Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Temple >

Post-Modern Magick by Seth

Page: 1 ... 3 4 5 6 7(8)

trouser the trouserian

14:27 / 26.05.05

...the need to intellectually understand something before you work with it interferes with the type of results that you’re going to get.

This seems such a self-explanatary - and obvious collorary of magical experience - that I'm surprised it seems to require any further explanation.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

14:32 / 26.05.05

I have to concurr with Seth and GL. Which is weird because a couple of months back, I'd have probably been on the other side of the argument.

The experiences I've been having since that peculiar contact episode back in April have been so raw and so intense, I can hardly describe them. Unbelievable, mind-blowing, terrifying stuff. Working with a deity as a deity, letting a god be a God, is a totally different experience to working with the idea of a god, which was what I'd been doing previously. My whole veiw of magic got turned upside-down; everything I'd been doing before, things which seemed so profound at the time, now look like a little kid playing tea-parties with teddies and dolls.

I sort of don't blame people for not getting this radical difference, though. I really think is something you have to experience before you can accept it; I certainly did.

16:06 / 26.05.05

Firstly, I agree with everything said here. These statements were not what I was upset about. This is what I was upset about:

There is a knee jerk fear of religion in occult circles, as if it is somehow for the weak and those who need to be told what to do. Not like us magicians, who are mighty willful souls that bow to nobody and worship nothing but our own mighty willful souls!! I really think this perspective is born more from fear than anything else, fear dressed up as individualism, but fear all the same. A fear of allowing for the possibility of something bigger, more phenomenal and more mysterious than us in the universe. A fear of dealing with something that cannot be bound and contained by the limits and parameters of our imagination.

I'm sorry, but can anybody here honestly tell me that this was not only inflammatory, but filled with a goodly dose of arrogance as well? Actually Gypsy, I think I nailed it right on the head. I have no problem with your views on the use of pop culture entities. I do have a problem with your views on the people that use them. As far as the other argument, I've worked with both viewpoints, and I agree with Seth. Different results do arise from the use of either. What I was arguing was not "the how" but "the should". Gypsy, you seem to think that it is a BAD thing to work with other than traditional deities, and that people who do so are flawed. I was simply saying that the Universe is a big enough place to allow for both styles of work, and that the people who work in non-traditional ways may not be so screwed up as your above statement asserts. So Gypsy, can you argue your point without simply going to the old, hackkneed phrase of, "You just don't understand...."

16:46 / 26.05.05

One thing that I feel I need to do is apologise for my window dressing comment. It was counter-inflammatory. Being counter inflammatory doesn't solve anything, (it sure FEELS good though......). Still, my above statement stands. In my view, there are both advantages and risks in both approaches.

Working directly with the Universe, or with pop culture entities does run the risk of watering down magick. It also carries the risk of causing the practitioner to become insulated. It has the advantage, however, of greater flexibility, and I do think that it fosters an open mind.

Working with deities has advantages as well. I have found that working with deities does frequently bring about very powerful results. I've invariably found that working with a deity changes me profoundly. Often strange and unexpected things pop up, a proof of the amount of power that the deity possesses. There is also the joy of relationship with the deity. I've found, however, that working exclusively with them can foster both a dependence and an arrogance. That is the danger of that approach. Any approach has it's powers and pitfalls. Swords really are double-edged in magick.

I also understand the path of worship. I've been there and did that through much of my life. The devotional love of that path is truly beautiful. There is that openness and love that really is hard to describe. There's a dark side to that as well. It is a loss of the sovereignty of one's will.

There is no right and true path. You have to give something up to gain something.

Unconditional Love

17:52 / 26.05.05

can i ask have you ever worked for a deity, rather than with, ie been a servant to deity or deities, sublimated yourself and become a vessel. perhaps seen as a magickal form of sacrafice, a way also be it temporary or permanent to put the ego aside and allow something into you.

ie drop all the barriers, bindings and let something inside of you, let it fill you, overwhelm you, til control becomes a matter of trust or faith in that which fills you.

obviously the choice of deity is important in this matter, but more often than not they chose you, and you really dont have too much say in the mater.

being human really gets put in a different light when that happens.

Unconditional Love

18:00 / 26.05.05

its not as easy as i make it sound, i generally fight like hell when this is happening, i have some control issues going on, but once i learn to accept i allow myself to be picked up and carried, not without some judgement on my part and occasionally negotiation, but never the less there comes a point where you just let go.

01:49 / 27.05.05

can i ask have you ever worked for a deity, rather than with, ie been a servant to deity or deities, sublimated yourself and become a vessel. perhaps seen as a magickal form of sacrafice, a way also be it temporary or permanent to put the ego aside and allow something into you.

Yes I have. For about 10 (aprox, I'm up there in age), years of my life. Basically, for 10 years I submitted completely to my version of God, which to me was the universe and all that lies beyond it. I still submit to the demi-god that is my magickal namesake, but probably not with the totality that I surrendered before. To be honest,FOR MYSELF, I eventually felt that this was a lop-sided view. That there had to be both surrender AND personal will. One informs the other. Still, I got a lot out of the experience.

I finally realized that I was fearful of power. I understood that when a teacher told me, "Sometime you are just going to have to emprace power." It got me thinking.

12:33 / 27.05.05

So Gypsy, can you argue your point without simply going to the old, hackkneed phrase of, "You just don't understand...."

Not if the person I'm arguing with genuinely doesn't seem to understand what i'm trying to communicate and persistently demonstrates that lack of understanding in every response they have made.

For the umpteenth time, I suggested that the knee jerk reaction to religion and religious worship that is very prevalent in occult circles, is born of a fear of giving your sense of "being in control" over to something bigger than yourself, and outside of the limits of your magical control. I stand by that statement. I think it's a fair comment. I've observed it in other people and in myself at various points in time.

13:13 / 27.05.05

I'm sick of being accused of "arrogance" for expressing a fucking opinion in here. If you disagree with what I'm saying, make a solid case as to why I'm wrong. Don't make accusations against my character and call me "arrogant" just because you don't happen to agree with me about something.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

13:55 / 27.05.05

I think that the antipathy-to-religion thing is fairly common amongst magicians. The problem is compounded by the fact that this fear can be bastard hard to recognise in onself.

I now see that one major reason for the utilitarian approach I had previously taken to my entity work was fear of "being wrong"--of giving my belief to something that wasn't really real, becoming one of those deluded, laughable religious types. (And if you'd pointed that out to me back in, say, March, I'd probably have torn you a new one.)

ORA ORA ORA ORAAAA!!

13:58 / 27.05.05

From an outside perspective, I think this whole argument is stemming from a misreading of this:
There is a knee jerk fear of religion in occult circles, as if it is somehow for the weak and those who need to be told what to do.

Which may well have a 'very prevalent' implicit, but it's easy to miss. And if you do, the rest of the paragraph is a pretty good sledge of 'occult circles' in general. If you don't, then it makes perfect sense as an opinion on a specific, non-global viewpoint.

Perhaps everyone should have a nice cup of tea, look at all the posts and not argue at cross purposes.

Or perhaps I should get my coat, and never darken the forums with my meddling presence again.

Unconditional Love

21:38 / 27.05.05

something this brings to my mind is perhaps the role fantasy and science fiction play in a culture thats trying to formulate atheist principles as a guide to its economy and populace.

religous and spiritual feelings remain as part of the human condition but perhaps science fiction and fantasy make a suitable vehicle for visionary expression, that may of otherwise been expressed within religous/spiritual terms.

the idea of technology and science as hope for the future presents itself as salvation, riding on the back of religous messianic tendencies from the previous western christian culture. this is not to say that western christian culture is past as it is still firmly rooted in the west, but i am suggesting that scientific illuminism or the technocratic thinking of the 50s borrowed heavily from familiar religous ideas within the populace to deliver its message. upon its use of these ideas it then began the process of turning those ideas against themself to make them redundant and build new models of perception as envisioned within technological achievement.

to me i have seen this mainly as ive grown up in the change of language, how its used, spoken and how my mind has slowly been introduced to models that bear a relationship to technological models as opposed to biological models. perhaps pop culture magick is an attempt at spirit in the system, forgive me for being old fashioned but does the system have a spirit? the spirit of man perhaps?is not pop culture man worshipping himself feasting and feeding on himself masterbating in his own image? can there really be a creative evolution or do creation and evolution remain seperate vehicles?

Unconditional Love

19:56 / 17.07.07

My own ideas of what i wrote there have changed somewhat, i think it possible that humans creations can be just as divine as evolution, not saying they all are, though in someway perhaps they are. There seems to be a spiritual value to all forms of creativity, and it seems my last view point was based on the common preconception that divinity is something to be sought outside of the realm of human endeavour, as if i must go searching for something to join with or belong too, when in fact it comes forth in the creative acts i am involved with, the practice is in the living and doing, the spirituality in those parts of life that effect me in a profound way, the bad practice in those parts of life that i cant see the sacreality within as of yet.

Alot of the older traditional structures seem to be based on swimming in the waters of knowledge, seeking what is spiritual beyond what is human, some scientific notions as well, reaching for that which is more than human.

It becomes easy for me to forget that being human is just as spiritual, carrying the waters of knowledge with less leaks in the container and poisonous still water, union with that which is spiritual within myself is just as valuable as trying to seek union with the 'other' outside of myself.

If the symbols of self unity used by some are from PC, and they form the basis of meaningful relationships and magickal practices whom am i never really having explored the ground fully to argue.

Page: 1 ... 3 4 5 6 7(8)