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Grand Unified Aether Theory, or, The Atoms of Magic

19:06 / 02.12.05

Either this subject is so entirely moot it isn’t worth discussing, or it’s a crux point.

For me, to work with anything, I want to understand it as much as possible; it facilitates my belief and trust in what I’m doing. So I’ve come up with something that fits my conception of what magic is, and how it works. It doesn’t really conflict with or contradict other traditions, though I can’t see the theory anywhere else.

For me, magic is information, it is the influence and play of meaning in a world that is becoming more and more influenced and suffused by information. Language, ideas, even emotions, are mediated through information. For me, it is the aether that surrounds and pervades everything we involve ourselves in. I’ll stop there, but I’ll keep going if anyone wants to know more. Me, I want to know what it is for you.

I personally don’t think we’ll have a single answer, but the multitude of answers and opinions may be illuminating…

20:05 / 02.12.05

I tend to take a very symbol-oriented approach to the work, partially because I came to Comm. theory and magic at about the same time (I'm working on a BA in rhetoric/communications). For me, magic and more generally many strains of religion are ways of symbolically interacting with the world, at the very least semantically/with respect to how one acts (a la the chaos idea of religion as "placebo" to facilitate personal action or overcoming of boundaries), and possibly more as well, in the context of synchronicity. My differentiation between the occult and other reality-tunnels/belief systems is that occult practice tends to accord one the ability to work on both oneself and one's position in the world based on symbols. One person who really summed up what I think is Kenneth Burke, a literary theorist/philosopher who argued that the symbols we use determine how we react in different situations and form "screens" of heirarchized symbols to dictate what is good and what is to be avoided (I know this idea is by no means original w/respect to postmodern thought, but I first encountered it here). Burke's great sorrow with respect to humanity stemmed from the fact that we become so entangled into our symbolic frameworks that we cannot see the world any other way, destroying the possibility for empathy and leading to insoluble division. Magic then seems to me to be a kind of "meta-framework" which asks us to constantly recognize our symbolic screens as screens and change them to serve us. We can create our own frameworks or take on older frameworks with more rhetorical legitimacy, and thus more subjective power in some sense (they are easier to respect for some than personal frameworks) but at the same time avoid according too much legitimacy and losing ourselves in any one system but that which we create from other ideas over time. Add a little RAW (thinker/prover), and you have the ability to alter "reality" in a limited sense even as you alter your own symbology.

Sorry if this answer is too theory-heavy; I assumed you were more concerned with that than what specific practices we embrace.

10:49 / 03.12.05

I've found that magic works for me through a mindset in which I don't accept the generally approved theories about "how the world is", especially about "unchangeable facts", and in which I'm acting as if I had the power to change the world. I can't tell exactly how it works, but that it works, I guess is because the world actually is very different from what we usually perceive it to be.

For this reason I don't really believe in a theory of magic (though of cause I really would like to understand more about it, too), because the act of abandonning theories seems to be essential for me.

rising and revolving

14:55 / 03.12.05

A few days ago I would have been full of theories. Today, I got nothin.

All I know for sure is, it ain't nothing at all like I thought it was - and I know very, very, little about anything at all.

It's very exciting.

17:51 / 03.12.05

My paradigm is based in complexity and sensitivity to initial conditions. Influence is exerted over objective reality by projecting intent aimed at the most fundamental levels of physical existence, and the effects ripple and cascade up from the microscale to the macroscale. Symbols are used to accomplish this by providing a way to encapuslate will and meaning.
For more of my outlandish claims, check out quantumsorcery.org.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

22:30 / 03.12.05

I currently find that the Time Tree model, as put forward by Vonnegut (and discussed in this thread here), fills all my theoretical needs.

This is quite impressive, since my current practices include asking little bits of card to tell me about my and other's futures; making a similar request of bits of wood with lines cut into them; making little collections of rocks, roots, herbs, powders, hair/body fluids ect, coins, found objects, the aforementioned lines cut into stuff and putting them into little bags; talking to invisible people; giving said invisible people a drink, snack and/or smoke in exchange for their company, advice, and dance lessons; waving my arms about and chanting.

These practices are, of course, all perfectly ridiculous. However, when one views all of space and time is one great living organism, rocks and people and termites and Gods and anthrax germs and Zoids and money and dead people and rain and stars become not isolated fragments of reality but aspects of an inconcievably vast branching structure whose trunk winds back to the Big Bang--the veritable Yggdrasil of legend--everything gradually begins to make more sense. We can begin to think in terms of affecting change elsewhere on the Tree by shaking our own little twig...

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

08:30 / 04.12.05

What Mordant and Wanderer said, really.

Whether you like it or not, or recognise it or not, you are telling yourself a story about your life and position within the Universe, and how that Universe is functioning. A self created narrative, woven from your experiences as filtered through the cultural screens you have encountered and accepted / rejected.

I think a lot of people who poo-poo or doubt magic as a way of describing this narrative play are convinced that one or other of the nearly infinite stories available to them through the cultural interplay they have access to is right, and all the others are either wrong, or mostly wrong, or totally absurd. The material scientific story is the one most people who claim to have Truth worship. What is often overlooked is that this is idolatry no different to prostrating yourself in front of a giant carved dude with a hundred arms and nine heads and wings and eight cocks, or whatever. You are constructing a narrative, and it is not reality. It is your story, to yourslef, about reality. If your story chides well with your experience, you have an accurate model. If not, you have an inaccurate model, and will most likely adjust it to remedy the incongruence. If you stick with an inaccurate model which has little confluence eith experience, or at least the experience of those filtering with the same or similar cultural screens as you, you might end up labelled 'mad' or mentally ill'...Culture cannot be thought outside of, everything you are able to think has been inculcated by your culutural heritage, the thoughts, feelings and experiences of everything that has gone before.

I used to have one narrative, and it was making me a fairly miserable, complaining, cynical arsehole. But I was content with that. I have been radically changed, and my current narrative leaves me brimming with happiness in a Universe of wonder, magic and astounding beauty. I know which one I prefer. [gameshow] And the choice, game-players, is yours!![/gameshow]

11:04 / 04.12.05

Magic is alternative ways of slicing the enormous dataset that is our sense impressions rather than 'ordinary reality'

OR

Magic is a cobbled together set of techniques to change the world but we don't know why it works

OR

It's a hyperadvanced psychoscience of self-change that affects the outside world because the distinction between inner & outer, above & below, is an illusion

OR

It's an alternative model of the world from the one we are taught at school, explaining the same things differently. Like non-Euclidean geometries

OR

It's incipient OCD and superstition replacing religion for the gullible

OR

It's the future of science being used in the present by visionaries who understand their atemporal nature and can affect the past and future by envisioning it all as a single object embedded in a time continuum they can conceptually step outside with the help of the Gods (Hi MC!)

OR

it's a countercultural backlash against the rise of materialism devised by the Illuminati to waste the efforts of those who would oppose them on trivial self indulgence

OR...

(more crackpot theories tomorrow)

14:58 / 05.12.05

This would be the point where I admit my whole motive in asking was to compare my own astral world-views with others. Which seems, generally, to jive with most other people. Symbol-sets, and manipulation of them, seem to be a manipulation of the information layer that wraps around the physical.

Essentially, you're hacking the universe, to use computer metaphors. Re-coding your 'browser' (perceptions) allows you different levels of access, control, and creation of information in 'cyberspace' (the information ocean). Something like sigil-work, or meditation, or rituals, essentially fine tune your browser for specific tasks. Now, I'm just rambling here, putting out an idea that I've never really road-tested with words before. Thoughts? Too simple? Not broad enough a metphor?

Also, another question. I think we're all pretty confident of the ability of the occult to affect the information-based elements of life. Can it affect the physical? If so, can it be answered with more then 'just because?'

Lastly, I was hoping to hear Gypsy Lantern toss in a few cents, since I've either been intrigued or agreed with a lot of his points.(His outlining of the difference between Magic and Magick on this thread was what got me thinking in this vein.) Gypsy, you out there?

15:12 / 05.12.05

More or less what Mordant said.

15:18 / 05.12.05

With a side order of Money$hot's comments as well.

15:33 / 05.12.05

For this reason I don't really believe in a theory of magic ... because the act of abandonning theories seems to be essential for me.

Good point. i don't really like theories of magic, because I think magic pushes up against things that are impossible to explain. I think it's a bit absurd to have a theory of magic - if we could explain it, it wouldn't be bloody magic. Sorry if this sounds overly cycnical but it's a consequence of running up against the limitations of "explanationism" - omch is a vice I indulge in myself from time to time.

Let's say, I have an experience - I find it easier just to accept this as a manfestation of a god or spirit, rather than violate the princple of Occam's razor and torture myself and the English language through squeezing out rubbish communication metaphors. The more stuff I read like that, the more annoying I find it. It's magic, it's weird and it's odd, but there it is.

And not to be personal, DH, but I hate the computer/reality hacking metaphor. I think the popularity of this simply reflects that fact that we spend more time on computers than we used to, and some of us over-identify with The Matrix, as opposed to presenting a true or even an enchanced definition of what's actually occuring.

16:16 / 05.12.05

And not to be personal, DH, but I hate the computer/reality hacking metaphor.

Hacking can mean rejiggering a system to do that which it wasn't meant to do, yeah? That was how I read it anyway and, yes, I disliked it as well. I think magic's more akin to working at the command-line level: A specialized, direct communication with the system that's available to anyone with enough dedication to learn the language and parameters.

Hope to show you some of my GUT later on.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

16:26 / 05.12.05

Also, I don't think what I personally am doing is anything like as complex and sophisticated as what a hacker does*. I'm more giving my little corner of reality a bit of a thump to improve the picture.

*Yet.

17:22 / 05.12.05

(slight rot, apologies) Digital Hermes- have you read Cryptonomicon by any chance? I was just re-reading a section last night where Enoch Root is describing pagan gods as the cause of psychological complexes in a similar style to your post, and Stephenson uses 'Hack' in a much more general sense than most people (as Hackers are wont to do). For example I hack Tarot meaning I have a detailed body of specialised knowledge about it.

On topic, I don't like the hacking metaphor because it implies accessing the sourcecode of the universe as though one then has access to 'True Reality', which is nonsense.

20:05 / 05.12.05

Illmatic-I admit the Comm. stuff is overcomplicating things a bit. I'm not deeply tied to any theory, I just get a rush out of thinking through this stuff via varous theoretical lenses, much the same way I enjoy the odd philosophical or religious debate or a game of chess now and then. That particular metaphor is just one which has proved more enjoyable than most to play around with.

20:12 / 05.12.05

Plus, like I said at the bottom of my post, I assumed the thread was more about the way we contextualize things than the way we actually work. I don't sit there and think about how I symbolically interact with the world while I'm doing ritual, but it's pleasing to think through things from a variety of perspectives-plus, I find complicating things helps avoid obsession/attatchment to a particular paradigm.

As a side note, I've also found the comm. stuff (via someone like Rushkoff) to be an easily swallowable way to get my more scientifically-bound friends (and myself, before I started actually practicing and getting results) used to what I'm doing before I inadvertently start saying stuff that REALLY fucks with their heads (the Jungian archetypes theory Regardie and others have considered also works for this; then you can go into synchronicity, and from there into more full-on magical ways of looking at things.)

22:05 / 05.12.05

Magic aside, I would say the super-string theory is the new aether..

I tend to see the universe in a more "castañedian" way, is a nearly infinite set of luminous string overlaping oneanother, streching endlessly in all directions (possibly with many different collors, which woulde give it a groovy psychodelic look). And magic would be the mental manipulation of those string to change or influence the universe to whatever end, by whatever mean...

But, as said before in this thread with other words, that's theory, and magic is practice.

13:37 / 06.12.05

Wanderer - I wasn't particularly having a pop at you, I was just refering to the bizarre over-complications - and tired metaphors - that frequently get wheeled out to explain the unexplainable.

14:59 / 06.12.05

I assumed the thread was more about the way we contextualize things than the way we actually work.

That's pretty much it exactly, Wanderer. If you don't contextualize things, that's fine too. With the magical processes that I either follow or create, I'm not continually imagining an information-layer on top of the world, nor do I keep any sort of computer metaphor in the foreground of my mind.

Regarding the browser analogy, thanks for the feedback. No offense taken; as a new thought, I haven't had the time to be pridefull about it. I'm not ready to abandon computer lingo yet, though. I find it a usefull way to give examples to people about what I perceive I'm doing when I work.

As a sideline to 'the way we contextualize things', is also the point, 'what do you think magic is?' If it is information-based (symbols/archtypes, paradigms, fictionsuits, personal pantheons) can it also affect a physical reality? If so, how do you think that operates? Or is it better to take it on faith that it does? (And lastly, would syncrhonicity count as affecting the physical reality?)

p.s. 'physical reality' meaning the generally unlevitateable desk I work on, not the consensual hallucination we all may share.

15:11 / 06.12.05

After having a think about this, I'm afraid the best explanation I can muster is pointing at a diagram of the Tree of Life and going "Der it is, George. Der it is." After that it's some vague mumblings about "the One* in All and the All in One".

As far as context goes, when I work I know** I'm making use of the connections that make up the Tree and the interplay between my personal microcosmic Tree and the macrocosmic Tree.

Guess I'm a twig shaker too.

* Not Keanu Reeves
** Inside the circle, I know. Outside the circle, there's room for doubt.

09:10 / 07.12.05

can it also affect a physical reality? If so, how do you think that operates?

This is what I was trying to get at in my posts. I think magick quite defintely can affect physical reality (though I wouldn't obsess over this, in a kind of prove-it-to-me way), it's more than a conceptual filter we put over the world. However, I am absolutely buggered if I can explain how it does, and most explanations I've encountered seem to obscure the subject, rather than clarify. So I'd rather, as you say, "take it on faith", and rely on traditional models as a mask for something unknowable.

To clarify - I mostly subscribe to to a psychological model of magic, but occasionally, I have an experience which makes that model just - look kind of stupid. Weak, it can't fit all the parts. So, I'd rather leave it alone, in the box that is magick/weird stuff, rather than try and squeeze it into a theory.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

09:23 / 07.12.05

material/spiritual
physical/mental
past/future
magic/science
truth/fiction

same difference.

09:44 / 07.12.05

See, I go the other way and proliferate theories like bacteria on an old hot dog. I completely agree we can't explain how magic does what it does, but we can't explain how gravity does what it does either- doesn't stop people throwing hypotheses around (I currently favour the idea that the fundamental atomic units of the universe are rainbows, which explains rather a lot quite conveniently; if everything's connected by chains of an infinite number of infinitesimally small rainbows instantaneous action-at-a-distance is easy, as rainbows don't deform...sorry, back on topic...)

Magic definitely affects the physical world but I see it as Strategic effects rather than Tactical if you know what I mean. Magic will make someone leave a fully loaded ganja pipe on a park bench in the night so that the next morning just as I bemoan my lack of weed I walk past and find it (happened to me this morning) but it won't spontaneously create a reefer in a flash of light. I don't think.

16:06 / 07.12.05

I understand what you mean, Illimatic. I find it difficult trying to reconcile worldviews when synchronicity throws me a curveball.(Or in Quantum's case, ganja.)

That said, some of the magic-workers that I'm interested in seem to have made some decisions, not just about their path, but also regarding these larger questsion. In particular, I'm thinking of Alan Moore. Would you include Grant Morrison, Crowley, maybe Austin Osman Spare, in that list? I'm a little fuzzier with them.

I also keep on thinking that the computer metaphor isn't such a bad approach, in terms of discussing occult subjects quickly and easily. Based on the previous reactions, was the vitriol directed at the 'browser-as-perception' analogy, or was it against computer metaphors on the whole?

16:16 / 07.12.05

I think the computer metaphor is rubbish because its often pitched that magic is like having "the cheat codes to reality" or "access to the source code". A nice poetic metaphor, but does it actually work like that? Is that genuinely your experience of magic or is it wishful thinking? Does it accurately describe what takes place or does it actively obfuscate what is going on? If you have the cheat codes to reality, make me a millionaire, give me superstrength, make me invulnerable. If you have access to the source codes, change the colour of the sky, play with gravity, turn the moon into a duck. Does it really work like that? Do your experiences really conform to that model? Or are you simply coming up with an aesthetically pleasing metaphor that doesn't really bear much resemblance to the experiential nature of what you're doing and is therefore actually quite misleading.

18:29 / 07.12.05

RE: the discussion between DH and Illmatic-I more or less agree that, some of the time, no theory comes close. It's rather why I just like to play with these things, and use them less as working theories-if Im doing almost any working, and I'm firing on all cylinders, I'm simply not in a state where I care about what's going on in any kind of explanatory sense; I'm just content to let it happen. Same with the odd synchronicity. I guess if I had a root "theory" of magic, it would be some sort of taoist "path that can be told is not the eternal path" or some statement about non-action. Often, to get results to happen, all I do is consciously focus attention away from what it is I want, so that it's present in my mind, yet not. When I do full rituals, it's really more of an aesthetic thing, though it's also effective.

18:35 / 07.12.05

GL, the computer metaphor seems problematic to me primarily, as you said, because it carries with it a connotation of having some sort of priveleged access. I tend to think that everyone "does" magic, in some sense-what distinguishes the so-called "initiated" from everyone else is the degree of consciousness as to which desires are being subconsciously implanted/"put into the aether" and the corresponding fine-tuning of control over what is actualized, the specificity of the results and one's mental states and ability to put the wierd shit that happens into context (consciously acknowledging synchronicity as such and actively playing with it, moving beyond "so one time the stranges thing happened..."

Beyond that, Im not going to say that it's a flat bad model if you eliminate that element-the more tech-savvy might find it works for them, and finding your own pace and explanations is, IMHO, a big part of what it's really about.

19:19 / 07.12.05

Im not going to say that it's a flat bad model if you eliminate that element-the more tech-savvy might find it works for them, and finding your own pace and explanations is, IMHO, a big part of what it's really about.

This pretty much summed up what my response to Gypsy was going to be. I think, yes, magician-as-hacker is problematic, creating a sense of elitism, not to mention implying a fundamental truth. (These were both problems of mine that oulined in the G&G section, in a thread about problems with Mage: The Awakening.)

That said, my personal theory is of information systems, how we overlay one on top of a physical world in order to communicate and function as a society, and even of the information systems inherent in cells, atoms, everything. I've found something that works for me, and since I'm seeing it as time-as-a-football-shaped-information-system, I don't think applying another view of information system management and manipulation is invalid. Just like with computers, some people, with either lots or little knowledge, will consider themselves elite and above for that knowledge, (and maybe misuse it). Others may be content simply to know, to understand.

If you remove the negativity of the hacker, does the metaphor get more palpable?

(If there are any 'hackers' out there, let's just be clear, my usage of the word is for the generally misanthropic of the breed, virus-makers and those that lord their knowledge over others, not necessarily those wonderful people who create message boards, or produce open source software that we {I} love. Anyway.)

09:48 / 08.12.05

Well, I’d say re. the metaphor, regardless of implied elitism or otherwise - what’s your experience? Is it a model that seems to match? My experience of practice is nothing like my experience of computer use, so it’s a very weak match for me.

10:01 / 08.12.05

I think that if you're talking about shared consensual reality as an information system we overlay onto our experience, the programming metaphor does stand up a lot better than if you're talking about "cheat codes to reality". Magic as a form of information management isn't so problematic to my mind as viewing it as a way of rewriting the source code of the universe. Possibly gets a bit limiting though, if you're looking at it through that lens it perhaps pins things down a bit more than I would like to and sets walls around what may or may not be achievable in the context of information management. Puts it into a box. I think its healthy to have this sort of working theory, but the more attached to one of these metaphors you get, the more greater risk you face of your experiences simply conforming to the model through expectation. Doesn't necessarily mean it's accurate. I prefer to speculate freely, but keep things loose and flexible.

12:07 / 08.12.05

Magic won't spontaneously create a reefer in a flash of light. ...but I discovered that Teh Darque Madgix allow me to make one disappear in a puff of smoke...

12:32 / 08.12.05

Here's a hacking meta-metaphor- the metaphor you use to understand magic is like the programming language you use to code. Each has benefits and drawbacks, so the best idea is to be fluent in several and use the most appropriate as the situation demands.
So sometimes it's good to think in an informational-processing mindset, sometimes in the reality-tunnel of RAW, sometimes a sceptical parapsychologist etc. but to stick to one as the standard is inflexible.

14:59 / 08.12.05

It becomes really interesting when you bring LINUX into it. Basically, this is using a computer at the closest possible level to actually punching in ones and zeros. Most LINUX users build their own computer, including their own operating systems. That kind of has the 'multiple paradigms' view to it, in the sense that it's not like every magic user/computer user is constrained to one operating system, Thelema/MacOSX.

(These are attempted parallels; if you think Thelema would be a different system, which one? Except for Windoze.)

Interestingly, LINUX users seem to also be able to re-write their operating systems to better work with new programs, or to do a job differently. This has a sense for me of changing your worldview a tad, to allow a summoning to operate successfully, or somesuch. You see where I'm going?

In terms of my practical experience, most of my workings, either magically, or as a theatre artist/writer (more the latter, I'm more apprentice then warlock), have been an exploration of that information-layer, how we behave with it and how it behaves with us. So, for me, when I do a lesser banishing ritual before I start a performance, I don't consciously consider it to be 'booting up my audience for the program of the performance,' but that might be a useful way to describe it, later...