect and curiousity. Like an evening in a random pub with brilliant opinionated weirdos pontificating about their favorite whathaveyou's.

The second question is a bit more along the lines of what are these things we call magic, religion, and spirituality and how do they play together in the world?

For myself I'm comfy with magic being defined as the act of changing the world/self for a desired outcome. You hear a lot about intent being bandied about in relation to this. Religion is, IMO, structured forms/howto's of relating to reality and from it one derives cosmology including ethics for the conduct of self and community. Spirituality, IMO, is the operation of being in this reality and how one chooses to act with or without the aid of a structured religion. It is the manifestation of one's spirit in the world. YMMV.
I see religions as operating systems of belief, spirituality as using the damn thing, and magic as the tiny wee process cavorting in the background to get stuff done (but not always the programs you think!)

As for the Mrs.'s experiences sadly many of us have been burned by the egos and drama of any number of groups.

Mako is a hungry fish

15:24 / 13.06.07

As for the Mrs.'s experiences sadly many of us have been burned by the egos and drama of any number of groups.

I think that's part and parcel of it, especially when you consider that magic is a business (and little more) to some people - they're quite willing to pass off bullshit in the quest for the almighty dollar; many people are willing to accept this primarily because they don't know better, or else are grasping at whatever tufts of grass are on the clifface that promise to save them from the tiger below.

16:52 / 13.06.07

How does all of this fit together?

With difficulty. It's like a dancer, a musician and a painter all talking about Art, there is common ground but also vast difference between them. The points of view in the Temple are more varied than anywhere else on the board, and you'd have a job trying to fit them all together in one head.
Your Mrs is not alone in her experience, but I would say those people don't last long here, one of the few things we *do* agree on is that fucking other people over is a bad idea, vulnerable people should be helped not exploited and that a large proportion of the occult community turn out to be wankers.

03:01 / 14.06.07

It's like a dancer, a musician and a painter all talking about Art

Oh thank you, that's just perfect. I'm keeping it.

--Ember--

Happy Dave Has Left

06:53 / 14.06.07

Thanks folks, awesome answers all. I guess my relentlessly empiricist brain wants to classify, tag and categorise everything, as that's been one of the ways I make sense of the world. Fascinating stuff though.

08:44 / 14.06.07

7, I do the same, but sometimes the categories don't turn out to be the same kind I would have expected when I started.

--Ember--

Mako is a hungry fish

09:33 / 14.06.07

And sometimes its more nonsensical than sensical, due to the overwhelming amount of categories with indepth attributes.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

11:06 / 14.06.07

Can anyone recommend me a working to make an entire fucking block of flats full of people that hate you chill the Hel out and stop hating you or at least do it more quietly? I know there's probably something with powdered sugar and rose oil in the Hyatt group archives or 5000 Spells but I'm too pissed off and upset to sort out which one to use.

13:26 / 14.06.07

Can anyone recommend me a working to make an entire fucking block of flats full of people that hate you chill the Hel out and stop hating you or at least do it more quietly?

A working consisting of five escalating steps over the course of a month:

1. Smile at them on the streets and in the halls, even if they scowl back.

2. Offer to help when you see them with packages, dogs, or small children, even if they refuse.

3. Wear an item of clothing or jewelry, carry some item, or have a pet that's likely to get them intrigued (in a GOOD way) and interested in talking to you.

4. Ask them how they're doing when you see them. Talk to them and listen to them.

5. Invite them to a party you're throwing.

You can throw in powdered sugar and rose oil, and the incantation of your choice, anywhere in the process if you want.

Steps 1-5 have worked pretty well for me in the past, though.

13:27 / 14.06.07

One other thing: I'm dead serious about seeing that as a magical working.

13:46 / 14.06.07

XK's Freely Licensed We Bee Friendz Nowz, Pleze? Cookie Magic.

You will need 1 batch of home baked chocolate chip cookies, cloth, and a plate that might not make it back.

Invoke your Helpers associated with Home, Hearth & Hospitality and ask for Their blessing.

Meditate on your personal sense of generousity and expansiveness.

Bake cookies from as close to scratch as you can manage.

While buying the ingrediants focus on memories of sweet treats given to you as a gifts.
While mixing the ingrediants focus on the care and love you share with people. Feel free to eat a chunk of dough to heighten your personal delight.
While the cookies are baking focus on the joy of eating yummies & really dig the smell.

While they are cooling prepare a beautiful plate with special cloth preferably warmed in direct sunlight. Ask your Helpers to bless the plate. As you place the cookies from their cooling rack/tray imagine they are sliding into an aura of that blessing. Remove the last cookie added to the plate (put it on with the others then take it back off).

Offer the plate of cookies to one of your neighbors. If they don't want them offer to another until someone does. People with kids are a safe bet.

Take the reserve cookie and bury it near the collective dwelling as a gift to the community.

Mako is a hungry fish

17:57 / 14.06.07

How big a block of flats are we talking about, in what sort of environment? 10 appartments, 50, 100? Rich, doing ok, or dirt poor? Clean with murals and flowers, clean, or dirty with graffiti and McDonalds wrappers?

The more people the more energy you're going to have to put into it, and the more negative influences the more you're going to have to fight them - it might just be easier to move or set up some shields, however if you've got your heart set on the greater good: -

Ward the place from negative energies, entities, etc. to the best of your abilities - I'd be using some pretty intense visualizations with physical anchors, both of which would be based on the energies I want to attract/convert/filter - i.e what a nice block of flats is like, what a nice bunch of people are like, what a nice energetic influence is like, etc. I'd also be taking photo's of the current place, maybe writting a story about it, etc. and sending them to the dump in an attempt to send any current negative energy/entities that call it home to a new home, so that positive energy/entities are more willing to come visit.

Beyond that, taking an active role in making the environment nicer (as Ev G and XK have suggested) by cleaning up what needs to be cleaned up, maybe using some self made holy water in the process, and strategically placing photo's etc (or hiding them if your landlord is uptight about changes) - doing some research into fung shui might help you in determining what needs to be changed, where, and why.

Hmmmn what else... basically I'd be trying to manifest the right kind of energy, and attacking the problem from as many angles as possible, and putting in the hard work now so that I could be lazy once things got up and running - creating a few 'recordings' of myself manifesting the desired energy into the entire complex, and then having those recordings play on a loop (to be re-recorded or topped up as necessary, as determined by my initial skill, changes to the environment, etc) would be a good example of this.

18:46 / 14.06.07

Any idea why they seem to hate you?

I would think problem-solving might be in order, if it's something changeable. I would think moving might be in order if it's something like racism. If it's something in-between, the cookies sound good to me.

--Ember--

*

18:57 / 14.06.07

Do you want them to like you, or just drop off their radar so they stop doing things that are actively harmful to you?

19:13 / 14.06.07

I'd go down the 'Ignore me' route personally. Easier to work something on yourself than a whole block of people.
You could fumigate the block with a burning bale of thai grass though, that would chill them out.

19:19 / 14.06.07

More mundanely, I'd suggest that it's unlikely *everyone* in the block is hateful. Although even a few horrid neighbours are a special kind of upsetting, there must be other people living there who aren't gits, maybe try and hook up with the nice ones? The point being it's easy to assume everyone is like the obviously annoying people in any group.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

23:42 / 14.06.07

Thanks, all. Yes, I was shamelessly exaggerating, my entire building doesn't hate me. (Just those parts of it sporadically dumping things on my landing and having loud 15-minute conferences on Why Immigrants Suck on the next landing up). Might try some variant on the cookies.

Or just move.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

23:42 / 14.06.07

Zippy: dropping off the radar is fine by me.

*

01:35 / 15.06.07

There are several things you could do then, ranging from convincing them that you're not worth bothering about, to becoming more or less invisible to them (maybe they'll assume you've moved away, or better yet forget you exist at all), to giving them a Big Distraction to worry about instead (although hopefully one that doesn't involve anything that will also impact you or other innocents negatively). I think anything in this range will work against less resistance than convincing them to like you; they sound thickskulled in that regard.

Any of those sound appealing?

Mako is a hungry fish

07:32 / 15.06.07

Stupid magic question: -

How does everyone feel about a "Serious Magic Questions" thread, where people pose questions such as TTS and look for a magical solution - people then offer suggestions and a bit of insight, perhaps explain where they got those ideas from, why and why they might not work, etc.

Basically a thread devoted to magic in practice, as opposed to magic in general.

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