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Urban Occultism

  
  

Page: 123(4)

 
 
Nietzsch E. Coyote
21:44 / 21.07.03
Here is the syle guide that I created for the creation of Bullet-Chapters. Style Guide

That was a collabarative thing the last time we were serious about this book.
 
 
slinkyvagabond
22:55 / 21.07.03
no offense to anyone but this is first Magick thread I've really gotten excited abut in months. Wow. I haven't read through everything carefully and I don't hav time to make any considered comment on the wealth of info and ideas herein but I'd love to soon and I just had to say this is really fascinating. Also interested to see the surprising number (well, all 2) of 'Lithers in Dublin (I'm presuming you mean Dubh Linn, folks, the original and best - hey, that's weird, Luan Dubh/Dubh Linn, Dark Moon/Dark Pool, interesting synchronicity there, any ley line specialists know if there's line between these). Ugh, I just tried to write something sensible there but I had to erase it, Joyce and mythic pathways - I burn with shame. I'd love to get back later with a decent response, I'm just too impressed (and tired) to string thoughts into coherent syntax.

xxx
SV (oh yes, that's one city synchronicity I've taken special note of. At loading gates and what have you I've noticed there's often a little yellow sign, low down on the wall, imprinted with the initals "S.V." I don't know what it means in the world outside my head but...heheheh...
 
 
C.Elseware
00:20 / 22.07.03
StyleGuide etc.: Ho hum. I'm not sure I quite understand all the style guide, but I figured I'd try and make a start and let someone else edit if needed.

I've created a node: UrbanMage on the barb' wiki and started linking relevant threads & resources. I've also added an initial article to get the ball rolling. I've created it as a subpage (Prefixing it with UrbanMage/ ) so that it helps keep the wiki tidy.

Nietzsch; why not edit that article to be more in the form you intend so that it can help people know what you were after. Better yet, write an article of your own exactly like you meant.

I also think we could maybe have a section on suggested significance of items in a city. (eg. pigeons, telephone poles, railway tracks, tramps). Having several conflicting definitions would be neat as then people will have to think and stuff.
 
 
Nietzsch E. Coyote
05:44 / 22.07.03
Well If you look back in the thread you can see both the genesis of the style sheet and some examples. If people are interested I will post up the mini doc that we did last time. I suppose that I might need the participants permision as well.
 
 
grant
17:57 / 22.07.03
That wiki looks really cool.

I'm wondering, though, if there's room on there to point people towards, say, other magical systems that are alive & well in cities. Like Santeria/Lucumi. I'm not sure how one would mention one of them without going into some ritual description....
 
 
Salamander
19:08 / 22.07.03
This may seem like self agrandizing on my part, but I feel I must speak out...

Power lines and phone lines run through every city, Hermes, god of communication, would be an ideal god for your phone/power lines, which would make a kind of ley line too, power and phone lines connect a city in ways often unseen. A good way to get any form of transport would also be in Hermes sphere, since he's the god of travel as well. He might also serve as a good way of avoiding alot of monitoring cameras, if your the paranoid type, and of course the camera networks you could demonize as the embodiment of the Argus giant, and so on and so on, you guys get the picture, Hermes has really been useful for me in the city...

end of shameless self agrandizing.
 
 
gavin
11:32 / 23.07.03
Hi

This thread is very interesting

I live in Manchester, uk. As a city it's comparatively young - it was just a small town until the beginning of the industrial revolution, but then because of its climate - suitable for cotton - it expanded dramatically. I've heard it often argued that it is the original industrial city, that it was where that paradigm shift begun - certainly if you walk through its older industrial districts (Esp Ancoats), sticking to the quiet streets, you sense this, but it's delapidated, dormant - dying even. Regen is killing Manchester's dark twin, or changing it so its unrecogniseable. The occasional sympathetic mill and warehouse conversions aren't enough to halt this trend.

I have a strong personal attachment to Manchester - the 1996 bomb happened on my 23rd birthday, the day of the England Scotland match in Euro 96 (I am English of Scottish parents). I always felt that incident spoke to me personally, told me to remain here. That bomb has been deliberately semiotically articulated by the institutional powers of Manchester to the beginning of the redevelopment process, to connote heroism, triumph of spirit, phoenix city and all that gubbins. Bullshit. The process was well in place, the plans made, the money in place.

Anyone got any thoughts on Manchester in the light of this thread?
 
 
C.Elseware
08:47 / 24.07.03
It sounds like you have some pretty good ideas on Manchester yourself.

There was some really good ideas coming out in this thread. It would be cool to get them into some coherent form.

I thought using the barb' wiki would be convenient, but if people need techy help getting stuff from brain to web just ask. (email: elseware AT totl.net)
 
 
Quantum
13:33 / 25.07.03
You can divide urban magic into two styles (if you are so inclined)- transposition and innovation. A lot of citymagic is just old magic modified to a new environment (e.g. pylons as power trees, transport routes as ley lines) but there are also *new* things going on, magic that's never been done before, unique to the new environment of concrete glass and steel. (e.g. electricity elementals, A-to-Z-omancy)

Is this an artificial distinction or have other people thought this? Is there actually any new magic going on or is it just modernisation of traditional techniques? (Elseware- e.g. urban Tao, is it new? Or just old fashioned Taoist philosophy applied to the modern environment?)
Seems to me the new magic is the stuff you do by intuition, rather than rationally applying techniques. Does that make sense to you people?
 
 
Kauna
10:51 / 27.07.03
Finding the gods(rulers)of each city works for me. Here im Berlin(Germany) the most important (for me) is definitely Gold-Else (the big statue of the goddess of victory that stands in the middle of the east-west traffic axis).She's in the center of the city, in the center of everything, between east and west, she sees all, and the best and biggest parties around take place at Her feet(Love Parade, CSD, New Year's Eve). She will give you the deep knowledge of the City if you ask her the right way...
 
 
Madman in the ruins.
18:04 / 22.08.04
Time to bump this a little.

Any new thoughts on this subject anyone? I've been poking around these "Urban Explorer" websites (where people go pot holing in Sewers or climbling abandonded buildings). In fact i've got a freind whos into mountaneering but living in Cheshire/Manchester there anret many mountians to climb. So he tried Urban Exporing. In his own words he had a "Very freaky and negative feeling" when poking around somewhere he shouldnt have legaly been.

On a side topic the local councill errected a stone.. well not really a circle unless you cound 3 standing stones as a circle. In the middle of a well used roundabout. I've been toying with the idea of "Claming it back" for a few months now.
 
 
Nietzsch E. Coyote
01:22 / 23.08.04
Why don't you try the experiment of reclaiming it. Use the Wiki to write up a bullet-chapter on it (see style guide or below) Then post it up either in a page about your city or in a section you feel more appropriate, perhaps one relating more to your technique or goal. When you make the new page please use the UrbanMage/ prefix for nodes in this section to help keep all the parts together.

I personally am still very interested in this subject and this project. I have even considered writing the book myself but I would prefer a more collaborative effort.

Bullet-chapters are made up as follows:

* The first part is a theoretical discussion
* The second part is a more practical discussion with some exercises interspersed
* The third part is a narrative from our experience that has more advanced experiments
* The fourth part is a "What does the {reader, mage} think" direct address
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
13:55 / 23.08.04
Any magic practiced by someone living in an urban setting that doesn't directly relate to the urban environment is no kind of magic at all.
 
 
gale
16:30 / 23.08.04
It just occurred to me that a great place for urban magick is riding between the subway cars. I don't know if this is possible in other cities, but in NYC it was wonderful, rushing through the darkness and seeing all the parts of the tunnels regular riders don't see. I suppose it's also illegal and dangerous (didn't seem very dangerous, though), but boy does it have potential!

Another way of becoming intimate with a city is by going out when no one else is around, when you can totally focus on the city as an entity. Once I was in NY during a blizzard, and after the snow stopped at about 2:00 AM, I walked alone down the middle of 5th Avenue from Washington Square to the Empire State Building. No cars, no people, nothing--except the noise the traffic lights made when they changed. Same thing on the way back. Try it the next time it snows a few feet.
 
 
BARISKIL666
20:54 / 24.08.04
Fraid I'm a country bumkin too,couldn't live in a city full time,but this thread is extremely relevant as many people practice "paganism" yet live in a city,paganism as such being strictly a rural thing.
My thoughts go back to the urban religion of Rome where households had an altar for the household spirit,and aspects of the urban landscape had their own patron deities.
 
 
c0nstant
15:49 / 23.06.06
*ressurection*

fascinating thread, did anything ever actually come of it? I'm guessing not, but would people be interested in reviving the project?
 
 
Nietzsch E. Coyote
21:10 / 23.06.06
Sure.
 
 
c0nstant
22:20 / 23.06.06
well, first things first then. Those links in your last post have died, is the information still somewhere out there (on someones computer maybe) or will it have to be recompiled from scratch?

on another note, was looking through some of my old sketchbooks a while back and came across the egnigmatic phrase "the green man as mediator. opener of the way. breaking down barriers. etc". Certainly the green-man as an emmenation of the divine is quite interesting, even as a kid I always made a point to thank him for safe passage. There are also overlaps with Legba of the voodoo pantheon. lord of the crossroads and opener of the way.

random mumblings and musings there. sorry bout that!
 
 
Nietzsch E. Coyote
05:17 / 27.06.06
http://www.barbelith.com/faq/index.php/Urban_Mage

Is where some of the urban mage material is. There might be more hidden on one of my old computers or on some email account some where.

This should be good enough to start again though.
 
 
c0nstant
10:09 / 27.06.06
ah! lovely, thanks for that. Will have a trawl through and see what's what. Report back later.
 
 
Mister Saturn
01:33 / 30.06.06
This book sounds great... a must have for 21st century occulists/magicians!

I'm wondering, will there be a little bit about fictional characters? It could be a fiction-suit-inspiration thing - there's Batman, the magician of the Darkness - he knows his city intimately, and he can manipulate its shadows to his needs. Or Jack Hawksmoor - of the Authority - he is known as "God of Cities" - a quick summary; he's been abducted countless times by aliens to fast-track man's evolution, and becoming a creature of the city - he cannot survive outside a city; he merged with Tokyo itself to stop a threat that would have destroyed the world. And then there's Tom O'Bedlam, a creature of the city, a homeless man that is as valuable as a stray dog to the people, but a totem to the city.

Another thing, what about Le Parkour, the art of free running in urban areas? There was an article somewhere about how it could be related to chaos magick, to urban occultism...

To end: I actually have a bit of a connection to my city, Melbourne – and I connect to it by the public transport. Trams, buses, trains… they’re the carriers of the city, and the city breathes. A few weeks ago, I conducted an experimental spell, asking if I could meet a certain friend (and housemate), who had finished exams that day in the city, and I hadn’t heard anything from him for the last four hours. I got on a tram, and almost immediately it stalled, wasting about 10 minutes. I took my time, walking down towards Melbourne Central Station, where a supermarket would be, and brought my items. Unfortunately I ignored my craving for a burger, and I was fidgeting on the platform, with a gnawing worry – “he’s supposed to be here, he’s supposed to be here” – the train swung by, and I was about to give up on the spell. However, as the train pulled out – I felt my stomach jerk sideways, and I turned, thinking that I’d caught sight of him, with the thought – “he’ll be on the next train!” I decided not to get off at the next stop; I rode all the way to my station, and waited five minutes for the next one – and he came walking up, and did a huge double take when he saw me smirking like the Cheshire cat at the station.

Since then, I'm more aware of my connection with Melbourne; I move with the flow of the city, becoming part of it, and as a result, I’m always bang on time for my appointments within the reach of the city, and I know where certain people are – (stalking with magick is easy!) – I never get lost, amongst many other things.

I’m going to move to (hopefully) Tokyo late next year, and I’m confident I’ll be able to develop a connection, city willing, and settle into its spires and routes in no time at all, despite the cultural and language differences.
 
  

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