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It's my own special technique.

  
 
Higher than the sun :)
00:00 / 18.07.02
Hello all! Listen, I've never really posted in the magick before, but I always read it every time I visit the site. So, finally I plucked up the courage to start a thread.

Simple magic.

Some might say that the rain is magical, in the way it operates flawlessly in synch with all other things - grass, mountains, air, etc. By extension, if you lower your expectations, everything becomes magical.

So, is it feasible that the *less* you try to concentrate of *performing* magic, and the more you concentrate on acting naturally in your sphere of influence, whether it be work, home, etc, you can still maintain a magical influence on your life? Is it possible that 'tuning in' can be done unconsciously? Do you HAVE TO practice magic in order to effect it?

And, do you think that being one with your day-to-day actions might actually be more magical then trying to control it by directing it? I'm talking chaos magic baby. Unconciously riding that mystical tsunami.

Ride the snake. Dig? Use the magic that's present everywhere.

Which works best? Conscious magic (i.e. rituals, sigals, etc) or unconscious magic (i.e. sending a letter from the UK to America in 3.6 seconds, via email = magic words travelling at the speed of light through the atmosphere, from one set of synapses to another, influencing chemical reactions in our body and therfore our immediate environment).
 
 
Boy in a Suitcase
00:28 / 18.07.02
Unconscious magic done in the context of ritual
 
 
Higher than the sun :)
00:33 / 18.07.02
Yep. The ritual of ironing your clothes, or putting the kettle on. Or eating fish.
 
 
illmatic
07:21 / 18.07.02
Hiya
I can relate quite a lot to your post, HTTS, always having had a bit of a prob. with results magick myself. When I started doing magick I found that I was trying to prove that it worked to myself through sigils etc. I found that I became so tied to having a result happen that none of 'em worked. (one or two did actually but not the proof I was looking for). I've never really done it since but I do try and remain concious of my goals, limitations and (sometimes) surpassing them, that sort of thing. My focues is much more on I suppose "less practical" stuff ie. working with medatitive tecniques, dreams, character armour etc.(which doesn't have to be opposed to ritualistic stuff - seems to me that most magick before Chaos Magick has this focus whether it's called mystical, devotional or whatever.)
As to what works best - I don't know. I think magick is a capricous thing and it comes when it comes, usually when you're least expecting it. What works for me is the more internally focused stuff but I could probably do with a bit more "practical stuff" as there's plenty of areas of my life that need attention!
Incidentally, I thought your charcterisation of sigils as "concious magick" was interesting. The whole reason Spare devised 'em in the first place was to make intentions unconcious so you could forget them.
I'd be very interested to know other people's opinions and experiences.
 
 
Sebastian
12:00 / 18.07.02
By extension, if you lower your expectations, everything becomes magical.

I agree (and what a great sentence this sounds to me today), and probably thousands of illuminates in human race history will confirm so. From an experiential perspective, the state of "no expectation, no desires, no ego" appears to be the state of "grace" and ultimate human realisation to which all spiritual paths lead. The other consensus is that it sort of can be "accumulated" or build upon during a life time through work and flashes of illumination. And in any case, it is also the best preparation for that other single important moment in a human being's life of bye-bye potato chips, because if you have not even start to conceive it, it does look like you'll be forced to experience in a matter of seconds while your legs get stiffer and stiffer, and the chips get sprawled all around the place.

From an article on Chaos Magick Theory for those interested I quote the following florid passage:

Peter Carroll outlines chaos magick theory [...] with several magical formulas.
M =3D G x L(1-A)(1-R)
Pm =3D P - P x M 1/(1/-p)
All factors are between 0 and 1.
M equals the force of your magic. Which is dependent upon your G (Gnosis) and L (magical Link) multiplied by two negative factors. (Things working against you). Your conscious awareness of the desired result (1-A) and your subconscious resistance to doing magic (1-R) -i.e. "Mommy told me magick doesn't work."
In the other formula, P equals the chance the event you desire occurs by itself; (1/(1/-p)) equals the chance that the result you desire will not occur. Pm equals the combination of the Probability that the event will occur combined with your magical effort to make it occur.

There is of course the so human desire to control the unconscious, which is sort of to control the uncontrolable(read anyhthing by M.Erickson if you are having nightmares with this). Magick and spiritual paths always point that You must desire while at the same time not desire, forget, but remain alert. Paradox is just paradox on a sentence. It does appear we are equiped to experience it in our beings, but not to word it through language with precision or with a satisfactory linear logic (mere word juxtaposition seems to deprive us of the experience). Thats why the term "ineffability" is so much used by experiencers and researches of altered states and "magickal" transformations, and why all those teachings from magickal and spirtual masters appear so convoluted, cryptic, and inherently contradictory.

Which works best, anyway? For me its attitude and decision. I've been through a humanly modest range of magickal scrambling, both through magickal practice and daily life occurrences. First you decide what every single event means to you, then with whole hearted attitude you ride on it.
 
 
Papess
13:03 / 18.07.02
Unassuaged of purpose and untainted by lust of result

Not an exact quote from Crowley but close enough. This encompasses the idea anyway.

I believe in order for magick to work, one's mind must be still to a certain degree. If the mind is everywhere, how can intent be focused? By sending out your intentions, you have already accomplished all you need. Move from one moment to the next in assurity. The universe has heard you. Why?, because you are the universe! Nothing to do, all has been done already. All possibilities manifested and you only have to pick the one you wish to reside in or else someone else will!

~May Tricks
 
 
cusm
17:46 / 18.07.02
The ritual of ironing your clothes, or putting the kettle on.

Awfully Taoist of you, HTTS.

Unconciously riding that mystical tsunami.

'Be like the water, flow to the low places'

And yes, I tend to agree that applied Taoism is very useful for magick. If you offer no resistance to your own magick, Carroll's equations work out in your favor. Crowley covers this, as May pointed out.
 
 
Stone Mirror
19:29 / 23.07.02
Some person writes By extension, if you lower your expectations, everything becomes magical.

I guess if you "lower your expectations enough", everything becomes purple, or edible or whatever.

So what?
 
 
illmatic
20:23 / 23.07.02
Dunno who wrote that quote - but from my POV it refers to what happens when you stop trying ie. forget that sigil or let the desire go or whatever. I have had lots of "expectations" about magick which have blinded me to other things that've been going on - soemtimes these things have been very pertinent to my desires or whatever, but I've cut myself off from them because of my preconceptions.
 
 
Naked Flame
22:16 / 23.07.02
I dunno, I think that while the 'unconscious' magic idea is valid to an extent, IMHO the life considered as an expression of will is consensual- it's not something you do, it's not something that happens to you, it's somewhere in between.

Which is to say, you're right, but only halfway. Sometimes you are, indeed, just flowing with it. But doing nothing is simply doing nothing- naturally, the energies behind magic continues to flow, because we're inseparable from what makes it work, whatever it is.
 
 
karen eliot
04:05 / 30.03.04
My own technique is to do all my magic in the future and then beam the resulting energies back at myself in the present. I have had very interesting results with this approach, for example consistently stumbling across energized sigils I've left for myself in the most unexpected of circumstances.
 
 
rising and revolving
06:03 / 30.03.04
Honestly, aren't we talking of the difference between magic and mysticism to a large extent? If you're not actively causing change to occur as a result of will, and instead you choose to change in order to become more harmoniously attuned... well, that's where I always saw the magic/mystic divide.
 
 
C.Elseware
09:46 / 30.03.04
I recall reading somewhere that magic ability was a side effect of working on the tree of life (and presumably other maps to the same territory). And that they were more of a distraction than a prize and that they eventually must be sacrificed along with lots of (all?) other stuff.

My pop culture image of this would be that even young Yoda does not use force lightening, and when he's training Luke on Dagobar he pretty much just talks while living in a swamp and eating roots.
 
 
brokenbiscuits
10:36 / 30.03.04
"My own technique is to do all my magic in the future and then beam the resulting energies back at myself in the present. I have had very interesting results with this approach, for example consistently stumbling across energized sigils I've left for myself in the most unexpected of circumstances."

Do you actually have to do it at any time in the future or does it work like the "set up" competition in the Bill and Ted films for you?
 
 
karen eliot
02:20 / 31.03.04
I did/do/will do the magick in the far-distant future (aeon of Ma), which I guess makes it closer to the "Bill & Ted" model.
 
 
the cat's iao
00:04 / 01.04.04
"My own technique is to do all my magic in the future and then beam the resulting energies back at myself in the present."

i have thought of using a similar technique myself; however, that dread demon inertia prevents me from putting it to good use. related, i sometimes attempt to form a link with alternate selves in other possible worlds. the intent being to link up with a self that can aid me in a particular endeavour. like suppose i wanted to be better at juggling, well, i imagine the world where i am a really good juggler and then try to link up with that self's energies.
 
 
Z. deScathach
03:16 / 01.04.04
For myself I've found that both approaches work, and that it almost seems as though each increases the potential of the other. It's as if they "need" each other. It almost seems that the approach fits the need of the situation. It is true that there have been numerous times when the desired thing comes when I have given up all hope of it's arrival. One of my favorite techniques is to go into a mental silence with the intent of manifesting a desire. No ritual, no sigil. Nothing at all. No thought. The intent for the manifestation only existed before entering the "no-mind" state. Then there are times when I've use an energy model, which feels very much like "results oriented" magick. It feels right to use that in a crisis situation. I do think that there is such a thing as magick simply happening in concordance with a "state of grace", although personally I wouldn't give it the religious connotation, perhaps "letting go" is a better term, at least for me. The problem is that I've found that negative things can manifest in accordance with that as well. There were a number of years where there was a constant influx of painful, blocking, bad occurences in my life. I usually blamed it on karma, or just plain bad luck. I discovered however, that what was really going on was that I was doing a number of meditative techniques to still my mind, and due to some deep seated negative beliefs, I was effectively cursing myself. To me, it proves that "letting go" can have negative effects as well, depending on one's belief system.
 
  
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