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Magick: What's The Point?

J

Justin_Anstey

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Jul 30, 2001
Messages
633
Is that FT article Morning of the Magicians a fair depiction of magic/k? If so, then if the effects are so subtle that you can't tell if the spell you cast -or whatever- is responsible, what's the point?

-J
 
It's not as if you can just cast a spell just like Harry potter or those witches of age's time and except a sparkle of stars to shoot out of your wand/ hand and flitter about.

Magick's just subtle, because it's part of everything - even the air you're breathing. Magick is just like how you breath - most of the time you don't notice you're breathing, unless you hold your breath.

Hmm... I guess if you're looking to see if a spell's working, you have to be more than just observant. Also, I suppose you have to experience it first hand before you say anything about magick. That's what I did...
 
So, most of the time you don't notice you're magicking?

How does one be more than just observant?

If it is so subtle, how does one know that one has experienced it?

-J
 
Sheesh... magick is supposed to be only passive in people, but some people know that it's there and thus, magick in them becomes 'active' - the sensation of magick may be the same as the sensation you feel when you pray. It's the power of mind, faith.

As for observation skills... hmm... maybe you could practice, by starting really watching, looking, taking down details - don't just stare at the ads in the bus or train until you get off - look at the people around you (but don't look at their details one by one, unless you want them to think you're pyscho) in the biggest picture possible - and most people never look up above the first storey of buildings. Blah, blah, blah... the thing is to just look at it in the biggest picture you can think of, and go over it continously.

Well, I can't describe how subtle it can be, how to describe how you know it - the same way your stomach just drops when you turn a corner, and a car appears from no where to smash into your car's headlights. It's like trying to describe the taste of sugar or the scent of rose.

Anyways, better be off...
 
It's a faith thing, just like religious people believe in miracles.
A believer in magick will cast a spell, and if the desired effect happens, he'll believe his magick worked. Truth is in the eye of the beholder.
I'm still skeptical, even though a spell I once cast as an experiment actually worked (I fancied a woman I met at a pottery class, and got to know her. I cast a spell to draw her to me, and one day she just turned up on my doorstep unnanounced. Who's to say she might or might not have done this had I not cast a spell?).
If I cast lots of spells, and they all worked, *then* I might start to believe in it...
 
Magick - what's the point?

Please don't take this the wrong way, my friend, but...........

If you have to ask the question,
You are not yet ready to know the answer. :D

Bright blessings
QS;)
 
If you have to ask the question, you are not ready to know the Answer
Click to expand...

Thats one of the stupidest things I've ever read! Keaving aside the fact that I'd have thought the whole point of a Fortean bulletin board was for people to ask questions (yes even stupid ones), it DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!

Do you mean that the Answer will only be apparent if the Question isn't asked? What sort of wierd para-logic is that?

Oooh I hate this kind of deep and meaningless shite! Its so arrogant, but with so little to justify iits arrogance.

In the context of the original question - which by the way is an eminently sensible one - this is just another of those tricks of rhetoric that 'Magickians' use to disguise the fact that they're wasting their life on navel-gazing and have nothing to show for it.

On the day that Magickians end up in control of society, winning the lottery every week, and being seen with hordes of sexually attractive people chasing after them, I'll change my position.

Till then, I'm sticking with technology - the C19th shows it beats Magick every time!
 
Hmmm.....
You might of.......just might of......
answered your own questions.

QED

BB
QS;)
 
Ah but...

Wintermute, how do you know that the magicians aren't already running everything already?
 
its just another religion that cant prove anything and relys on faith
i hold it higher than catholism as it seems to me to make more sense worshping the earth its self (thats right isnt it? its the impression i get from the things ive seen) than somthing which is probably made up by men to control others
going back to the comment made by Quicksilver how did you find out your infomation without asking questions? isnt it an essential part of life?
 
"In the context of the original question - which by the way is an eminently sensible one - this is just another of those tricks of rhetoric that 'Magickians' use to disguise the fact that they're wasting their life on navel-gazing and have nothing to show for it. "

But leaving aside accusations of arrogance...

So, the only things worthwhile doing are those which gain you sex, money and power? If those are the only things that make you happy, then you are quite right. Magic will not help you. Take a degree in computer programming and good luck to you.

I have plenty to show for it. I am happy, healthy, madly in love with someone with whom I am very magically in tune, I wake up every morning glad to be alive. I can't give you a formula for that, or "prove" it in the way you can claim to "prove" something with science. That doesn't make it worthless.

I agree, (sorry QS) a whole bunch of magicians out there do not help themselves or the rest of us by issuing trite statements designed to belittle people asking honest questions. Nor are people asking questions enamouring themselves to those who practise magic by phrasing those questions "Well, justify to me why you're doing something pointless".

OK, in answer to your honest question. Magic is not a science. It's not about moving mountains or creating flashbangs. If you're dissapointed that real life isn't a special effect, I'm sorry. The effects are subtle and truly powerful magic has the strongest effect on the caster. I'm sure that's bloody frustrating to hear, because you want to be able to measure it on a thermometer or a radiation counter or a ruler. That's a bit like trying to weigh love or take the temperature or anger. You can try, you may even get a result, but it will be utterly meaningless.

If you want to hear more, I'll tell you more. You don't have to believe me, you don't have to agree with me. But please, try to keep an open mind and lay off the insults
 
Take it from a former occult book dealer!

Wintermute, how do you know that the magicians aren't already running everything already?
Click to expand...

Most of the ones I did business with seemed to have trouble running a bath!

But seriously folks.... Unless the wildest speculations of people like Michael Hoffman II are true, there's no evidence that Magickians have gained any real power by the excercise of their art.

I'm very happy [actually I'm sick with jealousy :( ] for all you occultists out there who have fantastically happy lives, its just that I'm not convinced that you got them by anything more supernatural than increased self-confidence & self-knowledge. Fine things to aim for, but not the same as Magick.

I'm sure that, occasionally, humans do manage to create the type of events Magick seeks to control - poltergeists being a good example. My problem is that no-one ever manages to get them 'on demand'.

For too many people Magick is a way of retreating from engagement with the real world, into a fantasy which, in individuals liable to mental illness, can actually proive dangerous.
 
Sorry - if you don't know who Hoffman is try:


http://www.hoffman-info.com/


***20/1/02 - I posted this link without looking at it (as you do) - because I'd read some stuff by H a few years ago which was probably bonkers but interesting in its arguments about ritual murder + freemasonry.

Having looked at the site it seems to be virulently racist. I apologise for not having sussed this out*************
 
I'm not being cynical, but the vast majority of occultists I used to know were all on the dole or had crap jobs they hated, few mates, no girl/boy friend and lived in bedsit-land...



...Or was that just me?!:)
 
The most infamous magician didn't get any physical power at the end. He died lonely in a hostel in Hastings. Afterwards he became famous. Did that really help A.Crowley and was that what he was after?

As to magic, from my experience (limited) I tried some from Dion Fortune. This really worked and was easy to explain. It was a way of keeping things calm in stressfull situations. Working in a stessed industry (concert venue tech.) I thought it was worth a go.
In summary all it involved was to keep your head when everybody is losing theirs and your state should rub off on others, maybe stopping them running around like headless chickens.

Worked fine till I got down the pub.

As for hexes etc, maybe it's just an extension of that.

So, in conclusion I reckon magic is just something normal and some people have found out the trick to bend it to their needs.

Now, wheres the frogs breath and bat wing soup?:cross eye
 
Re: Take it from a former occult book dealer!

wintermute said:
I'm very happy [actually I'm sick with jealousy :( ] for all you occultists out there who have fantastically happy lives, its just that I'm not convinced that you got them by anything more supernatural than increased self-confidence & self-knowledge. Fine things to aim for, but not the same as Magick.
Click to expand...

Er, says who? If all you're aiming for is the aquisition of temporal power you are unlikely to be successful. But my magic aims to make me happy. It works.

Magic is sadly not a formulae I could write down for you which will give you everything you ever wanted, money, power, members of your preferred sex, whatever. You have to work at it, hard, the same as you do anything else. The biggest effects are on you because you are the easiest thing to affect. No I can't move mountains or explode my enemies (although believe me I wish I could :rolleyes: ), but that doesn't make what I can do worthless...

"Most of the ones I did business with seemed to have trouble running a bath!"

"I'm not being fascetious, but the vast majority of occultists I used to know were all on the dole or had crap jobs they hated, few mates, no girl/boy friend and lived in bedsit-land... "
:D

Remind me to introduce you to some scientists and engineers I know...
 
Glad it works for you. I certainly believe that magic is an internal thing, though I have a strange fascination for A Crowleys methods, maybe it's the Scarlet Women or the drugs or just the mad lifestyle. Ah it's not like it used to be, too many goody goodies being soft and only using bits and pieces from different beliefs.

Oh, and isn't it Magic or Magik?
 
Sorry, wasn't clear about what I meant, I always thought that natural magik didn't have a C in it at all. Obvoiusly it does.
 
soapbox

"Magick" and "magik" drive me bananas, I think it looks like you can't spell

/soapbox

Sorry, I didn't really have anything constructive to add ;)
 
The biggest effects are on you because you are the easiest thing to affect. No I can't move mountains or explode my enemies (although believe me I wish I could ), but that doesn't make what I can do worthless...
Click to expand...

No, its not worthless, but its not really Magick is it? Its psychology. To me Magick would be the ability to cause real world efffects outside your own head/body, by the use of will (or whatever) alone. Crowley signally failed to achieve this, despite devoting his life and considerable intellect to it, and no-one since seems to have achieved it either.

Until Magickians can show that they actually can influence the 'real' world in a way that can't be explained by any other method than Magick, I'm not sure why they expect us to be interested in their solitary vices.
 
Wintermute, if you're not interested, why are you posting here?

Obviously we have different definitions of magic. I can handle that but unfortunately for you it seems to be something you feel the need to get childish and rude about. I shall leave you to that solitary vice.
 
I think a lot of natural magic comes from the same source as karma. In my life I've tried to live by the rules of karma, and they seem to work. It is a matter of adressing balance in ones life, trying to make up for your shortcomings by enhancing other parts of your persona. I have 'cast' several spells myself, using nothing much but a few props (cloth, sticks, symbols) to protect myself, my friends and to ward off enemies. This seems to have worked for some time, but as Mr Pratchett (stealing ruthlessly from LeGuin) says, every magical reaction has an equal and opposite reaction. Although my friends were protected, whilst away my home was vandalised - an act which I attribute to the flow of energy coming back to where it was initiated. Funnily enough the guy who did it was also into magic (the bad stuff).
 
Wintermute, if you're not interested, why are you posting here?
Click to expand...

I'm tempted to say 'I only do it to provoke, because I know it teases'!

However, how can skeptical postings on a thread called 'Magick - What's The Point' be inappropriate? The fact is that I am interested in whether occultists can refute the critique I'm making.
I'm also interested in trying to divert people away from wasting their time on Magick.

I come from a vulgar marxist tradition of strong rhetoric in debate, and I make no apologies for that. (And believe me my rhetoric is mild compared to some of the stuff occultists and pagans come out with!!)

So - in answer to your assertion that we have 'different defintions of magic', I respond that this is the Humpty-Dumpty technique, whereby words mean what the 'speaker' wants them to mean, until they become meaningless.

I'm pretty certain that Crowley was clear on the fact that Magick was about external results. I'd argue that this is also the 'common sense' definition.

I'm certain that Crowley talked about Magick as involving 'The method of Science, the aim of Religion'. If only contemporary occultists could keep to this maxim.
 
I come from a vulgar marxist tradition
------------------------------------------------------------------------



Me too, cant wait to storm the winter palace, use the wrong fork and fart



Shortlisted for Wittiest Post of 2002 so far. Thanks for making me
blow a mouthful of malt down my nose - unusual but interesting
sensation - after a grey, stress-filled day. ;)
 
"I'm very happy [actually I'm sick with jealousy ] for all you occultists out there who have fantastically happy lives"

"I'm also interested in trying to divert people away from wasting their time on Magick. "

Since magicians seem to feel that it works, and helps make them happy, who is wasting their time here?
 
I agree with Ioethe, WM, it is a value judgement of yours that people are wasting their time on this stuff. I think you're efforts could be better put to use trying to convince people to stop wasting their time watching TV, and to read and interact with other people instead, much like we're doing here ;)
 
The original question was destined to raise a few problems.

How can we discuss what the point of Magick is when we can't agree on what Magick is?

Maybe the original question should have been "What is Magick?"

BB
QS
 
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