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Why Magic?

  
  

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Queer Pirate
02:32 / 24.05.06
jihadreflection

It seems to me that magic is a useless word. It can mean so many things it ends up meaning nothing. Chaos magic seemed to me like sorcery and psychology for nihilists. The recent trend seems to be swinging back towards an ill defined/personal deism with liberal humanist philosophy thrown into the mix.

I don't see chaos magic as being nihilistic at all. While it stresses the importance of exercising the ability to change worldviews as the situation requires (and often it is only for the time required to cast a spell), I don't think chaos magic is about negating yourself and your values as an individual. I certainly don't approach it that way.

I agree though that magic can be an elusive concept. I do find Crowley's definition (magic is the act of effecting change in accordance to the will blah blah blah) to be one of the most useful to work with, as it is action oriented. It has its flaws however and it's obviously not the only definition of magic worth considering.

I like to see magic as a worldview that can be used when science reaches its limits (as science can hardly deal with the non-consistent and the non-measurable).
 
 
Quantum
10:00 / 24.05.06
sorcery is a crappy tool and so can only be used occasionally and with sporadic success.

Compared to what? A hammer? Isn't the crappiness of the tool dependant on what you use it for? A hammer is a crappy tool if you need a spanner.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
10:13 / 24.05.06
A computer is a crappy tool in the hands of someone who doesn't know how to use it.
 
 
illmatic
10:39 / 24.05.06
I do agree with J though that "magic" means so many things to many different people that the word is virtually useless. I wrote a long post yesterday about how the individualism and eclectism of our spiritual paths reflects the consumer culture we live in but the board ate it. I'm too hungover to re-write it, maybe later.
 
 
E. Coli from the Milky Way
10:59 / 24.05.06
Yeah, maybe magick is a crappy tool, but in the other hand:

(excerpt from here:

Your report of the high Tibetan character reminds me of an experience by my bright and believable friend Paul Mittig in 1968. It happened in a pueblo in New Mexico. He was looking for a shaman he'd heard about and found him in the corral of the pueblo. He tried to strike up a conversation, but the medicine man didn't have much to say. Paul, a DMT advocate in those days, happened to have some crystals with him. He avowed that you didn't even need to smoke it, just carrying the crystals on your person was enough to change reality. Paul said to the Indian: "I'll show you some of my magic if you'll show me some of yours." The braided grandfather agreed and Paul prepared a tiny pipe with mint leaves, sprinkled DMT on top, and lit it for him. The shaman smoked, then sat silent for a few minutes. Finally he said "Pretty good magic. Now I show you some of mine." A strong wind rose and hit Paul from the East side of the corral. Then a wind hit him from the West. Then one from the North followed by one from the South. Suddenly half a dozen white horses galloped into the corral, circling Paul and the Indian three times before running off through the open corral gate. "My magic good. Yours better," Paul said to the old magician.

Maybe there's something more. Does anybody know someone who links magic(k) to parapshycological research ?
 
 
jihadreflection
11:09 / 24.05.06
By nihilistic I meant that chaos magic itself imposes no value set. Though I might be talking rubbish because it’s a bit hard for a set of techniques to be nihilistic.

What I meant by using the term sorcery was ‘action at a distance’. I’ve taken to using that term to denote the ‘enchantment’ part of magic as it’s called in CM theory.
So when I say that magic could be psychology and sorcery I should have said that it’s practical psychology with action at a distance tacked on (from one point of view).

What I mean by action as a distance being ineffectual is a tool is that most ‘enchantment’ fails to work. There are some people that say things like ‘every sigil I’ve ever done has worked’. But I’m dubious of those claims, either those people have cast very few sigils or they have limited desires. So what I should have stated I suppose is that action at a distance seems to work sporadically (for me).

The psychology of magic. The techniques that allow brain change aren’t really supernatural. You could even consider them a form of brain damage or temporary psychosis. They can be explained under cognitive psychology is what I mean.

In response to queer about Crowley’s definition. I think you need to believe in Thelema for that to be a good definition and Thelema is a religion with it’s own morality and cosmology.
Otherwise any action could be considered willed and the term magic again becomes useless.

As to the shaman and the winds and the horses. Hmm. Could he do that whenever he wanted? Might be worth showing it to some physicists if he could.
 
 
Bruno
12:11 / 24.05.06
I don't think chaos magic is about negating yourself and your values as an individual.

Maybe an important part of it is questioning the very idea of the 'self' and accepting that you are an everchanging multitude of selves and not a singular fixed being.

-brunos
 
 
Quantum
12:19 / 24.05.06
Might be worth showing it to some physicists if he could.

Why? What's it got to do with Physics?
 
 
jihadreflection
12:25 / 24.05.06
Well intentionally being able to alter the laws of physics or shift probability in a way that is repeatable would be the most significant find for physics in the past few hundred years.
Assuming the summoning of winds wasn’t an hallucination.
Some physicists do estimate that within the boundaries of quantum mechanics such actions may be feasible yet others do not. If it was repeatable then it would revolutionise physics.
 
 
jihadreflection
12:27 / 24.05.06
"In everyday terms, physics is the science of the world around us that attempts to describe how objects behave under different situations."

Taken from wikipedia.org
 
 
Quantum
13:46 / 24.05.06
'The scientific validity of parapsychology research is a matter of frequent dispute and criticism'. I think a physicist might want to take an anthropologist, psychologist, engineer, statistician, meteorologist, biologist and perhaps a journalist along with them. Parapsychology is cross-disciplinary for a reason, and any results apparently supporting impossible events are going to be viewed with scepticism at best by the scientific community. We've a few conversations about the interaction of science and magic here in the Temple, take a look.

On defining magic,
In Magick in Theory and Practice, Chapter XIV, Crowley says:

"What is a Magical Operation? It may be defined as any event in nature which is brought to pass by Will. We must not exclude potato-growing or banking from our definition. Let us take a very simple example of a Magical Act: that of a man blowing his nose."

I'm disagreeing with Crowley's definition for sure. I scratch my arse, so mote it be? Too broad for my liking, although I think I can see his motivation for it from the rest of his work.
 
 
jihadreflection
17:49 / 24.05.06
Yeah our theoretical scientist may very well want to take a few friends along to see our Shaman.
To return to the central debate though. It is my contention that action at a distance just doesn't seem to work that well. At least not in any repeatable way that would let it be accepted on a scientific level.
If you remove action a distance from magic you seem to me to have a bunch of psychological techniques and a few theologies.
When asking the question 'why magic?' are you asking. why action at a distance, why religion, or why psychology.
I personally don't believe the universe has a moral code and even if it did I doubt I'd follow it. Which to me leaves a sporadically working technique for action at a distance and some psychology.
If someone think that magic pertains to enlightenment or some such thing, then it would seem pertinent to take steps to follow the techniques to achieve that.
That's my take anyway.
 
 
Quantum
18:45 / 24.05.06
Do you see magic as.

A spiritual path that when followed will lead you to enlightenment.
(In most magical systems a hierarchical path that has stages of consciousness/awareness that the initiate proceeds through)

A shamanic path.
(which from my point of view seems to be a way of using sorcery specifically to help the tribe though it may also have elements of the spiritual path)

A set of tools that change consciousness with sorcery tacked on.
(Practical psychology with a method to create action at a distance)


I'd see those three threads as essential components that are woven together to compose magic. I'd also include a load of other definitions or categories that you exclude from that list.

When I say 'Why Magic?' I mean 'What does your practice provide in your life that alternatives could not?' or perhaps 'Let's tell each other why magic is great' or maybe 'What are your motivations for practicing or studying magic?'
 
 
Quantum
19:01 / 24.05.06
Which to me leaves a sporadically working technique for action at a distance and some psychology.

That's one way of looking at it.

If someone think that magic pertains to enlightenment or some such thing, then it would seem pertinent to take steps to follow the techniques to achieve that.

What if those techniques are included in the techniques of magic? I don't see the distinction you're drawing, I pursue a magical path with an ambition to attaining union with the divine, preferably at will*. Teh majik powers are simultaneously a tool and a path, a side effect of advancing understanding of reality and the means to gain more, the mystic and magician take different paths up the same tree. A zigzag and straight up the middle pillar IIRC.

*hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...
 
 
Bruno
19:09 / 24.05.06
It is my contention that action at a distance just doesn't seem to work that well. At least not in any repeatable way that would let it be accepted on a scientific level.

What's up jihadreflection.
The problem I have with your approach is that while you don't believe in 'enlightenment, higher powers, true will or any moral system' (all very vague concepts by the way) you still believe in science.
The scientific viewpoint is itself a historically-formed belief-system (Reason) and its claim to complete objectivity (and hence what is 'real', 'possible' etc) is dubious.
As Quantum said 'science can hardly deal with the non-consistent and the non-measurable'.

Imagine if scientists put me in a lab with a woman and attach lots of wires to our heads, pussy and dick. Then they tell us 'ok love birds have sex' and stand there observing us. Subjectively it's not going to be the same experience as spontaneous sex on a beach, right? And the subjective elements of the act of fucking are going to have objective effects on the brainwaves and spasms and so on that the electrodes would be recording. Magic is more like sex than science. Or it is like inspiration for creativity, you can't put a poet in a lab and say 'you can get inspired now, we're monitoring you' and expect it to work.

As for sigils, you can only expect good results if you make yourself forget the desire after you've charged the sigil, and very few people can probably do that. Also because of this forgetting it can't be tested scientifically.

Check this out: Magick is not Science
 
 
Digital Hermes
19:17 / 24.05.06
This are older posts, but they provoke me to a reaction:

Gypsy:
Because with the Gods behind me and magic at my side I feel empowered - and I am empowered - to step up to the world, shake the palace and bring light in the darkness in whichever way my skills and talents might best be applied. Because I believe that every human being has the power to make overwhelming change to the world at large, and that magic - real living magic - is the key to doing so.

and...

These things are private and intimate, and if you don't understand that enough to respect my desire to keep silent about certain things, then you don't understand a damned thing about magic.

I've noticed this through-line in your postings quite a bit, of a very total belief and intensity in your magic, and of yourself as a magician. Another quote that I just can't find went something in the direction that 'there aren't that many real magicians' because of (what I took to be)a perceived lack of dedication/homework/belief/intensity in some fair-weather magi.

The other through-line is in the other quote. A lack of patience with questions of validity or process. In fact, most of the posts of yours that I've read had to do with dismissals or refutations of postions you disagreed with. (Cultural appropriation in magic for one, if I recall.)

I feel can understand that frustration; in the theatre and film spheres I occupy, there are many that think acting is just saying something angry, that think directing is just telling someone where to stand. Amateurs often believe that an artists craft is something that can be done as a hobby. Not something that requires your total attention, your total self, if you are to excel.

So why post at all, if most of the time you are only finding positions that you cannot subscribe to, or are simply bored by? If you don't want to disucuss nuts n' bolts elements like rituals (I may be wrong on that; I just haven't seen you speak on them) then where does conversation lie?

To bring back to the focus of this thread: 'why magic' is a question that some of us may come to at disparate sections of our lives, but it's also a question of many people starting out. If your experiences are your own, not to share, can practical advice even be given to the initiate, or must they find it totally on their own?

To be clear, this isn't a 'calling out' of Gypsy, so much as a clarification for me.
 
 
jihadreflection
04:47 / 25.05.06
In response to Bruno
I’m not a reason freak. I don’t think any epistemology can lead to truth and I the think the concept of truth itself seems silly and religious.
In so much as methods of reasoning formed useful models to manipulate the physical world, then I think reason for me has provided some of the ‘best’ models. As to science and action at a distance. I think this is easily verified in a variety of settings and the only possible way that it could not yet have been verified is that its sporadic at best (from my view point).
Of course most books on magic don’t deal with action at a distance in great depth. What’s the most powerful spell you can do? How regularly can you do spells? Is there any difference between causing a coincidence and throwing a fireball?
I myself use action at a distance and for me it works in a rather crappy way so it’s therefore not my first choice. If anybody tells me that it works consistently well then I’d ask them specifically what kind of events they were trying to cause. (These are my brief views. I don’t want to derail the thread with a subject about the mechanics of action at a distance)

In response to quantum
I very much agree that the techniques for ‘enlightenment’ or what not may be included in magic. The problem again becomes the total uselessness of the term magic. Thelema contains a hierarchical system of enlightenment through praxis. As does the golden dawn. Zen Buddhism contains only two or three non hierarchical praxis.
Chaos magic as created by Carroll contains a hierarchy each with a praxis. (Though I find it hard to take them seriously and think that Carroll was being incongruent in including them)

In general though. I think it’s worth separating secular magic or maybe egoistic magic from religious magic.
Egoistic magic could be stated as (what I want is all that matters)
Religious magic could be stated as (The quest to reach some union with the divine or authentic true self, or becoming whole etceteras.)

The main difference being in the moral compunction involved. As I said before, if enlightenment existed (maybe it does) I wouldn’t be interested anyway.
It makes it hard to discuss magic when so many people are now associating it with a religious perspective without defining that religious perspective. From my point of view this perspective is often mixed with a socialist humanism to create a moral crusade against the ‘big corporations’. I even heard an interview on the R.U Sirius show where some guy was talking about black magicians being advertisers etcetera.

Anyway this is over long. I think it would help the more religious types who practice magic to define exactly what their practice and intent is. In actual terms of x does y.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
08:17 / 25.05.06
So why post at all, if most of the time you are only finding positions that you cannot subscribe to, or are simply bored by? If you don't want to disucuss nuts n' bolts elements like rituals (I may be wrong on that; I just haven't seen you speak on them) then where does conversation lie?

Well I enjoy posting here for a start. Been having a great time in the Hexagram thread pestering the ceremonial experts for answers to things I don't understand. I have a fairly confrontational posting style when I encounter some of the familiar and often untested dogmas and principles of chaos magic that my own personal experiences have shown to be problematic.
For me, part of the thing that attracted me to chaos magic in the first place was the emphasis on revising received information in the light of personal experience. So a lot of the time I try to perform a devils advocate function to a lot of this stuff. I do this a bit aggressively sometimes because I am passionate about the subject and I do find certain unexamined elements of magical theory and practice to be immensely frustrating. But I hope that my posts are useful to somebody, somewhere as well - even if they just present a counter argument to accepted and popular notions of magic and make people think about stuff from a different angle for five minutes.

I'm never going to talk about the details of my own practice because it's not for public internet consumption. What I try to do though, is talk about the underlying dynamics of magic as I understand it and have experienced it, in such a way that people can hopefully take something from this. I think a prescriptive textbook approach to writing about magic is like psychic bile from the space cock of George Bush and David Icke's slutty lizard love child, and I will have no part of it. But I'd like to think that there is a way of writing about the subject that can be informative and useful to people without whoring out all the private intimate details of my own gear just because its there. The whole "keep silent" thing is crucial, it really is. Can't express that enough. I try to work around that to the best of my ability and write from my own experience rather than going down the kiss and tell route.
 
 
Bruno
23:53 / 25.05.06
In response to jihadreflection's questions
What’s the most powerful spell you can do? How regularly can you do spells? Is there any difference between causing a coincidence and throwing a fireball?

1 I can do a spell to destroy reality itself including the entire universe. Do not tempt me foolish one for my power is supreme.
2 Once every 3.72 minutes (+- 0.2 minutes)
3 The only difference as far as I know is that if you hit an orc with the fireball you gain experience points.
 
 
petunia
01:01 / 26.05.06
On all This Contorversy, I agree a lot with bruno and quantum.

For me magic is and has to be something special and unexplainable, otherwise it plain fails to be magic. Why does it work when I draw a symbol in the air to make a person several thousand miles away feel better? I don't know. I really don't. I could pretend a load of crap about 'nonlocal quantum manifestations' but I don't want to.

Magic is magic because it is magical. Easy.

So yeah, the Crowley noseblow can be magic, is magic if you see it as magical. Just as a party magician's card trick is magic for the kid who's birthday they're celebrating.

Magical, Miraculous, Mystical.

I spent a long while caring. Trying to find answer, truth meaning and some sort of explanation for things. But then I realised that if my life was explainable; if it was all simple physics, maths and 9-to-5, it wouldn't be alive. I'd just be a 2D sketch in the brain of an idiot god.

So I refute any attempt to turn magic to science. I don't think that magic can ever be explained, but (abstractly) this is why think it works. At the base of everything we are and do is the unexplainable. Life can never know what it is, but that it is. The 'what' is dead. To be alive is to be confused and never quite know. Life is mystery and life is magical.

So that's why I do magic. It's me, it's life, it's fun.

In doing magic, that 'me' that isn't real fades away to the side for a while to merge with the great me.you.us.we.he.she.it.father.mother.daughter.son.life.death thing that we all are and cry with a happy smile to remember.

In magic, i come home.

It might be 'religious' magic. It might be 'my path'. Whatever. Perhaps people who do 'interior magic' are being more focussed on the path to enlightenment than those who do the 'exterior' stuff. But nah. Magic ends up being both internal and external anyway.

It seems fruitless to try to define 'Brand X' magic against 'Brand Y', and just as fruitless to seek a 'real' meaning for magic. Someone who plays with magic knows what it is to them; knows that it is them. So i ask the question 'Why a meaning?' Isn't a meaning to the magical just as much a paradox as a 'meaning to the mysterious'?

Um...

Yeah.
*breathes in*
 
 
Lord Switch
08:27 / 26.05.06
J

I have a feeling you are a very crap magician in case you can´t get your enchantments to work or to work at a distance.
You don´t think that people who have a 100% success rate are telling the truth?
-Why not?
The IOT in England for instance has a very hard apprenticeship. Among others you should have 10 enchantmenst going per day. Little things like: the first person I meet outside is Ginger, and big things: I want to find 100£ in a wallet.
After a while the success rate increases. And thats the point with sorcery, isn´t it? To be able to pull it off like the nice black magician one is. Steep oneself completely into material existence in order to have full controll over it and access to it.
If you´re any good at all then your sigils, enchantments and spells WILL work.

You seem so adamant about physical visible results. Little sparklies from fingertips. Did you watch charmed and expected magick to be the same, and then when it wasn´t you completely dismissed it as psychology with self-delusions built in?
Have you failed to read the fineprint on magick?
It takes the easiest route to happen.

Enchanmtent: I want You to Burn your Thigh. NOW.
What is easier? spontaneous combustion? A spirit creating a physical shell out of the atoms around it to do it?
Or you spilling hot coffe/water/oil/food on your leg?

Reality is subhjective and modern science is based around empiricism. That means that the same experiment is repeated under the exact same conditions untill there is a mean in the numbers gained. When that is achieved that number is decided on. You should known this.
By the same deffinition it comes as no suprise that magick cannot be subjected to empirical studies.
The person performing it would need to be a mindless automaton. No matter that the same words and symbols are used. The next spell is by necessity different from the previous one. The magus has changed hirself whilst the Universe got changed.

Not all Chaosmagicians are IOT standard hardcore. Not all magicians are aiming at beng the best soreceror alive. Some might have a success rate of 20%-99% when it comes to to success in the material plane. But if they are not aiming at the 100% they won´t reach it...

Speaking of which.

Could I possibly invite you to a test?
Give the board your persmission to do its worst at you from a distance and we´ll see whats happens.
You know, suffer for science a bit.
 
 
Quantum
10:06 / 26.05.06
Give the board your persmission to do its worst at you from a distance

Why would the board do that? Let's not.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
12:15 / 26.05.06
Yeah, have we really got nothing better to do than lob hexes at random strangers just to prove a point?
 
 
rosie x
13:01 / 26.05.06
Anyone who fucks with Quantum shall have myself to deal with! No, seriously. Keep the faith dear. Crises of it are only human. You'll emerge with understanding eventually, but you might have to get up off that couch to begin with!

x
 
 
EvskiG
13:19 / 26.05.06
Give the board your persmission to do its worst at you from a distance and we´ll see whats happens.

Oh dear.

I'm not sure what "persmission" is, but my opinion of Switch just went down several notches. Even if he or she is "IOT standard hardcore."
 
 
Evil Scientist
13:22 / 26.05.06
You seem so adamant about physical visible results. Little sparklies from fingertips. Did you watch charmed and expected magick to be the same, and then when it wasn´t you completely dismissed it as psychology with self-delusions built in?

I have to say that I find this kind of dismissive patronising extremely unhelpful. It's not unreasonable for someone to expect tangible results from magic. Otherwise why do it? To automatically assume that physical results means we're talking lightning bolts and Buffy-esque effects is, again, unhelpful.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
13:24 / 26.05.06
Tru dat. Personally if I didn't see at least the odd tangible result from my magic I'd have jacked it in years ago.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
13:27 / 26.05.06
The IOT in England for instance has a very hard apprenticeship. Among others you should have 10 enchantmenst going per day. Little things like: the first person I meet outside is Ginger, and big things: I want to find 100£ in a wallet... Not all Chaosmagicians are IOT standard hardcore.

I think this is a ridiculous approach to magical apprenticeship and I don't believe that it works and produces "hardcore sorcerors" for one minute. I certainly haven't met any of them, and I've probably met more than my fair share of IOT and former-IOT people. What on earth would your ten enchantments per day be? Where would you find the time to do any other meaningful activity if you were spending your whole life cocking around trying to manifest people with ginger hair for no reason? It's just inane. I really don't think magic functions in the kind of tedious, sterile, mechanistic terms that this sort of approach tries to batter it down in to. Approaching magic like this, trying to make yourself a "hardcore results magician" by just doing endless empty drills of trying to make meaningless, stupid things happen just boils out all the joy and mystery from it - the things that make magic worth pursuing at all.
 
 
illmatic
13:39 / 26.05.06
I'm glad you said that. I also have met a fair few IOT people and none of 'em ever hinted that they possess these type of skills or that they are even possible to attain.

Steep oneself completely into material existence in order to have full controll over it and access to it.

I've never met any magican who's claimed full control over reality. Most occultists seem to have the same difficult and complex lives that everyone else has. And anyone, as I tried to hint upthread, can't we move away from the whole "magic is about AMMMAZING miraculous things"? Its dull and counterproductive, in that it obscures some of the deeper and more personal aspects of our engagement with whatever path.
 
 
illmatic
13:42 / 26.05.06
Imagine how red raw your cock would be if you did ten "enchantments" a day. Blisters. Doesn't bear thinking about.
 
 
rosie x
14:19 / 26.05.06
Eeeeewwww. And your lovelife too would suffer undoubtedly. "Not tonight dear...I'm a bit worn out..."
 
 
Ticker
14:20 / 26.05.06
Imagine how red raw your cock would be if you did ten "enchantments" a day. Blisters. Doesn't bear thinking about.

Magical lube. Easy to make & takes the pain out of mystical wank.

The competitive edge in Switch's post and subsequent couched challenge is the sort of thing that has always made me uncomfortable with occult groups. True it is a laudable skill but we don't have to get all TriWizard cup about it. That's just as silly as wanting f/x.

I run into ego tripping in the magical religious circles as well and it seems to be a reflection of can-do getting translated into pride. When the humility check fails you might be a POW-WHAM-SIZZLE! magic worker but you're certainly also an ass.

Of all the things I do with my rites I still can't build a beautiful heirloom quality cabinet like my next door neighbor can do in his garage with his lathe. There are other skills just as wonderful which I could have apprenticeships with. Still wouldn't entitle me to a giant head size.

Knowing that there is always a bigger badder mother out there is an important survival trait. Perhaps if you are a decent person said personage will want to be your pal. Or at least not stomp your ass for mouthing off.
 
 
Ticker
14:25 / 26.05.06
Perhaps this is an issue of confidence versus ego-pride?

I do agree with Lord Switch about results taking the least path of resistance. Sometimes the coffee spills on your crotch or you just pick the sword up with your hand.
 
 
petunia
14:40 / 26.05.06
"can't we move away from the whole "magic is about AMMMAZING miraculous things"? Its dull and counterproductive, in that it obscures some of the deeper and more personal aspects of our engagement with whatever path."

eh. sorry.
I didn't mean to say majic wasn't to do with our own personal engagements with our paths. Definitely didn't want to try to apply some kind of special gloss over the whole thing.
I only meant miraculous and mystical in the same sense that breathing in or hearing a clock tick can be miraculous and mystical.
I was simply answering the question in the thread title - why do I do majic? same answer as why I meditate, why I kiss, why I love. I find there to be a deep and personal resonance with something that is amazing and miraculous that soaks our lives. Didn't mean to be dull or counterproductive.
Sorry
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
14:48 / 26.05.06
I think this touches on the erroneous notion that the ultimate magician is someone who is sealed within the hermetic bubble of their own power over reality, untouched by the trials and tribulations that most people have to contend with, by dint of their mastery over magic.

It's as if people consider Malkuth as this debased, worthless thing to be transcended, conquered and overcome through magic - so that you can ascend to the "higher" places and not get your hands dirty anymore. As opposed to viewing the whole Tree as a single process, with Malkuth as the ultimate culmination of the whole thing. The point of it all. The place where it all happens. Getting your hands dirty is what it's all about. Kether becomes Malkuth for a reason.

For me, being a magician does not mean a retreat from the world but an active engagement in it. The everyday world and its struggles and trials is the place where magic happens. Where everything happens. The more complex life is, the more opportunities you get to learn and grow and develop from facing those trials both as a magician and as a human being. The hermetically sealed bubble of this spurious idea of the all powerful magus with control over everything - provides zero opportunities for growth. Having to deal with challenges is how we evolve. This hypothetical idea of the "all powerful untouchable magus" might as well just be one of those unfeeling, emotionally disconnected cybermen trapped in a cold metal suit and not going anywhere. Without sorrow there is no understanding.
 
  

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