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Underground > Temple >

Core of Your Magick

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Make me Uncomfortable

05:55 / 10.05.07

On a similar note, my t-shirt would read

"Oh, fuck! That actually worked!"

06:06 / 10.05.07

On the front: Magick: An orgasmic opening to the Ultimate Reality of the Universe

On the back: No, I will not have tantric sex with you.....

Less searchable M0rd4nt

10:34 / 10.05.07

Or, to put it another, less t-shirt-friendly, way:

If magic is real, then anyone who adopts a magical practice takes on certain responsibilities. If magic is real, then you have a duty to sit down and think about the way your practice impacts on the world around you, not just on yourself. I'm sick of seeing magic treated like it's some kind of game, an entertainment to dress up a dull day (a dull life), something to make you feel special, a safe little box to put all your most cherished prejudices in, a fucking substitute for being an effective person.

That's why I get pissed off with the endless kicking around of theory that goes on (including here at times; although this is the most experience-focused place I've ever been fortunate enough to encounter, that isn't always saying very much). It's so pointless. Endless debates back and forth about what would happen if you evoked [insert pop culture icon here]. Sprawling magical systems that someone's blatanly made up in their lunch hour and equally blatantly never implemented. Bone-idle tossers shoring up their egos with personality cults, churning out vacuous mass-produced texts full of spells they've never cast and assumptions they've never tested, sucking up time and attention from naive little wannabees so that such get detoured away from even the little progress they are capable of. Wastes of fucking oxygen who've never lifted a single finger to actually help anyone, to mitigate the sorrow of the world or increase its joy by one iota (apart of course for a bi-annual wank over a "World Peace!" sigil, mustn't forget that).

I'm not saying that everybody has to have a mega hardcore practice with ordeals and blood and Big Scary Gods and et cetera and so on; there is nothing wrong with the quiet, gentle aspects of magic. (Increasingly I'm of the opinion that the much-maligned world of hedge-witchery is kind of where it's at, magic-wise, but I digress). What gets me is that so few people seem capable of even appreciating the difference between producing endless pages of pure wank on the internet and actually doing fucking magic.

12:30 / 10.05.07

Hmm. I don't mean disrespect in any way, TTS, but I am wondering how that relates to the core of your magick. You seem to be talking about other people's practice, rather than what is involved in your own. I get what you are saying, (and you have made very goood points about practice), I just don't understand how it relates to the core of your magick practice. If you are saying that your practice is opposite to that which you've mentioned, could you explain that?, or the core of it, at least?

12:46 / 10.05.07

It's not the goal but the journey which is important.

12:50 / 10.05.07

I think Mordant's statement relates to her practice in that, she actually, y'know, does stuff rather than speculates.

13:24 / 10.05.07

Apophenia, I can see that is where TTS is going, but it never really gets there. IMHO, it is more helpful to talk about what one is doing rather than what other people are not doing, or even what oneself is not doing. I thought it was encouraged here in the Temple, to talk about what we do practice and believe. Critiquing other people's practice, or lack of it, doesn't tell me much about that person or their beliefs, or practice.

13:25 / 10.05.07

Just sayin'...

Unconditional Love

14:02 / 10.05.07

Underneath all the trappings and battles of my practice, stripping away all the altars, ideology's that cloak consciousness etc etc. There is one thing i turn to for strength and to keep me going, that gives me faith and conviction to keep living.

That Faith i call God.

I am not religous, because i cant find one to fit into, i am intrested in spirituality because that is a prime expression of God amongst other things.

I wonder if its the faith and conviction more than my calling it god, but when i reach out in a moment of terror or doubt i reach out for the faith and conviction that god brings.

Perhaps there is another word beyond god for this stuff, but beyond the storys i lay to colour my consciousness and learn from, there is only god.

I dont have much faith in humanity or temporal ever changing from creation to destruction matter, all my faith lies in god, god is my faith.

In that faith there is magic.

14:09 / 10.05.07

In that faith there is magic.

That resonates with me too.
Out of my experience of faith and love springs awe and magic.

15:44 / 10.05.07

Wow Mordant, I thought GL was back with a namechange then until I realised who you were!

16:48 / 10.05.07

16:52 / 10.05.07

I prefer the original, non-corporate version of the slogan:

16:54 / 10.05.07

Do what?

17:07 / 10.05.07

You know . . . "it."

17:24 / 10.05.07

It? Like tell jokes?

The core of my practice consists of nothing.

Dzogchen joke.

17:29 / 10.05.07

I was thinking just-do-it as opposed to just-talk-about-it, after that post about practice from MC.
You just carry on doing tricks, that's more than enough.

17:45 / 10.05.07

You just carry on doing tricks, that's more than enough.

Really? That is at the core of your magick, Quantum?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

21:35 / 10.05.07

Re that last post: was up until the small hours doing research for Teh Book and an upcoming article on sexism and magic. Read one too many smugface screeds where some wanna-blessed-be lays out hir latest new wonder system (now with added gender stereotypes! Free homophobia inside!) to rapturous applause from lots of other people who don't do any magic either.

Will come back with something more constructive after I've slept off the red mist.

21:53 / 10.05.07

What about one for followers of coyote;

*Keep On Tricking*

21:58 / 10.05.07

One thing that I sometimes have a hard time with is that in tantra, the core is so basic and simple. You know, cultivate silence, release attachments, develop awareness, and use it to recognize karmic entanglements and release them, trying to not make muck more, or create karma in allignment with intent, be nice and try to make the world a bit better place. Get one's intent focussed and seed it in that stillness.

My teacher once told me that those simple practices are like the roots of a tree. Out sprout the branches and leaves, and that is where the complexity lies, but never stop those core practices, for it is like cutting off the roots to my tree. My beautiful tree would die.....

I think that what TTS is upset about are trees with weak roots. They never get anywhere, because they frequently die out before they get anything really done. That's sad. Not only that, they don't have the strength and power of a tree with well tended roots. Also sad.

22:06 / 10.05.07

Oh, and I should have mentioned why that simplicity is a hard time. It's that sometimes it's hard to discuss, simply because, well, how many times can you say, cultivate stillness". That's why I think that it's easier for me to talk about how magick relates to my life than what I do. Really, in terms of what I do, there isn't much to talk about....

23:50 / 10.05.07

My friend Mel just said "Everything Is Holistic" which has a nice ring to it.

04:01 / 12.05.07

If you had to boil down your magick to its singular defining nugget or to fit on a t-shirt, how would yours read?

事々無礙

nyarlathotep's shoe horn

05:55 / 12.05.07

事々無礙

jijimuge - no barriers between

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

17:12 / 12.05.07

Alternatively, I'd steal one from Alan Moore with:

"There's no such thing as Magick."

With perhaps an optional "You already know this." on the back.

13:05 / 14.05.07

My t shirt would read
"There are things beyond imagining that exist anyway" (quote taken from Stone Junction by Jim Dodge).

It's (my practise, if you would like to call it that) about finding those "things beyond imagining", mapping them, talking to them, getting burnt by them.

Why magic? Becuase it makes life more interesting.

Mako is a hungry fish

22:01 / 14.05.07

"There's no such thing as Magick."

The fantasy novelist Raymond E. Feist has an ongoing debate about this in his mid-later works between two of the most powerful characters, a Magician and a Trickster; the original "there's no such thing as magic" was said to the Trickster by the Magician (by proxy) which got him interested enough to pay a visit, Though the Trickster is a powerful magician himself, he views his powers as 'tricks' that only seem magical if you don't know how they work.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

22:23 / 14.05.07

I wish I knew how my tricks work. I keep trying to slow down and watch, but if I do that then nothing happens...

Less searchable M0rd4nt

18:05 / 15.05.07

If I sit down and take deep breaths until the mage-rage passes, I come up with this:

1) Spirit in all things. This has a lot of consequences. Think about it.

2) There are People and Things out there. They may or may not exist in the absolute sense, but they have had a lot more practice in being real than you have in not believing in 'em. Play nice.

3) Perhaps most importantly: Don't deny yourself the bare things--bare necessities, bare justice--just because some dead Victorian or the middle-class fnanps currently recycling their shit told you to. Don't stay poor because you've been told that magic for wealth is black magic, or stay hunted and frightened because you've been told that it's wrong to fix your stalker. It's okay to work for what you need.

Mako is a hungry fish

04:29 / 16.05.07

Understanding how things work removes their magic, however a new kind of magic can take its place.

15:16 / 20.05.07

Life = Consciousness = Information = Everything

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