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Is Magick Real?

The One Eyed King

00:25 / 04.02.02

Is magick real? Or is it just another manifestation of the human mind? Is magick really a small bit of the universe that we can control? Many people practice this art and have found that there are many forms of it. There is black magick, which is made up of curses and hexes, etc. There is the stranger chaos magick, and the other magick's from the different religions. Is there really such a thing? Is everyone deluding them selves with false information?

Perhaps the magick that we do use isn’t real. It might just be some sort of coincidence or maybe it is the human mind controlling it. They cast as spell that can make us more confident or raise our prosperity. They might think that the magick is doing it but it is really their own mind. They have gained more confidence because they think that the spell is going to take care of it for them. Their prosperity has rose because they felt the initiative to take control of their status because they think that the spell, once again, will do all of the work for them.

There are other kinds of magick that I do not know about and that I haven’t mentioned that might counter these thoughts. If you do think you have a good theory of magick feel free to post it in the forum or e-mail it to me. I will also take comments and remarks of other kinds.

00:35 / 04.02.02

quote:Originally posted by C.A.S:
Is magick real?

I don't know.

00:38 / 04.02.02

no, of course it's not real.

01

03:51 / 04.02.02

YOU CAN'T IGNORE TIME CUBE!!!

Nietzsch E. Coyote

03:53 / 04.02.02

Who cares if it is "real" all that should matter is that it works.

07:47 / 04.02.02

quote: Is magick real? Or is it just another manifestation of the human mind? Is magick really a small bit of the universe that we can control? Many people practice this art and have found that there are many forms of it. There is black magick, which is made up of curses and hexes, etc. There is the stranger chaos magick, and the other magick's from the different religions. Is there really such a thing? Is everyone deluding them selves with false information?
Perhaps the magick that we do use isn’t real. It might just be some sort of coincidence or maybe it is the human mind controlling it. They cast as spell that can make us more confident or raise our prosperity. They might think that the magick is doing it but it is really their own mind. They have gained more confidence because they think that the spell is going to take care of it for them. Their prosperity has rose because they felt the initiative to take control of their status because they think that the spell, once again, will do all of the work for them.

There are other kinds of magick that I do not know about and that I haven’t mentioned that might counter these thoughts. If you do think you have a good theory of magick feel free to post it in the forum or e-mail it to me. I will also take comments and remarks of other kinds.

The mind, subjective position within the universe and your perception effects reality (physics/philosophy/psychology).

can you say magick doesn't work and that reality/universe is bound by rigid, non esoteric laws?

07:47 / 04.02.02

Magick is as real as capitalism, democracy, evil twins, mad scientists, the Pope, terrorism, conspiracies, the almighty buck, good sex, art, the Invisibles, children, a photograph, the T.V, technology, various frequencies, a cigarette, a joint, a good book, a good meal, the night sky, being born, lipstick on that babe, the hair on your head, baldness, medicine, a good laugh with your chums, a spiral, a butterfly, Shakespere, Osama bin Laden, Bush, the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, the Buddha, God, Goddess, toenails, sperm, ovaries, a good cup of coffee, a bad cup of coffee, electrcity, the wind, fire, the oceans, the earth, death....excetera

Yeah I could go on but I think I made the point I wanted to. Exsistance IS MAGICK. Just because we can't explain something does't mean it doesn't exsist, we know that. Besides, is anything at all REAL for sure? Umm, beats me!

~May Tricks

07:47 / 04.02.02

Is magick real? maybe. Is everybody here delusional? maybe. It really depends on what YOU believe. I could say magick is real and show you the physical basis of Bob, my book-finding servitor, but hell maybe its all coincidence that after talking to Bob I find that book I've been searching for. Look around you everything is magical, the sunset, that warm feeling you get when you're with someone you love. Magick is as real as you want it to be.

The One Eyed King

11:08 / 04.02.02

quote:Besides, is anything at all REAL for sure? Umm, beats me! ~May Tricks

That's an interesting and scary thought... I think I'll go hide under a blanket now...

12:56 / 04.02.02

I think a better question would be, is the federal reserve system real?

I mean, you can't really feel it or touch the currency, interest rates, or loans in the federal reserve system.

But billions of people interact with it as if it were real.

Social constructs are only as real as people make them to be.

-Rev. Jesse

13:17 / 04.02.02

Yes to all of the above: but in the interests of a less existential explanation, C.A.S, you might want to turn it around and ask yourself about the reality of other belief patterns. Is (e.g.) Christianity real? how about the Christian church? How about God as the Bible defines him? Try the same thought experiment with capitalism, pagan forms, new age philosophy, etc. Notice how some of these questions have an empirical, objective yes/no answer, and others have a subjective answer that depends entirely on your personal belief system. There's an interplay between objective and subjective 'realities' that's readily apparent- eg the political power of the church, particularly in pre-industrial times was/is dependent on the mass consensual adoption of a set of subjective beliefs. Now, some people would say that's social engineering, not magick: and they'd be right, apart from the not magick part. It's both. It's choices made in the mind creating reality.

I suspect that what you're really asking is 'does the paranormal exist?' Can we break the apparent rules of causality? Can we do ESP, PK, remote viewing, project energy from our fingertips, invoke gods, look good in Spandex? To which I would reply: it depends on the specifics. There's stuff I can do that nobody else does the same, and plenty of people out there who come up with stuff I have no idea how to make work. I can only vouch for the reality inside my own head. If you want to know if magick works, all anyone can ultimately say is 'this magick works- for me. what works for you?'

edit- heh. social constructs. yeah. beat me to the punch, Jesse

[ 04-02-2002: Message edited by: Flame On ]

15:21 / 04.02.02

Yes it is C.A.S. Hmm, how real is that blanket of yours?

and is there room for two?

This reminds me of a joke I heard about the Quantum Physicist who wore snowshoes because he was afraid of falling through the floor. Err, something like that.

~May

[ 04-02-2002: Message edited by: May Tricks ]

15:44 / 04.02.02

Magick is a way of dealing with reality. Reality is different for everyone, so of course there are different types of Magick.

as for "manifestations of the human mind," hmmm...my dictionary defines manifest as "to show plainly to the eye or mind...to make clear or obvious". It can be said that Magick is a way of clarifying reality, although to be sure many people use it to obfuscate!

The One Eyed King

16:44 / 04.02.02

quote:Yes it is C.A.S. Hmm, how real is that blanket of yours? and is there room for two? ~ May Tricks

*shivers and shakes. Pokes his gun that might not be real from under his imaginary blanket and screams.*

17:25 / 04.02.02

Cusm's hyperflesh body stirs slightly in its slumber, pink fluids squish and rubber hoses stretch. A slight change in pressure activates nerves long ago numbed, sending unexpected signals of interference to the brain. 'deja vu', he thinks. Filters adjust to remove the extraneous input, solidifying the data stream once more. The body relaxes, and returns to it's dreaming.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

19:48 / 04.02.02

In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is strapped to his bed and filled with Melaril.

19:56 / 04.02.02

Melarill, looks like a side effect is vermification. Doesn't seem like a good deal for the one-eyed man.

And whether magic is real is irrelevant. If it works, who cares, 'cause you got what you wanted. If it doesn't, you shoulda been trying to do what you wanted in the material, 'cause magic ain't real, silly.

heheh

23:38 / 04.02.02

Excuse what may seem like ignorance, but how are we defining "real" here?

00:53 / 05.02.02

I was wondering that very thing meself.

If the One-Eyed King can define "real," ze will have succeeded where four thousand years philosophy, both Western and eastern, have largely failed...

Nietzsch E. Coyote

02:01 / 05.02.02

<quote>
"What do you really believe is real?"

"Dog shit in the street," Joyce answered promptly. "It's rich yellowbrown and clings to your boot like an unpaid landlord. No man is a solipist while he stands at the curb trying to scrape it off."
<quote>

James Joyce answering Einstein in Robert Anton Wilson's Masks of the Illuminati

The One Eyed King

13:47 / 05.02.02

quote:If the One-Eyed King can define "real," ze will have succeeded where four thousand years philosophy, both Western and eastern, have largely failed...
-Jack Fear

Hm. Looks like I'll have to do some major thinking... Time to lock myself in a dark room for a few days...

17:11 / 05.02.02

Magick is only coincidence. Even if everything that you want to get through magick, no matter how outrageous or seemingly impposible.

Sigilize for a million dollars to fall out of the sky and it happens?

Coincidence!

It's all a coincidence!

Even the non-coincidental stuff!

18:06 / 05.02.02

OK, I'm gonna have a whack at this reality question. I answer it much better non-verbally, or at the very least in person, but I'll give it a shot.

It's all real, or none of it is. Try and think about yourself, reality, and "un-reality?" as sets of #'s. Code within a binary universe, if you will.

There is some mathematical rule stating that you cannot define a set of numbers by one of the sets' constituents (you edumacated people hep me out with that one) Reality and its converse are concepts we have within the set of this universe, or subsets of #'s inside the absolute set, the universe. Until we can define the absolute set, we can't really figure out the subsets. But we can't use the subsets to determine the nature of the absolute. Only way to figure out either, or use one to resolve the other, would be from outside the universe.

Confused? I am.

18:17 / 05.02.02

Well, I have my own, possibly very simplistic answer, but it works for me (kind of the point really)

I believe in it, therefore it is real to me. Like Rev Jesse said about the Federal Reserve System (whatever that is), there's no tangible evidence but people believe in it and that makes it real. I feel that way about magic. After all, if there was absolutely nothing to it, why are we all discussing many aspects of it?

01:38 / 06.02.02

Magick? What the hell is that?

Sounds like a new sportscar.

Professor Silly

13:44 / 07.02.02

You might as well ask if mathmatics is real.

The fundamental problem with this thread lies in the semantics of the question. You're using either-or language ("is") and multi-ordinal terms (one can define several of the words in several different ways).

If by "Is magick real?" you mean "Does magick work?" then you can only answer the question for yourself by experimenting in as scientific a manner possible. Narrowing it down further, one might rephrase it "Does magick correspond with changes in our environment that we can both observe and record?"....

Then you have the definition of magick to consider. I prefer Crowley's definition myself: causing change to happen in accordance with will. By this definition, anything up to and including the internet could be considered a magickal tool; think about it--we can communicate and share information across vast distances in relatively short amounts of time. If this doesn't strike you at first, try to look at the internet with the eyes of a 15th century explorer....

09:42 / 08.02.02

'Causing change to happen in accordance with will'.

Intention, cause and effect...... If you will something to happen, is that magik? So your saying that you are connecting with your higher consciousness? Channelling information and using it to the best of your ability. So magik is a term for the unseen, it could be a form of energy used for good or bad. Anyone can manifest thoughts and project them to make change, u just have to believe in your affirmations. And also when your situation changes be prepared, it's not always what you really wanted or can really deal with.

I think magik is in the eye of the beholder, everyones perception of their surrounding and themselves is different. If you believe in something so much it WILL happen, to some that is magik to others it just is.

09:42 / 08.02.02

While I personally like Crowley's def. in that it's simple and easy to remember, I find Isaac Bonewit's def. to be the most specific and comprehensive.

"Magic:
1. A general term for arts, sciences, philosophies and technologies concerned with (a) understanding and using various altered states of consciousness within which it is possible to have access to and control over one’s psychic talents, and (b) the uses and abuses of those psychic talents to change interior and/or exterior realities.

2. A science and an art comprising a system of concepts and methods for the build-up of human emotions, altering the electrochemical balance of the metabolism, using associational techniques and devices to concentrate and focus this emotional energy, thus modulating the energies broadcast by the human body, usually to affect other energy patterns whether animate or inanimate, but occasionally to affect the personal energy pattern.

3. A collection of rule-of-thumb techniques designed to get one’s psychic talents to do more or less what ones wants, more often than not, one hopes."

and here's his def. of 'psychic' since the above Magic def. relies on it:

"Psychic:
“Of the Mind-Soul.” As used in this text, a word referring to rare or seldom-used powers of the “Mind-Soul”, which are capable of causing effects that appear to contradict the mainstream world view of western science and philosophy."

I find it useful for my own studies and experimentation to keep the magic of 'willing' myself to walk across the street separate from the magic of 'willing' my intent to manifest through a thaumaturgic ritual.