My opinion of magic

[Cameron]

edited

 

I wrote some stuff but don't even want to 'go there'. Follow your own path I guess.

Edited November 29, 2005 by Cameron

[freeform]

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Edited October 23, 2019 by freeform

[GrandTrinity]

I seen the latest harry Potter movie. Now THAT is some black magic right there! Kids who see that must be scared out of their fucking minds. I cracked up at the funniest parts even though the rest of the audiance didnt find those parts funny, like when the dragon jumps up and makes a noise. Also, the evil dudes name is Aleister! Sooooooo much black magic in it....white too I guess, of course, I mean, it seemed to be balanced in the end, I hope.

[Cameron]

Cool. I like those Harry Potter movies . Maybe if my knee is better I'll hobble in to see it this week.

[sean]

My cat's name is Aleister.

 

I've already ranted enough about my views on Magick. It's what we are all doing. Some people abuse tools. Just so happens a lot of the people that are most obviously abusing tools tend to call their practices "magick" so the label gets a bad rap. In the same way that lot's of people who call themselves Christians are just nuts (no offense) and so people write off Christ when actually that's also what we are all doing. Heh.

 

Sean

[Cameron]

So are you going to ellaborate on the being that appeared to you, lit up your room, and spoke out loud when you were not under the unfluence of drugs or just keep us hanging?

 

Yes Aliester Sean it is to you whom I speak.

[hagar]

This topic has always amused me.

 

There is no such thing as magic. Period.

 

Magic is a cultural construction, and the western conception of the "magical" is constituted by the notion of "scientific". Most Haitians, deeply engulfed in Woodoo and the like would until the turn of the last century state that what we westerners call technology would be a type of black magic. Actually, they were not far from the truth.

 

If we public with our practices 300 years ago, we would have been burned at the stake.

 

Actually, magic, like murder is a matter of dates.

 

(I'm being a trite polemic here)

 

Last month I manage to balance my bank account. Now that's magic.

 

h

[sean]

[hagar]

[sean]

Cool post hagar. I still don't quite get where you are coming from with "There is no such thing as magic". It seems like we probably just have different definitions. BTW - I use the spellig with a "k" to differentiate between stage magic, ie: card tricks, and real magick, such as Chi Kung and meditation. I'm curious what you mean when you say "magic" so I can better understand what you think is bogus. You seem to be saying that magic is a superstitious way of looking at phenomenon, and that all things, even crazy stuff that seems insanely mystical has a logical explanation. It's a good point. Very scientific. If you take it far enough you would probably find yourself being somewhat of a determinist. Which is also pretty sane. Then the only magic is whatever pushed this huge chain reaction of matter into motion a long time ago. A big accident most likely. Maybe a big bang. The rest is just clockwork, nothing magical here. No problem. It's a hard pill to swallow. That we are cogs in a big machine with no intellent creator. I think it's very useful to get into this frame. Very Zen in a way. Dry insight. Nothing special. Magick is just a fairy tale we make up to create drama and make things seem interesting. On some level, everything is unexceptionally predictable. 100% explainable.

 

But this is also just a story. It's just a perceptual position. Sometimes it's useful and even fun to tell a different story. A story of magick! A story of intrigue that is on fire, and culminating in an eternally hallucinatory, living breathing, Now fueled by unpredictable Chaos and Tao. A story of Love and Mystery that is beyond any comprehension ever. It's easy to start the story. Just look at how science cannot truly penetrate even the simplest things. Look at how any model that you adopt to explain things has a magickal component. Science, philosophy, magick, alchemy, shamanism, mysticism, psychology ... lot's of magick in there. And all the while Life emerges on ... inscrutably occult.

 

Sean

[freeform]

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Edited October 23, 2019 by freeform

[Cameron]

[sean]

When I think of Magik(?) I think of Harry potter type shit. Not qigong or yoga or stuff that is basically advanced forms of excercise that cultivate health, peace, enlightenment etc.

Opinions follow ...

 

The magickal paradigms of Yoga and Chi Kung are mostly based around an energetic model of the universe. It's appealing to more pragmatic, scientifically minded people who are turned off by worldviews involving numerous deities and "other worldy realms" that sound too fantastical to have any basis in reality. The idea that a subtle, immaterial energy is pulsing through channels in your energetic body and that you can work with this energy in various ways is not quite as strange or daunting as some fantastical dark ritual like speaking with a god.

 

But what if this Chi is not quite as cold and mechanical a substance as the energetic model often treats it? What if Chi is alive and sentient? And what if the different patterns and shapes that Chi can take on represent distinct, living personalities in the energetic fabric of our universe? And what if we, just for the hell of it, were to name each of the different shapes of energy we experience in our lives? This is how energy magick can begin to shift and blend with magick that seems so far out to you, and probably to many people. The kind of magick involving deities. Spiritual magick. It's not far out at all actually. At least no more so than communicating back and forth with a voice in your head everyday that you falsely assume is your Self.

 

Here's a scenario. Let's say we have a friend, Kyla, and she is doing some intense pranayama work. She notices this powerful energy starting to pulse in her perineum. As she experiences this energy on deeper levels, she notices it has what she considers a feminine quality. Suddenly she finds herself almost compelled to name this energy. She calls the energy "Shakti". One night, deep in meditation she has a very clear image in her mind of a beautiful woman dancing for her. She knows it is Shakti and Shakti says "I love you Kyla". She has been touched. Afterward she goes on to approach this pulsing energy in her perineum with respect. She treats this "energetic shape" as if it were a real being with consciousness and emotion, instead of just an inanimate, soulless form of bioelectricity that she can flip on and off and push and pull through her body at her whim. Uh oh. Kyla has started down the ominously dark, ludicrous, evil path of insane Harry Potter spiritual magick.

 

In this scenario Kyla simply took an energetic pattern she was having an experience with, and named it in order to deepen her experience into a relationship with a living form of energy. It's in no way different to the shang qing Taoist belief of living, intelligent spirits inhabiting the organs. And there is a lot of merit to this approach. Humans are social creatures before conceptual ones. Language probably evolved first as a means of communicating with the tribe before it became internalized as a way of telling stories in our heads and creating selves and egos. We are probably hardwired more for sophisticated communication with sentient beings than we are for abstract thought because we have doing the former much longer. Moving chi through the body definitely has power. But it can quickly get co-opted and become an intellectual process. That's why the Chinese systems put so much emphasis on movement. When you let yourself believe for a moment though, that you can communicate with almost anything in your life as if it were a living god, there is much power there. Much more of the brain, body and emotions are drawn into the interaction. And of course more power means a greater risk of giant success or giant failure. This is a deep deep way to draw yourself into the divine though. And many many spiritual paths utilize it, giving people something human/animalesque they can communicate with.

 

All legitimate paths of magick involving deities start out with these personal experiences of configurations of energy that are then named and treated as real. In our example, Kyla has named a god. If she were to go on to teach other people, and were to tell them about Shakti and hopefully show them how to get in touch with the same energy that she has named such, then a religion of shared experience and worship begins to form. And a Shakti archetype is also being carved deeper into the stream of reality, into the Mind of God, perhaps resonating more powerfully then when just Kyla stumbled across her. More and more life is being breathed into Shakti as an independent form.

 

Pretty cool stuff. Of course this is all just my wild speculation that I am making an interesting story out of. I agree, it can seem like many of the more obvious wackos are drawn to what is openly called magick nowadays. And I'm sure we could wax on and on about stereotypes relating what temperaments are drawn to which type of path, what their character flaws might likely be, what they might do that is "just too far out". It's fun, but I think it's hard to really accurately judge a whole paradigm based on just a handful of self-described magickians who've had some imbalances. Even poor Jesus got a little crazy sometimes. Like that one time he broke out that whip and just started thrashing on dudes selling crap in the temple.

 

So about the experience I had. It was profound but not "other worldly" because it happened to me, right in this world, in my bedroom. I was probably 19 or 20 years old. I did deep holotropic breathing with my door shut and all the lights out for several minutes. I spontaneously sat up and began doing a wild, spontaneous dance in a circle. I felt like a shaman. Then a glowing violet female face appeared in the center of the circle I was dancing around. I stopped and looked at her. Stunned, but not as much as I would have expected for having what many psychiatrists would basically deem a psychotic, open-eyed hallucination, I noticed the face was casting light that was illuminating my room, casting shadows on my things which I was fascinated by. I asked the voice "Who are you?" She said "God". I was like WTF? She sensed my confusion. At the time I didn't believe in God. I was an atheist and interpreted all of my magickal work in psychological terms. Also, if any being appeared to me, I expected it would be a fun little deity, not capital G, God and as a woman? She said, "Higher Self. True Will. Whatever you want to call me, it doesn't matter. Just lie down." So I lay in my bed and she said "Now, heal". Then waves of light came out of an aura around her face and travelled down the length of my body. It was really neat, I remember picking up my hands and letting the light travel over my hands and cast shadows on my body. I was mesmerized by the fact that, if this were a hallucination, it was incredibly rich with details I would have no idea how to consciously make up myself. I closed my eyes and fell into a deep sleep.

 

 

Sean

[hagar]

Cool post hagar. I still don't quite get where you are coming from with "There is no such thing as magic". It seems like we probably just have different definitions. BTW - I use the spellig with a "k" to differentiate between stage magic, ie: card tricks, and real magick, such as Chi Kung and meditation. I'm curious what you mean when you say "magic" so I can better understand what you think is bogus. You seem to be saying that magic is a superstitious way of looking at phenomenon, and that all things, even crazy stuff that seems insanely mystical has a logical explanation. It's a good point. Very scientific. If you take it far enough you would probably find yourself being somewhat of a determinist. Which is also pretty sane. Then the only magic is whatever pushed this huge chain reaction of matter into motion a long time ago. A big accident most likely. Maybe a big bang. The rest is just clockwork, nothing magical here. No problem. It's a hard pill to swallow. That we are cogs in a big machine with no intellent creator. I think it's very useful to get into this frame. Very Zen in a way. Dry insight. Nothing special. Magick is just a fairy tale we make up to create drama and make things seem interesting. On some level, everything is unexceptionally predictable. 100% explainable.

 

But this is also just a story. It's just a perceptual position. Sometimes it's useful and even fun to tell a different story. A story of magick! A story of intrigue that is on fire, and culminating in an eternally hallucinatory, living breathing, Now fueled by unpredictable Chaos and Tao. A story of Love and Mystery that is beyond any comprehension ever. It's easy to start the story. Just look at how science cannot truly penetrate even the simplest things. Look at how any model that you adopt to explain things has a magickal component. Science, philosophy, magick, alchemy, shamanism, mysticism, psychology ... lot's of magick in there. And all the while Life emerges on ... inscrutably occult.

 

Sean

9471[/snapback]

 

Sean.

 

I'm being intentionally opaque. And I'm giving you a hard time, since much of what I wrote is a bit rethorical. Now I'm probably dangerously close to being a wise ass.

 

But so is Zen.

 

If I continue to give you a hard time now, it's because I recognize so much of my own way of looking at things in your post, it's uncanny, and I do so respectfully.

There is no such thing as magic, from the perspective of practice. You come to class, tune in, dream with your eyes open, see yellow mists, take a cup of tea, go home and watch Magnum P.I(I dig Higgins), and maybe have a fight with your girlfriend. Nothing special.

 

I just sensed i your posts a trace of dualistic thinking, and if I may try to dissect it, it boils down to a reaction to an overly instrumental, rationalistic society, where all the good stuff is replaced for "sound common sense" and a paycheck at the end of the month. I may be wrong, and if so, I apologize.

 

There really is no separation between the mundane and the sacred. I am not trying to say there is no such thing as magic because it's bogus.

The way of looking at reality as either "we're all just another brick in the game" vs "Santa Claus really exists" is bogus.

 

Santa Claus really exists.

 

I probably confused you even more now....

 

h

[freeform]

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Edited October 23, 2019 by freeform

[hagar]

Great post Sean.

 

It passed me by on the last read.

 

h

[sean]

If I continue to give you a hard time now, it's because I recognize so much of my own way of looking at things in your post, it's uncanny, and I do so respectfully.

There is no such thing as magic, from the perspective of practice. You come to class, tune in, dream with your eyes open, see yellow mists, take a cup of tea, go home and watch Magnum P.I(I dig Higgins), and maybe have a fight with your girlfriend. Nothing special.

 

I just sensed i your posts a trace of dualistic thinking, and if I may try to dissect it, it boils down to a reaction to an overly instrumental, rationalistic society, where all the good stuff is replaced for "sound common sense" and a paycheck at the end of the month. I may be wrong, and if so, I apologize.

Hagar, it's cool. I really can use good, clear Zen bamboo smacks of simple clarity sometimes. I am a romantic I have to admit. I tend to embellish my stories with more texture and aesthetic than required. It raises my bhakti I think. I like the Japanese minimalist frame though. I think I can get into it. Driving to the airport on 3 hours of sleep this morning. Grey sky pouring rain. Windshield wipers on high and the familiar sound of tires on wet highway. Leaning against a trash can in baggage claim, washing a bland muffin down with a chalky protein drink. Not used to this beard, wiping my face after each bite and sip. People bustling, rushing, tugging luggage. Where is Lezlie anyway? I'm already tired of this floating world today.

 

The Japanese fiction I've read is really interesting. I think traditionally the Japanese really prefer prefer cutting through excessive ornateness. Short, to the point sentences and yet a rich story still unfolds. It's just another kind of story though. I think there is this conception that Zen is somehow closer to describing Truth because it seeks to to do so more simply. But really it's just a different form. One cultures particular preference. Maybe in the sense that Zen's simplicity makes more space for Silence it has some unique merits. I think different styles of trying to frame The Unframeable probably all have various strengths and weaknesses. Magick doesn't have to be just a rebellion from the truth of boring reality. Mundane and ordinary is just one way of looking at what's there. Magick is another. And all the while the Tao slips through the cracks of both and neither.

 

Sitting in zazen tonight. Cutting through this illusion. Nothing special here.

 

Meditating this evening. I am inspired to think of the complex choreography of neurons occuring in my temporal cortex.

 

A long day is almost over. Taking a seat to refresh my soul. Shakti and Shiva come to dance blissfully up and down my sushumna. I am absorbed into their ecstatic Love.

 

Sean

[hagar]

Hagar, it's cool. I really can use good, clear Zen bamboo smacks of simple clarity sometimes. I am a romantic I have to admit. I tend to embellish my stories with more texture and aesthetic than required. It raises my bhakti I think. I like the Japanese minimalist frame though. I think I can get into it. Driving to the airport on 3 hours of sleep this morning. Grey sky pouring rain. Windshield wipers on high and the familiar sound of tires on wet highway. Leaning against a trash can in baggage claim, washing a bland muffin down with a chalky protein drink. Not used to this beard, wiping my face after each bite and sip. People bustling, rushing, tugging luggage. Where is Lezlie anyway? I'm already tired of this floating world today.

 

The Japanese fiction I've read is really interesting. I think traditionally the Japanese really prefer prefer cutting through excessive ornateness. Short, to the point sentences and yet a rich story still unfolds. It's just another kind of story though. I think there is this conception that Zen is somehow closer to describing Truth because it seeks to to do so more simply. But really it's just a different form. One cultures particular preference. Maybe in the sense that Zen's simplicity makes more space for Silence it has some unique merits. I think different styles of trying to frame The Unframeable probably all have various strengths and weaknesses. Magick doesn't have to be just a rebellion from the truth of boring reality. Mundane and ordinary is just one way of looking at what's there. Magick is another. And all the while the Tao slips through the cracks of both and neither.

 

Sitting in zazen tonight. Cutting through this illusion. Nothing special here.

 

Meditating this evening. I am inspired to think of the complex choreography of neurons occuring in my temporal cortex.

 

A long day is almost over. Taking a seat to refresh my soul. Shakti and Shiva come to dance blissfully up and down my sushumna. I am absorbed into their ecstatic Love.

 

Sean

9503[/snapback]

 

Sean

 

My post was written out of humor and respect, and I think my "critizising" was more to myself than you.

 

When I first started getting interested in oriental thought, I landed on Zen, which has always attracted me. Mainly due to its minimalist and almost post-modern attitude to language. And it's aesthetics. Which fits nicely into the Scandinavian less-is-more mentality, running through our entire culture. Even the laps. I remember sitting together with the father of a student friend of mine that was a Lap. He was an old reindeer herder and I felt really unconfortable in his silence, while his son was out bying dinner for us. We stared into the fire, and since I was the host, I felt uncomfortable not finding anything to chat about while waiting. After about 45 minutes in silence and staring into the fire together, the old Lap finally said "The fire burns well". I had to concur.

 

After some time of practice, there is always something magical happening. Like a natural flowering of potential. In my experience, it has always some kind of creative quality. Which has taught me to understand the minimalism in Zen, and appreciate it even more. It manifests in a quality of the presence of mind. Like when you find ourself sitting down by a tree in the woods, sipping coffee from the thermos and suddenly it strikes you as you watch an ant fall of a leaf. Or maybe when this morning, brushing my teeth, I watched the pink Orchid standing in my bathroom, as a housewarming gift for me, my girlfriend and our unborn child: It could not have been different! How wonderful.

 

h

[Cameron]

Though some may see these things as contradictory I really don't . My critique of "Magik" is not really a critique so much as I don't know much about it. If we are talking about something specific like Western Occultism, Golden Dawn, Hermeticism etc there are interesting things in those traditions I have read about. I guess it boils down to what do you want to spend your time doing.

 

Zen is very direct. As Adyashanti says spirituality is about subtraction not addition. So many of these other teachings feel like addition, adding more to the too much that is already there, to me. Perhaps this is useful in providing some kind of refernce point to experience spiritual stages . Zen just says forget the refernce point and let go of everything.

 

But I still find shamanism and magik interesting. It's all just the stage of study for me now anyhow I havent penetrated very deeply onto any specific path.

 

Though Adyashanti's path is the pathless pass of just trusting and letting things happen of there own accord.

[Guest Nnonnth]

My critique of "Magik" is not really a critique so much as I don't know much about it.

 

 

 

Yeah, you can say that again! best NN

[Cameron]

My critique of "Magik" is not really a critique so much as I don't know much about it.

[Guest Nnonnth]

Hey Hagar -

 

After about 45 minutes in silence and staring into the fire together, the old Lap finally said "The fire burns well". I had to concur.

 

That's hilarious! Especially because the Sami have the reputation of being the some of the greatest shamanic sorcerers in Europe BTW...

 

best NN

[sean]

I've noticed many people on this and especially other boards complaining that hallucinations arent 'real' and somehow the insights gained from meditation/chi kung are 'real'. I completely disagree - we, as humans, constantly deal with hallucinations - and react to them as if they were real. A simple example: you see a beautiful member of the opposite sex and you want to approach to start talking, and suddenly your head fills with all these hallucinations - auditory, kinesthetic and visual (most ppl think that you can only have visual hallucinations) and you end up getting scared (of the hallucinations) and not approaching.

 

We're so used to calling our stories and mental games reality, that we forget they are just illusions that we created. For me, saying "I saw a glowing face of my higher self in my room" has as much merit (or claim to 'reality') as "I couldnt go up to that person because I would have made them feel uncomfortable" (isn't it a little arrogant to assume that you know exactly what will happen to that person without having even talked to them?!)

9487[/snapback]

This gave me chills. I'm familiar with this idea but you drove it home powerfully. I remember listening to some masterful NLP work several years ago that addressed this ... the therapist asked someone how they know the difference between what they see "inside" their head and what they see "outside". In a flash it struck me that what we call the "outside" world is just the result of information processed by our eyes and run through our mind's eye with submodalities that "flag" this information as "outside". So we are having powerful powerful visual hallucinations constantly ... ie: when we zone out for a minute on a rich visual memory of what we did the night before. But "sane" people sort this information in such a way that we can make a distinction ... we perceive the memory as "inside" and the result of visual processing as "outside". Obviously this "hallucination sorting" is vital for primitive survival, but it's hallucination sorting all the same. Interesting food for thought, thanks.

[sean]

After some time of practice, there is always something magical happening. Like a natural flowering of potential. In my experience, it has always some kind of creative quality. Which has taught me to understand the minimalism in Zen, and appreciate it even more. It manifests in a quality of the presence of mind. Like when you find ourself sitting down by a tree in the woods, sipping coffee from the thermos and suddenly it strikes you as you watch an ant fall of a leaf. Or maybe when this morning, brushing my teeth, I watched the pink Orchid standing in my bathroom, as a housewarming gift for me, my girlfriend and our unborn child: It could not have been different! How wonderful.

Great story. I am constantly amazed how pregnant with creativity this "Emptiness" we dip into is.

[hagar]

Message taken

 

Cheers

 

h