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Question: Why do you practice magic and what made you start?

Ground Zero

18:55 / 26.02.02

I hope I'm not asking to personal a question. I am just curious as to what motivates you.

As well, how did you know your magic worked the first time?

19:22 / 26.02.02

I started after seeing Grant Morrison on disinfo nation late one night on Channel 4 - like allot of people I always thought there was something more..first thing I did was something like " I will have a great day tomorrow"

I woke up the next day with the phone ringing it was my boss telling me there had been lots of snow overnight and the road was closed and there was no point me coming in and that kinda made me think - hmmm

As for why, thats something I've been thinking about but I'm not going to start bitchin about it on here...

09:33 / 27.02.02

What made me start?

I'm sure a lot of other people will say something about having a mystical experience or some such thing. I started becaue of a book. I was ten and still living in Germany. I had just finished reading "Dragons of Autumn Twilight" and was thinking about it. Suddenly a thought came to me. It was something along the lines of "Magic is real, not the fireballs and the levitating but changing the world in accordance with your will". Now that was a pretty strange thought for a ten year old that still played with ninja turtles and transformers to have so I guess I conveniantly forgot about it for awhile.

When I was 13, I stumbled upon the new age section of one of the chain book stores in the mall here and suddenly that thought came back into my head and here was proof staring me in the face. So cackling madly to myself I grabbed up the Necronomicon and some other dark looking book because I was going to be a bad-ass magician that wouldn't take crap from anybody anymore. Nobody would push me around and everybody would worship at my feet. Power-mad? I think so and I guess my subconcious figured I still wasn't ready so I never got around to performing any of the rituals in the necronomicon.

Two or so years later, I'm browsing the fido groups (ooooh, old bbs stuff) and come across this guy talking about chaos magick and the chaos matrix. Cue my subconcious, "ok, its time to start up once again, this guy's mature enough now". So I log onto the internet go to the chaos matrix and that's that. I start dabbling a little, with sigils and the like for a couple years.

So that's what brought me to the study of magick, I've now gotten a lot more serious about it than I was and no longer have thoughts of everyone who tormented me bowing before me and calling me "Master". Ok...so I don't have too many thoughts about that.

As for why? Thats a hard question to answer. I guess the main reason is knowledge. Knowlege about myself and the world around me. Knowledge of things normally hidden from view. Just knowledge in general.

[ 27-02-2002: Message edited by: Trijhaos ]

Less searchable M0rd4nt

09:53 / 27.02.02

Oh, fuck it. No significance. Nothing to see here. Move along.

[ 27-02-2002: Message edited by: Mordant C@rnival ]

09:53 / 27.02.02

There might be some shamanic heritage from the side of my mother (who is intuitive with magic as with music). But I started in this when I was nearly ten, because My father was reading books on parapsychology, biofeedback, and such.
By those times, I became diabetic. I knew that there was nothing science could do for me. So I started looking the other way.
I wanted to learn magic/esoterism to fix my pancreas (sp?).

Twenty years later, I am happy with what I am, I can sometimes control my pancreas as a conscious funtion, but have not restored it to proper funtions.

I believe it has something to do with bad childhood experiences.

The first time I made magic? Gee, hard to remember. Probably I made it rain. Or saw Ki auras.

01

09:53 / 27.02.02

Mordant, why did you mention "chronic photophobes"? What significance to they have with magick?

gozer the destructor

12:38 / 27.02.02

Same as BEAR i saw Morrison on disinfo nation and at the time was had just moved to the NE of England, my girlfriend and i needed a place and a job and couldn't get one for love or money, we'd been trying for about a month with no success so we thought we would try the sigil thing and within week we had both.

13:56 / 27.02.02

Born with it, Mate. Been trying to figure out what the hell it is ever since. Keeps me busy, I suppose.

14:41 / 27.02.02

mother & grandmother: Roman Catholicism, ghost stories. European-style. African witch doctor style, too, actually. Granny talked to saints.

Elementary school: Dad writes for National Enquirer, brings home books & records on developing ESP, Bermuda Triangle, ancient astronauts, the works. Also learn Greek myths & African folk tales alongside Catholic catechism.

Jr. high school: Carlos Castaneda into Robert Anton Wilson. The Rubiayat of Omar Khayyam. Science fiction novels & short stories - including Philip K Dick.

High school: Robert Anton Wilson into Timothy Leary, alongside the Tao Te Ching, Bhagavad Gita, meditation lessons, Catholic school. Ritual experiments.

College: more of the same, only moreso - wider & wider, all the time.

What made me start? I dunno. Lots of things. I wasn't like the other kids.

Why do I do it? Doesn't everyone?

20:38 / 27.02.02

I believed in magic like most kids but consensus reality knocked that belief out of me for most of my teenage years (during the oh so enlightened Reagan era) when I was more interested in petty vandalism, heavy metal, and paramilitary geekiness.

When I turned 17, I had mono which gave me some very interesting fever based hallucinations that made me reevaluate who I was and what I stood for. No 'magic' per se but a complete restructuring of my ideologies.

When I was 18 I met someone who gave me irrefutable proof (at least to me) that this shit was real. And with that my conscious journey began.

[ 27-02-2002: Message edited by: Lothar Tuppan ]

22:14 / 27.02.02

I've always had a fascination with the occult, and loved any fiction I could read in that area. Beyond 10/12 years ago it was pretty hard to get information about this kind of stuff - no web, no great selection of books in small towns.

About 12 years ago I went into a shop and bought a pack of Tarot cards and a book on how to read them. I taught myself to read them and tried them out on my all-too willing friends.

I will add at this point I was pretty much a sceptic about everything. Then I began to get information by reading Tarot cards that I couldn't possibly have picked up in a "normal" fashion.

I thought to myself "there's something to this". Since then I've been looking to try and understand what that "something" is.

22:30 / 27.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Ground Zero:
I am just curious as to what motivates you.

As well, how did you know your magic worked the first time?

What motivates me is that there is so much yet to know and experience. It's an attempt to understand, to know, about the more ineffable experiences in life. It's also an eternal love affair. It's like breathing, it's part of who I am.

I did a simple spell the first time and what I asked for turned up. Much to my surprise. Despite quite a bit of research and study I didn't really expect that initially. Of course, I quickly learned that it's important to be specific about what you want.

I've had a lot of different kinds of proof since then that there's more to this then a lot of self-delusion. Some supplied by other people, some by myself and my own experiences.

I love the whole fecking mystery of it all. It's glorious. Who could resist!

12:50 / 01.03.02

What made me start? Well I have a thoery that this cannot be all there is to the glorious universe. I mean really, you live you eat, sleep, poop and die maybe even procreate so another genration can do the same. That cannot be all there is.

I guess I was bored.

How did I know when when my first magick worked? Well, I actually hurt someone through it(a few people). I do not cast those spells anymore unless I am in danger. It was not something I am proud of. Terrible thing I did, foolishness in my youth.

~May Tricks

09:20 / 02.03.02

why? to make a new start, make my dreams come true, to live life to the fullest with greater awareness and free of chains. to eat the fear and shit it out. to be more efficient and happy. to be me. to become the devil. to be everyone at once. to read my mind. all of which should kind of subtly lead to rather good sex which only gets better and better.

but the biggest influence on me was THE INVISIBLES and reading a lot of interviews with Alan Moore. and smoking way too much dope. magick is kind of a good substitute..not as much fun at first but the effects get stronger (I hope)

12:29 / 04.03.02

Where did it all start .... if I were to pin point any particular instance, it was my fasciantion with dragons and the genre of science fiction/fantasy. Being an avid reader, I started thinking that there has to be more to it than someone's wild imagination. Why would it surface in so many books, if there wasn't something to prompt it. Since then, it's been a journey of discovery.

How did I know it worked? Coincidences that were too coincidental to be anything other than a manifestation of my will.

[ 04-03-2002: Message edited by: ShadowRain ]

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

23:36 / 04.03.02

I really don't know. I've been interested in the occult for as long as I can remember, but being raised with a Roman Catholic father from Pittsburg and a southern baptist mother, that sort of thing wasn't tolerated in the house. So I waited until I was living hundreds of miles away from them to start studying. About a year later, I finally started practicing.

My first sigil did not work, but I knew why and I learned off it. I've been pretty successful since, and when I'm not, I can figure out why.

What motivates me? I dunno. It's fun, I suppose, like learning a martial art of some sort. It's good for you, and you can help yourself and others with it.

01:05 / 05.03.02

I had very early hallucinatory experiences of my own body being able to grow and shrink. MOst of the time this would happen just before I fell asleep, I usually had no control over it. I'm not sure how old I was, but I know from the time period it must have been between 8-10 yrs. This scared the shit out of me. But as long as I can remember I have wanted to be able to perform telekinesis (see film: "zapped"). I used to try and move pencils, with no success and then balls of lint, still no success. But had I had success with the lint I'm not sure how I would have used my great new found power.

This all sparked my curiousity into meditation. I started my own invrented meditation practice as a pre-teen. And had some of the most powerful experiences then, that I have ever had, including levitation sensations!

Got into roleplaying...

In my teen years the focus seemed to be more on fantasy than bringing that into reality. I always felt there was more to it but didn't know how to approach it. My gutsy younger days now gone.

I tend to have periodic unusual experiences, but I am a very impatient person and my memory does not hold my experience. Thus I find myself repeating the same behaviour patterns despite wonderful magical experiences. Most of the time magic seems out of my reach these days. Its like I'm trying to believe in something I already know but can't quite grasp.

is anyone still awake?

Wrecks City-Zen

09:05 / 13.03.02

Teller spoke to me...

19:40 / 13.03.02

Being afraid of the dark is what started the whole shooting match for me.It was a result of hallucinations recieved during a series of narcoleptic fits brought on by fear and paranoia.I was convinced I was living in a haunted house.
I read up on lucid dreaming,and practised dream control for years.I still sleep with the light on,and I still get paralysis regularly.
I normally get visual precognition about the forthcoming day but its not really magick as just a bit of psionics.This happens every time I awaken from restful sleep-I see what I am doing that day or whats about to be in the news if its important.
I've done banishing recently to get rid of bad vibes that were plagueing my sleep,and it completely worked.So I'll do real magick if I feel its necessary.
I've practised trancendental meditation but I'm just too damn chicken to look beyond the veil,as they say.It becomes harder to be familiar with yourself when you are changing that fast,as magick does have this effect sometimes.You see yourself becoming more unfamiliar as your sense of bodily association breaks down.The human form can be seen in strange ways by the inner mind,and often during sleepy awareness there is sometimes (for me) a feeling that theres a certain truth to the idea of the human body sometimes being alien to the human soul.
I think breaking your world view,and your habits,even on a puerile level,can have consciousness altering effects.Travel broadens the mind,but magickal acts and psychic behaviour can make you feel alien to yourself,and subsequently a lot of my dreams feature aliens,often I'm one of them.
What motivates me is that I don't feel alone in my search for answers,due to the 'visits' to other unconscious realms of sleep where it sometimes seems there is a store of knowledge that is impossibly experienced,and transmitting the truth to you on certain levels,clouded as it is by what you want to hear as opposed to what you
need to hear.

Wrecks City-Zen

22:33 / 13.03.02

Kobol!!
I don't believe it! I was just talking about you yesterday!!! Where have you been???

11:25 / 14.03.02

I started practicing magic out of simple curiosity. I dabbled with bookstore "New Age" stuff in high school without any real belief in any of it, and pretty much wrote it off as a lark. But then I began reading about chaos magic and shamanism on this board and other sites, and I decided to try out some simple sigils.

And they worked. They worked amazingly well. And the worked every time .

Now I'm seeking more knowledge on the subject and doing a lot of research. I don't like to screw around with something that is potentially very powerful and very dangerous without knowing a bit more about it, you know?

But I will say that magic (and the study of magic) has really opened up my life. I feel empowered now, as cheesy as that sounds to my ears. I feel like I can actually make some worthwhile changes to the world around me. Everything's bright and shiny and new.

I think I might be rambling, but it's a happy ramble. Thanks to you Tom Coates and all the 'lithers, and thanks to Grant Morrison. I could start a separate thread on how the Invisibles and Barbelith have changed my life, but I'll save that for another day.

13:50 / 14.03.02

quote: Born with it, Mate. Been trying to figure out what the hell it is ever since. Keeps me busy, I suppose. CUSM

Snap.

[twitch]As I've gone on about before, magick keeps me out of hospital and off of the drugs. [twitch].

No seriously, I figured that I could do some pretty mad stuff with my head when I was a nipper. It became troublesome later and I had to try and fit in. After leaving school I met my first mentor and it made sense of my mind/body state, I realsied that I had been travelling a path and I would now actively stalk it. Didn't mean it would get easier, oh no. Things are alot more developed now.

I come from the school of 'it happens, then I read something later that relates to it'. So for much of the time I'm making the flatpack furtnture, without reading the instructions (which inevitably don't make sense and end up arguing about them).

I still haven't found the ideal system of structure, but prefer my organic chaotic intuitive method. If it gets results, don't question it to hard, feel it.

My first act of magick was the nightly ritual of making Bambi and Thumper dance around on the wallpaper when I was about 3 or 4yrs old. That and using various philosophies when hunting for the right piece of Lego(c) in the big tin of bits.