Another book I'll have to buy!!
I know someone who actually believes that only aggressive magic is real, and doesn't seem to understand any of the peaceful applications of magic, like healing, or what RPGs would call skill buffs, or fertility magic, or detection divination, or memory perking spells. He continuously turns a deaf ear to the possibility too. He's a Buddhist, and thinks that because the Bodhisattva Milarepa laid curses on his enemies and had to pay for this bad karma, that all magic is only bad. Then there are the Muslims, who think that all magic derives from djinn whom they think of as pretty much equivalent to demons. Personally, I don't believe in deities of any kind, I think they are all tulpas/egregores of varying sizes. I also think that apparently bad things exist for a good reason.
I'm reading a lot about luciferianism as it's what I identify with the most.
And I definitely agree that bad things happen for a reason too.
That sounds like solipsism, or something like it.
Yes, I see satanism as much more self centred than the luciferians.
Sorry, I know nothing about the differences between the two - I had this idea they were very similar.
Most Buddhists are peaceful in my experience. Milarepa laid curses before he became a serious Buddhist, and my acquaintance in question thinks that what was true for Milarepa is true for everybody and all time. Admittedly within karma theory, getting magic is a karma accelerator for good or ill.
Yeah that's a pretty good description
I suppose each religion or belief system has their extremists, who are very rigid on what they believe in.
I used to really like the occult, but now I'm about not exposing myself to things that might have unforseen long-term consequences.
)that only allows us to see the single path we take through it, like a person playing through a choose-your-own-adventure book.Intriguing!I know that digging up four year old threads is bad, mkay - but this is my wheelhouse. I've spent thirty years researching how and indeed why magic works. I finally finished writing my book "The Engineering of Coincidence: a scientific explanation of magic" at the end of last year, and this month I was lucky enough to have it reviewed in this month's FT.
I say "lucky" but I did magic for it, so I would count this a successful event.
As I say to people "If the explanation could be put on a t-shirt, I'd be selling t-shirts instead", but the rough idea is this:
Imagine the multiverse, each possibility spreading out into a 'tree' of other possibilities. Now imagine that all of that tree exists at once (the 'timeless multiverse'), and it is a limitation of ours (and physics
Normally, you choose to do things and select your path normally and think nothing of it. But, under certain circumstances using certain methods, it is possible to choose paths for which there seem to be no causal connection.
The point being is that you do not change the universe; you move to the place where it is changed.
Most of the famous problems with quantum physics are because people don't appreciate that, because of this, they are figure and ground problems.
I know that digging up four year old threads is bad, mkay - but this is my wheelhouse. I've spent thirty years researching how and indeed why magic works. I finally finished writing my book "The Engineering of Coincidence: a scientific explanation of magic" at the end of last year, and this month I was lucky enough to have it reviewed in this month's FT.
I say "lucky" but I did magic for it, so I would count this a successful event.
As I say to people "If the explanation could be put on a t-shirt, I'd be selling t-shirts instead", but the rough idea is this:
Imagine the multiverse, each possibility spreading out into a 'tree' of other possibilities. Now imagine that all of that tree exists at once (the 'timeless multiverse'), and it is a limitation of ours (and physics
Normally, you choose to do things and select your path normally and think nothing of it. But, under certain circumstances using certain methods, it is possible to choose paths for which there seem to be no causal connection.
The point being is that you do not change the universe; you move to the place where it is changed.
Most of the famous problems with quantum physics are because people don't appreciate that, because of this, they are figure and ground problems.
It gets a lot easier to understand if you look at it the right way
)
I agree with that and would add that physics and cannon science generally can not accommodate many legitimate alternative frameworks until it relaxes on the the vocabulary. I suppose something similar could be said of established magical ontologies. Rent in twain since the ‘reformation’, these branches of physical observation and manipulation really ought to refriend. That said, if they don’t, magic seems the more likely of the two to strengthen, as it has recently without ANY acknowledgement from sciencism. The aged/ossified limb will break before the young/juiced up limb.
Figure and ground means asking what is the object, and which is the background in a scene.Could you explain what that means, for I am a pandacracker of very little brain
I was in a local football club bar one Saturday evening in the early’90s with two work colleagues.One of them was obviously gay,not sure if that’s an okay thing to say but just trying to set the scene.My old dear reckons that if someone behaves badly towards her she needn't get upset because they will soon die. This is because it's happened, lots of times. I have known some of the people concerned.
This most likely works because having a nasty attitude and pointlessly creating enemies are a stupid way to live. People who do this are no doubt thick in other ways, like being careless with their health or personal safety.
Belligerent people are often insecure and nervous and may self-medicate by smoking and drinking. Reckless people who bully others might drive aggressively. These are all dangerous habits.
This has happened in my own life too, where I've hated someone and they've died quite quickly. I can't take the credit though, it was just their bad luck.
Beside which, not everyone I despise is dead yet!
To turn it on its head, had your friend not said that, would you have even remembered it beyond the bar owner being a git who died not long after?
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