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Welcome to the counter culture

  
  

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Unconditional Love
20:06 / 26.01.05
the problem is not so much in how they read, ive read them all by the way, its the noticeable effect on the reader, i use myself as an example and those who i also have known who have read them.

they are very easily misread, especially crowley.

how many egotistical arrogant arsehole i am so special thelemites do you know? the guys that approached me from the oto some years back fit the bill perfectly.

oh and the cyberutopians (thanks mr leary) who think technology is the be all and end all the pinnacle of human developement, i am an engineer my name is mr wilson, of course technology is progress and evolution.hmmmm big hmmmm.

thelema and g.d seems to me to be the basic precursor for the new age movement, look how crowley cobbled loads of other peoples work together to create his identity, look at the cultures he stole from, and then made it oh so western and palatable.

in fact i think g.d and thelema are basically victorian new agers, little more, from our distance from it it seems like so much more it isnt.

it isnt just those figures its the whole notion of SELF ish
developement. its focus is primarily on the individual at the expense by and large of the community they belong too.its not communal developement its not about forming meanigful relationships with the community you live in, its about forming a better relationship with your self, it encourages a self first attitude everybody else next.
psychiatry/otherapy and psychology and founded on the same basis. a person is examined as if they are seperate from there realtionships to others.

rationality and logical thinking do the same things fragmentation,defining things in there parts rather than as whole systems, as if things are seperate and not in relation to other things.

i pick those few out because i am assuming most people here are familiar with them.

but its not them particularly its a whole cultural philosophy that creates these problems.

materialistic rationalist empirical reductionist deterministic as exclusive values over complimentary wholistic Whole system awareness, the taught and educated raised up over the natural and instinctual, deified as some glorious saviour, at the expense of minerals, plant life,, animal species, other human beings and any culture that doesnt quite fit into that cultural model or cant be slowly educated to fit.

as far as i can see those people mentioned exemplifie those attitudes, i cant blame them thats how they were educated and its how i was educated.

and so the unlearning continues.
 
 
Perfect Tommy
22:56 / 26.01.05
Written on the run, sorry for the abrupt end:

Doesn't this all depend on whether you mean 'counter culture' or 'counter culture'? I mean, you can get rid of your TV and hence be placed in opposition to mainstream culture, or you can involve yourself in a 'scene,' be it one revolving on a type of music or a type of sexuality, and thus place yourself in a culture which is not mainstream. See the distinction? I'd think occultism can be either, depending how much you involve yourself with other practitioners, how much occult media you consume, etc.

As for subversion... again, there's more than one kind. Working to secure gay rights is subversion of the mainstream to correct an injustice—here, mainstreaming is a success. Then there's the subversion of acting in opposition to the mainstream not because there is a wrong, but because it is mainstream. Hence, not listening to bands once they're popular, or being devoted to certain sorts of pranks.
 
 
Z. deScathach
12:17 / 28.01.05
Ultimately, isn't the term counter culture a relational one? What is ultimately counter culture depends on just what the prevailing culture is. Culture in general either rejects or absorbs. In modern society, it absorbs far more than it rejects. Oh sure, when it comes to "counter culture" spirituality and magick, there are fundamentalists that raise a stink, but when you look at it, occultism in general is becoming more and more commercialized, at least in the land of The Big Buck that I live in. Culture tends to swing like a pendulum for that reason. Every ideology implies it's shadow, and that shadow will always run counter to the culture of that ideology.
 
 
Unconditional Love
12:58 / 28.01.05
every culture has sub cultures, but are they really counter cultures? in a culture where most things can be bought into, its my personal stance that anything that can be bought cant be counter culture, counter would imply counter too the foundation of a culture ie in most modern western cultures the economy and the way its run, anything that uses capital is not counter to a culture run on the principle of capital, it is inclusive within that economic system.

since the occult industry is largely a literary based tradition and must be bought into to become part of in the sense of the figures selling occultism to there devotes and the various financial intrests of occult groups involved, a large majority of occultism that can be bought and occultists that can be bought are certainly mainstream at least mainstream occultism, so what is counter cultural occultism? if it has a place on your bookshelf it isnt. is it?
 
 
LVX23
15:55 / 28.01.05
So is it counter-culture if you steal your magick books?
 
 
Chiropteran
17:13 / 28.01.05
I think an important distinction needs to be made between the occult products (books, etc.) that you buy and the "occultism" that you practice.

mark r, to take your argument to its logical extreme, no one can claim to be "counter culture" unless they grow/hunt all their own food with homemade implements and dress in homespun from their own sheep. While "compromise" may be a dirty word in some "radical" circles, I think that most reasonable people would agree that certain concessions must be made to capitalism (which is arguably not synonymous with "mainstream culture," though they are largely interdependent) in order to function in society - "subversively" or otherwise.

The books, tools, supplies, that support your work are not the work itself. If you pay for paper, does that make your essay any less subversive to the reader? If you pay for paint, does that make your painting somehow an expression of Capital Unbound? Maybe you would answer "Yes," I don't know. But I don't feel that, just because I bought a copy of an occult text, the work I do which draws on knowledge from that text is necessarily any more "mainstream"/less "counter culture" (assuming that those categorizations are even relevant to the working).

Meanwhile...

The largely semantic argument over what is "mainstream" and what is "counter culture," or whether those terms have any meaning - while perhaps necessary on some level - has largely ignored the relevant practical point, which is that (for better or for worse) Magic (and those who practice it in any serious way) is still widely perceived to be somehow outside or beyond the normal day-to-day experience of "mainstream society."

Fantasy representations of magic are terribly popular, and many people have a passing interest in isolated bits of it (horoscopes, a love-candle spell off the internet), but I don't think many of us could publically declare ourselves to be wizards and expect to be taken seriously. Even neo-paganism, which has had a fair bit of public exposure as a magical religion and lifestyle, is given the novelty treatment once a year in the papers - at Halloween - amid much bemusement and tittering at the "people who think they're Real-Life Witches."

Tellingly, the effects of magic are not recognized by law (in the US, at least), and the populace isn't clamoring for it (some Christian lobbyists aside), despite still-common views of magic as malevolent: I could hagride someone to their death, turn myself in to the police, and I would either be dismissed as a crank or given a psychological evaluation - but I would not be tried and found guilty on "spectral evidence." To me, that's a strong argument that magic hasn't achieved full-on acceptance. (This scenario would turn out altogether differently, though, in some other parts of the world.)

Many people dabble in magic in their teens or twenties, then put it away as something silly that they've outgrown. The sixty-year-old man studying Kraig's Modern Magick is still seen as an eccentric crackpot (or possibly a dangerous nutter). And, no matter the impression taken from RAW, et.al, magic and the paranormal are still considered 'fringe' (read: "a sloppy mess that discredits the movement and distracts from the real work of building a free and just society") by the "mainstream" (see how tricky that word is?) of anarchists, radical environmentalists, and other "revolutionary" types, whether working-class or academic - who, themselves, are already viewed as 'fringe' by the established political parties and the general population. So is "activist magic" the fringe-of-the-fringe? ("Your blathering about the New Aeon isn't taking the whips from the hands of the Bosses or putting food in our children's mouths.")

Like it or not, despite the ready availability of annotated grimoires at Barnes & Noble (and the business interests that make that possible), magic-as-such is still Other to our society as a whole - including many of those segments of society actively working to subvert the dominant culture. At least that's my impression. I'll happily listen to evidence to the contrary.

So, returning to Gypsy Lantern's original post: assuming that one wants to "make a difference" in their community or society-at-large (whatever that difference might be), how might a magicker step down from the Dark Tower and work with the community to effect those changes? What challenges does the civic-minded Magus face at street-level? Self-acknowledged activists, radicals, and revolutionaries have enough difficulty with community relations without mucking it up more by bringing magic (and the accompanying religious concerns) into the mix. Should the local miracle-worker be covert about their magical intentions and work under the cover of their "mundane" efforts? Is there a time when it would be better to be open? What, when it comes right down to it, can the 'old guy with the funny walking stick' offer to his community?

~Lepidopteran
 
 
LVX23
20:01 / 28.01.05
Excellent response, Lep.

...magic and the paranormal are still considered 'fringe' (read: "a sloppy mess that discredits the movement and distracts from the real work of building a free and just society") by the "mainstream" (see how tricky that word is?) of anarchists, radical environmentalists, and other "revolutionary" types...

Absolutely. Everytime we post something to Key23 about using magickal techniques to effect sociopolitical change we inevitably get blistering criticisms from "activists" saying that we're not doing shit (in spite of our continued platform that magickal action should only be in addition to practical, meatspace actions). There's this hardline faction that thinks you have to quit your job, squat in some abandoned industrial flat with a bunch of dismal anarchists, and chuck eggs at Gap shoppers in order to be "counter culture". Well sorry, I like a lot of the trappings of civilization. I just think we should have more say in how our lives are governed by the power elite. Capitalism could be a lot more economically fair and ecologically sound if it wasn't being strangled by greed and entrenched interests.

But I digress. As you noted, this is really a semantical debate. One person's counter culture is another's mainstream.
 
 
--
15:43 / 29.01.05
Oh god, I know someone just like you describe LVX23, a self-proclaimed "anarchist" who is without a job, reads lots of socialist stuff, and thinks that most magic is a waste of time and not important in the overthrow of "The State".
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
22:43 / 29.01.05
so, should we just get on with living, drawing together the bits and people that work, discard the bits and people that don't, improve ourselves as we improve our relationships with the world (community, the divine, one another, small pets, etc), and try to reduce harm wherever possible?

or do we need to beat our language into the ground some more?

i think we should leave the word "culture" for the bacteria.

cheers
tenix

ps yes, I know, this is a pretty useless post
 
 
Unconditional Love
01:04 / 30.01.05
i think you are probably on better lines tenix than those that claim to be part of a counter culture, personally i dont think there is a counter culture, there are people that will set themselves up as such but they are reliant on culture as a whole to exsist and to have something to resist, all they create is dualistic tension, to those involved in the pursuit of trying to live as best they can with what they have and who they are.

the constant need for self improvement and self developement seems to me not founded upon greater happiness, but those that cannot accept themselves for whom they are and the world they live in, ultimately very unhappy people, and often drawn to the occult 'counter culture' looking for power or revenge amongst other things.

the result of the unhappiness must obviously be to do with culture and socio political factors and has nothing to do with the management of there own feelings and facing the realities of themselves rather than running off to hide in the fantasy of a rebel magician, whose outside and cool. has a huge amount of power at least in there own imagination.

really all counter cultural figures want is your time and money. attention seeking sad little muppets, that attract other attention seeking sad little muppets so they can all indulge together.

at least members of the 'counter culture' are in good company, and can have a nice long moan about the injustice of being alive, and the way things are. heh.
 
 
Unconditional Love
09:48 / 30.01.05
well i am going offline so you are saved from more of my mindless ranting for the time being, another time.
 
 
sine
17:53 / 30.01.05
Well...

I'm not convinced there is a magickal counterculture per se. There is definitely an attempt to create one in several places, like here, but largely there are some loose cults, some cult fan clubs, some popstars, some popstar fan clubs, a number of publishing houses, and a great deal of masturbation, intellectual and otherwise. No coherent goals; no coherent agenda; not even a coherent message beyond "Magick is really real! Really!" and even that is pretty half-hearted. Ardent Christians hand out "Jesus is Lord" pamphlets - I can't remember the last time I got a handout from a Wiccan or Chaositician or what have you. We haven't enough collective presence to be more than lone nuts.

Counter-intuitively, I believe that if magick was available to the general public, it would certainly be countercultural - anything that empowers the individual does so at the expense of prevailing authority structures. However, presently, because of things like the secretive Rule of Shadow, the ongoing fundamentalist and scientistic propaganda against magick, and the prestige of exclusivity, magick remains largely in the closet.

Of course, that isn’t strictly true – obviously to us, prayer is just a rose by any other name – but few traditional organizations in the West would identify themselves with the kind of practice and mindset we’re discussing. The structures of power have little to gain by actually promoting the techniques of willwork in the genpop, but enormous profits can be reaped by tapping the vein of discontent with consumerist occult window-dressing. So it goes. The prenatal co-opting of potential countercultures has become par for the course.

I guess what I’m getting at is: there are those of us who want to use magick to make changes for ourselves, and others who want changes for everyone. The burden of the latter is not just using their secret powers to help out others, but to educate the population into consciously developing their own powers, into asking hard questions about themselves and the universe, into taking responsibility. Until that visible, egalitarian, grassroots effort is undertaken, we remain a lot of largely isolated eccentrics mumbling about metaphysical rebellion in our cozy little chat rooms. Until then, there is no counterculture.

Which may not be altogether bad - real counterculture, effective counterculture, had a nasty history of being violently squashed by the entrenched authorities. Invisibility has its virtues.
 
 
--
20:11 / 30.01.05
Mumble something about the "Conquering Child" with his finger to his lips... Silence and Secrecy...
 
 
LVX23
04:45 / 31.01.05
mark, a lot of what is conveniently labeled counter-culture is so because it's not accepted by a large chunk of society. You can't just say that all people who identify with such a label (or subgenre) are either power hungry scam artists or trendy misfits. In my experience, counter-culture is something you become when your experiences and interests don't jive with accepted consensus reality. I don't think of myself as part of "the counter culture" but my culture is certainly counter to the status quo. For me it's a lifestyle choice that has included punk, goth, hippie, deadhead, raver, tripper, burner, pagan, occultist, leftist, shaman, misfit. They're all potentially exploitable images but they're all just honest parts of my life.

None of them have ever made me feel normal.
 
 
Seth
06:16 / 31.01.05
Quick question which may require another topic: does magic actually empower the individual? Because I can think of several people who practise who are disempowered, and I would say their magic is a factor in this. As far as I'm aware only the individual can empower the individual.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
12:19 / 31.01.05
does magic actually empower the individual? Because I can think of several people who practise who are disempowered, and I would say their magic is a factor in this. As far as I'm aware only the individual can empower the individual.

Yes, I’d say that it fundamentally does. If your magic is not a process that leads to positive transformative change, ultimately makes you feel happier and more fulfilled and assists your personal evolution, then you’re doing something wrong… or you are a incredibly shit magician. There are a lot of them about. A magician whose “magical practice” is actively disempowering is not really a magician, like a person whose “martial arts training” leaves them unfit, clumsy and unable to defend themselves is not really a martial artist.

If it doesn’t empower you and give a practical set of advantageous resources, then why would you do it? I honestly can’t fathom why someone would devote the vast amounts of time and energy that magic requires if it wasn’t helping them in a very real and tangible sense. You’ve lost me there.

It depends on how you define “magician” though, doesn’t it. There’s loads of people in the world who practice magic; but there are really not that many “magicians” among them. I think there’s a lot of people who read about magic a lot, talk about it even more, maybe do a bit of meditation, an occasional sigil every couple of months, and have semi-regular weed-inspired astral journeys – and identify very strongly as magicians. But aren’t really empowered by any of it, and barely get anywhere near setting in motion the kind of overwhelming transformative processes that I would say characterise the life of any half-decent magician.

I think there’s more to being “a magician” than the sum of your practice, and it’s as much about how you approach that practice, and what you personally bring to the table, that counts. In much the same way that a great painter is defined moreso by how they approach the mystery of paint and canvas, than by their ability to render a realistic looking still life.

Magic is not just a series of empty gestures that lead to empowerment, so in a sense I think you are quite right – only the individual can empower the individual. But I would say that having the impetus and ability to set in motion this process of self-directed empowerment, and to keep it moving and working for you, is what being a magician is all about. The various techniques and exercises a magician might put to use are a means towards empowerment, in much the same way that brush strokes and applications of paint are put to use by an artist as a means towards making a piece of art. Something happens between artist and technique that we might call “art”; something happens between magician and technique that we might call “magic”. There are a lot of shit paintings in the world. There are a lot of people who fuck about with magic but remain disempowered.
 
 
Seth
13:23 / 31.01.05
I think we have the same distinction here; we’re just using different terms. I guess the difference is whether you’re using magic as an end in itself without looking at what your objectives are. I agree that the desperately lonely person who relies on their parents for a home and support is not empowered regardless of whether they define themselves as magician or not. I personally wouldn’t say they weren’t because I think it’s a bit dumb to focus on a critique of that person’s magic when it’s their fundamental life choices and need to grow up that is the issue.

I have a clearly defined set of objectives, which include a set of checks and balances; that I’m happy and getting what I want while still maintaining a sense of awareness and kindness for other people; that I’m self sufficient and earning enough money to support myself while resisting greed and unthinking careerism; that I’m in committed relationships with friends and my partner without letting my sense of self slip in differing social contexts; that I am attentive to where I am going in my life and how I am developing without over-analysing and robbing myself of direct visceral experience. That’s what I’m aiming for, and I can use what some people define as magic as a means to those ends. I’m further along some tracks than others, but I have as broad an understanding as possible in order to have as accurate a perception of each area as possible and forward planning where necessary.

Some would say that makes me a good magician. However, I don’t call myself a magician, because the instant I do that I define myself in a category that is too small for me. Calling myself Seth and knowing that I can employ a few powerful techniques is just fine for me. That’s why I make the distinction that it is Seth choosing to empower Seth.

The only exceptions to this object-oriented approach are when you get into the realms of shamanism, where it seems more often than not the other way round. The magic takes over for a while, sometimes for a long while, and you’re having experiences which are running you. Sometimes it’s all you can do to cope with day-to-day living when this is happening. Of course, it’s much richer and more complex than this artificial dualistic separation of object-oriented/experience-oriented: there’s rarely - if ever – a clear distinction. Again, that’s not limited to what might be defined as magic: everyone continually plays in the spectrum of doing and having done to them.

I wholeheartedly agree that if you are constantly at play and without direction then you probably won’t get very far in life.

You’ll get the inference that I’m increasing resisting using magical terminology when it comes to discussion stuff like this. When it’s the basic stuff of living a happy, fulfilled and useful life these terms just tend to muddy the waters and reduce clarity for me. I’m trying to engage in the discipline of using specialised terminology only when it’s absolutely necessary for communicating specific meanings, because I don’t like the people’s tendency to fly into jargon overdrive when something simple and direct will mean more to a wider group of people. To an extent, the slapdash usage of specialised language tends to remove one’s conception of the world from the world.
 
 
Seth
13:27 / 31.01.05
Of course, it helps when commucating inclusively to pay attention to grammar and spelling.

Mistakes left in previous post so I can laugh at myself.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
13:28 / 31.01.05
I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding going on if you're drawn to any type of magickal practice because it's specifically counter-cultural. Magic, ritualistic worship, all of these things are a very valid and central part of culture and to assume that something is part of a counter culture because it is not necessarily evident in the mainstream is, I think, tantamount to not realising what counter-culture actually means. It does mean that people are placing magickal practice as opposing the every day and I've certainly never noticed it doing this. Likewise you could say that civil disobedience is counter cultural when actually it's very much a part of the way that English/American society works and has been around in much the same way for donkeys years. It's only advertised as some kind of subversion but it's usually working directly to change things in mainstream culture within that culture. The opposition itself does not suggest that an event is counter cultural.
 
 
Seth
13:45 / 31.01.05
Great post VM.

I'm going to add to what I was saying in that often the specific use of the term "magician" for oneself can be actively disempowering because simply defining oneself with a powerful label does not by extension make one powerful, and can feed your ego with the illusion that you're something you're not. Thus you become further separated from direct experience and your percpetion of yourself and the world becomes increasingly inaccurate. Which is the exact opposite of the effect that I want, although it seems bizarrely high on this list of a lot of so-called magicians' main priorities.
 
 
illmatic
14:24 / 31.01.05
Seth: I had a rant about that on here a while ago - a "what's wrong with the word magician" thread - can anyone recall what it was called?
 
 
sine
15:16 / 31.01.05
Magic, ritualistic worship, all of these things are a very valid and central part of culture and to assume that something is part of a counter culture because it is not necessarily evident in the mainstream is, I think, tantamount to not realising what counter-culture actually means.

Doesn't it just mean a broad spectrum rejection of the dominant norm/value set? Obviously, not every act of magick is "counter-culture" or "subversive", or any of that - but a fairly simple litmus test can be applied. If the 'working is at cross-purpose to the dominant values, its counter-culture. In the modern world, anything that allows one to wriggle free of the system of corporate propaganda, totalitarian organization, ivory tower metaphysics, and consumption-obsolescence-dependency is counter-culture (though we could always carry this over to the Headshop if you disagree).

Magick is skewed counter-culturally in much the same way as the printing press - the Church could use it to print Bibles, but ultimately, public access to text production eroded the stranglehold over information the Church had maintained. So while we could use magick to, say, support oil interests overseas, if enough people figured out that they could just think things into existence the scarcity-based oil system would probably come apart pretty fast.
 
 
LVX23
18:46 / 31.01.05
Ill: What th efuck is a magician?
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
09:02 / 01.02.05
Calling myself Seth and knowing that I can employ a few powerful techniques is just fine for me. That’s why I make the distinction that it is Seth choosing to empower Seth.

I understand your point, but I think it might be modified slightly by what those techniques actually entail. If your practice involves, say, making charm bags and spiritual baths for people, cooking up weird potions, making deals with Spirits, giving oracles, healing the sick, dealing with hauntings, speaking to the dead, and so on... to dissassociate from the word "magician" is perhaps just being evasive. A bit like someone who practices law being squeamish about the connotations of the word "lawyer", or a medical professional being uncomfortable with the title "doctor".
 
 
Tryphena Absent
12:58 / 01.02.05
Look counter-culture is a term that was brought in to wide use by Dick Hebdidge and this is what it means: In sociology, Counterculture is a term used to describe a cultural group whose values and norms are at odds with those of the social mainstream. In this sense, the Mafia, street gangs, and the Amish, as well as hippies could all be considered countercultures in the United States.

So in assuming that certain events/moments/actions are counter-cultural you may very well be misinterpreting and I think magic is one of those things because it is not at odds with the social mainstream. Magic isn't opposed to corporations or capitalism or anything like that, your personal and subjective use of it might be but that does not mean that it's in opposition generally. The mainstream press does print pagan and magical texts and many people within the mainstream culture are occultists.

Likewise civil disobedience isn't necessarily counter-cultural because it does not necessitate being at odds with the social mainstream.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
13:01 / 01.02.05
(Magic however is sub-cultural. Dick Hebdige's Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979). Stuart Hall (et al., Resistance Through Rituals [1976]) distinguishes subculture, which he sees as informally and intuitively organized, from "counter-culture," which he sees as more formally arranged and more expressly political and consciously ideological)
 
 
Seth
16:18 / 01.02.05
Gypsy: absolutely it's evasive. It's evading being tagged with terms that I find questionable and wouldn't want applied to myself.
 
 
Chiropteran
17:31 / 01.02.05
Nina, thank you for the information about the origins of the term - it might be useful in narrowing the discussion (though it could also be reasonably argued that the meaning of 'counterculture' has evolved beyond its original technical meaning).

While you (Nina) argue that magic, per se, is not countercultural, many magical traditions (and by extension at least some of the people and communities that follow them) clearly are.

Hermeticism, at least in some of its forms, explicitly puts the Seeker of the Light (or whatever) at odds with the social mainstream - the Hermeticist is expected to realign their priorities with the Work, which often entails a break from their socially conditioned values. Chaos magick, in its early and proto- forms, was also explicitly and essentially about breaking free from the values and constraints of mainstream society and going one's own way (whether this is still the case is open for argument).

Many people are drawn to neo-pagan magical religions specifically as an attempt to distance themselves from the values of the society they grew up in and didn't relate to (which impulse I think can and should be distinguished from the booming Pagan, Inc. publishing business) - and while, in practice, the countercultural potential of neo-pagan religion and magic often goes unexplored, the beliefs professed by many pagans would bring them into direct conflict with the social mainstream should they be followed without compromise (i.e. if they manifested as strongly as many conservative Christians manifest their own religious beliefs).

What I'm interesting in, however, is Gypsy Lantern's statement: I think it's much more productive and subversive to try and be a magician within ordinary mainstream culture and see what the ramifications of that are.

How does one go about this, particularly in the face of the frequent perception of magic as being, well, weird and dangerous or just plain ridiculous (even if not part of the counter culture, as such)?

~L
[and thank you, LVX23.]
 
 
sine
01:40 / 02.02.05
Nina: My apologies, I stand corrected.

I do still believe that in contradicting conventional notions of causality, scarcity, dependency and authority, magick is skewed away from the mainstream since mainstream politics, economics and science depend on those notions. I think that the fact of:

the frequent perception of magic as being, well, weird and dangerous or just plain ridiculous

tells us something significant about the general relationship between its practitioners and the social mainstream - differences that I consider nearly unreconcilable. However, you're right, there's nothing mandating or determining whether the use of magick is with or against the current.

So I'd be interested in exploring Lepidopteran's question as well.
 
 
sine
01:52 / 02.02.05
An aside: expressly political and consciously ideological, sure, but I never thought of hippies as formally arranged before. I guess the antiwar marches and such...
 
 
Tryphena Absent
12:14 / 02.02.05
While you (Nina) argue that magic, per se, is not countercultural, many magical traditions (and by extension at least some of the people and communities that follow them) clearly are.

I wouldn't argue with that, I think that quite a number of the magical traditions that are being practiced today are part of a significant counter-culture, not because they're magical but because of the culture that they originate from/are a part of and even then I think that there are always subsections of a tradition that don't engage with the counter-culture and are in fact deeply rooted in the mainstream despite the traditions links.

Many people are drawn to neo-pagan magical religions specifically as an attempt to distance themselves from the values of the society they grew up in and didn't relate to

Well so was I but your misconception lies in the idea that the view of magic that they took was correct and that it means that these types of religions are counter rather than subcultural. And in fact I think you're making that mistake rather a lot, while the tradition of chaos magic was once counter-cultural that doesn't mean that it is now, in fact I'd suggest that chaos magicians are now part of a rather distinct subculture and that they were heavily integrated in to mainstream culture.
 
 
Chiropteran
13:53 / 02.02.05
Nina, I did say that I was writing specifically about early Chaos magick, yes? I also suggested that things are different now, as you say. We have yet to disagree.

As for people seeking out alternative religions, my point (I apologize if I was not clear) wasn't so much that neo-pagan religions are countercultural, but that they have - often undeveloped - countercultural potential if their beliefs are acted on fully (that this potential is unrealized falls, I feel, on the individual). Also, regardless of whether those-who-seek-out-alternative-religions's "view of magic is correct" [could you unpack that a little?], the decision to seek out neo-paganism is, itself, countercultural - they are choosing to follow a path that is still widely rejected by society. Now if, once they buy some books or join a coven or whatever, they find that they are still firmly embedded in the mainstream, that's too bad, but it doesn't invalidate the original impulse.

If you still feel I am mistaken, that's fine - I will happily consider an alternative perspective. So far, though, you've said I'm mistaken without actually challenging anything I've said.

Meanwhile, sine put it well (IMO) when ze summed up why "the" magical worldview(s) is inherently incompatible with "the" mainstream worldview(s), and the institutions that depend on it (this may, however, be less true now than previously, the recent political comments contrasting the Bush administration with the "reality-based" community being but one example). That magic can still be bent into service of the mainstream is a testament to its flexibility, but I still feel that its natural inclination is in a very different direction.

**********

I think it's much more productive and subversive to try and be a magician within ordinary mainstream culture and see what the ramifications of that are. [GL]

So, what are the ramifications? Whether or not magic is essentially countercultural or not, a lot of people have very strong feelings about it, often negative.

First, I think that the decision to practice magic (as such) openly is also a decision to accept a more-or-less stigmatized position in society. No matter how practically helpful one is in the community, one will still face accusations of being dangerous or mentally ill (or at least deluded), or of being a manipulative fraud - or just Evil. One may also face criticism from other occultists who have chosen To Keep Silent, either for giving away "secrets" or for "selling out." These are not reasons not to practice openly, but one ought not to "come out" and be surprised when some people object. (Of course, some communities will be more welcoming than others, and one might be pleasantly surprised.)

Second, because of popular depictions of magic, some people are going to expect the magicker to perform outright miracles on demand. Unfortunately, magic just doesn't work that way - but when the stakes are high, desperate hope can quickly sour into resentment. Careful and timely education might be able to minimize this, but it still deserves consideration. People may also, from time to time, try to get one to do things for them that one won't want to do, for various reasons - and, again, resentment can rise from "ze can, but ze won't." Whether this resentment is dangerous or merely annoying can depend on how precarious the magicker's position in the community is.

Should the magicker teach? How much, and to whom? It has been expressed above that the practice of magic should be encouraged among the general population, so how does one go about it? What are the difficulties, or the dangers? What kinds of magic?

Initiatory groups often claim that their graded heirarchy is designed to provide students with the necessary basic skills before they attempt potentially dangerous operations. It has been popular to dismiss this as nothing more than a way to control access to information and wield power over the initiate, but might there not be something to it? The idea is probably worth a second look if one is talking about everyone doing magic (idealogy aside, how many people do you meet in a day that you wouldn't trust to keep a houseplant alive for a week - and we want them causing changes in conformity with their Will?). How "everyone" is "everyone?" Do some people get turned away? What level of responsibility does the teacher assume for the magical conduct and welfare of the student?

Some places have laws governing public practice of divination, or claims of efficacy for magical products and services. This also needs to be taken into account, though enforceability will vary according to ones situation.

Or am I misconstruing GL's position on this - is this maybe less about practicing publically, per se, than practicing covertly, in the service of one's community, while remaining engaged and active in that community?

And what exactly are we talking about "subverting," anyway? Is it about reshaping society, or just keeping the landlord from throwing out your moms while your trained money brings in the rent payment?

~L
 
 
Bill Posters
17:25 / 02.02.05
Fascinating discussion folks, much of what I would've said's already been said but if anyone can be bothered with a longer read this essay addresses the real or imagined issue of the McDonaldization of the Occult at some length.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
11:07 / 04.02.05
L, you're contradicting yourself! Firstly you say you agree with me but then you make a point like this: the decision to seek out neo-paganism is, itself, countercultural - they are choosing to follow a path that is still widely rejected by society

No, it's not, that's my point with regards to what you're describing. That decision is the decision to join a sub-culture, it is not counter-cultural in any sense because magic as a general entity is not counter-cultural. If you mean that it's a counter-cultural decision for some people than sure, that's perfectly acceptable but magic does not have a natural inclination. It's not a person, it's a thing that you either work with or you don't.

I don't think you're mistaken except perhaps in that you're mixing up the meanings of the original terms used by cultural theorists.

Now my challenge to you is to explain why you think that magic has a natural inclination beyond that which human beings apply to it and outside of godforms (because that's another debate entirely).

view of magic is correct

Sorry that was pretty loose! I think that I meant that in terms of the oppositions within cultures- so people might think that they can relate to magic from a foreign culture when they don't actually understand that it's part of a mainstream culture somewhere else and has just as many negative connotations to it. Or that actually in some parts of the country or with some groups of people magic is the mainstream culture. In other words they misunderstand the context of magic and take the whole notion of it as oppositional and not as a small part of the culture that fits in to the stream of things (ie. magic is punk not reggae).
 
 
Chiropteran
13:27 / 04.02.05
Nina, you're combining different sections of my post as though they were about the same thing. To repeat: so far we have not made any incompatible statements about Chaos magick. That's as far as that goes - we do clearly disagree about several other things. Please don't distort what I've said by conflating things I have tried to keep distinct.

One of the things we disagree on is whether or not the decision to join a neo-pagan religious sub-culture that is perceived by the individual making the decision as a counter culture is an expression of a countercultural impulse. I suspect that you're overgeneralizing what is, really, a very narrow statement. You also seem to be trying to hinge the argument on whether or not magic is inherently countercultural (which may or may not be the case, but isn't really the point in this particular instance). And (again, I'm sorry if I haven't made this sufficiently clear) I am only ever in this discussion talking about some-but-not-all people involved in any tradition.

Regarding "counter culture," I don't believe I'm mixing up the meanings of the word at all - since you entered the discussion I have carefully based my use of "counter culture" on the definition you gave (my earlier usage was less particular). The adjective "countercultural" I have been using as a reasonable extension of that meaning, to describe "those values and norms [which] are at odds with the social mainstream," and possible actions/decisions/feelings which might arise from the same. I think the problem stems from a disagreement about what, particularly, counts as "at odds with the social mainstream." That's where the terminology breaks down, and further argument about what the word means is counterproductive. Let's not get too wrapped up in the signifiers, at the expense of the signified - by this point it's really not contributing anything to the discussion.

As far as magic having a "natural inclination," that was perhaps a poor choice of words on my part, suggesting rather more than I intended. I just think - to echo sine, above - "that in contradicting conventional notions of causality, scarcity, dependency and authority, magick is skewed away from the mainstream since mainstream politics, economics and science depend on those notions." We can disagree on this, certainly, and it seems that we do. It is very important to be clear, as I'm not sure anyone has yet said explicitly, that these conventions that are being contradicted are only those of "mainstream Western materialist society" (and, if we can avoid nitpicking about terminology, I think we all probably know what I mean), and it is only in this context that magic can be said to be an oppositional force. (This is reflected in your comments about the cultural context of magic and the correct view thereof.) It has been my understanding that this entire discussion, from the word go, has revolved around magic in this particular ("mainstream Western materialist") context. In cultures where magic is part of the mainstream, the entire question of "what are the ramifications of being a magician within the mainstream" wouldn't even be an issue, as it is "here."

Thank you for clarifying about the "correct view of magic." Important points, generally, and worthy of a discussion of their own - but not especially relevant to what I was saying: as I have said several times (though not in so many words), I am looking at a person's motivations in relation to their perceptions, independent of whether their perceptions are correct or mistaken - what is it they think they are doing? (The consequences of their decisions, or indeed the larger cultural context, are well beyond the very narrow scope of this particular side-discussion).

So, someone remind me: what are we talking about, again?

~L
 
  

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