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Silence?

13:47 / 15.06.05

I was wondering what people here thought of the occult ideal of Silence?

I'm old (I'd rather not say how old) and this kind of forum generates for me a number of issues related to the virtue of Silence.

Do you see forums like this having any particular dangers in their very public nature? Is Silence a necessary virtue in this age when we can buy (almost) any text on Amazon? When the guy who works next to you is probably a Wiccan or a punk or a member of a subculture and thus open to any alternate views- or at least their airing? Where people can reveal once hidden and guarded things in comic books?

I know that many of these things, while in open view are still effectively hidden (both by the noise of the culture and by the lack of background/understanding to effectively decrypt them)- and that many things are ineffable by their very nature. However, as someone from another era I find some of this openness less than productive- probably holding many back in their work. I know there were a set of distinctive historical reasons for Silence, but I feel that there are many other valid reasons also (eg. to prevent harm to others who may misunderstand, to keep out people who are perhaps incapable of understanding, to maintain a sense of focused purpose in a chattering age etc.)

Or am I just being an elitist fuddy-duddy with this kind of thing?
That we're in the "let it all hang out" era and this is simply the way things are- and that the things are still effectively hidden anyway? Or maybe they shouldn't be?

A much older brother of mine suggested that the current generation (and subsequent ones probably) already dwell in the Abyss. That they don't need to undertake Operations to enter it, but rather now simply need to realise they are in it- and then move on from there.

I'd love to hear anyone's thinking on such things.

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16:08 / 15.06.05

Wow... I never even considered the thought that we might all be in the Abyss already... that's really fascinating... I'll have to think about that.

Tryphena Absent

16:47 / 15.06.05

The main problem with the exchange of information is that there's a tendency for people to become knowledgable without ever having experienced anything. So there are all these people who have read book after book on the subject and see themselves as a distinct authority and have talked about everything with all kinds of people but they don't actually *know* what they're talking about on a more fundamental level. There seems to me to be this moment that most practitioners of any form of magic (except perhaps wiccans) have where they confront what they're doing along with the notion of belief systems, science, mysticism and worry about their commitment to what they're doing and that moment doesn't occur in the same way for people who only have second hand knowledge. That perhaps is the problem with the lack of silence. At the same time you have to consider whether you're really happy working with exclusivity, it's one thing keeping silent about the specifics of what you do, it's another to hide it absolutely from the world. Do you want to stop people from experiencing these things off their own backs?

rising and revolving

19:32 / 15.06.05

So there are all these people who have read book after book on the subject and see themselves as a distinct authority and have talked about everything with all kinds of people but they don't actually *know* what they're talking about on a more fundamental level.

Yes, I read about that in one of Phil Hines books.

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20:16 / 15.06.05

One problem is that it can be very difficult to gauge just how fundamentally one has experienced something. Generally when people go on and on about, oh, I don't know, UFO abductions to me I think "Well, maybe this actually did happen to this person, or maybe they're just totally off their rocker or just trying to sound interesting". I come up with the same problem when I try to describe a vision I had once: It was incredibly vivid to me but trying to get across that vividness to anyone else is usually an exercise in futility. It's like trying to use a box of crayons to illustrate a dream.

Tryphena Absent

20:19 / 15.06.05

I read about that in one of Phil Hines books

Really? I didn't, actually I haven't read any of Phil Hine's books although I've heard they're quite good.

Unconditional Love

20:19 / 15.06.05

you also have to consider, can some of these experiences actually be communicated.

and also just because an experience manifests in a certain way, doesnt mean its a generic experience.

for example, 5 years ago i had a nde, my nde involved me going into a very dark place, no bright white lights at all. although some of the characteristics associated with nde s in general were present, it wasnt atypical as an experience.

basically there seem to be alot of people repeating formula, i dont think anything of real value is being revealed anywhere at all, i do think alot of people are making money selling fake mysteries and designing false mystery tradtions. i think alot of occultism has become little more than an extension of the fantasy and science fiction genre.people realise there is a huge market in helping people to live there fantasys, and in basic escapism.

silence would be a wonderful thing, ive experienced it fully once, but its hard to find silence in this world at present. silence is of the utmost value as an experience, especially in a world flooded with noise.

if you have something of real value and wish to keep it valuable i recommend you stay silent, communicate it and watch it torn to shreds by envy, greed and the usual attendent emotions that encourage people to play social games to own something of real value.

i hope you stay silent.

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21:26 / 15.06.05

One reason why I've decided to be more secretive about my personal magic practices is because I think when one goes public with their own systems the system in question can often become very dilluted (or, in some cases, perverted). For example, Spare had his sigilization method, but then Carroll latched on to it, then the Temple Ov Psychick Youth, and so on and so on until Chaos Magic became less about experimentation and more about wanking over sigils.

Or you could look at the major religions and see how they've become perverted by fundamentalists and Jesus freaks who totally distort what could otherwise be a positive thing/experience. I would say that none of those people who appear on that American Taliban website have even any clue as to what it means to be a good Christian. They've turned it into something hateful. I suppose that's what happens when you go public with something. Still, I think it's a good thing to share experiences, just not to try to make some kind of movement out of it. Certainly a lot of the major occult organizations have attracted all sorts of dodgy characters...

rising and revolving

23:40 / 15.06.05

Sorry Nina, I was just taking the piss. Don't mind me...

Tryphena Absent

23:59 / 15.06.05

I think you should be punished for your sins Sylph and since this is a thread about silence, that punishment must come through the form of a nagging old lady in the street. I shall let you into my invocation ritual...

Oh nagging old ladies of the world, I invoke you, may you nag Sylph in the street, beside a bus stop for ten full minutes...

00:02 / 16.06.05

These are great responses. I think that you've all hit various nails square on their respective heads:
- knowledge vs. understanding and the danger therein (ie. that while knowledge is a necessary first step, its not the end)
- that some experiences are ineffable and that attempting to clothe them in words often dillutes or cheapens them. (Wittgenstein wrote that "what can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent". This seems wise counsel to me).
- The dangers inherent in propagating the Word (ie. dogma and lawyers of the soul). That's why many traditions leave creation of the Word to only the greatest Masters, who to some extent can navigate these treacherous straits better than most (and throughout history seem to be getting better at it- often by using ambiguity and humour and seeming complexity as a cloak).

All knowledge as a first step to attainment needs to be accessed in some way- and that's something I think places like this do very very well- "the hookup". The friendly Uncle or Aunty, who having noticed a disposition gives you a book to read that you might like. "And if you liked that one, here's another" etc. The guide who simply provides access, not exegesis. The much-underrated Socratic Method of guiding is also great and can be consistent with Silence.

I got a big chuckle out of Syph's last comment on AOS/TOPY/Chaos Magic. Reminded me of that line in Alan Moore's "Promethea" that also made me laugh "Now it's all Sigils, Stubble and Self-Abuse"...

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00:47 / 16.06.05

Well, the downside about trying to write about these experiences is that very often it can come across as looking starry-eyed, science-fictony, or just plain incomprehensible, as Grant Morrison had this to say about the VGW:

"It soon becomes obvious that these wild voodoid texts are his best attempts to reduce some bizarre trans-verbal concepts into any kind of language at all."

Morrison also notes that whenever he tries to describe his own alien abduction it comes across as sounding like some kind of bizarre sci-fi drug trip. Which is perhaps why it is easier to understand in "The Invisibles", where visuals are employed (to use the old cliche of a picture telling a thousand words). Of course, the artwork was botched the first time out but if you read Morrison's script one can't really blame the artist too much: I imagine it must be hard to draw something like that based on someone else's description at all.

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00:49 / 16.06.05

Also, for the record, I still think highly of chaos magic, I just think that magicians who ascribe to it these days focus too much of one aspect of it and ignore the other good bits (such as playing around with different belief systems, personalities, and so on).

02:00 / 16.06.05

whats important is the urge to seek the unknown, and no matter how much we talk there will always be an unknown to reach for. access to information leads to blind stumbling, as im fooled by 'false' synchronicities (in advertising for example), or lured into labyrinths that turn into plotted orchards. but without access to information, id be stumbling somewhere else. a different set of tools is needed when navigating cyberspace than when in the woods. positioning ones own progressive illumination within the illumination of the species and planet is certainly useful...

02:15 / 16.06.05

On s.h.e.r.m.a.n's reply and "the question(s) that drive us", as one man wrote:

...!?!?!?!?!?....

The Soldier and the Hunchback

07:28 / 16.06.05

Personally I like the Masonic concept of "Audi. Vide. Tace."

10:14 / 16.06.05

I come up with the same problem when I try to describe a vision I had once: It was incredibly vivid to me but trying to get across that vividness to anyone else is usually an exercise in futility.

As do I. I've found I can't speak directly about visions, workings, etc. with anyone. It can be almost painful to keep to myself, but letting it out absolutely saps the purity of the experience for me. Instead, I let these experiences color what I say and do, building bridges as best I can between what I know to be true for me and what I can feasibly share with others. This, for me, is Silence. It's a tightrope at times, but maintaining balance in this regard has allowed me to discuss gods, the afterlife, and in some instances magic itself on my terms without handing out my personal symbol set or making myself out to be crazy/a magician.

You got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em

10:16 / 16.06.05

Personally I like the Masonic concept of "Audi. Vide. Tace."

For the idiots in the room (ie. me), a translation?

Darumesten's second variety

11:04 / 16.06.05

Latin for "Listen, see, be silent"

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

17:27 / 16.06.05

And yet, ultimately, what else is there to do?

The tao that can be named is not the great tao.

Those who speak do not know, those who know do not speak.

Until afterwards, when I personally gabble like a madman.

A fall of geckos

18:31 / 16.06.05

This is possibly drifting a little from the original point of the thread, but I'm very interested in the concept of experiences that go beyond verbalisation. I've used one of those strobe brainwave altering devices, and found some of the states I've reached incredibly difficult to describe afterwards. I think experiences which effect the feeling or awareness of who we are, are innately problemous to vocalise later because we are no longer in that state. I'm fully concious that there has been a change in my awareness and I can put together bits of it (or even remember everything that happened in it), but the intensity and flavour of experience is lacking.

20:21 / 16.06.05

Silence is the face of G_d, the swirling of a galaxy, and the chemistry of life.

Poetry, music, art - these among others are vehicles that try to render the ineffable into some degree of conscious apprehension and communication. For humans, transpersonal experiences tend to be useless unles the secrets can be communicated in some fashion, even if only internally. It can take months or years just to consciously grok your own experience, moreso to effectively share it with someone else.

From another angle, "teach by example" is a nod to the value of action (silence) over speech.

Unconditional Love

22:37 / 16.06.05

Nothing is the silent noise of something.

01:19 / 17.06.05

After all, though... if everyone kept the rule of silence, this would be a very boring forum.

Joetheneophyte: "So... magic, eh?"

Gypsy Lantern: "Um."

Seth: "Mm-hmm."

*thread dies*

Gods know we don't want that.

20:56 / 17.06.05

Like in Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, where abductees to Faerie speak in gross and baffling nursury tales whenever they try to describe their abduction; I related to this, it kind of chilled me.

There are probably as many different types of silence as there are words? (Maybe exactly as many? Maybe the invention of words cast weird shadows, and maybe the shadows can be taken up, like puddles, and used in magick recipies. Of course everybody here already knew that, I'm just babbling already outworn ideas... sorry...)

20:56 / 17.06.05

Like in Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, where abductees to Faerie speak in gross and baffling nursury tales whenever they try to describe their abduction; I related to this, it kind of chilled me.

There are probably as many different types of silence as there are words? (Maybe exactly as many? Maybe the invention of words cast weird shadows, and maybe the shadows can be taken up, like puddles, and used in magick recipies. Of course everybody here already knew that, I'm just babbling already outworn ideas... sorry...)

nyarlathotep's shoe horn

15:58 / 18.06.05

there's a saying in Spanish (sorry, I only know the translation)

"silence is also an answer"

I think that this would most effectively take the form of not acknowledging a question that is has at its heart, a fallacious assumption.

ie "why do you hate freedom?"

it would least effectively take the form of avoiding the subject and running away.

ie "what do you think about rainbows?"

ta
pablo