I think the problem here is that notions of "reality" and "realness" and things of that sort are just as subjective to individual thought as non-reality. Technically everyone is living in the present moment, whether they are aware of it or not... Even some hippie pining for th good old days of the 70's is pining in the present. Case in point: There's this one guy I know online, some really out-there Canadian hippy who used to frequent this forum I'm a member of before his antics got him banned. Every post he did was some sort of weird word-game, full of oddball pop culture references, made-up words, literary allusions and whatnot. It could take hours just to figure out what he was going on about sometimes! In "real life" he was obsessed with prog rock, growing plants and mushrooms, and so on. Now, you could call him a loser who needs to get a life, but he is still living, and though it may be a limited life or worldview it is still a life nontheless. Many people think their lives are drab and mundane but I think that everyone has something unique about them... I'm pretty straight-laced but some people think I lead a really "out there" lifestyle! I compare this sort of thing to juggling, one must be a chameleon, adapting to certain social situations. I've played the down-to-earth normal guy and the crazy occultist at various points in my life and found both to be lacking, and dull: Some middle ground is perhaps more appropriate. I eventually figured out a way to balance my odder quirks with the "regular" world of work and so on. Both are magical worlds, although in different manners.
And this is threadrot, but I'm not sure why Money Shot said that "Kenneth Grant will not help you". When I mentioned Grant's name it was solely to indicate that greater understanding of his books came through repeat readings (which is something you can say about a lot of writers or artists in general anyway). There was nothing in what I said that indicated that I thought Kenneth Grant was the solution to the world's problems at large (in fact in nearly all of Grant's books he stresses that his work is not intended as practical manuals... rather they are explorations of a highly personal, vastly unique system of his own devising, though like almost anyone he nicks things from other people here and there). I think it's a fallacy that one should think that one should read occult books for the sole purpose of obtaining practical skills... I usually prefer to read them for entertainment value or creative inspiration, and sometimes I may come across something that I find I can use in my own life. I'll be the first to admit that this doesn't happen very often when I read Grant's books, but some of what he writes I've found parallels to in my own life and it would seem that he has illuminated a future path for my magical studies to proceed upon (by this I mean I can relate to the ideas of Typhonian Gnosisim and philosophy more so then almost any other school of magic I've come across over the years... sadly, the Typhonian OTO doesn't have a chapter in my area). Part of the fun of reading occult books, for me, is taking notes and making glossaries of new terms and trying to figure out what these people are talking about... I like puzzles. And they have definetly inspired my creative pursuits, but this is getting waaaay off-topic here so on this I'll say no more. |
