Well, I get annoyed when people… say that magic is just NLP but what good does that annoyance do me?

What do you think of the idea that NLP is an ASPECT of magic? I think the idea that it’s JUST magic is probably inaccurate, but I think the psychological model of magic is fairly valid.

I’ve always thought that the various models of magic [see a good summary here: http://www.paganlibrary.com/reference/models_of_magic.php ]work best when mixed and matched.

But then I’ve been heavily influenced by Wilson’s ideas of never sticking with one model of reality.

As for the whole controversy/insult stuff, and I haven’t read it all/caught up, imho “big fat dork” may have been a little premature, but I haven’t read the book and don’t know.

I remember years ago reading Wilson use Kirk and Spock as examples for occult/8 circuit models, and Morrison’s written a bit about using superhero’s as magical archetypes and entities, and it seems to work for him. So the idea of using pop culture in magic doesn’t strike me as sad or absurd.

At the same time, magic, like lot’s of subcultures draws a lot of sad folks who are just wanking off [and not in the "charge the sigil" kinda way].

But I read this blog journal to get Tim’s take on stuff, right or wrong or undecided. That’s the point of a blog, yes? His stuff makes me think and is always interesting.

So, please, keep up the great work.

i call bullshit.

wtf IS magick????

quite frankly, you come off as inept rather than adept. all this low level ritual gimmick crap is fucking ridiculous.

magic is thinking and then manifesting. just the fact that youve been drawn to this blog & felt compeled to post, proves Tim’s proficiancy IMO.

god forbid one would decide to not pigeonhole themselves into some absurd pseudo druidic dogma…. or worse…

that you think Tim shouldnt write about magick says to me you have very little knowledge of what magic truly is..

one
human?

“Talking about things I don’t know about.” I have to disagree though. If I don’t say what I think and find out other people think it’s wrong, how would I ever know?

Yeah, this is all well and good, but let’s face it, when you write about magick, and you yourself admit to never having tried it, you come off sounding like a guy who’s only ever watched and read pornography, but who’s never had sex, and yet, he’s ranting on and on about it, trying to make heads or tails of it, at the same time not wanting to get into the practical side of it all because it’s too “sticky” or something.

w00t, as they say.

Anyway, this Ellwood guy’s first order of business was to bash you for a spelling mistake, (an inaccuracy) which is telling. It’s also telling that your reaction contained a statement of your goals, which included the decidedly anti-nerd/pro-heart concept of “letting go of trying to be right all the time.” Keep up the good work, and don’t worry about stepping on anybody’s toes!

“The snake that cannot shed its skin perishes. So do the spirits who are prevented from changing their opinions; They cease to be spirit.”

(Friedrich Nietzsche, The Dawn - Aphorism 573)

“Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.”

(Andre Gide)

“The last taboo of mankind, avoiding forbidden and dangerous thoughts, must be removed. There are no illegitimate thoughts.”

(Theodor Reik, The Need to Be Loved, pub. 1963)

“Opinions that are well rooted should grow and change like a healthy tree.”

(Irving Batcheller)

“Imagine a vine that grows at one end and decays at the other. The end that grows is heresy, the end that rots is orthodox. The dead are orthodox, and your cemetary is the most perfect type of a well regulated church. No thought, no progress, no heresy there. Slowly and silently, side by side, the satisfied members peacefully decay. There is only this difference - the dead do not persecute.”

(Robert Ingersoll, Heretics and Heresy)

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Well here’s a question in the spirit of a previous post - is your “rational mind” your real self?

If reason is a “whore” then maybe its your rational mind that’s doin’ the foolin’

I was talking about this with my shrink the other day, and i wonder (apropos nothin in particular) who’s to say that if the gnostics hadn’t won the battle of history and become the “True Christianity” TM back in 380 AD there wouldn’t be a gnostic pope with gnostic indulgences and gnostic crusades and gnostic child molestation etc.

And maybe the catholics would have been the ones driven underground, and killed en masse in the south of france etc

and the bib,e would have been discovered in 1945 in upper egypt instead of the NH scriptures and would beocme the object of scholarly controversy instead of the Gnostic Gospels

asking questions sorts the wheat from the chaff.

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right now yer being a trickster i think its like a solvent for ideas

all these peopel are so engaged in following this wild merry go round of ideas and processing them at a furious pace

good things come from stirring the pot

so fuck’em if hey cant take a joke etc

floor the pedal!

fuck the bullshit. your style is why i read the blog…..

christianity = occult

my favorite dude right now, Terence Mckenna said something like, he has no “beliefs”.. except freedom… because when you “believe” something, you automatically rule out the opposite.. including that you might be wrong!

one
human?

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Well, I get annoyed when people draw some distinction between prerational and transrational thinking or say that magic is just NLP but what good does that annoyance do me? I also employ reductionist analyses of things I have not personally experienced in an attempt to wrap my mind around them - there’s only so much cognitive dissonance anyone can handle

OTOH I can also try to describe chocolate to someone who’s never tasted it but why on earth would they take my word for it?

It’s like that atheist parable about “kissing hanks ass”

There’s no reason to believe something until you see it, even then continuing to ask questions strikes me as the most healthy and human response really

BTW, Tim have you ever read “The Guru Papers: Masks of AUthoritarian Power“?

You strike me as someone who would like that book.

In some situations it is not helpful to question, for example as Wiliam James points out in the Uses of Optimism, it ain’t helpful to sit there and doubt you can jump from one cliff to the next

But speaking of ideologies what does it hurt to ask? Either there is an answer or their isn’t

RE: magic and rituals though I do think there are some things that do just seem to bizarre and unbelevable until you experience them yourself though

CHeck out Jason Black’s books (Falcon Press) Urban Voodoo & Pacts w. the Devil, very good first person narratives accurately describing how certain things work and what it is like

Now, I have just landed squarely on both sides of the fence

keep up the good work

The fanatical devotion to certain ideas may come from a lot of things. Coming from a recently published author its easy to undertsand I think. Nobody wants to feel that their life’s work is being ridiculed. Not saying you were but trying to get inside the other persons head.

WHen I get hate mail I never cared if it was from born agains but gnostics who thought I was misled or artists who thought my artwork was amateurish really REALLY upset me.