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Is Magic Becoming More Psychopathic?

C.O.T.

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Hi, do you think that magic is becoming more and more psycopathyc? That is atracting bullysh people, and geting violent?
Why is happening this? What do you think?
 
It depends what people want from it. As escargot rightly said, at the peak of the 70s revival it was all about the material and carnal. Now it's tempting to speculate that there's an element who view it as a means to control.

In my own opinion. as with many Fortean topics, the subject itself is actually neutral and relatively consistent: what varies is societal attitudes towards them, and in that respect Esoterica, Religion and Conspiracy are the three most prismatic. Magic (or rather the practice of) does tend to vary between an image of decadence and the perceived powerless using it for gain. In reality representatives of all groups practice it, but the present climate of unrest and uncertainty those who feel disenfranchised are emphasised.
 
I feel that as stu says is getting more on the control and power side, with teams that are confronted and where is no space for individual view. This gang like structure retrofeeds itself.
The view of the magician as the individual espiritual searcher, like the medieval Alchemist is very far from this views.
As an example, this post in the forum surprisingly directly from the russian ministry of defence Telepathy.
If you call press to tell them this....
 
Teenagers will be into anything for the sex. :)


They weren't teenagers though, they were mainly men in their 20s/30s recruiting youngsters. At least 10 years older than I was.

One, offended by my scorn, threatened to send something to my house to teach me a lesson.

Yeah, go on, Wanker, can't wait. :chuckle:
 
.. as a teenager in the '70s the self-proclaimed practitioners of it, all big Crowley fans, whom I knew were certainly in it for money and sex.
Now it's tempting to speculate that there's an element who view it as a means to control.
I feel that as stu says is getting more on the control and power side...
They weren't teenagers though, they were mainly men in their 20s/30s recruiting youngsters...
One, offended by my scorn, threatened...
A common thread running through the above quotes: in this context, sex is about power, and — often — power is about sex.

If magic works, then using magic to get access to sex is morally the same as using a date rape drug. Rape is generally not about sexual pleasure for its own sake, but using the sex act as an expression of power.

No doubt there are self-professed practitioners of magic who do not seek power or wealth, and use magic to achieve what they consider to be a deeper understanding of and relationship with the world. That is a different thing, and neither better nor worse than subscribing to any other benign belief system.

However, there are certainly people in positions of wealth, power and influence who profess to rely on forms of magic. Noel Edmonds has done pretty well for himself and claims to use "cosmic ordering".

That said, it seems that anyone who achieves a certain level of power (presidents, prime ministers and the like) carefully avoids giving any clues to their use of magic while they are climbing the greasy pole. Either that, or they do it without magic.

As for the opening question, "Is magic becoming more psychopathic?" No. If magic exists, it is a tool or technique. You might as well ask whether knives or pottery are becoming more psychopathic.

However, I do believe that many people living comfortable lives in the affluent west are losing touch with facts and truth, and emphasising their own rights over their responsibilities. In the colloquial use of the word, there may well be more "psychopaths" around because there are so many people who are allowed to feel that they are always right and always entitled.

With more "psychopaths" it would not be surprising to find more of them trying to use magic to achieve their desires "the easy way".
 
[magic is] about as effective as prayer...

I believe in neither. However, I came across an interesting reversal of an old story about prayer yesterday.

The original version takes this format: a devout man's house is hit by floods. He climbs on the roof and prays to God to save him. A rowing boat turns up and the occupants invite him to climb aboard. Being devout, he say, "No, thank you. God will save me." He similarly refuses assistance from another rowing boat and, later from a helicopter, before finally drowning. Later, in heaven, he confronts God: "I was devout, I believed, and I prayed to you in my hour of need, and you let me drown." "I can't understand it," says God, "I sent two rowing boats and a helicopter." (There are many versions of this, going back at least to classical Greek times.)

The interesting reversal: An Alaskan atheist is caught out in a blizzard and loses his way. Fearing that he will freeze to death, he breaks his own rules and prays desperately to God to save him, saying, "Save me, and I will believe in you." He slips into unconsciousness, and wakes up later in his cabin having been carried in by two Inuit men who had found him.

Later, he is telling the story to a religious friend. His friend says, "So, you must believe in God now. After all, you're here to prove it."
"No, says the man, I was just found by two Inuit men who were passing."

The point being that events happen and we choose whether to ascribe them to prayer, or magic (etc.) according to our pre-existing beliefs and expectations.

So, yes, you are right: magic is probably about as effective as prayer. The real question is, how effective is that?
 
As the Russian tell you, magic has ever involved telepathy, if you are an skilled magician your prayer will work. Franz Bardon was caugth by the nazis, and imprisioned. Time later, exactly the place was bombed "casually" by planes ,so he could scape. Being one of the most noticeable magicians of the XX century that "casuallity" is quite doubtfull.
I take Bardon into the talk cause, he is one of the less sinister magicians from XX till now, see the others. Well, even one, Hyatt , write a book called explicitly "the psychopaths bible".
 
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I cannot comment on whether magic is becoming more and more psychopathic now. But as a teenager in the '70s the self-proclaimed practitioners of it, all big Crowley fans, whom I knew were certainly in it for money and sex.
Like being in a rock band.
 
In COT, we are very concerned about the psychopatic topic on human groups, so had write a brief about this ideas on English if someone would take a look.
 

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Is a kind of virtual mágic lodge, we work around interactions between Science and Hermetics. we will do a online meeting on very basic magic skills for people without any magic knowledge soon, description of some COT, points of view about the topic are more widely explained on the attached documents posted on the forum tread about Announcements. We will use very known, magic technics mainly about dream work, in COT, we are quite heterogeneous about the technics and more focused on the magic objective that we think that has been, more and more forgotten by the last century Hermetic schools. People tell me that people involved on magic tend to be very self interest goals, but I think that it leaves a lack of wider interest that becomes frustrating for many people too.
 
Is a kind of virtual mágic lodge, we work around interactions between Science and Hermetics. we will do a online meeting on very basic magic skills for people without any magic knowledge soon, description of some COT, points of view about the topic are more widely explained on the attached documents posted on the forum tread about Announcements. We will use very known, magic technics mainly about dream work, in COT, we are quite heterogeneous about the technics and more focused on the magic objective that we think that has been, more and more forgotten by the last century Hermetic schools. People tell me that people involved on magic tend to be very self interest goals, but I think that it leaves a lack of wider interest that becomes frustrating for many people too.
Sounds really intriguing! Thank you for explaining :)
 
They weren't teenagers though, they were mainly men in their 20s/30s recruiting youngsters. At least 10 years older than I was.

One, offended by my scorn, threatened to send something to my house to teach me a lesson.

Yeah, go on, Wanker, can't wait. :chuckle:
He didn't turn you into a.... snail?
 
Hi, do you think that magic is becoming more and more psycopathyc? That is atracting bullysh people, and geting violent?
Why is happening this? What do you think?
People are becoming more like that, generally?

It reflects society, I guess, like anything else - even the "big" religions. Even if you follow a more altruistic pagan path, there are times when you may need to resort to something a bit more to-the-point.

Certainly, some paths attract people from that darker side - as happened in the 1930s and appears to be happening again. I think there's been a lot of cultural appropriation of say, things like runes, by some very unsavoury types. And maybe that's part of the bigger picture?
 
Is true that is something that comes with the age, the fall on influence of religion, has came with a rise of more individualistic aproaches, i remember when child that the religion teaching started to be along other subject, that was ethics. Must be pointed that the non religious equivalent to religion is not ethics, but is moral. Ethics study the best individual election for living, but moral talks about the best collective values to keep collective living , almost bearable. Here the university of political studies is called " of pollitical and morals sciences". And is true, todays problems are more related with collective living that with, individual ones.
 
I believe in neither. However, I came across an interesting reversal of an old story about prayer yesterday.

The original version takes this format: a devout man's house is hit by floods. He climbs on the roof and prays to God to save him. A rowing boat turns up and the occupants invite him to climb aboard. Being devout, he say, "No, thank you. God will save me." He similarly refuses assistance from another rowing boat and, later from a helicopter, before finally drowning. Later, in heaven, he confronts God: "I was devout, I believed, and I prayed to you in my hour of need, and you let me drown." "I can't understand it," says God, "I sent two rowing boats and a helicopter." (There are many versions of this, going back at least to classical Greek times.)

The interesting reversal: An Alaskan atheist is caught out in a blizzard and loses his way. Fearing that he will freeze to death, he breaks his own rules and prays desperately to God to save him, saying, "Save me, and I will believe in you." He slips into unconsciousness, and wakes up later in his cabin having been carried in by two Inuit men who had found him.

Later, he is telling the story to a religious friend. His friend says, "So, you must believe in God now. After all, you're here to prove it."
"No, says the man, I was just found by two Inuit men who were passing."

The point being that events happen and we choose whether to ascribe them to prayer, or magic (etc.) according to our pre-existing beliefs and expectations.

So, yes, you are right: magic is probably about as effective as prayer. The real question is, how effective is that?
It's pure vanity to think there's a divine force that sits around granting wishes.
If she/he/it/they did then the world would be a vastly different place.
We're simply superstitious, infantile apes that don't use our minds to the best of their abilities.
 
In 2001 we had Harry Potter and the Philosospher's Stone and in 2022 we will be getting Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

I think this speaks volumes.
 
Apropos the "flood" and "blizzard" tales, there are, probably, hundreds of versions of this story. This one I heard in Ireland many years ago, as a supreme example of Celtic pragmatism.
Our hero was driving around Dublin looking for a parking space, and if you've ever driven around Dublin looking for a parking space you'll surely understand the problem. After twenty minutes or so, while stopped at a traffic light, he closed his eyes and prayed, "Oh Holy Mother of God, please find me a place to park and I swear I'll give up the Guinness, and the Jameson's and the chasing after women who aren't me wife, so I will."
A few moments later a car pulled out of a space just in front of him, and he quickly backed into it. He thought for a moment, then prayed again, "Oh Holy Mother of God, never mind, I found one for meself."
 
magic is becoming more and more psycopathyc?

My passing observation of magical groups (including religious-related ritual) is that the cosmic tide has been going out for some decades. The result is that the rituals have less power and most groups are shrinking with the remaining members are often elderly and/or not so competent.

In 40 years in such groups in various countries I have found perhaps a dozen people competent in the inner work. This is partly because the better humans are usually subject to oppression or capture by adverse intelligences so that most do not proceed far enough.

In that context, it may well be that disturbed/captured practitioners of magic make up a larger proportion than when the groups were bigger.

I suspect that part of the oppression process is suppressing knowledge of the most common capture techniques: hooks, hidden mental entities, larvae, adverse relationships, vampirized families, pollution of brain.
 
The tendency on humankind to have the power, and control positions on organization coped by an huge proportion of psychopats as been pointed by scientist, so on a human organization that works around magic skills it would be the same.
But i agree that in magic and ESP practices, something of a diferent nature is happening. The practices around thelepathy are specially dangerous and problematic, and the non personal entities are very dangerous, cause has been charged along history by the psychic contact whit a lot of very evil individuals that have charged that entities negativelly. Secretism around magic practices help to turn things worst cause problems are not shared, nor solutions.
Will writte some on the next COT writtings around what we have called the "Gollumization" of people that practize magic. Gollumization from Gollum the character from Lord of the rings. If have spent long time on magic things sure that for everybody come the image of someone of that Gollumized ones that have found on his life. :)
 
When I was a practising magician I never worked or engaged with other magicians.

I have no idea what they were in it for. I certainly was never in it for personal power. More, as an exploration into inner and outer space.

It does, however, stand to reason that some will use techniques that are intended to elicit changes through will for very selfish and potentially harmful goals. Human nature.
 
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When I was a practising magician I never worked or engaged with other magicians.

I have no idea what they were in it for. I certainly was never in it for personal power. More, as an exploration into inner and outer space.

It does, however, stand to reason that some will use techniques that are intended to elicit changes through will for very selfish and potentially harmful goals. Human nature.
Do you no longer practice?
 
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