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Something from Nothing

  
 
electric monk
13:13 / 26.02.07
Elsewhere, Telephones and Telephone Bells said:

What are your thoughts on art and magic?

From my own practice as an art student, I know that there is a definite state of mind that art practice and magic practice share, but if anything, magic seems for me like another medium for art (so catagories of art practice might be: drawing, painting, video, ritual) and not the other way around- my art is not particularly magical (I mean, its personally powerful, but not in a synchronicity and astral visions kind of way), but my magic is certainly artistic and creative.

Any thoughts? Are any of you artists as well, and if you are (or even if you arn't) how do you incorporate the two, or do you?

And then EmberLeo said:

Wow, that's worth it's own thread.

I have often heard Inspiration equated to altered conciousness and/or a major category of Contact with the Divine. I tend to agree with that.

Also, art generally serves one (or both) of two purposes: Creation of Beauty, Communication of Content. Both of these have tremendous magical and spiritual potential.

With which I wholeheartedly agree. To expand on states of altered conciousness, I find that the actual production of a piece of art can bring me deep into a single-pointed state. I've had this happen with collage, drawing, painting, all kinds of media. It's usually a passive entrance into that state, but when I'm into it time ceases to exist. Shit, everything ceases to exist except the action of my hands and the forming artwork. Breaking out of that state is like coming up for air. Suddenly, it's a sharp inhale and I'm back. And there in front of me is a semi-complete (or complete) piece. I haven't had to consider color theory, composition, subject, foregroud, background. Nothing. But the piece will work. Sometimes I'm left feeling I haven't created something so much as channeled something. Like I'm a door the piece walked through. "How the fuck did I do that?"

As far as incorporating art into magical work, I've assembled collages in ritual settings, draw portraits of gods for use as focal points in meditations and invocations, and made ritual tools and accessories with Sculpy clay and sticks snake skin and paper grocery bags and pretty much whatever I had at hand. I've also found that having everything I need to accomplish a given arty/magicky task is a good sign that I'm on the right track. I keep a box of misc. items in my altar (broken watches, shells, various stones, bits of paper, ribbons, small chains, eggshells and on and on and on) for future use. I don't store them with forethought, like "I will need this for X working in two months". The bits just strike a chord somewhere inside, so I store them for a rainy day and their purpose eventually becomes clear.

Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art may inform this discussion, but it's been a while since I read it. Salt to taste.

See also our Fool's extensive artistic/magical contributions to this forum and the Creation forum. And do not miss hir Adventures of the Little People or the recent Magical Wallpaper thread.
 
 
Closed for Business Time
14:13 / 26.02.07
Great thread! I was actually thinking of something along the same lines a while back - but relating more to performing arts such as music and theatre. I've personally little experience in the magick side of things - but I've done around 100 gigs in my time and generally been involved (playing, writing, organising) in the musical underground since I was 13. I'll need some time to collect my thoughts before coming back stronger, but at the very least I'd very much like to hear from people with a performing background what their views and experiences are. As a starter question - has anyone ever used a public access performance, such as a "normal" gig in a "normal" venue, as a ritual or working? How did it go? Tellme-tellme-tellme!
 
 
Make me Uncomfortable
16:48 / 26.02.07
I've been working my way through Judith Cameron's "The Artists Way" - a workbook for recovering one's creativity. One of her first topics is that creativitiy is essentially spiritual and or magical- the short version is that since higher powers create stuff, they like it when mortals do too, and so creation is a divine act. It's a little bit like the whole Plato's concept of "divine seizure", where art-making happens when one of the gods or muses literally takes hold of you and you create in a fit of holy madness; but with less drama.

Synchronicity is also of paramount importance- she calls it the universe's way of saying "you are on the right path," and urges the reader to keep track of synchronicities from week to week. At various points, Cameron also urges the reader to treat thier recovery as a spiritual one as well. Additionally, some of the weekly "homework assignments" including visiting local religious sancutaries, prayer (in whatever form you deem appropriate), etc.

I've also been reading and now rereading "A Sabbath Life: A Woman's Search for Wholeness" by Kathleen Hirsch, a memoir about her creative recovery during her forties and fifties. It was a book I found synchronistically right when I first started with the Artist's Way book, a coffee table book at a family friend's house which after getting 2/3 of the way through they let me keep so I could finish it. In it, the author takes essentially the same journey that The Artist's Way recomends, without actually, you know, reading the Artist's Way.

It might seem strange, but I find a lot of resonance in her writing about femininity and motherhood and creation and art, despite being 20-30 years below the target audience, male, and in a totally different line of work.

In my recent work, which has mostly been video and drawing, I've been seeing a lot of spiritual concepts crop up- my drawing take on mandala-like properties, my videos are looking more and more like trance-journeys. Here's the latest one, if you want to have a look-see: The Tower, The Book.

And even creating them has become a strange act of synchronicity- photos I took months ago suddenly become totally relevent to the piece, earlier projects and ideas realize themselves within newer works, things I try on a whim work out spectacularly well.

It's all sort of dazzlingly interesting, and I don't quite know what to make of this art-magic overlap. I feel like I am too closely involved in both right now to be at all objective- everything these days feels like art, or magic, or both.

Looking over the above, its sort of ramble-y, but I hope you get my meaning...
 
 
EmberLeo
06:51 / 27.02.07
At this point I have a fair amount of experience in creating and in performing in a number of contexts from commercial (which is a step beyond secular in my world) to devotional.

These days the vast majority of the stuff I make is inspired by my religious practices, or conciously created for some magical use. My performances are also generally in a ritual or religious context lately, but that's more of a coincidence.

That theatre has it's roots in ritual is extremely evident to me. The connections between the Method of method acting and the cues and conditioning involved in posessory trance is very strong. I have performed in both secular and ritual theatre, but there was enough difference in process between the productions that I can't compare them very easily. I will say that I wouldn't subject an unwary audience to being part of a Working they didn't consent to, because that goes against my ethics. Thus I have NOT used a secular setting as an external outlet for magic beyond simply being in the moment of my own experience.

What I find curious is that all my performing arts training, which took place in thoroughly secular settings, is now serving me very well in my religious work on behalf of my community. All those years of learning to put my anxiety on the shelf and be confident when I step out on that stage, of forgetting everything and letting my entire being just flow with the music coming out of my mouth... It's all the same stuff I need to drop my doubt and carry the energy of the rituals that now fill my life.

As for the inspiration and creation connection, that's definitely a different, but equally intense shift for me, and I agree with the description above of falling into a timelessness, and then coming up for air. I don't know that it makes much difference, actually, that most of my creations are now devotional work - the process is the same, in any case. But I find now that I can draw things I couldn't manage before, I can do things I couldn't do before, and I'm MUCH more consistantly swamped with inspiration and ideas I haven't got the time to manifest. The process itself is only slightly amplified by the shift to more spiritual work, but my volume of output is tremendously increased.

--Ember--
 
 
Quantum
11:36 / 27.02.07
Obviously we must mention Austin 'zos' Osman 'kia' Spare.
 
 
Ticker
13:55 / 27.02.07
Yup the 'Lith OverMind seems to be working on schedule.

I'm working on a series of performative rituals that are both art and magic. I started doing them originally under the guise of Performance Art as everyone seems to be ok with that medium getting really freaky and using all sorts of 'props'. Now I've got a wider group of people that don't require the standalone label 'Art'.

I'm beginning a new series intended to be performed with an interactive audience that is informed of the overlap as public divination and healing ceremonies. In building them I'm paying attention to elements that have to do with both effective visual and performative art as well as functional on ritual levels. The test is really how the rituals are created with the audience, and what they experience.
 
 
+am
21:20 / 01.03.07
Don't know what anyone else thinks of Alex Grey , but I think some of his stuff is pretty amazing. I have never seen it in the flesh, in his Chapel of Sacred Mirrors gallery in New York, but I imagine it would be an intense experience. He's who I immediately think of regarding art and magic, though I suppose he's more of a mystic than a magician, not that it particularly matters.

I recently read his inspirational book The Mission of Art , which I'd definitely recommend to anyone interested in the spiritual or visionary nature of art. Aside from expounding his own interesting philosophy regarding art, he takes a look at the history of art from a spiritual perspective. As I don't know too much about visual art I found this an excellent introduction to artists I might particularly enjoy. Though his own works are quite overtly visionary, he singles out other less obvious artists in this context and their ability to 'communicate the divine'.

From the page on his site: "Grey traces the evolution of human consciousness through art history, seeking the threads of art's essential meaning. He reflects on the development of his own work, including provocative performances and the profoundly affecting psychedelic experiences which lead to his unique visionary art. He explores the role of an artist's intention and conscience, and how we of the postmodern age can draw on the creative process as a spiritual path."

Oh and anyone who's into the band Tool will be totally familiar with this guy as he did a lot of their art, but I'm not so I wasn't, ha.

I myself find magic to be inherently artistic, utilising and provoking my own under-used creativity. It is by its nature an active process, requiring a manipulation of some form in order to produce a result. It can evoke a child-like sense of play and freeform association, an enhanced appreciation of shape colour sound and symbolism, quite like that a traditional artist might experience. I think some of the best ways of communicating these ineffable experiences is through the medium of artistic representation.
 
 
Make me Uncomfortable
03:41 / 02.03.07
That's a nice segue, +am, into ideas about what artists people find to be inspirational magically, or what art people think has magic qualities to it. Or, to put it another way, what art inspires what magic.

I like to think a lot about city magic, sort of the way it was presented in the Invisibles- cities are these sort of viral ideas that self-propogate, they elicit a very specific sense of place, they have a sort of animus-urbana thing going on, a "local spirit." With that in mind, the works of Chiho Aoshima, especially "Magma Spirit Explodes, Tsunami is Dreadful", which was done as a 60 foot long, 20 foot high mural at the most recent Carnegie International really struck me as deeply correct about the cityscape it presented. I am also excited magically by books that are set in cities and delve deeply into them. A few I could mention: Perdido Street Station, Invisible Man, Dubliners.

Musically, I think there are more than a few musicians who play pretty heavily with the sigil-structure of thier music. I'm specifically thinking of Sting's solo albums- if you listen to the whole thing, each album is definitly its own well paced journey. From what his Autobiography relates, Sting is pretty involved, at least on the hobby level, with magical/spiritual thinking, and it comes across in his work. At least to me. Sufjan Steven's Illinoise album is also pretty much trance inducing. KT Tunstal's Eye to the Telescope too.

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled broadcasts. I guess the discussion can go either way at this point. Or hopefully, both.
 
 
Z. deScathach
15:49 / 02.03.07
As for myself, working with fractal art provided a lot of grist for the mill. Since it involves changing shapes and color through math, there is no set idea as to what will appear, or "arrive". At times, clear facial presences would pop up, very alien things, and I got the uncanny sense that there was something very "alive" behind them. Back then, I was working in an energy sense, so communication did not occur to me. In terms of energy symbolism, and also symbolism of hidden aspects of my life, I got a lot out of it. I've been out of working with that medium for some time, but lately have been considering going back, with an eye to using them far more magickally. The one thing that I would do this time around is to establish communications, with great care of course. I've had things show up that I would be very reticent to communicate with, and if I went into using it as a communication medium, a full banishing would be in order.

What's very interesting is that different fractal programs seem to have differing results. I've found that in terms of spirit appearances, a program called "Fractal Explorer" works very well. While I've used Ultrafractal for basic art, I don't really get as much of a spiritual and magickal connection with it.

Once more, Barbelith nudges me where I need to go....
 
 
illmatic
07:32 / 05.03.07
Great thread. Surprised there’s not been one like it before.

It seems to me that the best magicians are always creative people, if not “artists” with a capital “A” – I’m saying that as I’d include non-fiction writing (essays etc) as expressions of creativity – the synthesis of ideas is as much an artistic act as anything else. The more I think about it, the less I can see a dividing line between the two activities, to be honest.

It is by its nature an active process, requiring a manipulation of some form in order to produce a result.

I couldn’t agree more.

This is why “magical workbooks” are a bit absurd really, “10 steps to magehood” or whatever. You have to use books like these as inspiration and create for yourself, rather than replicate steps to get to a fixed end point. Most magical people I rate have a lack of willingness to just accept stuff as “received wisdom” and a desire to tinker with it and put it’s synthesis to use in their own life.

More later when I’m not so ... sleepy
 
 
brother george
08:34 / 05.03.07
Sorry for cross-posting here but:

Although they are very closely related these two, there is an essential difference. Art is concerned mostly with the process of making art, thus the finished artwork does not have a 'function' as it is.
Magick on the other hand while employing art, produces 'artifacts' which beyond their artistic merit do have a function or an intent behind them. Magickal art in this case becomes the means, not the end.

I think Joel Biroco touched upon this subject somewhere in his journal, but I`m not sure where.

My one copper on the subject.
 
 
illmatic
09:27 / 05.03.07
I don't agree with that really. Or rather, I don't think it's anm easy line to delineate. I don't believe art is purely produced for aesthetic purposes, nor do I think magic is strictly pragmatic. In people's practices, I think the line blurs quite a lot.
 
 
brother george
11:57 / 05.03.07
I wouldn't use the word 'pragmatic' for that.
I merely point that magic without an intent, is not magic at all, just as cooking without an intent (a specific dish) is not cooking at all.
Note that I`m not putting aside experimentation:

There is also intent behind experimentation but the procedure of realizing it varies in that case.

For instance, your intent is to experiment with 4-5 ingredients and produce a new dish which should be tasty and pleasing to the eye.
If you produce a warm bowl of unidentified crap then you've failed.
 
 
captain piss
12:49 / 05.03.07
The 'function' of the finished artwork is communication of some kind, I'd suppose.

I can think of artefacts or works that are created with both communication and reality-altering (or whatever it is magick achieves) intents in mind... perhaps the more you take people's eye of the ball with the enjoyment and aesthetic appreciation they get from the work, the more effectively magickal it can be...
 
 
Closed for Business Time
12:52 / 05.03.07
Gorg, you've clearly never been a student . Producing a warm bowl of unidentifiable crap not a success? If I didn't die eating it, ho-yes 'twas a success! In time I have improved much, thankfully.
***********


Personally, I'm intrigued by the importance of rhythm and timing in both ritual and (at least) music and literature. I've had my deepest and most meaningful* trance experiences while improvising with other musicians. The prototypical sequence of events in my experience has been to meet up, have a drink or a spliff or two while chatting/socialising/warming to each other, then people will start picking up instruments and start playing. It can go on for hours or just minutes, people will join and leave. Some of the best jams I've been in have been at festivals. One year at the Roskilde festival in Denmark
I fell in with an ongoing spontaneous percussive phenomenon that must have incorporated some 100-200 people all merrily banging away on everything from their own bodies via plastic cups and glass bottles to proper drums to massive garbage containers. Wicked...

I tend to look back on impro-sessions as hot or cold - mostly emotional and spontaneous vs mostly analytical and methodical. The answer to any questions I'd pose, like "how good/bad was that" rarely seems to correlate to either mode - sometimes a really "calculated" impro session will sound awesome, and a drug-fuelled total freak-out I might later deem to be an utter failure, and vice versa. One of the main criteria for me, in terms of success or whatchamacallit, would be to what extent I experience both strong group cohesion/coordination as well as esthetic novelty and surprise. Sometimes a session will produce a sequence of sounds that almost borders on a proof of telepathy or a group-mind. Sometimes it feels like a bunch of bored stoners wanking away while in the presence of each other.

The issue of spectators raises some interesting questions. Ember - I will say that I wouldn't subject an unwary audience to being part of a Working they didn't consent to, because that goes against my ethics. From an entirely curious pov - why does that go against your ethics? Is there a chance that you could harm, hurt or otherwise offend the spectators, yourself or other entities involved? Or something entirely different?



*not entirely the appropriate word for it - words like productive, satisfying, fun, mind-blowing, inspired etc could go there
 
 
illmatic
13:03 / 05.03.07
Gorg: I dunno, I think with the type of thing you mentioned above, the juxtapositional magic thing for Joel Biroco's zine, you wouldn't start off with a clear intent necessarily. It might emerge from the practice, it might not.

The production of "art" ("products of creativity" might be a better phrase since I'm thinking broadly) might lead to material results, or insight - take Grant Morrison's claims for the effects writing The Invisibles had on his life for example. These results weren't intentional but can we say they're not magickal?
 
 
brother george
13:24 / 05.03.07
I wasn't refering to Biroco's juxtapositional thing but from a post from his journal.

And having your intent 'emerge' spontaenously from the work itself is at least dangerous. I`m sorry but I can't call that magic. Letting your self at the whim of every passing current is in the domain of 'mediumism'.
As far as Morrisson's "Invisibles" I think that Grant intended it from the beginnning - but I might be wrong.
 
 
illmatic
13:25 / 05.03.07
I merely point that magic without an intent, is not magic at all, just as cooking without an intent (a specific dish) is not cooking at all.

I think I'm just a bit resistant to your definition. The whole magical intent = x, I then do magic procedure y, I get x model of magic has never really worked for me. Normally, when things have worked they've been more in the way of surprises and odd insights. Still, YMMV.

Having said that I do think having clear intents and outcomes in mind and applying these to one's life is very useful.
 
 
illmatic
13:27 / 05.03.07
Why is it dangerous? Do you have any experience of this procedure causing damage or harm to anyone?
 
 
brother george
13:43 / 05.03.07
I think I'm just a bit resistant to your definition. The whole magical intent = x, I then do magic procedure y, I get x model of magic has never really worked for me. Normally, when things have worked they've been more in the way of surprises and odd insights. Still, YMMV.

Well, still its not that clear cut even if you do follow that procedure; cause after all it is magic. I do have surprises and odd insights in ritual - and when I have some inner urge that seems right and tells me 'do this gesture instead of the scripted one', I follow that inner urge.

Although this type of 'deviation', when it happens, is mostly some type of refinement, which does not affect the symbolism or the overall intent of the ritual.

Why is it dangerous? Do you have any experience of this procedure causing damage or harm to anyone?

You mean why is letting yourself to every passing whim dangerous? Is it not self-obvious ?
I do not equate 'letting yourself to every passing whim' with acting on insight.
Acting on insight is for some reason very powerfull and direct.
But, for me at least, this doesn't occur that frequently, and there is a particular danger mistaking an obsession, a compulsive choice or even a passing thought for 'inner insight'.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
14:07 / 05.03.07
That's a bit of an arbitrary line in the sand though isn't it, and one which is placed differently for different people. For instance, I'd say 90% of my practice is about instinct and response to things happening in the moment. I very rarely go into sorcery with a cut & dried idea of exactly what I am going to do. I have all of my ingredients to hand, like an artist with a pallet of paint, and I create whatever I am creating in the heat of the magic. If I am too prescriptive about a recipe before going into the work, I find it often falls a bit flat.

Sometimes I might just have the intent to hang out with the Spirits, pour some drinks, shoot the breeze - and then find myself compelled to do something else that I had not intended at the outset, tie a bag, mix an oil, or receive some design for something else that the Spirits suggest would be a good idea. Other times it might work the opposite way, and I go into the work with a clear idea of what I am going to do, but feedback from the Spirits suggests a totally different course of action, or informs me of the shortsightedness of my original plan, or suchlike. That always dents the big magician ego, that one, when you go into something with a clear idea for something and are told in no uncertain terms by the Spirits that it is not a good idea and you should back off from it. Takes a bit of getting used to.

For me, this sort of instinct and adaptive response to what is happening in the moment is at the heart of the magic that I practice. Mediumship? Yeah, you could call it that. But it's certainly not about yielding to every passing whim and it is definitely magic.
 
 
Ticker
14:44 / 05.03.07
The fluidity THRB touches on is a very important thing in my work specifically the ability to flow with what is appropriate at the time. In preparing to do public work over the next few months a large part of what I focus on is how to be adaptive to the moment. I can go into a performance ritual with one set of goals for an outcome but to rigidly drive there would be failure if I'm not incorporating the energy and purpose of the people I'm working with. I really have no idea what any given one will be like before it happens.

The issue of ego is something I'd be into discussing with folks as I'm considering the role it plays in art and yet the need to set aside in some moments of magic. My ego is involved with creating ritual space and inviting people to participate in something sacred with me but I don't view this as a bad thing. It feels to me lke opening my home to my community and having pride in the dwelling and People I live with.

There is however a bit of a speed bump for me in terms of presenting myself as doing magical public work. When I presented it as performance art people attended with one set of assumptions and supplied me with feedback & criticism in line with their perceptions of that medium. To present it as a magical working shifts that for many people. On the other side I'm experiencing an internal conflict over what I can only describe as ego investment in doing well. When I framed it as art with magical side effects I judged it by the standards of making good art now framed as a magical act done artisticly I feel the need to apply the other set of standards.

It will also be very interesting to see what kind of critique I can get out of attendees.
 
 
iamus
06:06 / 06.03.07
I've kind of said this in an older thread, but this is a much better fit. Apologies if I ramble.... no sleep since yesterday and a ten hour shift ahead. Either the best or worst frame of mind..... I'm not sure...

Anyway... to me, it's all creativity. That's the foundation stone of both art and magic. The two are just different ways of expressing that same core principle.

Creativity is something humans specialise in. It's a process of drawing in information, taking it all to pieces and building it into newer more interesting forms, like lego. Both Art and Magic are excercises in creative exploration for the enrichment of your own soul and the rest of the world around you. It's about twisting the whole thing round and seeing how the light hits it from a different angle.

The physical world is composed completely of ideas, be it the idea of a tree or the idea of the internal combustion engine. There's nothing here that isn't a reimagined iteration of something that came before it. Ideas are intangible though, they have form but no actual substance. Using art or magic we can catch ideas, condense them into being and transmit them to others. When enough people share the same ideas, things start to happen, and the world reflects and grows around them. That, I think, is the defining characteristic of both, catching that moment of creative intuition and turning it into creative expression. They maybe take slightly different roads around it, but I'm pretty sure the destination is identical.

Also, art generally serves one (or both) of two purposes: Creation of Beauty, Communication of Content. Both of these have tremendous magical and spiritual potential.

I think communication of content is a definite. Not so sure about creation of beauty. It's certainly one of the things it's capable of, but I would say the first rule is just plain old Observation. An artwork doesn't have to be beautiful to communicate content, it just has to have content to communicate and that content can be anything that fits into the world. Beautiful, ugly, nonsensical, serious, incomprehensible. It can completely ignore any semblence of compostion or aesthetic unity yet still communicate something.

Observation is where Ego comes into it. There's nothing to look at if there's nowhere to look from after all. If art is about communication, then it can only work in a differentiated environment where things seem one way to one person and another way to another. The personal viewpoint is critical, because that's where the creative enzymes are applied. Interpretation and translation are where ideas mutate into different forms. You remove Ego then you have nothing to communicate, because everything just.... well.... is.


So what are the underlying principles of ritual? What are the underlying principles of art?

Doesn't matter if you use incense or guitars, a wand or a paintbrush.... both aim to set a tone to your interaction with the world, to provide a lens that you can think through while in their prescence. If they're truly great works, they'll forever change the way you look at and interact with yourself and the world around you.
 
 
illmatic
08:12 / 06.03.07
That's a great post, Iamus. What I was trying to incoherently grope towards yesterday. More later.
 
 
Closed for Business Time
10:09 / 06.03.07
iamus said The physical world is composed completely of ideas, be it the idea of a tree or the idea of the internal combustion engine. There's nothing here that isn't a reimagined iteration of something that came before it. Ideas are intangible though, they have form but no actual substance. Using art or magic we can catch ideas, condense them into being and transmit them to others.

I'm sorry if I sound crass, but I don't see much sense in this. Exactly how is the physical world composed entirely of ideas? Isn't this completely solipsistic, if not oxymoronic? And then you go on to contradict yourself, saying firstly "Ideas are intangible", then later on "we can catch ideas, condense them into being and transmit them to others." Dude, I don't think you can have it both ways.

This is not to say that I'm completely not getting what (I believe) you're saying. I believe that you're saying that the physical world contains meaningful information (ideas/form) and that we extract these ideas from their underlying substratum (matter/the physical world), add our own interpretations - we re-present them in our own mind, and then re-re-present them via art and magic.

If that's what you're saying, all I'm saying is it'd be hard to disagree with that.
 
 
Quantum
10:31 / 06.03.07
Exactly how is the physical world composed entirely of ideas?

Our primary, sensory information is all ideas and perceptions- the material world that causes them is an inference from those perceptions and thus a hypothesis, not the fundamental reality it's commonly thought of as. We have comprehension of our idea of a tree, say, but no direct contact with the actual tree.
Kant called the cause of our experienced phenomena 'noumena', and it's a mark of idealist philosophy. Not technically solipsistic but related.
 
 
Closed for Business Time
11:01 / 06.03.07
Not wanting to derail the thread - I think this is bollocks. Then again, much sharper minds than mine disagree. For those interested there's a vast, and I mean vast, literature out there, going from philosophy (of mind, epistemology, ontology) through the humanities to latter-day psychology. To sum up my main misgiving about the validity of Kantian epistemology, I'll pinch this quote from Wikipedia - (he refers to Nietzsche) he found fault in the noumenon's lack of definite properties and its complete inability to interact with other things. Nietzsche argued that a thing in itself would necessarily be outside of any causal chain since it cannot interact with any other things without demonstrating other properties than being the "ground of being". He and later philosophers argued that the noumenon is of an utterly indeterminate nature and that any discussion that does not treat it as such thus cannot, in fact, be a discussion of the noumenon. In demonstrating any definite properties, the noumenon would cease to be so. The article also lists other criticisms, should anyone be interested.

Hm.. Any interest in a Head Shop thread on basic epistemology/ontology? Or do we have one there already?
 
 
Quantum
11:41 / 06.03.07
Er- that's my point, that the noumena is unknowable and basically a hypothesis to explain phenomena. We can know only our perceptions of the spoon, there is no spoon... thus the 'physical world is composed of ideas' quote you queried. I agree the idea of noumena is deeply flawed, which is one reason I'm an idealist and that's a fundamental premise of my magical beliefs.
 
 
illmatic
06:32 / 07.03.07
I thought this book review was relevant. I'll have to post some of my reflections on working with TOPY stuff, I think. Blurring of the lines between art and magic.
 
 
Ticker
15:30 / 07.03.07
From the linked article above:

In his book SSOTMBE (Sex Secrets of The Black Magicians Exposed) Lionel Snell paints a picture of magic as a combination of feeling and observation, differentiated from art, which is emerges from somewhere between feeling and intuition - the complex hierarchies of the Golden Dawn leaning more to system, the observing of an ordered universe, with an artist like Austin Spare situated closer to intuition.

I'm stumbling a bit over observation being in the magical realm and intuition the art realm. System versus intuition often appears as a difference between schools/styles of art.

If anything I'm leaning towards the distinction between art and magic as largely one of perception as both seek to transform the greater reality through expression of one's personal intent or to provide the user with a creative coping mechanism. The mechanism one attributes to how this is accomplished, through the senses/experience of the audience/creator being transformed in a tangible manner ( it made me think/feel differently about being in the world) versus through less tangible ways (I believe by causing x amount of people to think/feel differently x result was obtained).

It reminds me in many ways of discussions dividing pornography and erotica. The difference maybe too subjective to really be of use...
 
 
iamus
19:13 / 07.03.07
I'm sorry if I sound crass, but I don't see much sense in this. Exactly how is the physical world composed entirely of ideas?

Two main ways, which I would've been able to explain if I'd been a bit more alert...

Well yeah, in one sense, pretty much as Quantum's putting forward. Our interactions with the world around us are based totally on our perceptions of it, which never capture the big picture. With one idea of a tree, we see it only as wood, so we kill it and build houses and furniture. From another angle, a tree is something with a conciousness of it's own, something that makes oxygen so we can all breathe. Change your ideas of something, you change you interactions with it, you begin to change the form of the world.

In another sense the physical world is composed of ideas in that everything we have created has started off as one. Ideas are intangible, in present form they have no direct link to the physical world. The idea of the Internal Combustion Engine has as much bearing and influence on the world around it as the idea of Bozo the Clown's Rockabilly Soundstage Dance Troupe. Both have the potential to radically transform the world, but they're composed of a different kind of stuff.

Art is a process of translation and transcription. It can turn this ethereal thing into something solid, that can exist outside the imagineer and be scattered like pollen. Where its influence meets other people, things can be grown. Art condenses ideas like water on a pane of glass, or a white screen in front of a projector. It pulls them from one plane into another, adding dimension and physical heft.

If anything I'm leaning towards the distinction between art and magic as largely one of perception as both seek to transform the greater reality through expression of one's personal intent or to provide the user with a creative coping mechanism.

I'm almost total agreement with you on that one, XK. These days I see less and less of a border between the two. It's arguable that both started out as the same thing and have evolved apart a little, but I don't think it's much of a muchness.
 
 
Haloquin
22:27 / 20.03.07
I apologise, I haven't gotten round to reading this thread yet, so this may have already been covered, but brother george said this in the stupid questions thread;

Although they are very close related these two there is an essential difference. Art is concerned mostly with the process of making art, thus the finished artwork does not have a 'function' as it is.
Magick on the other hand while employing art, produces 'artifacts' which beyond their artistic merit do have a function or an intent behind them. Magickal art in this case becomes the means, not the end.

And I'm really not sure this is true. Perhaps my understanding of the word 'purpose' is different, but to me, all art has a purpose, even if it is to be aesthetically pleasing. Some art explicitly has the purpose to challenge perceptions, or to make you think, some to amuse, some to remind you of something, some to evoke a feeling/communicate something...
I have never understood how art can be said to not have a purpose in itself! This seems to me like saying devotional work doesn't have a purpose because its not asking for a specific outcome... its purpose is devotional, art's purpose is to be art... including all the things art is supposed to do!

My feeling is that art is magic, and magic is most often art. But then I also strongly believe that art can be philosophy. And I tend towards making pictures of everything as reminders and to evoke feelings and to make my room into a home. Art always has a purpose for me, even if its purpose was practise... but then thats the purpose of the act of creating the art, not necessarilly the piece itself...

Again, apologies and I'll try and be a good girl and read the rest of the thread before posting again!
 
  
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