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Religion, Faith, Magick, Occultism, Practice

Goodness Gracious Meme

16:56 / 26.04.04

Is it important to define your practice/beliefs under one of these headers, or another? Does this affect how you work? Are you bothered/offended if someone names your practice wrongly? Do you think yr practice is influenced by whether you consider it magic or religion? Is this influenced by how you got into it?

Been thinking about this for a while, this was crystallised by a couple of things...A poster here remarking that something in my flat struck him as magickal, whereas to me, if it's anything, I'd consider it a faith-based/religious practice. This partly as it concerns a deity I grew up with, read picture books about... And a practice that was part of my upbringing/background/habits..

Also from processing my feelings after reading Encountering Kali: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West which demonstrates clearly how conceptions of and relationships to Kali vary widely between Eastern and Western acolytes.

Not sure if this is clear, but I'm interested in how the context in which you began to practice influences how you work/think of your work?

17:47 / 26.04.04

I didn't have any exactly religious upbringing, but my later contact with religion has resulted in an aversion towards certain magical practices. For example, there are certain deities that I would never consider invoking. I think of them strictly religiously, and so it feels wrong to involve them in something like that. I can't give any logical explanation, that's just how I feel.
From a slightly different perspective, i wouldn't get involved with something like Satanism on a religious level, but I would have no problem approaching it magickally.

Although the two subjects are very much related and often overlap (like sometimes I have a link and I won't know whether to file it under magic or religion), to me they have different feelings associated. I think differently depending on how I approach it.
An example of this can be that if I think religiously, I would always consider "what would the deity want, what is my duty in this matter." Basically, I would be much more passive, submissive and altruistic. If thinking magically, it would be more "what do I want, what's fun to do." More "what can I do?" than "what should I do?"

Now, what people call what I do doesn't matter to me (most people don't anyway, since I don't tell them anything), and I don't think that it's important to label yourself. Most of the headllines have pretty vague definitions anyway, so it's probably more accurate simply to say what it is you're doing and what ideas form the basis.
Especially people who aren't into magick themselves could easily be confused if you start throwing occult buzzwords around.

21:41 / 26.04.04

I didn’t have much of a religious upbringing myself. Parents go to church for christenings, marriages and funerals and that’s about it. When I was getting into practising magic I initially absorbed some of the hostility towards religion that’s implicit in a lot of contemporary writing on the subject – you know, the whole thing of “religion is for weak who need to be told what to do, magic is for the strong who forge their own way” bollocks that gets touted around. I’ve since done a complete about turn on that position. The course of my magical practice led me towards something that is essentially a Religion that utilises magic. I wasn’t really sure how to handle that at first and struggled with the concept as it ran directly against a lot of the “post-modern” models of occultism I was aligning myself with at the time. Eventually I came to recognise this as a fear of commitment, and let go of it. I’d now define what I do as Religion, and my magical practice takes place in the context of that Religion.

05:23 / 27.04.04

Eeenteresting. Hope this isn't too scattered--

I'm reminded of how there are certain descriptors of myself which I like as nouns ('sorceror,' 'mathematician') and others which are generally true but I would prefer to be verbs rather than nouns ('vegetarian,' 'straight'). I like attaching nouns that are mysterious and sexy and cool, and represent a goal I want to feel I am moving toward; I'm less interested in nouns that are primarily limiting.

The reason I feel this is (tenuously) connected is that statements about religion and faith have a connotation of permanence to me ('unwavering' and such) that doesn't do it for me. Magick and related words connote a more, er, technological approach: if I learned a technique which made a previous technique obsolete, then I'd ditch the old one. That doesn't sound like my conception of religion (bearing in mind that others believe that faith should be tested, of course—just talking about my own reading).

Also, even though I have a strong intuitive sense of what I think is right, I am primarily a thinker, and so when I engage the Big Questions of Life, I feel I'm approaching through philosophy (thinky connotations to me) rather than through direct experience of the divine. That might be from how I got into it... I was not raised religiously, though my dad had a great interest in the Big Questions, so I inherit a 'seeker' approach: looking for whatever seems to explain things best, without having great emotional investment in any explanation from my childhood.

09:37 / 27.04.04

A very good question. To me, the first thing that has to be answered in connection to my own practices is: What is religion? If it is a set of beliefs that are taken as true, than I would have to say not. Still, I have developed a view of the universe that allows me to see my beliefs as not true. Therefor, that is a belief. Since those beliefs involve a viewpoint of the nature of the universe.... yes, I do have a religion. What I like about my religion is that I am the pope of it, so if I don't like anything about it, I can just change it. I designed my religion so that I don't have to worry very much about who is right and who is wrong. It takes too much mental energy. If someone were to say to me, "You are religious", however, I would be puzzled by that, and ask them why they thought so. As my view of the universe is one of indeterminacy, (which is, IMO, a religion), I seldom come off in a religious way to people. I once had someone tell me that I am a pan-theist. I said to him, "Isn't that the God in nature thing?" I went on to say that I don't see God in anything, although I do believe that energy matrices called deities can be formed if enough people send their mental energy to them. As far as magick, that is an easier one. "Creating acausal change in conformity with will." Yes, I do that. So it's a label that is easy to adopt. Religion is a much more sticky matter. In terms of faith, I suppose I have that too. I have an odd sort of faith that things will work out right, even when everything points to the contrary. I like Perfect Tommy's view of labels, though. It's true, I like the label "sorcerer", because it makes me feel cool. Hell, if you can't feel cool now and then, what's the point?

09:51 / 27.04.04

Well, wrap me in plastic and sell me to the baptists if I wasn’t raised completely irreligious too. Is there a pattern forming here? Actually, probably not. Well, this is one of those tricksy definition/semantic whassists threads isn’t it? Resting on the huuuge amount of subjective stuff we attach to the definitions of religious, occult, magick, spirituality etc. I can see in both Perfect Tommy’s and Gypsy Lantern’s posts a similar angle on religion – as something eternal, objective, “real”. For the record, I don’t think of myself as especially religious, it’s more that there’s sentiments in religion that I admire and relate to – that’s the sense of wonder which I see in religious texts and a sense of meaningfulness in existence. I’m well aware these are subjective qualities I’m selecting when I look at religion, taking the bits I like and forgetting the rest (very Chaos Magick).

I think this relates to the “Magick and Society” thread as well, in that religion is often defined as that which operates in a community context and can constitute social rules etc. while an individuals spiritual path is something perhaps separate from that (perhaps something in opposition to it on occasion).

On the subjective connotations tip, I don’t consider what I do magick because I’m not that into manipulating the world – very personal thing to me, and very provisional too, subject to change (subject to a lot of change right now in fact). I don’t consider it religion – religion has too many connotations of unquestioning belief, and the path I’m on is all about working things out for yourself. Also, religion ties in with ethnic/cultural/geographical identity (is this perhaps part of what you’re experiencing, BiP?) and I’m in the odd position of using a set of symbols by and large borrowed from another culture, one of which I’m not part of. I’m not a member of the religion my practice emanates from. (Also, my practice would have lots of heretical association even within that culture). I guess spirituality is the label that fits closest, but that’s a bit too bloody beards-and-sandals. Fuck it, it’s going to have to be magick.

11:42 / 27.04.04

Interestingly, I quite like the term sorcerer too, simply because it sounds cool. Magician, to me, always sounds like some old stuffy guy. Sorcerer sounds more active, youthful and just plain fun. I kinda like warlock too.
Sorry, for not really bringing anything to the thread. I just needed to say that.

19:15 / 27.04.04

Identifying yourself accurately is unimportant to me. I think what is important is having a label you feel comfortable/empowered with. For instance, I don't really like saying "I'm a chaos magician" or "I practice chaos magick." It just doesn't sound right to me. If I get in a discussion about religion/magick, I spell out my beliefs, or say "Other" (I like that one for surveys). Sometimes I say I follow a pagan offshoot path, but this isn't entirely correct - I don't really care though, as it fits my mindset when I'm doing workings.
Oh, and I'm not bothered when someone calls me the wrong thing, I just politely correct them. It's tough to keep all the different groups and subgroups straight, I understand.

In summation of my rambling post. A label is important only if you put value on the label. If saying your A just doesn't feel right, just call yourself B or L or whatever.