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Politics of Magick

  
 
This Sunday
20:40 / 18.04.07
I feel kinda bad that I can't discuss certain things openly, because of situations. I would like to broach certain subjects, talk openly about specific instances, ceremonies, or practices, and hear the same from other people. Because that's how proper discussions go in other fields. It helps things progress smoother, lets everyone know where the field is at, what's going on, et cet.

But I find myself incapable or unwilling to do just that. A lot of that is because I grew up in a culture, in a family, that were big on keeping certain things secret. Because we were legally denied a lot of freedoms typically a given in twentieth cent. America, until the whole AIM nonsense went full tilt. And because there's a genuine fear of white people coming in and co-opting everything and then mutilating it, with that mutilated version being seen as legit, because white people carry a lot of weight in the world as experts. Now, that's a fear, hence it's kinda illogical, and skewed, like all proper fears are.

And I'd like to get on with it, dismiss that, and just talk about things. Except, even excepting that general fear, there's the issue of having promised, essentially, to not discuss a whole variety of elements, of events and practices in my life. Part of which is to keep it hidden from those who might mutilate or transfigure it, but also to prevent the whole deal of bringing up a practice because it makes you sound oh so big and important.

But, y'know, sometimes talking about something, bringing it up isn't done because you/I are/am big and important, but because the event or issue is, in fact, big and important even if only on a personal level.

Sometimes it's not even racial/cultural, per se, but sex based, or gender-based. I may want to talk openly and find out why people feel the need - the palpable and demanding need - to gender an element or aspect. Because I honestly don't get it and I'm really bad at it. I do sort of feel an inclination a lot of times to just lay out that anyone who insists feminine represents passive recieving, as do women, has simply never considered being fucked by a woman. The end. Because that's just as pat a blanket statement as 'feminine represents passive recieving' and it keeps the ball rolling.

But I'm probably not going to (except that I sorta just did, didn't I?), and I really hesitate on discussions of sexuality, of gender, or of emotion in general. Because I don't get masculine or hate as concepts. As amphigory? Sure. As actual concepts they're so constructed they're like metaconstructs, magickal lock-em-up spells that have run their course, but have enough inherent flaws that they missed their mark. Because they have to shift for every culture, every situation, every time you use them, practically, they become and simulate a different thing.

And it bothers people. I don't really want to bother people. Yet, when you ask some of the simplest, basic questions just to get a picture of where people are at, or where they're coming from? It really can bother some people something fierce.

You're not supposed to ask Christians why they believe in God, in angels and miracles, but don't believe in magick or spirits, or whatever. Because there is real and then there is real or something. Which is inane, but it's the supposedly polite thing to just not question that. And when someone asks, apparently the logical thing to do is hold your hands over your ears and scream 'Allah Akbar!' over and over until they stop asking, or look upon them with disdain.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, so if it's all muddled, bear with and maybe the posts from others after will make more sense.

It's just really weird to go from a culture or a geographical location where everyone's totally aware of spirits, of presences or situations that, when you go somewhere else, everyone goes out of their way to ignore or explain away. I can have conversations with Jews in Beverly Hills that I can have with Indians in Ventura, that I can't have with Catholics in Santa Barbara... and that's without leaving California. And it's not because Catholics are less magickally based or anything. Because you can't knock out that kind of mythology without a magickal element going pretty strong.

Is this a problem for anyone else? Seeing the number of sex/gender oriented threads on the front-page of the forum right now, I'd presume so. So, rather than misdirect those to my own ends, I thought I'd open up this thread specifically as a catch-all for this sort of self-editing or self-restraint based on all varieties and any variety of the politicisation of magick.
 
 
Ticker
02:33 / 19.04.07
Do you find your cultural, racial, sexual, geographical, sociological... Do you find your situation controlling what you talk about, as far as magick, spirituality, mysticism or daily life, versus what you'd like to talk about?

Well fuck yeah it does. There's not a lot of people in my general location I can talk to about working with Death and Nourishment Deities. Or blood magic or the Ordeal Path or well pretty much anything I do that isn't leaving out food or dropping it into bodies of water.

In my Aikido class there is very little conversation around the founder O'Sensei's spirituality because everyone wants to keep the practice in a culturally/spiritually neutral area. My sensei had no idea that the Founder experienced shaman sickness and considered himself possessed by a powerful Kami spirit. I find navigating what the Founder said about the spiritual aspect of the art highly difficult because most people think he was crazy. I happen to think his study of esoteric Eastern tradition was right the fuck on but it is a scary topic for most people. Possession by Divinities lead to the creation of a martial art form? Right.

Even big stuff and weird stuff aside I find explaining fasting to people oddly challenging. It's just not eating food for a day or so not some epic martyrdom event. Yet I've spoken to many people that think it is intrinsicly masochistic.

Even in my immediate circle I often have a hard time explaining what are to me simple things. There are many things I'd like to talk about but few people have the personal and academic experience to even set up a dialogue without passing judgment. This isn't to say you need a degree to have the conversation you just need to have already self examined and concluded there are multiple possible viewpoints.

(and I edited myself while writing this response because, hey it's text and I have no idea who is reading it)
 
 
Z. deScathach
05:01 / 19.04.07
Sure. I live in a small town with a high Wiccan population. I have no problem with them, I used to be Wiccan myself for many years. Many of them seem to have a problem with a number of trads that they perceive of as "dark". There's a metaphysical shop in my town. With a population of 8,000, that's not bad. Still, I expended such effort at the time trying to explain the concept of right action and karma, (one man actually damn near shouted in my face, "You mean you don't believe there are CONSEQUENCES for what you do?!", at which point I replied, "No. I believe that there are causes for effects, and that that process is much more complicated than a simple rule, i.e., the Rede").

Eventually I became friends with the priestess who owned it, but she left for Florida. Now there's a new owner, one who I percieve as being even more concerned about "darkness", and I just can't be bothered any more. Before someone tells me that I should fight the good fight, I'm old, and my health isn't the greatest. I find myself argueing with bull-headed people less, because it just doesn't seem to solve anything.

Otherwise, I live in Shitkickerville in the states. We have more churches than bars, and let me tell you, that's hard to do! It's a waste of time to talk magick or mysticism here, unless it's at the UU fellowship near where I live. I've had a number of round tables on magick there, and it's been very rewarding.
 
 
Quantum
09:53 / 19.04.07
Even in my immediate circle I often have a hard time explaining what are to me simple things.

I had a big argument two days ago with a good friend. About whether or not the Earth will stop spinning and reverse direction in 2012 and all our fears and desires will become physically manifest and some special people will ascend. Then it moved onto frickin' energy, but the sticking point was the same- he just could not distinguish between scientific theory based on observation and strong beliefs based on faith or revelation.
He was completely bemused when I told him angrily that I trust the weird dream he had about it much more than the pseudoscientific crap on the internet* he was trying to use to justify it. To me, first hand reporting of experience is valuable, which he couldn't grasp, and when I tried to explain the difference between motivation/vigour energy and heat/light energy he said I was blinding him with science. He put much more faith in the crap internet site than he did his own dreams.

So my point is, I find it difficult to discuss what I like to talk about, not through oppression or prejudice but because most people just can't grasp that intellectual rigour and a belief in the occult can go hand in hand. People are confused that I believe in Tarot but not Quantum Touch or Cosmic Paperclips, they just can't see any difference, and get angry if any criticism at all is expressed because their beliefs are so fragile.

What most people want when they talk about weirdness seems to be mutual reassurance and backslapping, 'Oooh aren't we magic and spooky and special and those silly muggles can't see what we see etc.'.



*2012.com, including science like;
Our DNA is being re-programmed from the Universe (as predicted in the Mayan Prophecy). We are going from 2 strand back to 12 strand DNA.
Greater intuitive and healing abilities will emerge.
Eyes will become cat like in order to adjust to the new atmosphere and light.
All newly born children will probably be telepathic at birth.
All plagues of the 90's, including AIDS will be gone.
 
 
Z. deScathach
11:07 / 19.04.07
Quantum Bumblebee wrote: People are confused that I believe in Tarot but not Quantum Touch or Cosmic Paperclips, they just can't see any difference, and get angry if any criticism at all is expressed because their beliefs are so fragile.

I totally agree with this. It's very hard to make people understand that I work very hard to examine my own beliefs, and so I'm pretty skeptical about others. For myself, I've come to understand that the times are very rare when something objective happens, i.e., something spooky and weird that more than one person witnessed, and that begs for a rational explaination. Most of magick is highly subjective. To me, it's important to constantly question my own beliefs, as being a "true believer" has never appealed to me. So when someone comes off with a highly improbable, (in my view), newage concept, I'll question it. I quickly realize that it's like talking to someone Saved by the Blood. Up go the barriers.

Fortunately, I live with a partner who is also a practitioner, but it does lead to some interesting and heated discussions, as we continually question each others beliefs. Still, she can tell me about the beings that she saw in a haunted house she used to live in, and I can tell her when some astral entity has shown up without her looking at me like a terrified wacko-witness.
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
14:20 / 19.04.07
I thought I'd open up this thread specifically as a catch-all for this sort of self-editing or self-restraint based on all varieties and any variety of the politicisation of magick.

I find that I don't speak about some of what I can do in a magical context, and how I've developed these skills, even to friends with interests in similar areas; this is because psychic defense seems to be ok but psychic offense isn't, even when it's being practiced for very good reasons.
 
 
Ticker
14:51 / 19.04.07
Fortunately, I live with a partner who is also a practitioner, but it does lead to some interesting and heated discussions, as we continually question each others beliefs.

My spouse mentioned the other night that people on the pro-rational end of the spectrum view him as a mystic and people on the pro-mystic end of the spectrum view him as rational. I pointed out that I view him as smack in the middle which allows me to call on his view point when I am hip deep in mystical confusion because I know he is able to access both. My best sanity check is running things passed him. If I can't explain it well enough to him it probably indicates I don't understand it myself well enough to stop examining it.

I find the company of spiritworkers who have stopped being critical of their assumptions very unpleasant and tend to excuse myself as quickly as possible from their company. Which is not to say their reality is not valid but rather they've turned off an avenue of communication I find essential to navigate a shared one.
 
 
Katherine
19:25 / 19.04.07
The biggest problem I find with the open discussion of my practice is the fact that the whole magic/spirituality world is so wide that generally people have to start off learning each other’s terms and ways. The problem with that is generally I find most people will hear one thing and make a connection to something they do which is similar, in some cases almost exactly the same, then somehow not ‘see’ the differences and I have found that some of the tiniest differences are the key.

Aside from that I find people can see things in a very negative way, I’m up for feedback, questions and suggestions but to be told it’s wrong/you’re wrong really doesn’t help a conversation or discussion along. When I was starting to ask for help and suggestions for blood magic, menstrual blood magic that is, I found I didn’t always get the most helpful suggestions in the world. Some people thought I was on a feminist rant at the world even before I finished my explanation, I did get a few ‘oh, I thought it was going to be about something else, sorry’ once I did but the perceptions people had really didn’t help me.

I guess what I am saying is misconceptions from our lives do intrude on our practices, for example it’s ok on some boards to discuss scourging for the raising of energy but try discussing bdsm and magic and you find yourself being in the centre of a row, and I have been told it’s a disgusting thing and shouldn’t be used. Hence I do tend to think too much about whether I should post or not, I mean crumbs it’s taken me two hours to write this!
 
 
Unconditional Love
19:44 / 19.04.07
In kung fu there is a similar thing with practitioners being taught forms and styles by spirits, spirit kung fu, according to my old kung fu teacher, martial possession. I think this didnt take place in the context of battle, but if it did berserker's come to mind. Is there much literature about martial possession? on and off the battlefield?

Does anybody you know practice stav x.k? perhaps it may be covered in some context.
 
 
Ticker
19:47 / 19.04.07
Nope Wolf, no one I know does Stav. My ex is a jujitsu practitioner but that's about it.
 
 
This Sunday
04:20 / 20.04.07
Miyamoto Musashi's 'Five Circles' book really is an ungodly magickal text. Ungodly in the best ways possible. And it does approach in a clinical fashion what one might call combat-by-possession.

The issue there being a willful misreading by lots of folks, to the effect that they convince themselves any magicky material is metaphor and nothing more.
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
14:42 / 20.04.07
I think it's usually translated as "Book of Five Rings" though I can't recall it mentioning possession, however at the time I last read it I was using it in terms of efficient energy manipulation; such is the way of such teachings, that they can be applied to anything.

The Demon's Sermon on the Martial Arts could also be rated as ungodly magical.
 
 
Quantum
17:57 / 20.04.07
"Book of Five Rings" is amazing. The bit I took most joy in was the duel on an island against a flash swordsman where he turned up drunk, got out of the rowboat and killed the guy with one blow from the wooden oar, then got back in and rowed away. That's effective magic right there.
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
13:51 / 21.04.07
That's not from The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi but rather Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa which was written 300 years after his death; it's a good book and a great deal can be learned from it, but Musashi's own work is much better. The Zen priest that features in the Yoshikawas work, Tukuan Soho, is also responsible for a fantastic text which is featured in a compilation of similar writings, found here
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
14:40 / 21.04.07
Artwork by Musashi

My favorite painting by Musashi is of the Shrike on a twig, second from the top, as up close and personal the bird is an evil looking mofo and even from afar the twig shows a great deal of precision (imagining it as being a sword stroke helped me to truly appreciate it); though the website doesn't do it justice, the level of detail is fantastic, especially when one considers the simple tools used to make it.

It's strange, but such pictures make real world images/sounds of what they depict spring to life in my mind with greater clarity than what I'd get watching t.v; their magic is in their simplicity.
 
 
Quantum
00:30 / 22.04.07
Oops, you're right, that wasn't in five rings. I'm fascinated by the relationship between calligraphy and swordsmanship (from my extensive research watching kung fu flicks and Kurosawa movies naturally) which you hint at - imagining it as being a sword stroke helped me to truly appreciate it.
 
  
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