quote: So far I've read that Chaos Magick is "too goal-oriented", it "edits out that part of magic that deals with receiving knowledge from some unseen quarter", seems "a bit shallow and self serving", or "a bit of a dilletante pursuit." Let's not even discuss the bullshit about leather pants and fake tans.
What a judgemental crock of shit!!!
Now hold up just one fucking second.
Read my post properly before you start bad mouthing me and putting other peoples words in mouth.
I've never claimed chaos magic is 'too goal orientated', on the contrary, that's one of its strengths.
I've never claimed that Chaos Magic "edits out that part of magic that deals with receiving knowledge from some unseen quarter" either.
What I said, in answer to Synth's post, was that there is a certain point where the particular system/methodology you're working with (whatever it might be) becomes less important, and the magic itself starts to take over. It working you rather than you working it. I'd raise an eyebrow Roger Moore style at any magician who hasn't had experiences like this.
My comments about CM seeming "a bit shallow and self serving" and "a bit of a dilletante pursuit" are my own opinions on the matter which I was expressing. Sorry for having an opinion. I was under the impression that this section of the message board was for discussion of ones experiences and opinions relating to magic.
If you look back over my initial post that these quotes are taken from, you'll notice that I preface my comments with "I've been thinking about this a lot lately and come to the hypothesis that..."
I've got increasingly bored with chaos magic over the last few years and I don't personally think it's quite the be all and end all of occult paths that some would have you believe. I'm not dissing it. But I've personally come to the conclusion that it doesnt go quite far enough for me, and was expressing this opinion.
I wasn't saying "Chaos Magicians are all cunts" and neither was I prescribing my own particular shamanic path to everyone. I actually stated that I don't think shamanism is for everyone. The point of my second post was to throw out the idea that it might be interesting to upgrade the shamanic role to the 21st century world by marrying it with some of post modern methodology that sprang from the CM current.
Perhaps I should endeavour to tow the party line more for you in future.
quote: Let's not even discuss the bullshit about leather pants and fake tans.
Methinks the chaos magician dost protest too much. 
Somebody else came up with the "leather pants and fake tan" line, but I continued it because I thought it was funny. I thought it was an amusing and disparaging exaggeration of some of the 'characters' that fill the chaos magic 'scene'.
I'll admit to maybe having gone a little too far in that last paragraph, and should have expected the knee jerk reaction. Chaos Magician bashing is the new Wicca bashing.
quote: It really makes me angry to read people whinging about "big groups of magicians running around together like a pierced up self help group, each one re-inforcing each others delusions of grandeur. Each one spouting the same mish mash of Robert Anton Wilson, Genesis P Orridge, Pete Caroll and others..."
Why is that? Touch a nerve did it?
Seriously though, all I'm trying to do here is offer up some criticism of what I see as the 'Chaos Magic Lifestyle' (TM), which is a fairly irritating phenomena. The Barbelith forum and the people who post to it are not my target here. I'm thinking specifically of some of the attitudes you come across on Chaos Magic web communities like the Z List.
Mordant summed up the particular 'type' I'm on about:
quote:It's a shame, but CM sometimes seems to attract the same sort of dickwads who used to Tip-ex upside-down pentacles on their T-shirts and walk around claiming to be "black witches." They've stopped embarassing the wiccans, sadly, and come over to embarass us instead.
It's the comfortable self satisfied contingent who have read Robert Anton Wilson and have therefore learnt all they need to know about how reality works. Affecting the 'bad ass magician' pose without ever actually doing anything beyond a few sigils. Chaosphere T Shirts and Ouranian Barbaric as suit & tie and corporate lingo.
I'm not having a go at goths either. If you're a magician who likes piercings and PVC, that's cool. I like 'em myself. All I'm trying to do is put the somewhat predictable uniform, attitude and rhetoric that has attached itself to the CM current, under the microscope. There's something about it I'm uncomfortable with and I can't quite put my finger on it. There is a certain unspoken 'we have the best post-modern path and are superior to the common herd' kind of vibe that you often pick up on CM mailing lists, and I have certain problems with that sort of thing. Interesting the somewhat over the top reaction I provoked by even suggesting that CM might not be perfect.
quote: Magick consists of various processes by which one can modify one's internal & external environments. It does NOT require belief in one/ many godheads, nor does it require a mandate to help one's communitiy. Guess what? It doesn't even require the use of divination techniques!!!
I didn't say any of that either. Point to the quote where I stated that magic requires a belief in certain gods, use of divination techniques, or a mandate to serve ones community.
What I said was: I think there are probably a lot of people on the chaos magic path(attracted by its immanent practicality), who have the shamanic 'calling' but find it difficult to assume the full role because it doesnt really exist within our society anymore.
The point of my post was to raise the idea of updating the role of the village shaman and adapting it to serve the needs of the various 'communities' that exist in 21st century society.
I was throwing an idea out for discussion. Granted I probably went a bit far by finishing my post with a snipey attack on some of the crap ideas and attitudes that have attached themselves to CM when it became a 'scene' rather than a loose methodology. But I like to stir shit sometimes. Sue me.
I certainly wasnt claiming half the things that you've just accused me of, and I'm a bit confused as to where you got it all from.
quote: Ghost Doctor... read over that post and tell me you aren't being elitist or exclusionist.
To an extent. The first part of my post was answering Synths post about shamanism and how it relates to the structure of magical systems. Then I wrote a bit about the updating of the shamanic role thing, then I ended with an admittidly unneccessary attack on some of the things about the chaos magic 'scene' (as observed on CM mailing lists I used to hang out on) that I'm uncomfortable with.
I was trying to point out some of the tendancies I've observed amongst chaos magicians that have lead to my dissatisfaction with it, as an adjunct to my post about where this dissatisfaction has been leading me of late. I certainly wasnt telling everyone to quit CM and become a shaman. It's not for everyone. I suppose I can see how my snipey remarks about the pierced up self help groups could get peoples backs up a bit, but that was my intention really. I wanted to criticise certain tendencies that dont often get criticised. CM, in its post modernism, often seems to position itself almost above criticism.
quote: BUT DO NOT BE SUCH AN ASS AS TO PRESUME THAT WHAT DOESN'T WORK FOR YOU WON'T WORK FOR ANYONE ELSE!!!
The only 'path' I came anywhere near criticising is the lazy one that takes elements of various trendy authors and assembles them into an off the peg counter cultural world view, wanks over sigils, has a certain kind of wardrobe, and comes to assume this makes them evolved beings equivalent to the first fish who walked on land.
This kind of thinking and behaviour is actually fairly common in CM web communities. I'm not saying everyone. There are some very cool and interesting people inhabiting those regions, but there's also a lot of pretentious dicks who give CM a bad name by turning it into some kind of scene or movement, rather than the excellent DIY methodology that it is.
This is really a seperate issue that shouldnt have been tangled up with my other point about 21st century shamanism, and I accept total blame for that as I went off on a bit of a tangent cos I thought the 'fake tan' line was funny.
Let me repeat again. I don't think all Chaos Magicians should ditch their leather pants and become shamans. I'm interested in shamanism in the 21st century, and I'm interested in taking a critical look at chaos magic and some of the various aspects/attitudes that have somehow got tied into it. I certainly don't think all chaos magicians are guilty of these tendencies, I work from a chaos magic perspective myself, some of my best friends are chaos magicians, etc...
quote: Happy Monday.
Happy Tuesday.
[edited to remove excessive and unneccesarry swearing]
[ 14-08-2001: Message edited by: Ghost Doctor ] |
