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In the end do you sleep better at night ?

  
 
cat likes fish
09:13 / 08.11.01
i don't know all of your resuns for starting on the path, all i can say are mine. i started when i wus 9, wicca, wus the first thing i looked into wich wus really hard becous this wus the 80's and there wernt meny books out on the subject. now fast forword 6 years or so new teacher and all, i get to meaht a "master" . naw i've seen voodoo ,wicca, and stuff that a hardend crowlyiet would get sqwemish adout. and up inteal that time i had never asked the qwestion that this "master" asked me that night and it wus very sempul WHY, why are you doing this and wuht do you wont from this. magick is a love affare and a drug all in one it gives you all the things you may wont and some times takes away all the things you think you wont. after years of studing going all over the place to find answers. and in the end knowing less thin whin i started. in meny was it just seems to complicate things. i think it has doors that lead you to heaven and hell but if you have no every day need for it thin why do it. so my qwestion in the end is this to all of you my friends . do you sleep better at night? is your girlfriend channaling lilith or is she just horny or may be i'm just crazy to ask.-
 
 
Papess
09:13 / 08.11.01
Hi cat
Got to say you have a good point. I've been wondering about some simillar things. Once The Great Work has you in it's clutches, it doesn't readily let go. Ultimatly, the choice can be yours. So what'll it be.... the red pill or the blue. Reality can suck, so I imagine the nature of Reality would blow.
 
 
SMS
09:13 / 08.11.01
Why practise magic? What do I want out of it? I'm just curious, really. I have difficulty reconciling the all the messages saying "this stuff is impossible" and the ones saying "You know that impossible thing? I just did that. Just now. See?"

But if I think it's not helping me, I wouldn't do it.
 
 
cusm
15:39 / 08.11.01
quote:Originally posted by cat likes fish:
i think it has doors that lead you to heaven and hell

That's enough for me.

I know what I'm after. Magic for me is a means to understand and develop spirituality, to become closer to God, whatever that means. That was the purpose of the Quaballa for jewish mystics before it was applied as an escoteric filing system by Hermetics. One doesn't do magic so much as become God and preform a miracle.

I wish to improve myself. To evolve, to grow, to trancend. Stronger. Faster. Better. We can rebuild him. We have the technology. Magic is in personal evolution, spirituality is in doing the same for society. Magick is the assembly code, spirituality the operating system. To me, the point of one is to lead to the other.

Trancendence. That's my game. If you're going to play, it might as well be for something good, I say. Be all you can be, then try to be a little more.
 
 
Rev. Jesse
20:06 / 08.11.01
quote:Originally posted by cusm:

I wish to improve myself. To evolve, to grow, to trancend.

One hopes that this evolution starts with a decent command of the English language.

quote:Trancendence. That's my game. If you're going to play, it might as well be for something good, I say. Be all you can be, then try to be a little more.

So... Cui Bono?

What is the point of trancendence anyway? If I bought into this idea, would it be a cure for pain? Could I throw my drugs away?

-Jesse

Great to be back, btw
 
 
Wyrd
22:31 / 08.11.01
Magic (for me) is not some separate function or special ability. It's a natural part of being human and being connected to the rest of the universe.

It's ability we all have, so it's one I choose to exercise.

No, I don't sleep better at night actually. I'm "busy" most nights and usually don't get a hell of a lot of rest.

However, I couldn't not do this as it's my path, and part of who I am.

You might as well ask me why do I breathe.
 
 
cat likes fish
23:24 / 08.11.01
wyrd- this is who you are. a old teacher of mine seid " if you can't go a day with out it thin you know nothing about magick".
 
 
cusm
00:00 / 09.11.01
quote:Originally posted by Rev. Jesse:
One hopes that this evolution starts with a decent command of the English language.


I TRANCEND GRAMMER!!!

What is the point of trancendence anyway?

*shrug*

Being better than you are now? Escaping the limitations of humanity? I'll let you know if I ever get close enough to tell. In the mean time, I figure I just have to hang in there long enough for effective anti-aging treatments to fall within my financial reach. Then its just a matter of becomming Taoist enough to not go insane with living for so long, and I'll figure out the rest eventually.

Hey, its a goal. Keeps me busy.

[ 09-11-2001: Message edited by: cusm ]
 
 
cat likes fish
18:03 / 09.11.01
if you wont to stay young as my papa used to say (and in fact still duos ) "all you need is sex and garlic and a love of life " he looks like my older brother not my father passes for mid 30's he's new wife is not that much older thin me and she didn't belive him whin he told her he wus pushing 60 so mabey there is some thing too all of that ether thin don't smock fag's and travel alot ow yah never ever eat fast food that shit will kill you faster thin a fucking gun. JUST SAY NO TO FAST FOOD
 
 
Wyrd
23:53 / 09.11.01
quote:Originally posted by cat likes fish:
wyrd- this is who you are. a old teacher of mine seid " if you can't go a day with out it thin you know nothing about magick".

I'm going to go on the assumption you misunderstood my definition of magic. Please re-read what I said.

Finally, do me a favour and don't tell me who I am. Since you don't know me, then you can't possibly make such judgements.
 
 
Lothar Tuppan
00:44 / 10.11.01
I was going to try and answer this with a new post and then I remembered a saved thread from an previous version of the board in regards to some questions I posted regarding why people did magic.

Because I'm too lazy to try and rewrite it (an since it pretty much answers your questions) here it is...

-----------------
To answer my own questions…
What are your reasons and/or motives for practicing magic and how has that influenced your personal style or tradition of magic?
Currently I feel more like my magical traditions have influenced my motives instead of the other way around.
Like a lot of people, I started getting into ‘magic’ in my early teens due to increasing feelings of powerlessness and a dissatisfaction with the traditional organized religions. This led to an interest in Crowley, Wicca, and various new-agey things (this was the early to mid eighties).

It evolved from the standard power fantasy to a quest for the big answers, since very little in this world seemed to make sense to me in the post high school days of the Reagan era. But by my mid 20s I was more interested in eastern philosophies and more academic than experiencial pursuits. I had temporarily given up on any sort of actual ‘practice.’

In my late 20s, in order to keep myself sane in the world of corporate video and web design, I started practicing various things again but without much seriousness. This continued until right around the time of my Saturn Return when my marriage started to fall apart The emotional roller coaster of those 2 years shifted myself and my perceptions more than any ‘drug’ ever has.

Around my 30th birthday a series of events occurred that introduced me to the spirits and realities of shamanism (Tangent - I use shamanism in the classic anthropological sense. As this is originally a word from the Tungus people of Siberia I don’t associate the word ‘shaman’ with Native American spirituality or magic. While some Native North, Central, and South American peoples practice shamanism quite a few of them don’t.). It was at this point that things really opened up for me and this caused me to focus my motives a bit more.

My motives now revolve around ‘serving’ my community. For almost 3 years now I’ve continually been assisting my teacher and partner in shamanic sessions where people have nowhere else to turn to. Going to a ‘shaman’ in this culture is usually prompted by a superficial curiosity (like walking into a palm reader’s office) or desperation that is so great it overrides the programming that tells you that you’re wasting your time. Seeing people in this state and being able to (more often than not) contribute to helping them has given me a greater sense of empowerment than any ‘spell for a pack of crisps’ could.

Not that I don’t also practice various thaumaturgic styles (such as rune magic) as well. My motives/reasons for that is to improve my skills, my quality of life, and to be able to utilize those skills for others when shamanic methods are neither applicable or appropriate.

How do you see your personal styles evolving over the next 5 years?

I hope that my shamanic techniques and abilities will continue to increase and deepen. That’s as much up to the spirits as it is to me though. It is also my intent that my powers as a Vitki (rune magician) and sigil magician become more potent.

How do you see your magical goals and ideals evolving over the next 5 years?

It is my intent for my ‘mundane’ and ‘magical’ lives to be more intertwined than they are now and it is my intent for me to be able to further dissolve the dualities of human perception that cause me confusion.

A big ramble but since I posed the questions I thought it only right that I answer completely.
-------------------

You may notice that part of my answer also addresses why your teacher's quote was not only inappropriate to Wyrd's path but also to mine and many other people's as well.

Expressionless also started a thread that deals with similar questions and answers
here where many of us expanded upon our reasons for pursuing our paths.
 
 
cat likes fish
16:59 / 10.11.01
hold the phone folks you dame well know that i ment no insalt to you or eney one on this page. whene i seid " you know nothing about magick" that wus a quote to me from a old friend. and wyrd you are right i don't know you but there is no resun to be on defence. and ferther more i wus in fact agreeing with you on that this is a part of life. i mean you no ill will friend if i over steped the line thin i offer my apology to you and wish you well. but heres the kech, whene i started this topic DO YOU SLEEP BETTER AT NIGHT ? my intent wus to see if eney one had used magick to inprove there lives ether thin getting that promoshon or just getting laid on saterday night but to realy find some insight in there lives and the world arawned thim . i have gotten to know alot of diffrent people on the path and not all of thim good. but in the end for wuht ever resun you started perhapes we are all just looking for somthing more in are live's and in looking at my self i know that i wus looking for something more and i hope that is why in the end is whut you are looking for too and in you i do mean all of you. so i go out in to the world and in too my self searching for the gold at the end of the rainbow. trying to avoid the pit falls of ego alonge the way
 
 
mate
01:01 / 11.11.01
So either english is your second language, you are purposely misspelling words, or you're retarded.

No wonder people misunderstand you.
 
 
Wyrd
17:21 / 11.11.01
quote:Originally posted by cat likes fish:
hold the phone folks you dame well know that i ment no insalt to you or eney one on this page.

No, actually, I didn't know you didn't mean any insult. If I had understood you properly, I would not have responded the way I did.

quote:whene i seid " you know nothing about magick" that wus a quote to me from a old friend. and wyrd you are right i don't know you but there is no resun to be on defence.

Thanks for clearing that up, but I think if you re-read your initial post you'll see why I misundertood your intent. I'm sorry about the confusion.

I don't like to quibble about things like spelling, grammar, etc. but I find your posts very difficult to read, Cat likes Fish. I've no idea why you write like this, if it's a problem such as dyslexia, or lack of access to a spellchecker, or just trying to use a certain kind of distinctive "style", the problem is that it's not communicating effectively what you mean. We've only got the written word on this board to communicate with one another, and that has a lot of limitations as it stands.

quote:
my intent wus to see if eney one had used magick to inprove there lives ether thin getting that promoshon or just getting laid on saterday night but to realy find some insight in there lives and the world arawned thim .

Perhaps I'm getting a bit jaded with seeing this thread come up again, and again. I know it's different if you're new to the board, but I suppose I'm beginning to tire of the constant worrying at the topic of who's got better motives of using magic than someone else. In the end, who is the arbitrator of what is good? If someone want to use magic to get laid - well, good for him/her. If someone wants to heal others, then that's just dandy.

For me (I am stressing this) magic is an integral part of being human, and of who I am. For me existing is magical, the people on the street are acts of wonder, and the landscape and our structures are part of our wider lives. There is no seperation.

quote:
i have gotten to know alot of diffrent people on the path and not all of thim good. but in the end for wuht ever resun you started perhapes we are all just looking for somthing more in are live's and in looking at my self i know that i wus looking for something more and i hope that is why in the end is whut you are looking for too and in you i do mean all of you.

Yeah, we've all encountered wankers in this field. I'm afraid just because someone is interested in magic and/or spirituality doesn't make him/her someone you can get along with. That's the way it is in any walk of life, and this arena is no different.

I'm not looking for something "more" in my life. If anything, magic (whatever) keeps bringing me back to my life, and to me. It makes me examine my own thought processes, and the patterns of my behaviour, so that each time I get a clearer picture of who I am, and how I connect to the world at large. By doing that then I can look outward and with that knowledge better understand, and empathise with, everyone else.

There are worlds contained within our hearts and souls, which are reflections of the universe of which we are a part. If we look too obsessively outside of ourselves for a solution to life's mysteries that can indicate that there is something within ourselves with which we are not comfortable. Of course, I'm not talking about being anally self-obsessive either. It's a balancing act.

quote:
so i go out in to the world and in too my self searching for the gold at the end of the rainbow. trying to avoid the pit falls of ego alonge the way

Ego is something that can trip us up, but also , ego is part of who we are too. It's not something that we should learn to ignore, more like we need to understand it properly.
 
 
A. Machine
17:57 / 11.11.01
"So either english is your second language, you are purposely misspelling words, or you're retarded.
No wonder people misunderstand you."

How about we try to identify which of the above is true and work toward a solution. Cat likes fish, care to address this? It is an issue, as pointed out elsewhere on the thread. In a textual medium, clarity is vital. I say this all in the interest of continued exchange of information, and without judgement.
Please forgive my off-topic interjection, but I feel it best addressed here at the source.
 
 
Mordant Carnival
09:31 / 12.11.01
Ohhhh, man.

Here's me sitting around carefully preparing a constructive response to all what's been going on in this thread, and I come online all ready to post my magnum opus.... only to find that Wyrd, as per usual, has got there first. So here's my input:

What Wyrd said. With knobs on.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
09:31 / 12.11.01
You know - I don't seem to sleep at night at all anymore and I started on my magical little path because that whole psychic side of my brain has been screaming at me since I was born and you know, I'm still no closer to finding any answers about anything and nothing is explained and you know, I love it.

One day, no time soon, I'll find out why I'm strongest during the waning moon. Why the only word I have ever clearly uttered in a dream is Hecate and why when you run your hands round someone about an inch off their body it feels magnetic... but not yet.
 
 
Cave Painter
09:31 / 12.11.01
witch fight! witch fight!
 
  
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