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Magicks, Sciences, Psychologies and Expositions...

 
  

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Mr Tricks
19:05 / 17.04.02
 
 
Wyrd
20:25 / 17.04.02
Yeah, it's a great movie, and those are cool stills... but, enough with the thread rot guys.
 
 
Lothar Tuppan
21:12 / 17.04.02
Yeah... any more thread rot and Wyrd'll shoot lightning through your computer... wait I better not tempt anyone.

So. Ganesh, Lurid Archive, Tom, anyone else... any thoughts, critiques, questions, feedback, ideas?

and

any other magicians willing to explain their conceptions and experiences of Magick in a critical and expository way? (psst... hey Tom... I'm using the Abstract! )
 
 
Lurid Archive
05:46 / 18.04.02
This is probably going to come off as sounding too aggressive and negative but...

One thing that bothers me in the whole practice of magic is the way that one does try to influence the "inside" so strongly. I'm pretty convinced that if you try sufficiently hard, you could come to believe that the magic which is intended to directly affect the outside world is successful, even if it isn't. In fact, I seem to remember reading something about this - how people can convince themselves, for instance, that when they have palmed objects, the objects have disappeared. It was in some kind religious context, I think, about miracle working. Sorry, thats a bit vague.

Another aspect to this is that, if we take healing as an example, the placebo effect is a rather strong one. So internal belief clearly has physical effects. But, and perhaps Ganesh will correct me if I'm wrong, can't people actually think their symptoms have improved if their belief in the treatment is strong?

All of which perhaps says no more than what I said before, that I don't really believe magic directly affects the external. Its probably because I haven't seen it first hand and I have seen (christian) healers who were at best ineffective and at worst actually harmful.
 
 
Rev. Wright
09:03 / 18.04.02
OK. two pictures really is enough, but there is reason behind this.

As Lurid Archieve mentions with regards the magickal effect being one that is inherently internal, which I have to say is the primary access or gateway to meta-creation. I do have a few examples of rather direct external energy effects.
And before you cry 'charlatan', hear me out.

Many moons ago I was married to a rather fiery Scottish lass, who currently runs a piercing shop in Edinburgh. (Knew I shouldn't of shown her my copy of Modern Primitives). Our energies were creating flash points in social interaction, generating psyche demons that would do battle, creating arguements and emotional dramas, where our logical/lucid selves would be shocked by the situation. Occasionaly a form of dual communication would occur, with teh combatitive energy continuing over our heads, literally. Now there are two situations that really freaked me:
1. My ex-wife used to, under certain conditions, have water, clear and tasteless, appear between her knees. I would even bubble up, though not hot. Often this would occur, whilst she was asleep, during the time when see would automaticaly astral project. The eyes shut, a little while later a quick twitch and she was off, and it would take an elephant to raise her. I read up and investigated into this, and discovered that it was a known/recorded phonomenon.
One night I am lying in bed, next to her and notice the twitch of her leaving her consciousness leaving her body. My back and rear were uncovered by the bed clothes, so a start to shift the covers, as I do this I get the distinct impression that water is squirting/pissing onto me. My instant thoughts were that our young cat was in teh room and had lost bladder control, but....
The direction the water was emminating from was a little above me, and from teh direction of teh wall, which stood 6 inches away from the bed. There was no raised surface for the cat to be on, and then I heard teh cat racing up and down, playing, in the hallway. OH My God(s). I was gripped by panic and fear. It took me what seemed minutes to shake it off, until I was able to get up and switch the light on. Suprisingly my ex-wife woke, during the commotion I was making, and stands witness to the starnge blotchy red patch that was left on my thigh, from the water sensation I had experienced.
2. After these experiences I would occasionaly try tests on different forms of energy manipulation for my wife, to help her focus her ability. One test was the creation of energy balls, with the hands. Early experiments resulted in her generating a ball and lobbing it through the air towards the television, distrupting the signal to static, whilst it passed through. This phonomenon was witnesed by a very sceptical DJ that I worked with, who happened to be pooping over with some cash, at the time. My ex-wife repeated this several times and his reaction was classic. Have you ever seen the face of a person whose reality just melted?
3. Just the other year, my Reiki and Mystery school friend Malcolm and I were drawn to hold a meditation ritual at a sacred place set up in some wonderful woods. He had had a rather intense dream, with regards drawing out some primal beastial ego energy from me, so without hesitation upon him recounting it, we planned the nights practice. The manifestation occured whilst we sat opposite our fire, which was a good 3-4 foot in diameter and we sat at least the same agian back from it, not to be burned. It blazed about 2-3 ft high. We were both practicing a breathing technique to synchronise our energies and deepen our state of meditation, this involved the combined drawing and expulsion of three deep breathes. On the third out breath with my eyes closed, I noticed the fire had flared up incredibly and received a warm flah across my face. Instantly I opened my eyes to witness the rising and depleting fire ballfrom the fire. It quickly died off, leaving sparks and smoke in its wake. My eyes quickly looked over to Malcolm, whom was at that moment looking over to me, his eyes were filled with a mix of astonishment and shock. We tested our sanity by both blowing, not breathing, but blowing onto the fire to try and achieve that same results, without success. the nights practice was continued and was extrememly eventful.

Energy manipulation, Chi generation, whatever you want to call it, as far as i have found exists as a distinct phonomenon. This I see as teh bridge between a totally internal magickal practice.

Quote Lurid Archieve
'All of which perhaps says no more than what I said before, that I don't really believe magic directly affects the external. Its probably because I haven't seen it first hand and I have seen (christian) healers who were at best ineffective and at worst actually harmful. '

may I suggest that you look into some reputable healing practitioners.
 
 
cusm
14:19 / 18.04.02
Impressive. Best I've managed through shared breathing exercises was to shatter a glass pipe a third person was holding next to us at the moment I reached gnosis. Everything went white and the glass exploded. Flimsy thing, anyway. Just for the record, it had a dragon stenceled on it.

Anyway, as a bit of magick theory for Lurid, the theory goes that if you believe it hard enough, it'll be true. This follows the idea that reality is a bit mutable, and can be changed by force of will or faith. So, if this holds, convincing yourself of an effect is a way to cast that effect into reality. Its kind of like lieing well enough that God believes you.

But of course, this line of practice one must take entirely on faith
 
 
Lothar Tuppan
15:36 / 18.04.02
I agree that without believing in yourself and your magic, your magic may very well fail but there are other systems that hold belief without the proper skill and ability to be grounded in ordinary, consensual reality when necessary leads to delusion and insanity. There's a very funny story from Michael Harner regarding one of his early expeditions with the Jivaro indians. It goes something like this:

He saw a man with feathers and bones in his disheveled hair, rambling at spirits and throwing dirt in the air and on himself. Harner followed the man around for awhile watching his every move until his contact asked Harner what he was doing

"I'm watching your shaman." He said.

"Our shaman is over there." said Harner's contact, pointing to a well dressed and well groomed man, working with other men in the village to build a new hut. "the man you're watching is crazy."



Lurid and Will bring up some very good points.

Will's experience has proven to him that magic is real and that things can be done externally to the satisfaction of the individual practitioner (if not to the satisfaction of a 'scientific observer') and that this proof may actually be vaild. I think that most serious magicians have to have experiences and proof like that in order to continue with a magical path. Dilletantes will get bored and for the delusional it gets harder and harder to be functional within society.

Lurid brings up a really excellent point in that walking a magical path is walking a minefield.

How many other Magick posters after seeing "A Beautiful Mind", if only for a brief instant thought, "Holy Shit! What if that's me?"

After reading your post Lurid I kept thinking to myself. "How do I 'know' that I haven't deluded myself this whole time? How can I
'prove' that I'm not, to some degree, bugfuck?"

Answer: I can't and any personal experiences that I relate can always be countered with the arguments of "you're lying" or "you're delusional" and then everything devolves into an "is so!" "is not!" dialogue.

Part of the magical experience as well as the difference between Schizophrenic hallucinations and magical interaction with 'spirits' is in subtle impressions and what parapsychology would call 6th, 7th, etc. senses. Things that whether real or not, do not fall (yet at least) within a scientific, empirical ontology.

When I get into an altered state using a drum beat of approx. 4 bps.(which some Anthropologists have studied as being at a frequency which allows for more neuron activity, literally increasing consciousness... but I'm sure there are disputes about that as well) I don't 'see' or 'hear' spirits or magical energies, etc. in the same way that I'm now seeing this computer monitor or hearing the clacking of the keys on my keyboard. It's... different and very hard to explain.

After doing enough magic you feel and sense certain things and you can recognize when they happen to greater or lesser degrees. These feelings and sensations contribute to the individual 'proof' of magic working or not. When you feel nothing, you can be pretty sure you were just going through the motions. But when those feelings and the whole experience blows you over by the intensity and then the 'coincidental' effects of the magic start to happen (usually, in my experience with an accompanying recurence in some of those 'extra-sensory' feelings) it's hard to deny their reality, even though to other people you may seem completely deranged.

Even then, how are you sure? Do the doubts ever completely go away? Not for me at least and to some degree, it gives me a modicum of humility when the work 'works'. I'm continually amazed and grateful for what I have and continue to experience so my 'doubts' work for me. For others it might be a hindrance.

But ultimately, I can't guarantee that I'm not completely deluded but my life has continued to improve, my willingness to take on responsibility, and my personal discipline has improved since actively following this path so since my quality of life better than it was before, I feel safe in saying that I'm not deluded. There may be people who disagree with me though so what the Hell do I know.
 
 
Lurid Archive
23:01 / 19.04.02
You know, I was readinmg will's anecdote about the sceptic DJ witnessing some real magic and I kept thinking, I want to be that guy. I want to be convinced, and I want to have my world shaken. But ironically, my desire to believe makes me all the more sceptical. Its the seductive beliefs that you have to watch out for the most.

As for Lothar being deluded, I am totally aware that this was both hard to deal with and also unfair in some ways. No one can demonstrate that they aren't delusional, you just have to be on guard. Personally, I find my scepticism comforting in that regard. Its a useful filter that allows me to examine my beliefs carefully. On the other hand, nothing is infallible.
 
  

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