Pop Culture Magick by Taylor Ellwood

Since my informal review of Pop Culture Magick by Taylor Ellwood was such a big hi [...]

To answer your question as to why one might take something fun and focus on using it for a goal, I’ll just say that I find a lot of ceremonial magic extremely boring. Don’t get me wrong I’ve used ceremonial magic, but I’d much rather have fun when I do magic. This is the main reason I use pop culture in a lot of my magical workings, though I will also say that I don’t always use pop culture when I do magic. sometimes a kiss is just a kiss and game is just a game. All the same, the idea of using something that’s not normally associated with magic has always motivated me, because I think magic as a discipline needs to evolve and I frankly don’t see that happening much. I will say though that PCM isn’t just about magical pathworkings. That’s one aspect among many. I guess it all depends on your take as to what ritual magic is.

To answer Human’s query, yes I am familiar with Serial experiments Lain and looking forward to picking up Technolyze as well. I loved Lain. I thought the idea of an egregore of the internet was exceedlingly cool. I may even do some work in that direction with Lain at some point, using her as an information egregore.

no such thing as bad publicity… as long as you spell the name right!!!! lol.

After all, I must be “nerdy” to be interested in pop culture and science and everything else I’m into.

um, well, yeah….

are you just reading this blog for the first time Mr. Ellwood? Tim is pretty nerdy too..

so am i… shit, i never heard of your book, and this review at least makes me want to check it out…

Ellwood…. what do you think of “Serial Experiments Lain”?

one
human?

Tim, if I “put my ignorance on display,” I try to do it in the form of a question, even when I am not playing Jeopardy. Ignorant assertions just invite refutation instead of productive discussion (although there does not always have to be a firm distinction between the two).

And finally, a bit of advice: Read up on chaos magic. If you had read up on this particualr field of magic, you would find my approaches in PCM to be far less “pretend” than you think. The real key to ritual magic is to use what works for you, something I believe I wrote in that very book. I wonder, did you even do the exercises in the book, or did you just read it? If you did just read it, then perhaps you should go back and do the actual exercises before making further judgements. Certainly, the people who have picked up my book, in general, have enjoyed my approach and found it workable, as the book is written from a descriptive stance, as opposed to a prescriptive “this is how you have to do magic.” In the end though, magic is about what works for the individual practitioner. I’ve found that my approaches to pop culture work well, for me and for the majority of peopel who’ve read my book and worked through the exercises.

Incidentally, my next book Space/Time magic is coming out. You should check it out and tell me again how I’m making such a “big, fat dork” of myself. After all, I must be “nerdy” to be interested in pop culture and science and everything else I’m into. Heavens forbid that I should actually think that approaching magic from new perspectives might be a good thing to do, as opposed to sticking with what everyone else has done.

different people approach different ideas from different angles. if you like to do things systematically, good for you, i’m sure there’s something to be said for that. however i don’t think you should assume that just because other people are coming at it from a different perspective they are necessarily “systemless” or in some way off the mark.

lupa.. what’s wrong with saying you don’t like something, if you don’t, in fact, like it? i would sympathize more with your comment if this blog were titled “Tim Boucher’s Occult Book Reviews.”

But to give a book a horrible review basely completely on your biases is highly unprofessional.

Why do I have to be professional? I’m not a professional book reviewer. I’m just a guy trying to figure things out. Is there really such a thing as putting your biases aside - especially when reviewing something?

Rather than focus solely on symbolism, you also should have gone into more basic structure, such as techniques and practicality.

Didn’t I say I was going to come back and write a more complete review?

All ritual is is a way to distract the conscious mind while the subconscious goes to work.

I asked this elsewhere, but is it a good habit to be trying to trick yourself all the time? What kind of life does that turn into?

Its like saying that nobody should try chocolate just ebcause you don’t like it.

What’s wrong with that? Maybe nobody should try chocolate? I don’t know.

All ritual is is a way to distract the conscious mind while the subconscious goes to work. If pop culture icons are a successful method for some, so much the better. If it’s not your cop o’ chai, no harm in that. But you gave PCM a bad review simply because it wasn’t a flavor you liked. Its like saying that nobody should try chocolate just ebcause you don’t like it.

In all seriousness though, I’m sorry you seem to have been offended by my line of inquiry. It’s all questions questions questions. That’s what’s important to me right now. Maybe not to you. Who knows? Questions aren’t ever wrong. That’s the beauty. I don’t obviously know you or what you’re about. Maybe you rule. Maybe you break all the rules. I’m happy to admit my ignorance and put it on display. Are you?

Pick up some Francis King for history, everything you can find by Israel Regardie, Triumph of the Moon for the history of “modern Pagan witchcraft,” one of the biographies of Crowley (you’re on your own for making sense out of Crowley, or ask your friendly local Thelemite), and then some Carroll and Hine for the Chaos Current. Get drunk with Grant Morrison if you get a chance.

Anyway, read enough of this stuff that you at least begin to suspect that there are modern mages who are not just foolish dilettantes and “big fat dorks” who play at magick because they suck at life. That may help you put the “big fat dorks” you do meet in perspective, and tell them apart from serious people.

How much of ritual magick practice really just consists of an elaborate form of playing pretend? I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with playing or with pretending

I think magic is, to some degree, playing pretend, but perhaps not in the sense you mean.

I think it’s playing pretend is the sense of “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut”, and the goal of magic is, frequently, to “become” something else. Which is why I’ve always thought the “fake it till you make it” motto was subversively occultic.

But as far as “playing” itself, I agree completely with what I think you’re saying about the inanity of purposeful or scheduled fun. Whatever happened to just playing?

[And those damn kids need to get off my lawn too!]

But I do think finding a way back to that emotional clarity of play that we all seem to have as kids is in and of itself a magical act. Maybe that’s what some magicians are trying to do, without knowing it - returning to that authentic emotional state.

And for the record, I remember reading Highlights in the dentists office. I remember liking the “finding the hidden objects in the picture” bit….

You think that says something about me, personally?

Maybe it’s not necessarily about achieving a particular end, but uniting the sacred and mundane elements of life to make things more exciting.

I tend more towards the chaotic, Austin Osman Spare school of magick, if one could indeed call it that. I can still evoke some of that childish joy one feels when playing, and that is magick - no need for that pompous, hierarchical bullshit (unless that’s your thing, of course).

The underlying purpose behind it all is simply the same as when playing when a child; because it’s fun, and it gives me pleasure. Because, let’s face it, if magick isn’t fun to do, it’s not being done right. (Sometimes it can seem like drudgery, but what doesn’t?)

So putting the emphasis on making things happen, is, for me, to partake in that joyous process and experience when things undergo what Alfred North Whitehead called “the formality of actually occuring,” that is, making thought and ideas condense into physical reality. That’s what magick for me is all about. Whatever props or symbols I might use to this end is just happenstantial, and not the main focus of the magickal workings.

yeah i can definitely remember seeing it in the waiting room at the pediatrician. wow i HATED going to the doctor when i was little, except that they gave us dum dums when we left. my doctor was really nice though. he looked like santa and there was a big framed poster of the spaghetti scene from lady & the tramp in one of the exam rooms.

i feel nostalgic now.

i can actually remember having this vague sort of unarticulated feeling of distaste every time it showed up in the mail, but i guess i just kind of resigned myself to it and hoped that maybe there would be some moderately okay stickers.

it always struck me as incredibly UN-fun, because i felt like they were trying to pull the wool over my eyes. i mean don’t try to trick me into thinking that studying phonics is somehow equivalent to eating ice cream or going for a couple rounds of of slip ‘n slide.