Ritualistic Magic? Whats the point?

[Cat Pillar]

DNB,

 

There is no doubt in my mind that meditation, and exploring inner mental realms, imagery etc may provide profound insights into the nature of reality.

 

Also meditation may help you develop your intuition to know when to act, and how, and when not to act, etc.

 

But no amount of lighting candles, and chanting spells, and drawing sigils, seals, or anything else is going to have any reproducible effect on reality.

 

Look at it this way...lighting candles, chanting spells, drawing sigils and seals, is simply another tool or vehicle with which to explore inner realms and the nature of reality.

 

You do realize that "meditation" or trance states are extremely important in the practice of ritual magick, right?

[eye_of_the_storm]

I don't believe MPG was suggesting... like come on really?

 

Just examples of failed

 

Practitioners of Qigong seem to be more then willing to have a discussion about their practices

 

I agree with DNB external tools- for internal focus....

 

I think that basically is it.

 

I would like to address now the work of Dr Emoto...

 

I am sure a number here have come across his stuff...

 

Masaru Emoto (江本 勝 Emoto Masaru^?, born July 22, 1943) is a Japanese author and entrepreneur, best known for his claims that human consciousness has an effect on the molecular structure of water. Emoto's hypothesis has evolved over the years of his research. Initially Emoto claimed that high-quality water forms beautiful and intricate crystals, while low-quality water has difficulty forming crystals. According to Emoto, an ice crystal of distilled water exhibits a basic hexagonal structure with no intricate branching. Emoto claims that positive changes to water crystals can be achieved through prayer, music, or by attaching written words to a container of water. wiki

 

Very interesting stuff... so we now have documented scientific proof that ones consciousness does effect its environment... both internal + external.

 

Peace

Edited August 31, 2012 by White Wolf Running On Air

[Seth Ananda]

 

But no amount of lighting candles, and chanting spells, and drawing sigils, seals, or anything else is going to have any reproducible effect on reality.

 

Reproducible in what way?

A lot of Magick works with spirits, and regardless of what you 'think' they are {Imagination/archetypes/real...} they 'act' as if they are fully independent beings, just like you or I. This is where things get tricky. You might be able to get a spirit to do something 'unusual' but if you try again the next day... well the results will be as random as me trying to get you to do something over and over again.

 

On this note, much Ritual is triggering powerful Inner states, many that would show up on an eeg, but even the states themselves, (being part of the psyche) are subject to constant change...

It is especially true about Magick, that you can never step into the same river twice...

 

For Instance Many many years ago, I was possessed by Pan. It was an astounding state, to experience 'being' in all the trees and plants within a few hundred yards, and my sense of smell went through the roof. I could smell where a woman was at in her cycle from 50 feet for instance, { I asked a few afterwards for confirmation!} and men got very territorial with me suddenly.

When the possession ended, my sense of smell diminished but still remained much stronger than it had ever been, for several years.

I see this experience as a 'Gift' from a luminous being. So the next ritual to Pan I did, do you think I was worrying about whether 'I' could reproduce this experience? No.

 

Also, how would you determine a master from the two traditions? Say they get somewhere similar but have different skill sets, based on how they got there? For Instance In Taoism there is a lot of emphasis on building a mass of energy in the LDT, and thats a bit different to magick. Magick on the other hand, {depending on the school} is trying to create a fusion of the Soul and Spirit, which to me sounds a lot like the Hun and the Po, but the way there is different. Say a magician achieves this 'first marriage' in other ways than mastering his LDT. Should she be expected to display LDT skills to be valid?

 

And finally, Magick turns on the Minds 'Inner content' in random and surprising ways. The logical and scientific mind can not keep up with it.

This is far more exciting and rewarding than living in a sceptics universe, and it does not exclude practising whatever 'real' Inner alchemy you think you have found. In fact it would compliment it.

[eye_of_the_storm]

//

Edited August 31, 2012 by White Wolf Running On Air

[Seth Ananda]

Seth--Indeed. Ironically I wouldn't be where I am today without Chaos Magick! This is why I say that if CM resonates with anyone very strongly one might as well take the plunge. In my personal experience, every magician regardless of the system chosen will obtain initial results as they push their boundaries but this has a limited shelf-life if you will. I have noted that ALL magicians (CMs quite early on) run out of magical juice and then must put in serious WORK to move forward.

 

To me, when I have seen this happen [also a lot], is when the magician has become overly entrenched in his practice 'being a certain way' according to... which usually coincides with a loss of creativity and autonomy...

 

What could this be? I feel it is the Higher Self unfolding within the practitioner and forcing him/her to choose the path of union with their divine universal consciousness or be crushed under the ever-multiplying desires of the lower-self. IMO every magician will be presented with this critical choice and if they remain attached to magic, disaster awaits. Crowley is one example of a magician who simply REFUSED to cross over onto this path when his time came.

 

I am not sure If I relate to this.

I guess for me, my spiritual path has always been first and foremost, and I don't see Magick, high or low, as being an obstacle, requiring an either/or scenario...

 

That being said, I ask beginners why wait? Why not pay tribute to the divinity inside you daily and start working towards union with your Holy Guardian Angel right now instead of years of dancing around the issue with Sponge Bob rituals and cocaine-powered sigil-launching techniques or group masturbation rituals and other excuses to act out repressed childhood fantasies whilst calling it magic?

Hey! Don't knock group masturbation! lol. And I agree, if one is ready for such Issues. Some don't want to deal with that stuff yet, and lesser stuff may trigger their interests.

 

Sure it's "fun" but if such activities cannot answer the questions: who am I? Where did I come from? and where am I going?--or--if they do not prepare one adequately for one's inevitable transition at the end of one's life (DEATH), then they are a distraction.

Sure, if one does 'fun' Magick to the exclusion of all else... But In the good ones, even then, the 'pop Magick' stuff may trigger deeper experiences that trigger deeper questions...

 

As always Theurgy, You rock!

Seth.

[Seth Ananda]

 

Some people here are trying to gauge whether or not it is worthwhile/ necessary/ helpful for ones spiritual development.... and how so

 

The response so far hasn't really addressed these

Really. It seemed that people have been putting in recomendations and valuable resources... What are you not clear about?

 

As you so highly recommend it and proclaim your vast practice/experience of it... I assumed you'd be willing to share some insight...

I do think it is wonderful, yes. I have lots of experience yes, but I would not say 'vast' unfortunately... Hopefully oneday

 

generally the present generation builds up the achievements of the past...

 

What if all those folks you have read etc... the foundation of your own practice... simply told you to fk off?

 

that is quite alright though... just be clear about it... I'll move on.

That has not been my intention at all! Sorry if it came off that way!

 

 

 

Fear isn't really a part of the equation... it just appears to me at this time, unfruitful/unwise to connect myself with unknown...not generally but sometimes vampiric entities

 

Devotion to anything other than the Inner Self...The Supreme Reality... is to miss the mark I believe.

 

There are many Nature worship Rituals. Just because you didn't find them in one place doesn't mean that they don't exist, or that you can't make them up even....

 

Worship... I equate with surrendering ones sovereignty

 

Honour/ Respect is fine

 

Edit for purposes of clarity

To me this is a bit sad. I personally am devoted, in a sense, to Everything.

 

I Worship at the Alter of Existence,

the large and the small,

the one and the many,

as in Worship I find

the perfect expression of my Heart.

[bakeneko]

I have heard of no western traditions producing anything meaninful from their students or their "masters".

 

No sense in wasting your time on a practice if no one ever has gotten any meaninful results from it.

 

Just my $0.02

 

Been there, done that... went to Asia. Agree with you.

[Seth Ananda]

Dunno if my contribution will be worth anything as I've only recently begun researching this very topic in order to get started. How odd that within only a few weeks of my interest in it this thread should turn up. Anyway...here's my 2 cents at the moment.

 

 

Ritualistic Magic has a long history in most societies around the globe and across time. Chaos Magick is only the latest phase. Typically by people who like the idea of going against the grain of whatever society (usually Western) they happen to be in.

 

People live in the world of the 5 senses (6 if you include thoughts/thought-forms). We can't practice what we don't have direct experience with. People don't have day-to-day experiences of relating concretely to Formlessness, etc. Formlessness is too abstract and thus is seldom a good tool for training in attaining higher consciousness/awareness.

 

 

So we use Ritual as another tool in the box to help us learn about the mundane, everyday world we live in as well as higher realities.

 

Ritual Magic is also known by the older name Theurgy.

 

In Western society one can read works by the Neo-Platonists explaining the uses of Theurgy to return to the Absolute, The Ein Sof, Brahman, Tao, etc. To put it in Taoist terms it is a tool to use in realizing the Tao.

 

Ideally in Theurgy one has already trained to a level where he/she has steadied the mind via concentration meditation and brings this developed skill into the realm of ritual action.

 

In short, by invoking specific patterns in specific movements with stilled awareness one's consciousness is aided toward being elevated to a higher level - as Plotinus would say - Returning to the One (aka God-Realization).

 

In this regard it is similar in some ways to the Tantric practice of Diety-Identification. The goals are similar. The meditator by identifying with a specific Diety is hoping to embody the qualities that Diety represents. So Buddhist tantrics will use a lot of Bodhisattvas and Buddhas for this purpose. Muslims similarly will invoke the 99 Names of Allah.

.

 

 

 

The idea as I understand it is to use Ritual to get us to the point where we don't need it anymore. Once it has served it's purpose - where every waking moment is actually realized as Embodying the One (we're getting close to Wu Wei here too imo - they may in fact be identical) like one does in the Ritual then it can be set aside.

 

But most people doing ritual magic seldom have the kind of concentrated awareness "chops" to really use the tool of ritual magic for it's intended purpose. Most people simply go through the motions and stay stuck at that level. I suspect this is one reason why the Buddha mentioned Ritual alone will not bring about enlightenment. Any action made with unskilled awareness will only net you more of the same.

 

 

The best explanation for understanding the theory of WHY ritual can actually help you realize the Tao that I've ever found is from the modern-day Hermetic Druid John Michael Greer.

 

He has two books that address precisely the subject of this thread.

 

They are:

 

Learning Ritual Magic: Fundamental Theory and Practice for the Solitary Apprentice

 

Circles of Power: Ritual Magic in the Western Tradition

 

Circles of Power started out as a theory chapter in Learning Ritual Magic but very soon he realized it was so extensive it deserved its own book. It's a thick book.

 

Some other recommended works for understanding ritual-work:

 

Mantra Yoga and Primal Sound: Secret of Seed (Bija) Mantras

 

The Esoteric Structure of the Alphabet and it's Hidden Mystical Language

 

Magickal Use of Thought-Forms: A Proven System of Mental and Spirtual Empowerment (awesome book but you'd better have your concentration meditation chops down COLD!)

 

Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus

 

Philosophy and Theurgy in Late Antiquity

 

On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans and Assyrians

 

The Golden Chain: An Anthology of Pythagorian and Platonic Philosophy

 

If you wonder about the last recommendation let me sneak in the Amazon reviewers points

 

 

 

and

 

 

 

Seen is this light it's easy to see the philosphy profs I took classes from in University were just as clueless about the real truths Plato and his lineages were teaching as are most pastors, tv preachers and imams of today are about their source 'holy' documents.

 

Great Post Serene

[eye_of_the_storm]

Edited August 31, 2012 by White Wolf Running On Air

[theurgy]

I have heard of no western traditions producing anything meaninful from their students or their "masters".

 

No sense in wasting your time on a practice if no one ever has gotten any meaninful results from it.

 

 

This may be the most outright ridiculous statement I have yet read on TB. I cannot tell whether you are deliberately trying to incite or if you are truly declaring your ignorance on the subject (and ignorance it truly is).

 

Here's a list of names. I leave it to your own ingenium to determine if the following people "produced nothing meaningful" or "wasted their time" :

 

Heraclitus, Iamblichus, Pythagoras of Samos, Plato, Ptolemy, Albertus Magnus, Nicolas Flamel, Roger Bacon, Dante Alighieri, Giordano Bruno, John Dee, Frances Bacon, Marsilio Ficino, Leonardo DaVinci, Paracelsus, Emanuel Swedenborg, Jakob Böhme, Sir Isaac Newton, William Blake, William Butler Yeats, etc.

 

In other words...

 

...it's time to eat some more humble pie, guy.

[Thunder_Gooch]

Practitioner,

 

I am very open, but I would like to see a small shred of tangible evidence before hand.

 

As it stands western practices seem to produce some sort of very subtle effect on ones luck, if anything at all.

 

 

 

 

He is not asking you to drink urine through your nose. He is not asking you to absorb water through your penis. He is asking you to be open and explore for yourself the possibilities of this certain kind of thinking and acting.

 

You're a big fan of alchemical practices. For many schools that start to harness and cultivate the "internal elixir", a sign of developing power in your practice is intense heat being generated in the LDT. You also know about this. What is the sign that you believe and know that your training gives you results? What if I were to say, "this is just a bunch of BS.. sitting down and looking like some kind of mad man will never ever give any kind of results, and only fools practice this sort of thing!"?

 

Of course, your reaction would be to say that it did give you results, and that you did notice something that did not exist before. But you would be unable to ever ever convince the skeptic to ever try and practice to the extent that he would ever experience something remarkable. Well, I am here to tell you that magic works the same way.

 

In order to progress in any rate in these sorts of practices, you have to have a willingness to experiment, an open mind, and a beginner's attitude to it all. If you pre-judge whatever you're doing, obviously you are screwing any chance at success you'll ever have; this is because you are working with the power of intent itself. When you divide your intent upon itself, it is the same thing as a house. It falls completely flat. Also certain kinds of people will find much more success in certain traditions, and paradigms of framework than others. It is always this way.

 

The thing about how magic works is that it will always involve synchronicity. You do a ritual and you find your "true love", or you have a sudden windfall of money very unexpectedly. Can you prove that these were completely cause and effect? No. Or that one can determine completely cause and effect? No. What will happen as you grow in skill is that there will be a ton of synchrous events that happen to you that cannot be determined by a linear mode of thinking. What you will notice, however, is that certain things may tend to happen to you more and more.

 

No scientist in the whole world could ever prove to you the effects of so-and-so are solely determined by some sort of ritual. These tend to be intensely personal experiences, and you yourself cannot "prove" that it works beyond observing the greater amount of synchrous events. Only you can be an accurate judge of how things worked out or not. Now I know that this is poppycock to you most probably, but remember you do so very much believe in reincarnation, immortals, and the spirit world and so and so. Tell me, can it be so very different from who you are right now?

Edited August 29, 2012 by More_Pie_Guy

[Thunder_Gooch]

Theurgy,

 

I am open to the possibility that somewhere behind closed doors is a western system that may rival those of the east, for the time being though, I know of no such system.

 

My ignorance doesn't mean that one does not exist however, only that I am ignorant of it.

 

As it stands though, no amount of candle lighting, and chanting of spells and incantations, drawing of sigils, seals, talismans, or brewing of potions, etc is going to produce anything you can repeatedly demonstrate under laboratory conditions.

 

 

 

 

Also as to your list of famous magick practitioners please elaborate how magick worked for them.

 

Just because history remembers your name and you also practiced magick doesn't mean you were able to wield any real power with it.

 

 

This may be the most outright ridiculous statement I have yet read on TB. I cannot tell whether you are deliberately trying to incite or if you are truly declaring your ignorance on the subject (and ignorance it truly is).

 

Here's a list of names. I leave it to your own ingenium to determine if the following people "produced nothing meaningful" or "wasted their time" :

 

Heraclitus, Iamblichus, Pythagoras of Samos, Plato, Ptolemy, Albertus Magnus, Nicolas Flamel, Roger Bacon, Dante Alighieri, Giordano Bruno, John Dee, Frances Bacon, Marsilio Ficino, Leonardo DaVinci, Paracelsus, Emanuel Swedenborg, Jakob Böhme, Sir Isaac Newton, William Blake, William Butler Yeats, etc.

 

In other words...

 

...it's time to eat some more humble pie, guy.

Edited August 29, 2012 by More_Pie_Guy

[Thunder_Gooch]

Something along these lines:

http://thetaobums.com/topic/24534-empirical-data/

 

 

Reproducible in what way?

A lot of Magick works with spirits, and regardless of what you 'think' they are {Imagination/archetypes/real...} they 'act' as if they are fully independent beings, just like you or I. This is where things get tricky. You might be able to get a spirit to do something 'unusual' but if you try again the next day... well the results will be as random as me trying to get you to do something over and over again.

 

On this note, much Ritual is triggering powerful Inner states, many that would show up on an eeg, but even the states themselves, (being part of the psyche) are subject to constant change...

It is especially true about Magick, that you can never step into the same river twice...

 

For Instance Many many years ago, I was possessed by Pan. It was an astounding state, to experience 'being' in all the trees and plants within a few hundred yards, and my sense of smell went through the roof. I could smell where a woman was at in her cycle from 50 feet for instance, { I asked a few afterwards for confirmation!} and men got very territorial with me suddenly.

When the possession ended, my sense of smell diminished but still remained much stronger than it had ever been, for several years.

I see this experience as a 'Gift' from a luminous being. So the next ritual to Pan I did, do you think I was worrying about whether 'I' could reproduce this experience? No.

 

Also, how would you determine a master from the two traditions? Say they get somewhere similar but have different skill sets, based on how they got there? For Instance In Taoism there is a lot of emphasis on building a mass of energy in the LDT, and thats a bit different to magick. Magick on the other hand, {depending on the school} is trying to create a fusion of the Soul and Spirit, which to me sounds a lot like the Hun and the Po, but the way there is different. Say a magician achieves this 'first marriage' in other ways than mastering his LDT. Should she be expected to display LDT skills to be valid?

 

And finally, Magick turns on the Minds 'Inner content' in random and surprising ways. The logical and scientific mind can not keep up with it.

This is far more exciting and rewarding than living in a sceptics universe, and it does not exclude practising whatever 'real' Inner alchemy you think you have found. In fact it would compliment it.

[Birch]

MPG, I was thinking that if you would like more 'scientific' experimental conditions, you might lean more towards the current trend in 'social science' where folks are experimenting with stuff like curses. Only half-kidding, the experiment I'm referring to is the one where kids' math scores get affected 'just' by telling them stuff they can identify with prior to the test. I believe it has been tried with lots of variants like race, gender, etc. 'girls aren't good at math' apparently made a difference. A testable one. As did some 'racial' comments.

Yes, it requires identification with the 'curse' but if you're 'obviously' already a member of the 'cursed' category, it's no big step to believe something else about 'yourself'.

 

I guess it doesn't 'sound' like 'proper magic' much but it's the kind being done everyday.

 

So far, I haven't seen an answer (that I can understand as one) to the question I asked about the nature of the unconscious 'archetype' above. I kind of sort of get the idea that Seth thinks the entities are independent of whatever unconscious 'qualities' a person gives them and from what DNB says, it looks like one should be making all efforts to render the archytype as 'conscious' as possible with the images, symbols and sounds etc.

 

I'm sort of on the fence:-)

[Thunder_Gooch]

MPG, I was thinking that if you would like more 'scientific' experimental conditions, you might lean more towards the current trend in 'social science' where folks are experimenting with stuff like curses. Only half-kidding, the experiment I'm referring to is the one where kids' math scores get affected 'just' by telling them stuff they can identify with prior to the test. I believe it has been tried with lots of variants like race, gender, etc. 'girls aren't good at math' apparently made a difference. A testable one. As did some 'racial' comments.

Yes, it requires identification with the 'curse' but if you're 'obviously' already a member of the 'cursed' category, it's no big step to believe something else about 'yourself'.

 

I guess it doesn't 'sound' like 'proper magic' much but it's the kind being done everyday.

 

So far, I haven't seen an answer (that I can understand as one) to the question I asked about the nature of the unconscious 'archetype' above. I kind of sort of get the idea that Seth thinks the entities are independent of whatever unconscious 'qualities' a person gives them and from what DNB says, it looks like one should be making all efforts to render the archytype as 'conscious' as possible with the images, symbols and sounds etc.

 

I'm sort of on the fence:-)

 

Sort of reminds me of a discussion with an occult friend friend of mine. (who by the way lives in his parents basement, and is convinced this next spell will let him win the lottery, and hollow out a mountain and fill it with sex slaves)

 

I asked him what powers Aleister Crowley had, supposedly he was able to make another person trip if he walked behind them mirroring their rhythm, as he walked. I asked my friend, the most famous magick user of our time? And that was the extent of his abilities!?

 

I think most people get into magick with the hopes of developing eastern style abilities from practice, and wind up more with trying to subtly affect their reality via memetics, and psychology, and trying to influence their luck/karma with lots of ritual practice.

 

Hey and if they enjoy it more power to them. It's just not my cup of tea.

[Disabled Not Broken]

Sort of reminds me of a discussion with an occult friend friend of mine. (who by the way lives in his parents basement, and is convinced this next spell will let him win the lottery, and hollow out a mountain and fill it with sex slaves)

 

I asked him what powers Aleister Crowley had, supposedly he was able to make another person trip if he walked behind them mirroring their rhythm, as he walked. I asked my friend, the most famous magick user of our time? And that was the extent of his abilities!?

 

I think most people get into magick with the hopes of developing eastern style abilities from practice, and wind up more with trying to subtly affect their reality via memetics, and psychology, and trying to influence their luck/karma with lots of ritual practice.

 

Hey and if they enjoy it more power to them. It's just not my cup of tea.

 

2 things, my friend:

 

If I did a ritual for money, today....

&

Tonight, the mail comes, and inside my mailbox, is a a card, with $10, tucked inside.

 

Now, that envelope, has been postmarked- [received at the Post Office]

- 4 days prior

 

You, and I, ponder this...

 

You say "well, DNB... this could not be your magick working- because someone mailed this to you, 4 days, before you even did the ritual"

 

But, I say- "magick transcends time and space... so 4 days ago- the universe knew... I was to do this money ritual, and aligned [the circumstances, -according to] my will- and timed it, for today"

 

Who's right?

 

Naysayers, say you

 

Magickians, say me

 

Thus, the eternal circle debate

[Disabled Not Broken]

So far, I haven't seen an answer (that I can understand as one) to the question I asked about the nature of the unconscious 'archetype' above. I kind of sort of get the idea that Seth thinks the entities are independent of whatever unconscious 'qualities' a person gives them and from what DNB says, it looks like one should be making all efforts to render the archytype as 'conscious' as possible with the images, symbols and sounds etc.

 

I'm sort of on the fence:-)

 

If you project, your consciousness, back- to before the entity/archetype-- assumed other variables- it would be rendered, neutral, to [future] foreign influences...

 

This, may appear, to be '*time travel', but, it really isn't...

 

*See my above post to MPG:

 

http://thetaobums.com/topic/24650-ritualistic-magic-whats-the-point/page__st__80#entry356820

Edited August 29, 2012 by Disabled Not Broken

[Thunder_Gooch]

I am looking for systems that can establish repeatable causual relationships.

 

If I do this, then this will happen as a result...

 

Direct cause and effect, stimulus and responce, feedback loops.

 

Magick as I understand it does not provide this, and as such I am not interested in it.

 

If other people enjoy and and get use out of it, more power to them

 

 

 

2 things, my friend:

 

If I did a ritual for money, today....

&

Tonight, the mail comes, and inside my mailbox, is a a card, with $10, tucked inside.

 

Now, that envelope, has been postmarked- [received at the Post Office]

- 4 days prior

 

You, and I, ponder this...

 

You say "well, DNB... this could not be your magick working- because someone mailed this to you, 4 days, before you even did the ritual"

 

But, I say- "magick transcends time and space... so 4 days ago- the universe knew... I was to do this money ritual, and aligned [the circumstances, -according to] my will- and timed it, for today"

 

Who's right?

 

Naysayers, say you

 

Magickians, say me

 

Thus, the eternal circle debate

[宁]

whaaat? just synchronicities? no real juju? meh...

[Cat Pillar]

whaaat? just synchronicities? no real juju? meh...

 

Different strokes for different folks...one man's synchronicities could be another's juju.

 

Just saying, both eastern and western practices are essentially varying means to an end.

 

I am looking for systems that can establish repeatable causual relationships.

 

If I do this, then this will happen as a result...

 

Direct cause and effect, stimulus and responce, feedback loops.

 

Magick as I understand it does not provide this, and as such I am not interested in it.

 

If other people enjoy and and get use out of it, more power to them

 

You might have gotten fewer caustic replies had you opened with that.

 

It's one thing to say that Magick isn't your cup of tea, and another to attack the practices as useless and ineffective, which is what you seemed to be doing at first.

 

Not everyone is interested in scientifically validating their results...that doesn't mean they don't still get results.

[Birch]

"Not everyone is interested in scientifically validating their results...that doesn't mean they don't still get results. "

 

I reckon it's worth getting back into that 'what is' 'scientific validation' discussion:-) I mean, of itself, the 'single hypothesis' based experiment has to be the most difficult thing to even attempt to bring about as a basic experimental condition before you even get to the rest of it.

 

--Opinion alert ----

[Cat Pillar]

"Not everyone is interested in scientifically validating their results...that doesn't mean they don't still get results. "

 

I reckon it's worth getting back into that 'what is' 'scientific validation' discussion:-) I mean, of itself, the 'single hypothesis' based experiment has to be the most difficult thing to even attempt to bring about as a basic experimental condition before you even get to the rest of it.

 

--Opinion alert ----

 

Sure, I think that's a worthwhile discussion. In this context I mean "scientific validation" in the stricter 'objective' sense that I think MPG pretty clearly laid out:

 

"I am looking for systems that can establish repeatable causual relationships.

 

If I do this, then this will happen as a result...

 

Direct cause and effect, stimulus and responce, feedback loops."

 

Magick by its nature doesn't really seem to work that way. You can get consistent results, but they're not going to take the exact same form every time, and they may only have meaning to you. In my opinion, the real worth of ritual magick practices aren't in physical manifestations but rather expansion of consciousness and experiences.

 

Granted, you have to take ANYTHING I say on this subject with a huge grain of salt. I'm not an experienced practitioner, I've studied it a little and worked with Step 1 of Bardon's "Initiation Into Hermetics," but I'm not like DNB or Theurgy or Seth Ananda who truly walk the talk.

 

I just really enjoy talking about it because I'm still fascinated with Magick. Even though my path right now consists mostly of Taoist alchemical practices, there are still things I'd love to explore within some of the Western paths.

 

One thing at a time, though. I want to dig my current well deep before I start expanding to other locations.

[Thunder_Gooch]

that doesn't mean they don't still get results.

 

Casting a money spell and a getting a check in the mail, or casting a love spell and meeting your spouse, doing a rain dance and it raining, aren't really what I am looking for in a practice.

 

I will concede that there may indeed be some school of western magick that gets results that would interest me and I am just ignorant of it, that is indeed possible. I hope that is the case.

 

But to the best of my knowledge, no western occult/magick "masters" I have ever heard about have ever achieved anything I consider even slightly meaningful.

 

If you consider things famous magick users have accomplished as being meaningful we can agree to disagree, based on our subjective definitions of what is meaningful and important and what isn't.

 

Fair enough?

Edited August 30, 2012 by More_Pie_Guy

[Meroe]

Ritual Magic is in no way unique to western occultism. the Indonesians, Greeks, some Indian sects, definitely the Egyptians, the Celts, French Cathars, Hawaiian Kahunas, & the various shamanic tribes that preceded practically every civilization used ritual magic in one degree or another to definite effect. there also have been many Taoist sects in the past who have used ritual magic, & very often used Talismanic Magic, called "Fu's."

 

Their style of using External Alchemy & emphasizing Ritual magic actually used to be in the majority in terms of Popularity before the Quanzhen school grew to be the most practiced school, which does not use much ritual magic/external alchemy in favor of internal alchemy & the internal Martial Arts. which i believed really began when the Dragon Gate Sect's leader, Qiu Chuji, saved Taoism, & probably most of chinese culture, from the Wrath of Genghis Khan. I have read Historical documentation of the extraordinary feats of a Daoist wizard in the time of the warring states era if anybody is interested. of course they weren't even called daoists in that time though.

[Cat Pillar]

Casting a money spell and a getting a check in the mail, or casting a love spell and meeting your spouse, doing a rain dance and it raining, aren't really what I am looking for in a practice.

 

I will concede that there may indeed be some school of western magick that gets results that would interest me and I am just ignorant of it, that is indeed possible. I hope that is the case.

 

But to the best of my knowledge, no western occult/magick "masters" I have ever heard about have ever achieved anything I consider even slightly meaningful.

 

If you consider things famous magick users have accomplished as being meaningful we can agree to disagree, based on our subjective definitions of what is meaningful and important and what isn't.

 

Fair enough?

 

That's pretty much exactly what I was going for. Just recognizing that for you, these practices may have no use or meaning, but that does not make them meaningless or useless in the general sense, which is what you seemed to imply at first.