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I love the fact that Gypsy turned her nose up at this, like s/he's got all the...
Gypsy didn't turn "her" nose up at anything. And maybe s/he does have all the...
Messy magician: I feel I can make the statement that global workings are not effective, because much like Mordant, I've been involved with them on many occasions and have noted the results. I've observed even more of them on places like barbelith, and have noted the results. My opinion, based on this data, is that workings of this type are like a drop in the ocean in terms of getting anything done. It doesn't seem to work.
Now whilst I'm always ready to give certain aspects of chaos magic a good kicking, one thing that I absolutely rate about that approach is the emphasis on revising your working models based on direct first hand experience. If you repeat something many times and the results are unsatisfying, inconclusive or completely absent - then the smart magician learns from this data and adapts until s/he finds something that better accomplishes the intended goal.
Therefore, I've formed the opinion that there is no "magic bullet" ritual that will solve all the worlds problems in an afternoon if a bunch of people get together over the internet and pool their efforts. That such efforts are essentially a big waste of talented people's time, energy and resources - and that all they really do is massage the egos of participants for a few weeks, and assuage a bit of guilt over complicity in the dire state of world affairs by creating the comforting illusion that you are doing something to help. When in all likelihood, you really probably aren't to any noticeable extent.
So what do we do? Again, based on my own observations about what approaches to magic seem to work better than others, I think it can often be more effective to break a complex situation down into more manageable chunks. If Jimmy Smith comes to me as a client with problems in his love life, I might discover that there are several factors to his predicament - a chronic lack of self-confidence, a jealous interfering ex, and massive debt that prevents him from getting out and meeting people. So rather than simply casting a sigil for "Jimmy get sex", I might get better results if I deal with each contributing issue. A mojo bag for his confidence, a binding to stop the ex being a problem, and some money drawing work to sort out his financial situation. You recognise the complexity of a situation, discover the roots of the problem, and deal with them directly - rather than trying to treat the symptoms in broad strokes.
So applying this strategy to global work, I think a more effective approach might be to decide what specific global issue you want to engage with. Understand the complexity of the situation, work out who the key players are on the global stage, find out what's going on, who is talking to who, where the problems are, where the conflicts of interest are, what is preventing this issue being resolved in the way you would prefer, and so on. Then engage magically with the situation to effect specific change at a microcosmic level. So rather than a huge altruistic working to "make everybody more conscious and caring", how about targeting a specific person who is having a specific meeting at a specific time, the outcome of which will have a specific effect on a specific issue - and perform a working to make that one guy more conscious and caring while he debates and negotiates and makes his decisions.
You just don't see a lot of workings like that being planned over the internet, possibly because it involves a lot of research, a close understanding of world affairs, and some real personal effort. It's much easier to just casually whack your magic cock out on a plate and polish it for peace, than it is to really get to grips with a complex situation at this kind of microcosmic level. Which is really quite a damning indictment in itself.
So there you go. I'm sharing my experiences and opinions in the hope that you might find something useful within them. I'm not going to spend my time arguing with you further about whether Santa Claus is real.
Desperate Math: Who are we trying to convince of anything? Please read the first post in this thread, which says: "I had an idea for anyone interested to participate in a group intention launch in order to provide another member some kind of real evidence that magic is real."
sorry, you've lost me. I was interested for a second then, and then it went haywire and I lost control of myself because that may have been the wanky-est thing I've heard today.
Please try to keep up. I might have expressed my point a little zealously, but I do find the "parlour game" approach to results magic deeply problematic. If we are working from the premise that magic works and that you can actually cause real world change to occur by working occult ritual - then it's really quite chilling and saddening how so many people seem to interact with it like a parlour game, diverting pastime or amusing hobby. What are the implications of the belief that magic works? I think they are rather daunting.
I started doing professional work for people a couple of years back, and one thing I discovered is that - fucking hell - so many people in my life, in my city, in my world, are struggling to get by and keep their heads above water every single day. That girl who topped herself last year, the guy who lost his job cos he can't deal with the stress, the woman who has to work 3 jobs to feed and clothe her children. These are all people who magic could have helped. If I was on my game, I could have really made a difference with this magic lark. Shit, there just isn't enough hours in the day to do it all. Some nights - last night for instance - I average about 4 hours sleep then have to get up and do a day's work, cos I was awake long into the night trying to do magic for somebody who desperately needs some help. Still, there is not enough time. I can't possibly do it all. There's always more troubles and problems and situations going on - even just in my extended circle of friends - for me to be able to bring magical aid to even a fraction of it.
Magic is about survival. That's what it is for. Why else do you think we have it? How do you think it developed? What is the point of spending years of your life learning all of this stuff, developing the skills and honing your ability - if you are not going to use it to help the people around you and to make a difference in some way? I'm not totally denigrating the notion of 'magic as play', but in a lot of cases 'play' is all that gets done. To my mind, 'magician' ought to be a role, like doctor, plumber or sex worker. You learn the skills and you do the job. Put what you know into practice, really try and make a difference, get the magic out into the world and make things happen. Live it. Step up to it. Shake the palace.
But by and large, a lot of people involved in contemporary magic just don't look at it in these terms. It's like a dilettante thing. You bugger about with it in your bedroom, toss the ball back and forth, push bits of paper around, make yourself feel tall. It rarely gets out. It rarely makes a difference. Nobody benefits. In the house next door someone swallow 400 paracetemol because they can't cope with their life, but hey, I was busy trying to make the sun come out in Bolton or slow down time on my tube journey.
Magic is a lot of fun, it can be creative, inspiring, funny, fulfilling, transformative and a host of other great thing. But I also think that there is a job and a role that comes with it. How could there not be? If you seriously believe that magic ritual actually works and can cause real world change to occur, then maybe - just maybe - there's a few things that we ought to be doing with it.
I hope this elaborates on my position and the thought processes that informed the sentence you found "wanky". I'm simply sharing my perspective on the implications of results magic, as I see them. If that, in your opinion, means I am "turning my nose up... into my asshole" then you are, presumably, a fucking imbecile of one description or another.
Zoemancer: Are you like a necromancer, but only with girls called Zoe? Respect for keeping this thread focused and geared towards the results at hand. I apologise for this derailment of it, but I wanted to post in this thread as I do think all of these issues are directly pertinent to the stated goals. We have had quite a lot of group workings of this type on barbelith over the years, so I'm basically just trying to bring some of the fruits of that into this project so that we don't go round and round in circles, as a community, without learning from experiments, discussions and perspectives that might have happened previously.
I do think that one of the main problems with this project so far is that it's difficult to tell whether anyone is actually doing any magic or not. I think you probably need to set a wider time frame and get the people involved to agree that something will definitely be done by that date. Otherwise it's impossible to really learn anything from the experiment as you don't even know whether it has been performed or not, let alone whether it has had any perceivable impact.
I've actually, tentatively, reconsidered my response to the offer of doing something to assist me. I have a friend who is very ill. How's about healing him? I'd like to do much of this via PM as I don't want to post details of the situation on a public message board for obvious reasons. So if you think you can make a difference, feel free to PM me about it. Before passing the details of the case over, I'd like a general outline of what people involved are going to do and how they are going to approach it. Don't need to know specifics, just a broad outline. This is because the situation is very serious, and a lot of people have some funny ideas about magic. I don't want some joker deciding to heal my friend with a conjuration of Nyarlathotep, or doing anything that might inadvertently make things worse. If that doesn't suit you - don't get involved. If it sounds like something you might want to do - PM me and we can talk about it. We could do the work and then look at the situation again in a month and see if there has been any improvement. We could use this thread or a new thread to coordinate and monitor things, keeping personal information and details of the magic to PM chats. Interested?
Aren't you 'lithers glad you let a bunch of newbies in? Ha ha!
I'm actually really loving the influx of new people to the Temple forum. Please don't take differences of opinion, challenging responses, open criticism and harsh rebuttal to mean that you are not welcome and that your opinions and involvement are not appreciated by regular contributors to this forum. They really are. I think it's great that there are some new voices here and some fresh perspectives. Debate can be quite heated around these parts, but amidst all the shouting, arguing and wrangling some really interesting conversations take place and a lot of issues and ideas relevant to the theory and practice of contemporary magic get unpacked and examined. Don't let a bit of agro from opinionated wankers like me put you off! |
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