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Underground > Temple >

City magick:the personal project

15:33 / 16.04.02

I've already used the internal search engine to look for any hints and tips and I've still found myself feeling v.unsatified. Are there any city-based practitioners who could give me some decent pointers or advice/teaching on the subject?
I would be grately appreciative of anything anyone could offer.

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

16:33 / 16.04.02

Have you checked out Christopher Penzack's book City Magick? I've read bits and peices, and it's not bad.

16:36 / 16.04.02

I just apply traditional techniques to the new paradigm. Animism works just as it always has. The city has its own nature spirits. I used to be really into that, when I spent most of my time on the streets. Its a little harder with an office job

17:01 / 16.04.02

'Animism'? Sorry I'm relatively new to the 'magick' scene. Could you perhaps expand upon that term? And yes, thankyou, I will soon be purchasing the book in question.

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

17:07 / 16.04.02

My computer is acting funny, so if I post a reply three times, moderators feel free to delete as you see fit.

Like cusm said, just apply old techniques to a new paradigm. Spirit guides can be animals like rats, pigeons, alley cats, crows, or any other animal that spends a lot of time on the streets. Hell, a spirit guide could feasibly be a homeless derelict. Instead of just a drumbeat, try a drumbeat with really loud static from a T.V.

Finding gods (and knowing what to do with them when you find them) can be tricky, which is why I suggested Penzack's book. He's got some neat exercises and rituals to try. I'm looking forward to trying some of it in Detroit, soon as I spend a few weekends getting the feel of the city.

17:28 / 16.04.02

Thanks for the advice peeps. I'll certainly bear it all in mind and try it out for myself(what good is advice if you don't act on it eh?). Please feel free to continue giving advice and suggestions, any help is good help at this early point.

17:31 / 16.04.02

Animism is the belief that all things have a spirit. Native American religions are a fine example. A crow exists, so has a spirit you can communicate with, either as the spirit of a specific crow or as an archetype spirit for all crows. This is traditionally applied to natural forces, animals, plants, etc. However, you can make the paradigm shift by applying it to urban forces and creatures. For example, IXAT, as mentioned in another thread, as the God of Taxi's.

One tends to get in touch with a spirit of an object or place by personifying it, giving it anthromorphic attributes, such as a personality, and even talking to it as a person. Example, you have an old car you've driven for years that you have an emotional attachment to. When she doesn't start right away, you coax and cajole her, rubing the dash gently, promising a tuneup, etc. Maybe your car has a name, and a personality you've come to understand in the way she behaves or handles. That's animism in action.

17:46 / 16.04.02

You might also find "Urban Shaman" by Serge Kahili King and "Modern Magick : Eleven Lessons in the High Magickal Arts" by Donald Michael to be useful. Much of the material in City Magic comes from one of these two books and is presented in a watered down form which lacks the context provided by these more in depth sources.

17:46 / 16.04.02

In other words, I just need to keep doing what I've done for years. Speak to the city, the buildings, the streets, the cars, the wildlife, etc. Thanks, that makes a lot of sense.

19:02 / 16.04.02

I recently read 'Spirit in the City' by Ross Heaven, which provides lots of background to the whys and wherefores of shamanism and voudoun- without making you feel like you have to accept a load of dogma or author-specific mumbo-jumbo. There's an attempt to put a lot of this stuff in a modern context and quite accessble exercises on things like journeying and soul-recovery (not tried much of it meself yet). Heaven is a down-to-Earth kind of guy who sounds like he has lots of first hand experience- or at least he tells a good story.

I found Chris Penzak's book ('City Magick'), on the other hand, a very unsatisfying read - lots of it seems to be based on his own bizarre belief system and magickal practises, which are not really justified or explained. There's tips on things like how to make a 'love potion', which turns out to be a straightforward recipe involving things like olive oil and rosemary.
There are also pages and pages of stuff that I can't imagine being of use to anyone who already knows how to negotiate everyday life without killing himself. I've just opened a page at random to find the sentence: 'The telephone is a key to verbal communication, the medium of words. It carries the implicit drawback, however, that you cannot see the person at the other end'.
Thanks mate! A world of spooky occult secrets is now mine for the taking- well, I can only say that I didn't really learn much from it, personally

yawn - thing's buddy

19:12 / 16.04.02

read anything by Ian Sinclair - epsesh, 'lights out for the territory'(combo of text and photos, more text than photos) and also maybe Liquid City (combo of photos and text, more photos than text).

these are excellent books about london and are magical in perhaps the most accessible manner possible. the idea is to weave architectural and social narratives by going for a walk.....

simple as that

08:54 / 17.04.02

"Thanks mate! A world of spooky occult secrets is now mine for the taking- well, I can only say that I didn't really learn much from it, personally"

Hehe. But Meme:

1 - Don't you think that the part on graffiti sigils and map sigils is very interesting?

2 - Another thing: his belief system may be 'bizarre', but what if it works? (well, for him at least) That's what belief systems are good for, no matter how strange or stupid they may seem.

3 - And the Love Potion... I don't know if this is the case, but the act of gathering ingredients and mixing them while chanting, visualising or reciting something, can, in itself, be an act of magick, if this is the intent. I, for instance, have dedicated several cakes (in which I've drawn sigils), pasta and sauces to some goddesses (consecrating the ingredients, and all) and had sudden waves of good luck and tranquility coming in my way days after eating them.

So I don't know, his book may have some good things to extract from.

09:59 / 17.04.02

Can't remember the bit about graffiti sigils, as it happens, but errm...yer other point - 'what's wrong with a bizarre belief system if it works?' - that's fair enough but you've little chance of duplicating the results achieved by the author unless you know a bit more of the background to the system- if you've a skeptical mindset your unlikely to bother with something that seems like such a waste of time.
It obviously makes more sense to use a sciencey paradigm if that fits better with your existing beliefs or an Earth-goddess/ running-naked-through-the-woods approach if that's what gets you there. This 'City Magick' thing doesn't seem to provide much explanation of 'why' you do things in certain places, making me feel uninclined to bother with it.

13:02 / 17.04.02

Mmm, I got your point. "Why' you do things in certain places" should be given more importance 'cause it can become some dogma that makes you get stuck.
I'll show you the thing on graffiti later, then.

("Running naked through the woods"? God, no. "Dancing around the fire to the sound of drums" is more apropriate to my BS.)

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

18:31 / 17.04.02

"I've just opened a page at random to find the sentence: 'The telephone is a key to verbal communication, the medium of words. It carries the implicit drawback, however, that you cannot see the person at the other end'.
Thanks mate! A world of spooky occult secrets is now mine for the taking-"

Yeah, it's got some lame stuff in there. I should have mentioned that it's a good idea to read stuff like Liber Null and The Way of the Shaman first, just so you can pick out the good from the shit.

17:26 / 18.04.02

I live in a city and I live a magical life; here is part of my story:

If it doesn't assault your sensibilities, then you can think of your life as tracing out patterns through space via time. For instance, as you walk down the street or drive down the road, in some sense, your are traversing space in a way that entangles your life with the lives of every other person who has also walked and/or driven down that path. Cities are really neat for this because there are definitive areas that are marked out for transit and many of the city's denizens will have crossed paths with your trails at some time or another: the connections, ya?

Further, I've had a couple of jobs (one as a courier and the other as a carpet cleaner) which allowed me to trace out paths (in crazy loops and whirls with the carpet job for sure) through most of the tall office building in the downtown core of the city I live in. The other night, I was on a friend's balcony looking out over the core and I thought and pictured these crazy patterns that I have traced through much of this city's "power structure" and how that gave me a certain "sympathetic vibration" qua connection to the magick of this city. Moreover, when I was a courier, I designed a little glyph that represented my being (at the time) and as I walked through the downtown and its offices, walkways, stairwells, etc. I scrawled this glyph everywhere. I figure there are probably hundreds of them still floatin' around. Again, more "sympathetic connections" to the magick of this city.

In short, you can read as many books as you want but a part of any magick is certainly in the doing, and this doing, imho, is "more" when you do without following others' paths, but instead, hoe your own row (and then your path will become entangled with these "others"). Simply let yourself believe what you need to to get the job done, and, as Gen and Paula (at least I think it was them) have put into the world, "assume power focus."

m3

17:43 / 18.04.02

Indeed, modthree, indeed

Tagging is a sigel form, urban mages. Hip Hop culture has medicine lore philosphy within it, just check out Afrika Bambaata.

'Ride the rythm, huh, ride the rythm'
'Renegades of the Atomic Age......'

He still is looking for the perfect beat!

12:49 / 19.04.02

Tracing patterns across the city? I swear I've criss-crossed mjy city so many times from so many different angles and along so many different routes it would be impossible to envision any coherent pattern amongst it all. Although, I suppose if I were to start afresh, I could really raise some. Interesting thoughts there m3. As for the validity and usefulness of some comments in 'City magick', try it and see. That's what I intend to do.

18:21 / 19.04.02

Well, all the best to you Spaids! And think of your patterns as coherent via chaos colluding into order: like a sorta' strange attractor or such. Put differently, and in the language of the diZzy thread (which you can view, if you'd like, on page four of the magick forum), it is (chaos, order) which coalesce into one and the same thing, but that one thing is unnamable and inexpressible since it goes beyond our means of rational comprehension. Again, I hope your doing blossoms into the full flower of beauty. Peace.

m3

19:32 / 19.04.02

Diolch yn fawr m3. Good thought to you too.