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Evolving Magcik

  
 
LVX23
16:03 / 21.09.04
I posted this to Key23 and figured I'd throw it into the Barbelith mix and see what comes out...

Chaos magick needs to grow up. It seems to be going through this decadent, self-serving, materialistic phase where the great work is little more than wanking off for a new job or lover. Where, contrary to Old Uncle Al, results are everything. This type of magick only serves to further separate the mage from the rest of humanity and basically reinforces the primate alpha male instincts that have been fucking everything up for so long now. This is where chaos magick starts to become indistinguishable from LaVey’s satanism. It becomes sorcery for personal gain.

We live in dangerous times. Life as we know it could easily be wiped off the face of the earth, or shackled to the machines of war and greed, stripped of freedom and sold to the highest bidder. The planet that bore us strains under the weight of our consumption and the blind ignorance of growth. Help is direly needed.

I suggest that the only good magick is magick that goes beyond the individual and seeks to empower us all. We need magicks to feed our hungry souls, to ease the suffering perpetuated by wrathful parents and unloved children, to bathe the natural world in the glow of primate love and adoration. I want to hear more about deeply ecological rituals, about blatantly political acts of magick, about group rights held in american malls and football games. This is where the rubber hits the road. All else verges on solipsism.

We control psychic and aetheric energies. That’s what magick is all about. Let’s put it to good use and boldly move to oppose the great forces of evil marching across the globe. Whether you’re overtly seeking to depose powermongers or petitioning the goddess to bring love and compassion to all species, step out from behind your fear and give a little bit more of yourself to enkindle the spark of freedom and life that flows through us all.
 
 
vargr
23:31 / 21.09.04
I think that part of the problem stems from the fact that in the world state we find ourselves in at this moment, so many sorcerers are using their abilities to keep aspects of their own daily lives together. Even when someone has done their best to break out of the greed-motivated socio-economical systems that surround us, and are willing to work towards the greater good; keeping the bills paid, supporting family members who have lost their jobs, and trying to plan some kind of proactive course for themselves and their families to follow eats up too much of their time, energy, and enthusiasm to look far afield to do good works. I know that I myself am certainly in this category.

I do what I can to contribute my support to endeavors that better the lot of the many, but it is a constant effort. I agree that greater efforts will be essential to making sure that society does not ultimately disintigrate. Overcoming apathy and cynicism among those who are capable of applying their collective wills to work for positive change is a first step. I've got no rancor over, and can even appreciate the irony, that this observation includes myself as well.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
11:10 / 22.09.04
Totally agree with you on all that LVX, with the slight semantic amendment that chaos magic, rather than growing up, should be stripped of all its valuable ideas, placed in a wickerman and burned to death by Christopher Lee wearing a dress, so we can all move on to something new and more interesting.

My own approach to trying to resolve the problems you've highlighted has been to adopt a community-based approach to magic. The specific purpose of my magical practice is to assist the people around me that I care about whenever the opportunity arises and it seems appropriate. That's the Great Work, as far as I'm concerned. I've been working like this for a couple of years now and I'm constantly kept busy, situations arise and I respond to them, and that process is a magical path in itself. You get regularly tested and challenged by situations you are presented with, frequently put in a position where you have to up your game, exist on a continuous learning curve, and best of all, there is no buzz like successfully accomplishing something that helps one of your freinds out of trouble or gives them a break when they need it. You can be high on something like that for weeks.

Whenever the word "community" arises on here, people invariably misunderstand and think it refers to some imagined unwashed mass of undeserving villagers who presumably exist somewhere seperate from the magician, who, in hir long suffering altruism rides out to service them like a threpenny hooker touting for business. I think community, especially in a magical sense, is just your mates. The people around you who give you, personally, a sense of community. The people in your life who you look out for and would be willing to help out with a problem if you could. It's not a difficult concept to grasp. Unless you don't actually have any mates, I suppose... which kind of leads us back to some of the areas touched on in the 'outsider' thread a few weeks back.

keeping the bills paid, supporting family members who have lost their jobs, and trying to plan some kind of proactive course for themselves and their families to follow eats up too much of their time

I think that sort of thing is exactly on the mark though, perhaps expanding the notion of "family" beyond the immediate physical family to include all the people you have a valuable relationship with and want to see doing well, avoiding trouble, prospering in their lives, etc... Maybe even expanding that perspective beyond the day-to-day "get Jimmy a job", "get Lucy a new flat", "sort out Terry's problem with the neighbours" stuff and trying to engage magically with issues going on at a local or Citywide level that would benefit those people in a more longterm sense. Taking some responsibility for the welfare of the community that you exist within and are a part of.

As far as I'm concerned, this approach is where it's at. Look after the pennies and let the pounds take care of themselves. Concentrate on the details of stuff going on around you, that you can exert tangible influence on, rather than embarking on "grand gesture" magic such as group workings for world peace conducted over the internet. These things almost always seem to fizzle out with inconclusive results, and at best seem to operate at a symbolic rather than a practical level. The big problems are too big to tackle all in one go. It's a fairly demanding operation to magically influence a single person, let alone an entire world of them. If world peace could be realistically accomplished like that, I'm inclined to think that someone might have already had the idea and done it by now. But those big world problems are composed of loads of smaller problems that can be engaged with successfully. Microcosms and macrocosms, as above, so below.

I think it's more valuable for magicians to just start taking responsibility for what they see going on around them, and try to make lots of really small differences that add up and have a cumulative effect. If thousands of magicians were operating like that in their lives, on a global scale, the longterm results might be interesting. There's no overnight fix for the problems that we're all collectively facing, but I don't think it's too late for a rescue mission yet either.

so many sorcerers are using their abilities to keep aspects of their own daily lives together.

I think alongside the issue of how magicians relates to their community, is the question of how a magician exists within a community of magicians. One thing that I've observed is that it seems to be easier to work sorcery on behalf of other people, rather than for your own benefit. Not sure why that is. From an Austin Spare/Chaos perspective, it removes the lust of result factor, which probably has a lot to do with it. So it follows, that if you happen to have freinds who also happen to be magicians, it might be worthwhile coming to some loose arrangement where you take care of business for them, and vice versa. Every good magician has a good magician that they can go to themselves when they need to. I've got a few arrangements like this myself with various people, and it's good, takes some of the pressure off and frees you up to do other worthwhile things. No point struggling against the tide all the time if there's an easier route open to you.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
08:20 / 23.09.04
Chaos magick needs to grow up. It seems to be going through this decadent, self-serving, materialistic phase where the great work is little more than wanking off for a new job or lover. Where, contrary to Old Uncle Al, results are everything. This type of magick only serves to further separate the mage from the rest of humanity and basically reinforces the primate alpha male instincts that have been fucking everything up for so long now. This is where chaos magick starts to become indistinguishable from LaVey’s satanism. It becomes sorcery for personal gain.

I think you're being a weensy bit hard on CM here, LVX. I've met quite a few chaos magicians over the years who are heavily involved in both ecomagick and politically/community-oriented magical 'interventions', either in groups or as solo practitioners. But what I would say is that you won't tend to find such people on web-boards like Barbelith endlessly waffling on about sigils, servitors, etc., if only 'cos they're out there doing stuff and don't tend to spend most of their time sitting in front of computers.

And I don't really see that there's anything wrong with doing sorcery for personal gain. If you take a rigorous approach to sorcery - be it an enchantment for a new job or an attempt to alter the public perception of the US government's refusal to sign up to the Kyoto agreement, then having a clear formulation of the 'results' you desire to encourage is surely more effective than acting from some vague desire for people to be 'nice' to each other. I'd argue that Chaos Magic is one of the few contemporary modes of discourse about magical practice that has generated some interesting dialogues about ecomagick, personal-political & community-based activity (the other major contributor being Starhawk, of course).

And this notion of "The Great Work" - (which CM doesn't really have IMO) to my mind, deserves some critical examination. After all, some Christians believe that "The Great Work" entails spreading the word of Jesus Christ to all the nations of the Earth - after which JC will put in another appearance. Now granted, that's not an 'occult' reading of the term, but I tend to get a bit wary when people start throwing it about, especially in the context of making pronouncements about what other magicians should be doing.

Here's an example Unleashing the furies of a Chaos working that arises out of a particular situation related to the sense of belonging in a community, in the sense that Gypsy's talking about.
 
 
--
13:30 / 23.09.04
My view on all this is similiar to the Grail legend, in that the magician, like Percivel, must heal him/herself before they can heal the wounded king (which, in turn, heals the wasteland which, in this context, is Hyla, the 3D reality). Therefore, I think it's a fairly simplistic notion to suddenly expect all magicians out there to become these global champions. Myself, I try to help in small ways; donate to animal charities, try to avoid wasting too much, giving advice to my friends, and so on. Frankly I'm utterly disgusted with America at the moment and how political it all is. It seems that people on the right and left treat other people with different political viewpoints as something alien... I mean you have that lady Anne Coulther or whatever the fuck her name is coming out with a book called "How to talk to a liberal (if you must)". Frankly, given the current state of things I don't see America going through any great changes anytime soon. Some may say that's pessimist thinking but I prefer to see it as realist. To paraphrase Zos, "The very worst nature is human."

Then again, you have someone like Grant Morrison who pretty much says you don't really need to do anything, that the process continues, and that you shouldn't try to stop the System. Of course his act of writing comics that inspires others to tryb to make the world a better place kind of contradicts that statement. Chaos magick used to be interesting but now it's mostly less about creating your own working system and more about sigils and things of that nature. Sigils are VERY effective in their own right but they are not the be all and end all of chaos magick, as some people seem to think it is. A romantic at times I think chaos magicians are getting too hung up on the technical side of things (such as corporate viral sigils, corporate training manuals, neurolinguistic programming and what not) and as such a lot of the art's glamour is being lost. I think it's getting very sterile. Reading most occult books these days is like flipping through a computer manual. Maybe someone like GM thinks this is a good thing but I'm repulsed. On one hand magick needs to adapt to society today, but I don't think it should entirely shed it's past. It's just as bad as all these New Age wicca books I see at work everyday that are more like bland-looking cookbooks then anything else. No one wants to create their own system anymore. However, as the world increasily becomes surreal perhaps chaos magic is still needed.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
13:56 / 23.09.04
Therefore, I think it's a fairly simplistic notion to suddenly expect all magicians out there to become these global champions.

I don't think anybody is saying that. You don't become a professional at anything overnight. Everyone needs to train and learn and practice before they become competent in any discipline, be it magic, rocket science, martial arts or bee keeping. But a competent magician who only ever does magic on their own behalf, is a bit like a lawyer who only ever represents hirself in court.

I see what you're saying about healing yourself before you can heal others, but it's a bit of a cop out isnt it. When exactly would you consider yourself "healed" enough to move on? What exactly is it that you're trying to heal yourself from anyway? Do you really have to have resolved every neurosis you have in order to, say, do a bit of magic to help a freind keep their job, or help your sister pass her driving test? Is this all not just another carefully contrived excuse to not actually do anything? (I don't mean you personally, I'm speaking in general terms, so if you choose to respond to my post, please do so in general terms and not with extensive autobiographical details that only serve to rot the thread).

I'll see your Fisher King and raise you a Wounded Healer.
 
 
SteppersFan
17:05 / 23.09.04
I think of you're doing sorcery to make something happen for someone else you're probably doing something for yourself at the same time.

I say this cos when I engage with whatever these forces are they tend to be very concerned about me ("ancestors" for example) and the act of magic is good for me (experientially there and then and in its aftermath) as much as for the person for whom I am working.

(Caveats: yes I know how solipsistic this sounds; yes I know not all magical entities will care very much the wellbeing of the magician, just speaking from my experience at the moment...)
 
 
electric monk
17:15 / 23.09.04
I don't think that LVX is being too hard on CM at all, and really must second Gypsy on the wicker man thang. Retrieve the valuables and set it alight, boys. CM's been asking for it for a long time. The no-system system became pretty systemic somewhere along the way.

I'm just as much at fault as anyone. Too much book-larnin' and not enough doin'. I'm sure there are some who can sympathize. Yes, it's good to have a map while one walks the path. Just don't mistake the map for the territory. And don't forget that there's other folk living in those territories.

I have to tenatively (ogoddontdoit) agree with Meaningless that we could all, each one of us, do with a bit of healing. "As above, so below" as my good friend, the Thrice-Great One likes to say when he's feeling his oats. Sadly though, a few ouchies don't excuse anyone from doing the work it is given to them to do. If you can see, why close your eyes?

Because we forget. We forget that Chaos and the ancient shamanism it springs from hide the same raw principle under their Llewelyn overcoats and quartz crystal jewelry: any cunt could do this.

So print out that beautiful Tree of Life you've been working on in Adobe Illustrator and pin it up in your cube at work. Make Ganesh your wallpaper and when co-workers ask, explain that this is the Remover of Obstacles and you're GOING PLACES, baby! Talk with people, the non-magical people, and quit feeling any different from them. Offer to read their cards for them. Offer a prayer to Bast for a friend's dying cat.

"... competent magician who only ever does magic on their own behalf, is a bit like a lawyer who only ever represents hirself in court..."

Quite right Gypsy, quite right. Get out of the bedrooms and into the streets, you fuckers.

Thanks for posting this here, LVX.
 
 
--
01:51 / 24.09.04
I don't think anyone is ever completely healed of anything, as every new mindset invaribly brings about new neurosis, some worse then others. How can one gauge health? It's like illumination... If something as simple as a lightbulb is not aware that it is illuminated, how can something as complex as a human being know that he/she is? I certainly don't think of it as a cop-out to excuse oneself from helping others. When I was talking about "healing the wasteland" I was referring to change on a global scale, which is a wee bit more difficult to change then, say, helping your friends out or co-workers or what not.

2stepfan, I agree that, even when doing something for others, you're still (sometimes) getting something out of it, even if it's something as simple as just feeling good about yourself. There's nothing wrong with this of course, better to feel good about yourself then bad.

I agree, Miraclemax, that perhaps the modern magician reads too many books rather then actually interact with the outside world, and this is definetly a problem. Still, there's nothing wrong with being informed. I think creating a magical system takes a great deal of time and experimentation before it gels. Personally speaking, my thoughts on the subject have changed quite a bit over the years as I've trawled through all this subject matter and decided what was shit and what was worth keeping. I agree in spreading the cheer, though. Hell, this is coming from someone who used to write cheerful, sunny poetry on restroom walls to counter against the usual vulgar racial, sexist, homophobic slurs so prevelant in that environment.

There was a quote in "Transmetroploitan" that I really liked. "The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailable supserstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable, and if so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are" (H.L. Mencken, 1919). I especially like that last sentence. I realize I'm in no positition to effect mass change, I simply don't have the means, money, or connections. However, if I were to ever write or create something that inspires those who do have the means to effect mass change, then I'd have played my part in the chain. In the meantime, I'm sticking to small scale goals.

Part of the problem with the global mindest is how different every culture and country is from one another. I mean, I think killing cats is the most horrible thing ever. I can't understand how other countries eat cats for food (granted, their food situation isn't as good as the USA). To me, cats are sacred animals (as they were to the Ancient Egyptians) so it's a mindest I can't understand. Still, I CAN help cats here, so if I can at least help the local cats out, that's something. Anyway, one needs to find the middle pillar in between cynical detachment and dangerous idealism. Look at the characters of the Comedian & Veidt in Alan Moore's "watchmen" comic. The former represents a man who, looking out at the insane violence of the world, decided to become a reflection of it, and as a result became a detached, cynical butcher. Veidt, the latter, was on the other hand idealistic about the destiny of the human race, an idealism so fierce he was responsible for the death of half of New York City. I think both mental states are, ultimetly, deluded and dangerous.
 
 
--
01:55 / 24.09.04
Regarding my first paragraph of that last post, I meant to say that I certainly don't believe that one should fall back on one's weak points as an excuse for not helping other people. I agree it's a cop-out when you can't even bring yourself to help others in even the smallest way possible.
 
 
LVX23
05:47 / 24.09.04
Thanks all for your excellent responses. You've all offered a number of good points.

What it comes down to for me is this: There's a lot of heavy shit going down on this planet due to selfishness, fear, and anger. Most or all of this stems ultimately from a lack of love. If anything unites us here in the Temple (and the greater Temple outside) it's that we're all sensitive to the energies coursing through ourselves and our surroundings, and we believe that if we attend to those energies, then we can influence them to makes things better.

I agree that most people need to spend time taking care of their own lives. But hey... multitask. And don't take more than you give. My experience with these energies is that if you honor and feed them, they will help you out in return (as long as you don't expect them to). We all intuit on a deep level the interconnectedness of all things. Acts of unconditional compassion for others, for life itself, is ultimately a perfectly natural and beautiful act of selfishness, dig?

If we're to believe that we can harness and influence the energies of spirit & soul, then we're very valuable indeed to the world at large. The one's who keep fucking shit up are the one's who've abandoned nature and love, who've elevated themselves over everything else. These apes have evolved little, but their ability to destroy has grown immensely.

As I've noted elsewhere, humanistic magick can be as simple as smiling and saying hello to strangers. Look them in the eye and you've made a magickal link that will never be broken. Shake hands with people you meet, embrace friends. Understand that touch is one of the greatest weapons against fear and isolation. When you enchant for a new job, make sure you're offering something back in return. Don't just take.

As others have noted in this thread, helping friends out by enchanting (whether they know it or not) is just as important as trying to raise George W's kundalini during a press conference, or trying to get blood to actually start pumping in Cheney's cold, black heart. Indeed, the closer a person, place, or thing is to you, the stronger the magickal link.

Feed yourself, feed each other, and feed the planet. Act responsibly, consume responsibly, and enchant responsibly.

Now go find a nice secluded spot in your favorite forest and have a good wank for the goddess.
 
 
LVX23
16:20 / 29.09.04
There's a good discussion about this stuff here.
 
 
Charlie's Horse
18:47 / 29.09.04
Hey-Zeus! Thanks for pointing that out, LVX. Looks like a really interesting discourse. I loved Louv's adaptation of the 'tree in the woods' koan - if a monk sitting in his dusty flat mulling over I Ching translations has an epiphany and nobody links to his blog entry on it, did it really happen? Ahh.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
08:17 / 30.09.04
My favourite thing about that thread is where LVX coins the nickname "J-Lou".

He used to summon demons a little, but now he summons demons a lot.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
13:48 / 30.09.04
An Amusing article ..made even more so by Joel's insightful comments - altho' he appears to have mellowed with age.

However, some thoughts on the article & ensuing debate.

Ceremonial magick, in the traditions of the Golden Dawn, O.T.O, etc., ... declined in favor of the Chaos paradigm in England.

Errm, no it didn't.

And as for this whole idea of magick splitting into Kaos-Babalon vs Postmodern magick .. well one could say that both strains emerge in the same period - Joel started writing about the Kaos-Babalon current (in the UK) in the late 1980s, and round about the same time various UK exponents of CM began to draw on the ideas of various modern philosophies - such as situationist theory and postmodernism - part of the impetus for this coming from cross-overs with the UK anarcho-situationist & post-punk scenes.

So viewing "Postmodern Magick" as something that somehow seperated itself from an 'original' - refined magick for refined magickians chaos magic seems rather odd to me.
In particular, this idea that Americans ...took the Chaos current and explored the relation of magick to art, science, fiction, and many of the traditional liberal arts. As one of the very early themes in CM (even before it gained the label 'chaos magic') was the notion that inspiration for practical magics could be found in science, science fiction, modern advertising techniques, etc., whatever takes your fancy, really. The audio 'pathworking "The Chaochamber" (recently re-released by New Falcon) is a prime example of this - a science fiction (with a distinct nod in the direction of Moorcock & H.G Wells) inspired take on the familiar theme of the Astral Temple originally released by PD Brown and Rodney Orpheus in the mid-80s.

The comment about ...disillusioned youths drawing sigils and reading comics is perhaps telling. There's been a good deal of (justifiable) criticism levelled (on the 'Lith and elsewhere) recently about chaos magicians' tendencies to over-focus on results magic (i.e. drawing sigils). But again, the primacy of focus on sigil magic in CM is hardly a 'new trend'. The use of sigils for results magic has been a dominant theme in CM right from the start - for example, Ray Sherwin's "Book of Results" first published back in 1978 which dealt entirely with the sigil method, so it's hardly surprising that it's now seen as a key element in CM, nearly thirty years on.
 
 
Skeleton Camera
04:27 / 01.10.04
In my perspective the evolution will go beyond magic as a whole. The cutting edge bleeds itself into everything else. Magic is not some independent entity - blah blah blah - we've been saying this for some time. But it does seem to be the going trend. There will, most likely, always be a romantic element to magic that attracts people to it - resulting in back-o-the-jacket pentagrams and the like. Hey, good, go for it. In terms of "magic culture" and already-identified "magicians" working toward something else, the paradigm broadens to the point of disappearance. That is, it becomes inseparable from daily activity.
 
 
iamus
00:58 / 03.10.04
The idea I'm having is that perhaps we need a new global magic of communication. While our physical means of communicating are growing exponentially, it's no secret that our psychological means of doing so are not quite keeping up.

I think the omni-prescence of the media, mobile phones and file-sharing practices means the spectacle is continually making contact with more and more aspects of itself. Chaos Magick is a reflection of this. With it's "take what you like" attitude it does represent a coming together of a lot of the useful systems that have built up over long periods of time, with cross-pollination as a result. It still seems a little fragmented for my tastes.

What I think we need is a more communication-intensive magical system which instead of stealing all the best bits from many different places, creates a system in which all the disparate styles and disciplines can meet, talk and breed together.

I'm only throwing ideas about, but what if we had a sort of magical Bittorrent? Something to unite disparate systems. A metasystem that could sit on top of any chosen magical discipline, translating and transmitting sympathetic parts to others also practicing the metasystem. Instead of downloading tunes, you'd be downloading say bits of Taoism from somebody better versed than yourself. A melting pot instead of the Chaos buffet. A way to make it easier for the right magical forms and energies meet the right people. Creating a common accessible pool of many different magicks, united by the fact that they are all Will Direction by Human Beings.

Obviously, there would be incompatibilites along the line. Perhaps somebody here can point me to similar ideas, where they went wrong, where they went right. I reckon if we all open ourselves up to each other, it's a real step to working together as a proper unit on a global magickal scale.

I'm not the best read or practiced I must admit, but as I've said, this is only an idea. I'm interested in what you guys have to say. How you would develop it or why you would disregard it.
 
 
Unconditional Love
05:17 / 03.10.04
they are they are, all that info all those disperate stains on consciousness are meeting in places like these, intelligences humping one another and spawning mutoid childmemes, also in chat and forums all over the place the information is breeding in our brains.at least it seems that way at 7 am on a sunday morning.
 
 
Skeleton Camera
05:43 / 03.10.04
In terms of chaos magick and the media-sphere and mutant childmemes etc, there's a distinct and hyper-hot trend-meme running through art circles at the moment towards MAP-MAKING. And not just the literal kind. Groups like SPURSE are interviewing people, documenting and corroborating their barely-related stories, and in doing so getting these people talking, together, recontextualizing their locations and experiences for a more communal experience.
Paul Laffoley calls this period the "Bauharoque" and its emphasis is on interconnection and generation (versus the Cult of Genius isolation and destruction-deconstruction mindset of Modernism, for ex.)

Say the same occurs with magic - and hopefully it is. This meeting and breeding should evolve into a consciously occuring event, mapped and possibly coordinated by its participants. Chaos magic was too uncoordinated (which is fine given that it was chaotic) and then suffered the inevitable swing towards rigidity. You have to coordinate chaos into the paradigm, make room for it, as well as entropy and spontaneous growth.

First off, don't worry about the paradigm being defined. Let it be the bleedin' edge, without name and without date (poor guy). Just keep working there. Don't dismiss a system but don't be too eager for one or another. And don't fear connecting systems. The problem occurs with assumptions that they are "the same thing" - no. There may be parallels but, most likely, your chosen systems are distinct and unique.
That's a GOOD thing. We don't need a "unified field theory of magic" - it's all about fluidity and multiplicity.
Which does not - and here's where chaos goes wrong - discount the independence of systems and the need(?) to study one in particular. I get vague here because I'm still working out whether such is necessary or we can keep playing "open-source religion." I'm beginning to think a specific study is necessary, and by that I mean with others. A community, a group to crank the energy up and share information. (...)
 
 
LVX23
17:30 / 03.10.04
Great points!

1) Modern magick is/should be heading towards connection and community, coming out of the dusty old closet of isolated genius.

2) Don't get hung up on defining the bleeding edge, just make it happen - keep working on the frontiers and letting people know what you're doing.

To this latter point, any of you following the linked thread over on Key23 can see how making statements about what the magickal culture is or is not generates a lot more contention than just saying "hey, this is what I'm doing in my practice right now. Check it out."
 
 
Unconditional Love
17:56 / 03.10.04
to think of magic, a single word, as a single meme, as if each word were a meme in the singular, ie each word contained some essence creates some confusion, magic starts to be bandied about as if it is a thing, a definable thing.

magic it seems to me in the main is largely a literary creation, and as such, and as consumed as such, if the reader isnt careful starts to become bound by the same bondage as the written word. the conceptualisation of magic over academic approach to it continual theorising can lead to it becoming a word bound practice, dependent only on human symbol games for its expression such humanocentric endeavours are to me, chasing your own tail.

magic flows through the human myth but is not the human myth, nor is it human.

humanity is a literary construction? within the context of consciousness?

heh.
 
 
iamus
22:46 / 03.10.04
I'm beginning to think a specific study is necessary, and by that I mean with others. A community, a group to crank the energy up and share information

This is more where I was hitting at. Although being a little overeager to get back into practice combined with mild drunkeness seems to make things clearer than they are. The evolution of magic should/should/could not be defined then advanced. These things know better themselves where they want to go I'm sure. I'd be interested in where you take the idea of a study, though. I'd like to hear more on what you are thinking.

The idea of a translating meta-system is more an experiment I'd be interested in pursing within the present current. Different magicians from different disciplines working through a common translator channel with an common aim to first of all, just see what happens.

Wolfangel is correct in both hir comments on how forums like barbelith currently do this but also concerning magic as a literary creation. These forums are full of practicing and serious magicians. But the two ideas, I think, are linked. I'd like to see some results research, but am not entirely sure where to begin or, indeed where to proceed from there. After a two year hiatus from practice, I'm having to relearn a lot of what I once knew. One thing that is being made clear to me, however, is that the subject of this thread is what I need to be looking into. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there pushing back the boundries. Who like this do you admire? How are they currently working?

Gypsy says upthread of hir community based magick, helping those around you and how this en masse could really effect change. This makes a lot of sense. Though is there enough connection between individual magicians? Enough of a global support network outwith their local/online groups? Could they develop a system which mirrors such support, time and distance no object? While all styles are not the same and should not be treated as such, isn't there enough common ground in their parallels that could be worked upon to help bring together what they are able to and keep apart what should be kept apart?
 
 
Skeleton Camera
23:59 / 03.10.04
To echo: besides the chaos-theory idea/justification of "every lil thing I do makes a difference," community-based ANYTHING makes more of an impact than solitary work.
 
  
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