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It Doesn't Matter What You Believe

  
  

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Quantum
14:03 / 21.09.05
According to many, it doesn't matter what you believe as long as it works for you. Tarot cards or Angel cards, Runes or Roleplaying magic, all belief systems are equal in the eyes of the infinite.

On the other hand, some things seem to be obvious bullshit, and some beliefs systems are hard to take seriously (Moly anyone?)

So does it matter what you believe?
 
 
gale
14:26 / 21.09.05
Yes, to me it matters.

I have found several belief systems, traditions, whatever that are complementary and I work well within them. Others I'm sure have found their own.

Somehow, the idea of putting on and off various beliefs in the name of results is like spitting in the collective faces of all those who lived within and maybe died for those beliefs.

But that's just what I believe.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
15:06 / 21.09.05
With magic, I tend to form beliefs based on direct experience. Through experimentation and observation, I've noticed that some "belief systems" produce markedly different qualitative results in different areas. To a certain extent, you can adopt all manner of belief systems and get results of a sort - but some belief systems or traditions are especially suited for accomplishing certain things. You could work with, say, the Looney Toons pantheon, and probably get some stuff happening. But if your interest happened to be in learning a sophisticated form of necromantic sorcery, the Looney Toons pantheon probably aren't going to be much use to you as patrons.

You can probably believe whatever you like, and experience it as reality. But that doesn't necessarily imply the kind of reductionism of belief that you sometimes find touted in magical discourse. All systems are not equal, in the same way that - when having a fight at the bottom of the ocean - the man with breathing apparatus is not on an equal footing to the man without.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
15:10 / 21.09.05
Depends : Does apprehension of Truth depend on what you believe? Does contemplation entail adopting beliefs?
 
 
Quantum
15:45 / 21.09.05
To unpack this a bit, there's often an underlying assumption that the system you use is just one of many systems all valid.
For example Gale says above But that's just what I believe. implying that it's OK for other people to believe other things, but frowning on jumping between paradigms willy-nilly. Fair enough.

But is it fair to say that a system I make up one afternoon involving the pantheon of Bugs and Daffy is as valid as the Golden Dawn, for example?

If someone's paradigm of beliefs is a new reinterpretation of a 'classic' system if you will (for example summoning godforms like Batman instead of Angels) that's probably more valid than something made up entirely from scratch.
Similarly, something constructed by many people is likely to be better than something made up alone.
These are two examples of criteria I use to judge magical systems before testing them out or dismissing them.

Is it right to judge belief systems at all? Personally I think so, I think Norse magic is better than Molatar's draconian workings, but I'm interested in the opinions of those here. I'm all for religious and magickal tolerance, but there's a lot of uncritical acceptance of rank nonsense in the New Age, and I'm against that.

If there's no objective Truth (a common magical belief) what do you judge a system against? Just pragmatism?
 
 
Quantum
15:49 / 21.09.05
Does apprehension of Truth depend on what you believe? Does contemplation entail adopting beliefs? Money shot

I'm not sure what you mean there. Contemplation obviously doesn't entail adoption of beliefs (I'm contemplating Moly's P-shifting right now- nope, I haven't adopted the belief) but apprehension of truth (Truth?) does depend on what you believe.
Care to clarify?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
16:52 / 21.09.05
I think one reason that the "all systems are equal" mindset has become so common is that certain results, certain experiences, are simply more accessible than others. A basic charj teh sigel working takes about five minutes to learn and not much more time to execute, whereas really getting the LBRP down can take months. Building a relationship with a particular spirit or deity is always going to take a lot longer than building a relationship with Bugs Bunny or Yoda, and will of necessity require a more sophisticated approach.

When a simple or homebrewed system yeilds results, even small results, it's tempting for a practitioner (especially someone with limited experience) to say: "Eureka! This is what real magic looks like! All that stuff about learning runes/gemetria/ect and drawing pentagrams in the air is just packaging. Phew, no need to worry about that, then." And so our trainee mage goes back to working on hir Peanuts tarot deck and swapping ideas for new ways to charge sigils.

And that's fine, because everyone's got a level of engagement with this stuff beyond which they will become uncomfortable. That level is bound to change over time, but trying to push things too fast is likely to be unhealthy. I think it's only a problem if someone fossilises at that level and stops making any progress: magical development consists of dealing with the Hellraiser Cenobites instead of the Looney Tunes, say, or charging sigils by whacking your thumb with a hammer instead of masturbation.

I think part of the problem is that many magical paths involve working with, I dunno, non-human intelligences, I guess you'd say. Gods, Lwa, angels, demons, whatever. And when it comes to these things, people have a level of belief that they're comfortable with and actually get quite threatened if they're asked to step beyond that, even in a vary temporary "well you just pretend like there's a demon/angel/whatever standing at each of the cardinal points until the ritual's over" kind of way. If you believe that all such entities are fictional, then they become equal in your mind. From this angle, Buffy is no worse than Artemis is no better than Ripley-off-of-Aliens.

That discomfort, that spiritual comfort zone, can be a powerful barrier to the kind of experiences that would make one question that mindset. For a start, you're less likely to even try interacting with spirits qua spirits in the first place, and even if you do, you're likely to apply a one-method-fits-all approach, probably with lacklustre results.
 
 
Quantum
18:34 / 21.09.05
To a certain extent, you can adopt all manner of belief systems and get results of a sort - but some belief systems or traditions are especially suited for accomplishing certain things...when having a fight at the bottom of the ocean - the man with breathing apparatus is not on an equal footing to the man without. G.L.

Absolutely, but the idea that you can use multiple belief systems, or that alternate belief systems are valis-I-mean-valid, is peculiar to modern magic I think. In the olden days most traditions taught their way as the only way and decried the rest as lies or heresy.


I think one reason that the "all systems are equal" mindset has become so common is that certain results, certain experiences, are simply more accessible than others.

I see what you mean- any random system can support a minor charm, it's more trappings than tools at the 'little magic' level.


If you believe that all such entities are fictional, then they become equal in your mind. From this angle, Buffy is no worse than Artemis is no better than Ripley-off-of-Aliens. M.C.

This echoes one of the things that sparked this thread off for me- in the Vampires thread when Haus wrote If somebody believes themselves to be, say, a teapot, but can still live a happy life, then how does their belief that they are a teapot discommode others?

Whether someone believes themselves to be a Vodou Houngan (sp?) or an Hermetic Ipssissimus, does it really make a difference? And does it matter whether someone's using a patchwork system of Loony Tunes or an ancient system of sorcery?

Seth in another thread (I think talking about energy but I can't find it) provides a half dozen examples of different models you could use, like arrows in a quiver. So to reflexively turn that on itself in a way, is the idea that one can choose what belief system to use useful? It seems to have strengths and weaknesses to me.

I'll come back to this when I'm a little clearer I think. My position is that being master of several traditions is better than inventing your own patchwork wankomancy, that what you believe *does* matter, and that comparing Angel cards to Tarot cards is like comparing a tin shack to the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Functionally similar but in a different league.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
20:04 / 21.09.05
I think the angel cards vs. Tarot is a good analogy. Obviously you're not really going to get the depth and sophistication from angel cards that you'd get from a good Tarot deck... but then, maybe you don't always need that. My old Reiki coach used to use the things every class, have us draw one, read the blurb in the little book that came with them, and use that as a starting point to talk briefly about how we thought we were getting along on the course, how it was affecting us. Fluffy as Barbie's pants, but good enough for the job at hand.

Sure, she could have used a deck of Tarot cards, but for what? To generate a three-minute chat? Insert sledgehammer/nut analogy here.

I doubt that I could ever have the same relationship with a deck of angel cards that I have with my Tarot decks. I rip the piss out of the crystal-dolphin rainbow-brite new age stuff, and I still reckon that the stranglehold it has on people's minds is pretty toxic. I think it's a distraction and ultimately it can be a trap, a maze that people can get lost in rather than making real progress in their magical lives. But having said all that... sometimes you just don't need the heavy-duty stuff for the work at hand.

It's a matter of being aware that there's a difference between angel cards (or the crystal oracle or whatever) and the Tarot, and to have some idea of what that difference is.
 
 
Unconditional Love
21:58 / 21.09.05
Perhaps that difference in perception is down to history, one having more history than the other gives it an authenticity that the other does not yet have. Also because it is new age and many magicians dont wish to be percieved as being new agers a stance is adopted that some how new age material is inferior, also because the new age connotates commercialism and is generally more sneered upon by skeptics, this can be used as a social barrier to make more historical magickal ideas legitimate.

If i were to take both packs of cards and mix them together and work with them that way, what would they become then? and as modern western individuals isnt that too an extent what we engage with when we look at any ancient tradition, our own cultural selves mixing and shuffling into traditional systems?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
22:40 / 21.09.05
Perhaps it might be profitable to go and start a thread defining what exactly we mean by "new age." I fear that what I mean may be very different to what you are reading, and it would be good to remedy that.

many magicians dont wish to be percieved as being new agers a stance is adopted that some how new age material is inferior

But I've found that a more common stance is to dismiss anything that isn't "cutting edge" as somehow inferior and unworthy of consideration, with "cutting edge" being defined differently by different practitioners but tending to eschew anything that might require more than an afternoon's study, and more importantly to eschew even a temporary suspension of disbelief in anything that might possibly be mightier that the Mighty Mage and Hir Mighty Will.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
00:15 / 22.09.05
If i were to take both packs of cards and mix them together and work with them that way, what would they become then?

Ummm... I dunno, is that a trick question? If you think it would be enlightening and important and an all-around Cool Thing to integrate a novel system (Angel cards) into an existing system (Tarot), then why don't you try it for a bit? Do regular readings for yourself and others using both the Tarot and your angelcard/Tarot system, keep detailed records, then come back and tell us how it went. In short, try it, experience it, actually work with the concept--and then come back and tell everyone what a freakin' cool idea it was.

Otherwise we're sort of playing "who would win a fight out of a wren and a frog" again. Which is fun and all, passes a rainy day, but ultimately it gets a bit sterile.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
09:42 / 22.09.05
If there's no objective Truth (a common magical belief) what do you judge a system against? Just pragmatism?

To an extent, yeah. Does it ring true? Is it workable? Can I get something from system A that I won't get elsewhere and which justifies the effort of trying to master it?

In the olden days most traditions taught their way as the only way and decried the rest as lies or heresy.

Did they? That's possibly a skewed perspective on "the olden days". If you look at something like Agrippa's "3 books of occult philosophy" published in the early 1500s, it's as much a syncretic mix of traditions as anything you might find in contemporary post-modern eclectic magic. It seamlessly partakes of Quabalistic, Greek and Arabic magics, grimoire evocation, and "walk around the church 13 times with a live toad in your mouth" style folk magic. Essentially a compendium of the various workable branches of magic that its author had been exposed to and had found to be workable. I think there very much was an attitude in the past that if something worked it was viable and had a place.

Whether someone believes themselves to be a Vodou Houngan (sp?) or an Hermetic Ipssissimus, does it really make a difference? And does it matter whether someone's using a patchwork system of Loony Tunes or an ancient system of sorcery?

Does it stand up? Is there depth and clout in the system enough to create a good magician? Does the Looney Toons pantheon provide the same kind of testing ground, learning curve and initiatory process as Haitian Vodou or Western Magic? Of course it fucking doesn't! These traditions are not just window dressing overlaid onto a mechanical process that can be explained in half an hour. They are a life's work. The more you engage with certain traditions of magic, the more awareness you develop of the sheer depth and vastness of those systems, how much of a baby you are within them, and how far there is to go. Do you get that from working with Buffy? I don't fucking think so.

Perhaps that difference in perception is down to history, one having more history than the other gives it an authenticity that the other does not yet have.

It's not about "authenticity" and street cred. There is so much depth, complexity, sophistication and mystery contained within something like the Tarot, or the I-Ching, or the Runes that you could spend your entire life studying them and hardly scratch the surface. Can you say the same thing about the new age fluff cards? Will they still be around in 500 years? The Tarot is not just a divination system, it contains an entire body of occult knowledge within it. If you want simple answers, you can divine with anything, fluff angel cards, tea leaves, animal entrails, whatever - but they are not the receptacles for occult understanding in the way that certain other historical divinatory systems are.

In the unlikely event that the angel cards were still around in 500 years time, would they be equivalent to tarot? Only if, in that 500 years period, they had somehow become a vehicle for the transmission of 500 years worth of occult teaching and tradition, and their very structure and form had changed and developed in order to accommodate and express those things. Which is probably how things like tarot came about in the first place. Certainly not just because of perceived historical authenticity giving them an air of old skool coolness.
 
 
Quantum
10:09 / 22.09.05
one having more history than the other gives it an authenticity that the other does not yet have

I reckon in a hundred years the angel cards *won't* have become a more authentic system, they'll be forgotten.

Luckily there's no need to test angel cards against Tarot, or mix them together, because they're not rival systems- angel cards are a simplified version of the Tarot. It would be like mixing the I-Ching with Mystic Megs daily prediction- "THUNDER OVER FIRE- Luck will come in a RED folder today, When one's affairs are finished one leaves quickly. No harm in this. Your fortunes will be affected by a PERSON today. One reconsiders this through discussion."

They're not just different approaches, one is better.

I agree with Mordant (reluctantly) that at the 'entry level' there's not much to distinguish between fluff and grit so to speak, if it works then why not use angel cards or a magic 8-ball or Mystic Meg?
But I think it's like starting down a very short path. To choose a better metaphor, Angel cards might be a paved downhill road to the sea, Tarot cards a rocky trail up a mountain*- more challenging but more rewarding, more difficult but with more range. Same with other systems like Vodoun and Asatru I suspect.

*this metaphor works best if you live by the sea obviously
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
10:12 / 22.09.05
In some instances, I think its more like comparing a rocky road up a mountain to the paved driveway of a cul-de-sac in Surrey.
 
 
Quantum
10:25 / 22.09.05
Agrippa's "3 books of occult philosophy" published in the early 1500s, it's as much a syncretic mix of traditions as anything you might find in contemporary post-modern eclectic magic.

I think that's a sign of a good magician rather than the tradition. Somebody wise once said 'Most people involved in the occult scene are a bunch of insufferable c*nts' and I can't imagine that wasn't so back in the day. For every Agrippa there's a thousand squabbling charlatans and madmen, who loved to big up their practice by announcing it TRUTH! and decrying all other systems. More true in Religion than Magic I suppose, the modern world is at least more tolerant (in some ways) than the ancient.

One thing I was pondering was strength of belief- an RC priest will have stronger faith than a Looney Tuner- and whether that makes a difference. I think it does, stronger faith=more power. A weak or shallow paradigm can't support a fervent belief, which I suppose comes back to Mordants point that 'big' magic needs a 'big' paradigm.

Seems like everyone believes in the law of pragmatism then, I'll keep it in my 'Laws of Magic' list :]
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
10:25 / 22.09.05
Trouble is, most people never engage with a system at anything other than that very superficial level. Even a system like the Tarot, which is very rich and deep (I've been reading cards for almost 20 years now, and I still feel like a beginner) can be approached in a thin, half-baked sort of way. How many people who go out and buy a Tarot deck are ever going to read more than a couple of books on the subject? Or work with more than one deck?
 
 
Unconditional Love
10:45 / 22.09.05
Perhaps it would help to put angel magic as a whole in its wider context, all manifestations of it including its integration within faerie practices. From the chaldean to the present.

But lets pick out one moment in time where these ideas have manifested before, late renaissance culture, during this period after the faustus satire on john dee and shakespears later celebration in the tempest (no doubt if there had been t.v's, P.c games and cinemas) it appears angel magick was very popular yet also percieved as being in some sense wrong or evil, a more acceptable form of magick was considered fairy magick, seen as neutral angels( in the times we live in of atheist secularism, angels themselves can be treated in a similar manner), during the 1600's both these streams of thought and associations exsisted as popular ways to explore the life of a reniassance magus and magical practice.

So at least 400 years latter they still appear to be manifesting? yes.
reniassance popular culture expressed the popularity of these notions in the forms it had avalible to itself at the time, just as we do today with the media forms we have avalible.

I am drawing my references from a book by geoffrey james called angel magic.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
11:02 / 22.09.05
I don't think anyone is disputing that there is a tradition of Angel magic. Of course there is. But are the new age angel cards we were talking about a genuine repository of this traditions mysteries in exactly the same way that the Tarot is for the western hermetic trad? I think one thing to note is that a lot of these new decks are the work of one person, whereas things like the tarot, runes and I Ching don't seem to be.
 
 
Unconditional Love
11:06 / 22.09.05
Another point would be are the angel cards and tarot trying to achieve the same ends? No i dont think so. Can they both be used as divination tools, yes, can they both be used as systems in and of themselves, yes, but both in differeing ways. The angel cards can be used as a focus for contact with divine intelligence, in a similar way that tarot can be used to manifest the entities that come together to form creation.

Does the aeon contain as much depth as gabriel? I dont even think its a useful question to ask. with so much diversity in magic how much can be gained from value based comparisson between systems. Is any tradition really that pure?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
11:14 / 22.09.05
I'm sure that you could create a fairly meaningful divinatory system using the lore surrounding angels as they appear in Judeochristian mythology; I'd agree that this is a very rich source of imagery. Dunno what angels are like to work with because I've never met one. The deck of cards I'm talking about, however, were pure fluff: pictures of kids with wings, and names like "Love" or "Courage."

Is any tradition really that pure?

What? I don't see anyone claiming that the trads we're talking about are "pure." What does "pure" even mean? We're talking about methods and practices which have a long history and a lot of depth versus something made up in an afternoon to sell pictures of kids with wings on to New Agers. Nobody's claiming to hold the distilled and unadulterated Wisdom of the Ancients.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
11:31 / 22.09.05
with so much diversity in magic how much can be gained from value based comparisson between systems.

I don't even know where to start with this sentence. Okay, what does "value based" mean, exactly? The only yardstick I've seen applied here is "Is it likely to work, and if so, is it likely to work well? Is there much to be gained, in terms of concrete results or understanding or wisdom from pursuing this path?"

Are you seriously telling us that you really and truly don't see any difference between the guy who works with the Looney Toons and the guy who works with the Lwa? (Or with the Angel Gabriel, for that matter.)

If so, I have to wonder if you ever actually do any magic, or if you're one of these types who just dress in black a lot and fuck about with candles.
 
 
Unconditional Love
12:28 / 22.09.05
Can anything be magical to a magician. thats my yard stick for doing magic, as soon as something cant be i know ive gone wrong somewhere.

If i lose the child playing with cardboard boxes that can be anything at all as far as i am concerned thats the magic fading away.

I am not suggesting you are saying things are pure, but making the point that no tradition is strictly traditional or populist or commercialised in some form or another and that that is a part of the tradition as much as any other aspect. the seperation in perception between new age fluff and tradition lies where?

"Are you seriously telling us that you really and truly don't see any difference between the guy who works with the Looney Toons and the guy who works with the Lwa? (Or with the Angel Gabriel, for that matter.)"

I see a difference in the way they work but not in the ability to work effectively with each respective system. That to me is all down to the ability of the magician concerned, and if working with them as entities how those entities manifest to that given individual within his or her circumstance, which i dont think would be nessecarily universally characterised.

wonder no more , i occasionally wear black shirts and blue tee shirts. currently i am working with a glass hexagram that holds 7 tealights and designating them as the sun and the respective other planetary bodies and cross correlating that with the kabbalah as a way of establishing a relationship with the macrocosm so that my sense of self becomes more unified with the workings of the solar system. I also allegedly fuck myself with candles. depends whose doing the talking.

The only angel cards ive cum across, were very traditional representations of angels, the book wasnt very well researched, so i used attributuions from gustav davidsons a dictionary of angels. perhaps thats why i dont dismiss it out of hand i think given a good imaginative approach to any thing no matter how populist it contains a magical potential.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
13:30 / 22.09.05
Can anything be magical to a magician. thats my yard stick for doing magic, as soon as something cant be i know ive gone wrong somewhere.

If i lose the child playing with cardboard boxes that can be anything at all as far as i am concerned thats the magic fading away.

With you so far. When I'm working well, I find that pretty much every aspect of my life becomes imbued with the magical; or perhaps the spiritual would be a better word. Painting a picture. Going for a walk. Doing the washing up. All choc-full-o-magic.

But then we get to:

the seperation in perception between new age fluff and tradition lies where?


Sweet mother of...

Okay. The seperation, for me, lies in whether I'm looking at a practice that has a) depth of meaning and b) a history of effective use. If I'm looking at twenty-odd pictures of kids with wings on for which the only related text is a 100-page booklet, and the whole mess was designed and developed last year, then guess what? I'm going to accord it less respect than the I Ching.

I'm not just pulling all this out of my ear. It's not a bunch of theory I've cooked up based on my own prejudices. I've done the work. I've sat down and made a serious bloody attempt to use a variety of different systems, ancient and novel.

I've worked with the Tarot. I've worked--less exstensively, I admit--with the runes. I've worked with a variety of novel fluffbunny systems (including one or two of my very own), approaching them in the same spirit that I approached the Tarot cards. I'm now back on the Crowley deck because--wonder of wonders!--the year-old fluffbunny crap is massively less effective than Tarot or runes.

Ditto novel magical systems. I've created various chaos workings around the Periodic Table of Elements, or concepts taken from physics and electronics. I've used systems wherein one evokes pop-culture figures instead of Gods or spirits. I've worked extensively with movie-verse Magneto, and even more exstensively with Marge from Fargo. Does this kind of system work? Sure. Do they pack the same kind of wallop that working with Team Norse packs? Or even working with my two personal guides? No, they bloody don't.

This is my personal experience. I didn't read it in a book. I didn't formulate it based on something someone else said. I haven't done nearly as much work as I should have done by my age (one powerful aspect of working in an older, deeper system is the stunning realisation of just how utterly clueless you really are) but I've done enough to be able to state that all systems are not equal, and if you're going to claim that they are I'd like to know what experience you're basing that claim on.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
13:34 / 22.09.05
(And I really don't give a monkeys where you stick your candles or what colour clothes you wear, I was merely sketching out a stereotypical wankomancer for the purposes of illustration.)
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
13:38 / 22.09.05
Contemplation obviously doesn't entail adoption of beliefs (I'm contemplating Moly's P-shifting right now- nope, I haven't adopted the belief)

Not those / that one(s), no. Some other one(s). Possibly the same ones you were in possession of when you first encountered the challenging ones, compared the two (or several) and decided, whether consciously or not, which one's to keep and which to reject; or possibly some fusion of the two - based on...what, exactly? Where's yer litmus paper located?

but apprehension of truth (Truth?) does depend on what you believe.
Care to clarify?

Well, it certainly depends on what you believe Truth (truth?) to be / not be. Unless truth does not be. In which case, what the hell are we talking about?
 
 
Unconditional Love
15:34 / 22.09.05
by no means are they all equal, unless of course you wish to accord all experience one equal and unifying nature, definately we impose perception of our own particular experience over systems with our own given experience of working, but is that just as open to question as the questions we raise when faced with a bunch of new age fluffyness.

Also who would these cards benefit as you describe them, they are of some use to somebody somewhere, they shouldnt surely just be dismissed out of hand, perhaps with more experience and hindsight that could be a reaction, but not everybody coming into contact with the fluffy angel deck will have that experience or the advantage of hindsight. And until they have experienced or learnt that for themselves through themselves they will perhaps not be able to understand a lack of respect for the cards in question.

Why not highlight the potential use of them? why denigrate them and seemingly raise something else above them. if thats where another person is in there achievement relating to those cards, does that put you as a practitioner flying high above them? i dont think you would consider it that way but then i dont really know.

There are stages of achievement and different guides, ways and places for the variety of people that exsist, they are all equally important to those people where they find themselves within there own practice, as they move from one aspect to another, import is placed else where, but the fluffyness serves its purpose and function equally and as importantly as thelema, which from a certain point of view seems fluffy to another kind of practioner, depending on the achievement made, and generally with an advancement or percieved advancement can come a tendency to reject the place we found ourselves in before hand to establish the movement forward for ourselves, but the value laid in being there to begin with so we could move on from that place can become lost.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
16:01 / 22.09.05
Why not highlight the potential use of them?

I already did.

why denigrate them and seemingly raise something else above them.

Because they just aren't that great, that's why. They're okay for a certain kind of task, but outside of that they have limits. If a person is not comfortable working outside those limits, it ze consciously says "Okay, I realise this isn't going to take me very far, but I don't have the resources to invest in something more ambitious right now" then that's hardly a bad thing; it's when people genuinely don't realise that they are being limited by the systems that they're using that there's a problem.

if thats where another person is in there achievement relating to those cards, does that put you as a practitioner flying high above them? i dont think you would consider it that way but then i dont really know.

I don't consider myself "above" someone who happens to be at a different stage of their practice. Different people have different sets of skills, and their lives take them different places. My life happened to intersect with the Tarot at an early age, so these days I'm a pretty decent cartomancer. I'm not the best there is, and I've got a very great deal to learn, but I don't think it's a wild act of egomania to claim that I'm a bit better at that specific skill than someone who's just picked up Pixie McFluffy's Happy Bunny Oracle at the local hippy shop. Maybe the Pixie person will overshoot me in a couple of years and be able to kick my arse. I don't know.
 
 
Quantum
16:28 / 22.09.05
The only angel cards ive cum across 'Over and Out'

Wankomancy, see?
 
 
Quantum
16:48 / 22.09.05
Where's yer litmus paper located? Money shot

The criteria for deciding whether or not to accept a belief for me (and I think everyone) is if I think it's true. When encountering Magical beliefs it's a bit trickier, as there seems to be no objective truth comprehensible by the human mind (facets of the hyperdiamond, stained glass window and all that) so I tend to consider Intuition/gut reaction, internal consistency, history and universality, how it maps onto other systems I already believe, and if it works. The bottom line is, if I think it's good I'll try it, then if it works for me adopt it.
Here's an example- sigils. Perfectly good magical technique for Spare, seemed good, I tried it (charging the sigils hands-free, mind) and it didn't work for me. So I binned it.
Thus the Magical Law of Pragmatism- Whatever Works. Contemplation first, then testing, then adoption.

Well, it certainly depends on what you believe Truth (truth?) to be / not be. Unless truth does not be. In which case, what the hell are we talking about? Money shot

I believe truth to be subjective, contingently true, not to be universally true (mostly). What we thought was true in the middle ages turned out not to be, what we believe to be true today will probably be laughable in a hundred years. So apparently incommensurable beliefs can simultaneously be true. 'Nothing is true, everything is permitted' (Crowley) 'Everything that can be believed is in some sense true' (Blake) etc.
 
 
Unconditional Love
17:46 / 22.09.05
wank wank wank wank wank blah blah blah blah blah.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
17:53 / 22.09.05
No change there, then.

For one tiny, beautiful moment, I actually entertained the fantasy that you were trying to engage with the discussion at hand. More fool me.
 
 
Quantum
18:28 / 22.09.05
Over & Out- do you remember on the 12th September or so (ooh, ten days ago), when you changed your screen name to 'OVER AND OUT' (emphasis mine) as a statement, to draw attention to you leaving the board? And PM'd me about it, about how intolerant Barbelith was? And then came back LESS THAN A WEEK LATER (thanks for winning my bet for me though) and continued just as though nothing had happened?

That's when I started being intolerant. You just keep cumming back dontcha? Prev. Wankangel, prev. Walking in irritating Circles, prev Whatever, shape up or ship out.

Barbelith, please forgive my ad hominem outburst, normal tolerance is now resumed.
 
 
Claris Dancers
18:41 / 22.09.05
My position is that being master of several traditions is better than inventing your own patchwork wankomancy

But why believe anything at all? Why not work from what you've personally experienced? This seems similar to me to my dealings with martial arts (among other things that tend to be "religious issues")- everyone has their own system and they are all the greatest on earth. You can choose one style or many, or make up your own patchwork wankomancy-do. And all of these are effective in some way, especially to someone who doesn't practice anything at all or to someone who is just starting. but certainly one style could be better than another, more effective in some way or other than another, and have limitations like anything else with rules and a defined order. Look for the underlying root of efficiency and that is where the actual power and effectiveness comes from. So, i guess what im saying is, no it doesnt matter what you believe (if you have to believe anything at all) so long as it points to the root of effectiveness.
 
 
Gendudehashadenough
06:33 / 23.09.05
I'm going to give this posting thing a try.

For me, I think, it's got to do with how you approach those magical tradition that have been entrenched, added to, and deveoloped over the years running from antiquity. It seems to me that the imagery that surround MOST magical systems is so complex, web-like, and associative that after an indeterminate number of years it will become possible for individuals percieving it in a different age in which is was developed will be able to draw on their experiencial background and form connections with what was known to the sages/mystics who created the systmes in the first place.

I've been getting into magick for the last two years now and it has done nothing but depress, alienate, and de-evolve my ways of percieving/thinking about the world based on experiences that had previously created a very comfortable, articulate space with which to live my life. Those experiences, whether they be based on the Toons Pantheon, gaining insight from athletics that can be somehow tied to yogic breath work, need to do just that, be associated develped with ALL those ideas/beliefs that have been developed before the nEw mage decided to enter onto the path he/she decided on.

As of now it is my goal to work with my limited experience and see what it can teach me about the ridiculous myriad which makes up the vast corpus of occult knowledge; western, eastern, space age, etc. Some shit just doesn't work because it too damn remvoed from the practitioners experience thus they have no deep, thought out imagery with which to draw from in order to keep themselves involved in a meaning relationship that honors their past personal experiences, but at the same time allows for their "comfort level" to be challanged so that new information may be assimilated into what they already know, changing what's there already if need be.

I completely echo the gut sensation and random intuition that must permeate every magical life, however it decides to manifest itself. This is the one thing that seems to tell me the Truth about what I'm experiencing. Does it make me feel unhappy to the point where I'd like to get a gas can and a match? If so I'd say that I've definately say I've hit a tender spot in my comfort level. Or does my intuition tell me that being a kandi raver, who reads your Angel cards while on E, is just a little to fucking frivolous to really engage with the world on a larger scale.

Any practice that lulls one into a sense of stagnation needs to be replaced, whether that stagnation be comfortable or not; because some comfort levels are acceptable i.e. the one that comes with the serious adoption of a fulfilling practice. But the intuition, feeling, general perception of one's direction in life should indicate whether or not that deep level is a useful one for the time being, or not.

Does the rocky road up the mountain have to be initiated (i hate that damn word) at the genesis of the magickal life? Or, for some people, does it help to start with something a little more immature?(In the sense that working with shit that's only been around four and half months just hasn't had the time to really evolve into a deep way of engaging with the world)

Which is more effective reading the RgVeda and writing an exegis or scanning cliffs notes, then giving a lecture? I'd think that going to the source, of whatever it is your practicing would be the most effective way of doing anything. With that in mind start soaking your Fluffy Winged Tarto Deck in gas.

i'm gonna go wank it to nothing in particular now. Swet Dreams.
 
  

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