In this book on Evocation that I paid a shitload of money for (vol. II I might add), it is posited that only a ‘mature’ soul would be allowed to progress beyond this ’sphere’ or qliphot or whatever (read shell), and that I regard to be karmically aware, and already beyond “getting jane to perform sexual favors” or “going invisible” to rob a bank or something. And beyond, as much as possible, tanha, read: desire. It’s a Buddhist thing. Also, the GD and OTO/AA symbols, signs, and clothes/accoutrements are supposed to provide reassurance to higher “intelligences” that indeed the seeker is “well and truly qualified” to pass.

cya.

-tc
syseng@msn.com

“mother life, hold firmly onto me”
-yes

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When you first get into it you are very nervous about following the rules, because you are kind of flying blind and you aren’t sure you did it right

and you mess up a lot

then eventually when you do get the hang of it it starts to work in a very dramatic way

and intuition is a HUGE part of that, you learn to feel the countours and personalities of your “assistants” and who you are “negotiating” with

then they will themselves tell and teach you how to improve

sit at the foot of your bed and talk to you in the nighttime

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Well, you know, I could spend ages trying to get the light on by simply thinking about it, but that would be nonsense, wouldn’t it? It’d be far simpler, and less time consuming, to just go over to the light switch and flick it on.

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turning on a light takes five minutes why would you spend 45 minutes trying to grease the wheels so that somebody else wanders in the room and does it, or the electrical wiring does it by some fluke?

Do it yourself. Magic is not for tricks. Its for things that you need to survive all the ways up Maslow’s hierarchy

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a way of tricking and short circuiting your active, rational, logical mind in order to accomplish something.

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You can read about Huna magic that is very instructive

they talk about tree centers of will in your spirit

the mind sends instructions down to another center in your stomach

which is the engine with all the juice an dpower

but also stubborn and easily distracted like a little kid

but if you can lead it it can really work wonders to improve the lives of yourself and everyone around you

For Love or Money?

Lot’s of great responses to my critique of ritual magick. Tons of trails for further exploration. One of the th [...]

Sounding a bit judgmental there, aren’t we.

Of course. I have no qualms about being judgemental. Nor do I have any about being wrong. I’m often both. Great insights from everybody. I ask questions cause I don’t understand…

It’s a way of shutting down the active mind long enough to bypass it and enact your “true” will.

You can use ritual, linguistics, drugs, music, yoga, exercise or almost anything to do that…

my feelings exactly — i don’t for a second discount the validity of ritual magick, i just suspect that a lot of people who THINK they’re doing it are really tinkering with stuff they don’t understand. i tend to think that there are, however, people out there who are quite adept at it. what i’m skeptical of, for one reason or another, is my own ability (or even willingness?) to enter the space where i would start to “get results”. is this something that most people experience before they’ve delved in, or is there a tendency for people who are “good” at it to believe in it/feel confident about it from the outset? or maybe there isn’t a trend in either direction and it’s 100% an individual basis thing? i have other “gifts” as i see it, medical intuition for one and other energy/healing stuff. i generally experience this part of myself as very amorphous and intuitive — sort of the opposite of ritualistic. i move according to hunches. maybe this is an incorrect perception, the perception of the gap between the two modes.

…

i don’t have any sort of conclusion about this, i think it just opens up more questions, so i’m just gonna throw it out there as it is.

When you as a magician (either civic or psychic) tell me that magick is “centered around actually doing things”, what exactly are those things? Are they rituals designed to bring you love? Here’s something more challenging: go actually talk to a woman and have a real relationship. Or is that going to ruin your spell-casting schedule?

What is that all about, eh? Sounding a bit judgmental there, aren’t we. “I don’t know what you do whatsoever, apart from the preconceptions in my mind, but anyway, here’s something you should do …”

The former would be wanking, the latter would be pragmatic. Which is a distinction one has to make sometimes, as you can only spend so much time on “the astral” without “descending” to the “dross of matter”.

I don’t know thugh what is the distincton between high and low magic or ritual magic or whatever

Oh, sure- I just wanted to clarify the terminology.

or you could ask for a favor from someone and you tell them “hey if you deliver this package for me there willbe a nice meal for you when you come back”

Good analogy.

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That’s true.

I don’t know thugh what is the distincton between high and low magic or ritual magic or whatever

seems to me that love, health, money, success etc are all perfectly legitimate things to work for

and ask for help with for example the way you would ask for help from a friend

or you could ask for a favor from someone and you tell them “hey if you deliver this package for me there willbe a nice meal for you when you come back”

quid pro quo

like like people doing favors for each other in the real world too

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get rid of it?

what a buzzkill!

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I think you can and should do both if there’s something you’re trying to get done. You can do a ritual to get a job but God works through people, he send things to you through people, if you sit around in your apartment and do rituals to get a job but never send out resumes or go on interviews you will get nowhere.

I also think there’s a lot of truth to Peter Carroll’s idea who says that you have to believe in whatever paradigm it is that you’r working with or it won’t be effective.

Now i don’t know about Wicca or whatever but there are certian paradigms that make it easy to accept them on an experiential level. By this I mean that if you start checkin them out, the autonomous archetypal complexes (or the gods, if you want to just use the one syllable word) will get your attention and let you know that they are there.

I think Crowley was right when he said that they might be ideas or excretions of the collective unconscious or whatever, but if something sends you flying across a room then it becomes less of an abstraction.

For my money that is what makes ritual magic work, are the spirits themsleves, who have certain tastes - like people they want to be acknowledged, respected, etc, and they like somethings but not others and they don’t do anything for free. Just like the real world.

Other people have other paradigms based on faith etc. But mine is based on bartering. It works when I need it to so I see no reason to intellectualize it, I try to take it at face value.

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More importantly, it’s profoundly solipsistic to assume that your little magical powers can change the course of history and the world. It’s hubris. It’s not for us as individuals to decide.

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SAYS WHO it’s not for us individuals to decide. I’m sorry but this just sounds to me like a cop out a reason not to do anything.

If not me, then who? as the saying goes.

The only caveat I have is that the individuals are replaceable, its really the system taht has to change and that will take sustained effort by a LOT of people, not just one.

It’s actually inherently practical; you don’t have to “believe” in it. It becolmes self evident.

(Aside to Tim- ‘ritual magick’ isn’t really applicable to love, money, etc. There may be people who go that route, but that’s not what RM was created for. It’s go a theurgic purpose..in short, like sticking your finger in the cosmic light socket. The “dressing up” is ritual drama, stage dressing to frame story. However, it’s not about play, and ‘playing’ in this sense can be very dangerous- starting with screwing around with entities of unknown iontention all the way to experiencing ego-dissolution without guidance, which has landed a few folks in serious trouble- and I can’t emphasize that enough. (and this ‘pop magic’ bullshit is the worst, like giving gasoline and matches to children. There’s a reason this is an initiatory tradition.)

Compartmentalization

In my post on New Age Horse Shit, I got kind of carried away and may or may not have totally m [...]

I don’t mean to knock ritual altogether, as I think it’s useful outside of a “magickal” perspective as well. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book that allows us to internalize a story in a way that simply hearing it could never do.

I guess my criticism in this piece is not so much ritual as it is about getting caught up in all the clap-trap and missing out on what’s real and what’s important. That happens just as much outside of ritual settings as it does inside I’m sure.

The problem is, it doesn’t always work the way you expect it to. It doesn’t create shortcuts, it just greases the wheels, and if you were already driving in the wrong direction you’ll just get there faster.

When I was spiritually less mature, I often wondered whether a ritual to remove a despot could work. Even so I had the sense not to try anything; something held me back. I now know what the danger is: an assumption that the despots were not already onto magic and had not thoroughly developed their own firepower. I don’t know that the occult workings of modern governments are as well-developed and organized as Jeff Wells speculates, but there is definitely an infrastructure in place.

More importantly, it’s profoundly solipsistic to assume that your little magical powers can change the course of history and the world. It’s hubris. It’s not for us as individuals to decide.

Magic is a useful tool if approached carefully, with a very well-developed awareness of how the world works, and a sense of karma/balance and a very disciplined morality. Even then, it should be done cautiously. I don’t use it much. When I do, I consider very carefully every angle before proceding, and if it involves another person I get permission from that person first.

If you want to mix magic and politics and stay on this side of “righteousness”, I would suggest you use it to help focus your talents in this world (e.g. to help you become a better writer, a better organizer, etc.). Seemingly more direct applications of magic range from being a waste of time to being outright dangerous.

the notion that it’s possible to just dream your troubles away without engaging in any real substantive activity is pretty disempowering. i don’t think they care which particular thought-trap you get stuck in, as long as you’re stuck in one of them.

i wonder if people who are really into ritual magick would argue that doing things on THIS plane is actually more of an “energetic detour” ? are rituals supposed to be in some way energy-efficient ?

i think the most mystical magical thing in the world is human communication/connection. it seems like a lot of people get really caught up in the “practice” and they end up stopping communicating.. at which point you’ve sort of turned into a robot. how convenient for the archons.