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Underground > Temple >

Magician in swaddling clothes

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trouser the trouserian

08:00 / 25.01.08

there is a fine line between sorcery and shamanism and that there are many sorcerors that call themseves shamans or even think they are shamans, when in fact they are not. he said shamans abide to certain natural and spirtual laws and can only perform magic with the consent of whom upon it is aimed...

The "shamans v sorcerers" distinction tends to emanate from followers of Michael Harner's "Core Shamanism" (indeed, Harner's first popular book on shamanism was called The Way of the Shaman). It's worth a read. Harner does distinguish between "curer" shamans and "bewitcher" shamans - a distinction drawn from his fieldwork with the South American Jivaro in the early 1960s, which is probably one of the roots of the notion that "true" shamans heal but sorcerers (who are not really shamans) do harm. The problem of course is that not all indigenous cultures make such a distinction and several critics of Harner's approach have pointed out that it plays to well-established western dualisms.

A book which deals well with the complex interchanges between shamanisms as practiced by indigenous peoples and "shamanism" (sometimes referred to as neo-shamanism) as a western cultural construct is Robert Wallis' Shamans/neo-Shamans: Ecstasy, alternative archeologies and contemporary Pagans.

08:36 / 25.01.08

If we're talking about shamanic practices, I can't resist pointing to David Abram's book 'Spell of the sensuous'. (Chapter 1 online.) He draws some generalisations from a long world tour, where he uses his sleight-of-hand tricks to make connections with indigenous practitioners in lots of different settings.

Abram describes the practitioner's role as balancing the human world with the non-human world - vitally necessary in this time of global crisis, right? His position is to blame abstracted thought, particularly writing, for the disconnect in 'Western civilisation', but the rest of what he writes is so beautifully grounded and awareness-transforming, it's not to be missed in my opinion.

15:20 / 25.01.08

where he uses his sleight-of-hand tricks to make connections with indigenous practitioners in lots of different settings

Which reminds me of another tip for fledgling magicians: learn a few magic tricks. Better yet, learn a fair bit about stage magic and mentalism, including cold reading.

Three benefits: (1) in some cases it mixes nicely with occult magic, (2) it will give you a sense of when other purported magicians, past and present, have used or use those tricks, and (3) it lets you do cool shit like this when someone says "You're a magician? Do a trick!"

17:38 / 25.01.08

yeah, but i am not sure that i want to give my souls to the abyssal warp-gods to dine on like that shoelace guy must have to be able to perform his unholy art...

17:39 / 27.01.08

so yeah, i got invited to a gnostic mass by the local OTO group and i went last night. that was fun but i get so bored with ritual...

nyarlathotep's shoe horn

23:24 / 27.01.08

exultant801 typed "bored with ritual"

interesting. This might be something to note. You may want to either develop a ritual for yourself & others that doesn't bore you, or explore other aspects of magical making-things-up.

or not. or both. or n/either.

07:08 / 28.01.08

Oh, I dunno. Getting bored with a lengthy "high church" ritual where the component parts may not mean anything to yu seems an entirely appropriate response to me...

Wasn't it a deliberate attempt by Crowley to "recolonise" the religious space of Catholicism and the Church?

07:16 / 28.01.08

Also - it seems to be an American thing. Tells us something about the relative strength of Thelema in the US, I guess?

However, I did read something somewhere (I forget where) a few years ago which was full of criticism of the tendecy on behalf of American Thelemites to perform gnostic masses and not do anything else ... (what was it? Duquette? Hyatt?)

trouser the trouserian

09:14 / 28.01.08

Oh, I dunno. Getting bored with a lengthy "high church" ritual where the component parts may not mean anything to yu seems an entirely appropriate response to me...

I agree. I attended a performance of the Gnostic Mass a few years ago in London and nearly nodded off twice during the proceedings!

12:04 / 28.01.08

I agree. I attended a performance of the Gnostic Mass a few years ago in London and nearly nodded off twice during the proceedings!

I attended one in north London a few years back as well, and found it very beautiful. The Priest and Priestess were a married couple, both in their 80's and have been performing them for about 40 years now. The temple was very lovingly erected, and looked just gorgeous. And the performance of the Mass was genuine and impassioned. These two individuals were originally Wiccan initiates of Gerald Gardner, and were members of his London coven during the 1950's. They also had a female Deacon, which I found to be quite interesting.

trouser the trouserian

12:12 / 28.01.08

Guess I must have caught them on a bad night ... but then non-participatory ritual isn't my thing, I must admit.

19:33 / 28.01.08

that bridging with catholicism concept really makes sense. it felt like church...

03:07 / 29.01.08

Something labeled "Mass" felt like church? Funny that...

The kind of ritual that is effectively theatre is generally boring to people who are not deriving deep personal meaning from it, yeah.

I tend up taking stuff like that apart for it's theatrical value. "Oooh, nice quick change. Hmm, interesting use of props. Who the hell made your costume?!"

But there may be an alternative, depending on the particular nature of the ritual. If your attention isn't needed on the primary ritual, and it wouldn't be inappropriate hijacking, why not use your share of the gathered energy for your own personal-growth purposes? I mean, it can be quite a challenge to pull up and maintain that kind of energy all by yourself, and one of the common drawbacks of participatory group ritual is that you're occupied with making the ritual go instead of being occupied with benefiting from the ritual happening around you. So I figure if you have the opportunity to experience group ritual without needing to worry about making the ritual go, USE IT.

--Ember--

14:09 / 29.01.08

i got invited to a gnostic mass by the local OTO group and i went last night. that was fun but i get so bored with ritual...

I'm not big on masses, either.

If you go again, you might find it more rewarding to talk shop and socialize with the participants afterwards.

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