The problem with this whole magickal dialectic is that it was spurned from an inappropriate “book review.” Not to tread on already stampeded ground (especially since Mr. Boucher formally apologized), but the criticism at hand is that a book, which was intended to be used in both theoretical and practical terms, was looked down upon without the reviewer ever following what the writer intended the reader to follow.

The question then could be: would it be valid to criticism a chef on his cookbook recipes without ever actually making any of the recipes?

I may not like lima beans, so you may hear me criticize their taste, but you won’t hear me criticize the chef that uses them in his recipes without me ever trying the dish.

I’ll tell you why I do magic and I can’t and won’t speak for anyone else on this: I do it because for me it’s a spiritual journey and exploration of life, without end and it’s one that allows me to draw on a variety of approaches, some traditional forms of magic and some that aren’t. It’s a challenge to grow, to learn, and for me a challenge to experiment, to take some unsual perspectives and approaches and try them out, even if end up not working (I still learn something even when something doesn’t work). Each person’s reason to do magic, to go and have experiences in it is different. so you’re right all I can say is go out and experience it…You mentioend the definition police…so think of it in this way: Magic and the act of doign it isn’t something that can be quantified in words easily. Sometiems to really know something is to just do I, not because someone else says to (which has happened here, I’ll admit), but because you want to…and if you don’t want to, that’s fine, but I critiqued you as I did, in part to see how you would react to the challenge of doing the exercises or just doing ritual magic, period. In anycase, I think I’ve said all I want to at this point. You’ve made some good points as well and given me some food for thought and I thank you for that.

a spell cast to keep you blind to the real Magic, that is everything?

that we are all ALREADY practicing magicians? and that the greatest exercise in magic is waking up in the morning (lol, or the afternoon ) ??

that perhaps some truly talented malevolent wizard has you thinking that you need to “do magic”…. meanwhile we deny the magic that permeates every aspect of our existance???

one
human?

Also, to clarify, I never once suggested you were talking shit out of your ass, so to speak - although maybe others did. Obviously I don’t have a frame of reference for that, which I’ve freely admitted all along. I said that I felt like you were crafting an intellectual/spiritual justification for the things you love. This is something I’ve struggled with a lot in the past. And I’d rather just love the things I love. And the reason that was a sticking issue for me is because so many magickians talk about overcoming intellect, but from the outside looking in, it’s extremely hard to see.

Even tim agreed I had a good point on that, so perhaps it’s you who should get over yourself.

No, hold on a second. What I meant was that I’m trying to decide whether or not to try ritual magick. I didn’t mean I was going to try the exercises in your book. They still don’t appeal to me.

Actually I have articulated why quite well.

No, I don’t think you have. You’ve thrown a few tantrums and made a few unsupported statements, but you haven’t demonstrated anything here beyond your own ego.

You can brag about writing books til the cows come home, it doesn’t impress me. There are a million and a half execrable works on magic out there, and more coming along every day. When you start making a living at it, I might take your bragging seriously. My knowledge of the subject, as it were, is simple enough to discern.

You’ve read, but not done the exercises.

Get over it, Ellwood. While I know as much as anyone the difference between experience and theory, one does not have to “try out” every ridiculous new self-promoting crock of shit that’s spewed out by former roleplayers. You’ve sepnt, what, three days exhorting Tim to “try the exercises,” yet you have been completely unable to articultae WHY, or even offer any experiences of your own, or demonstrate anny depth of knowledge of the subject whatsoever. One doesn’t have to experience crap to call bullshit.

Also, in case you haven’t noticed, the whole thing that brought me to this was a line of inquiry about just how far you can really trust intellectual inquiry. When do you just have to put down words and shut the hell up?

Gnosis means knowledge which can mean intellectual knowledge but also acquaintance in the sense of personally knowing something by experience, for example a mystical experience (of which it sounds like you’ve had a few) or EVe knew the taste of the fruit, and Adam knew Eve (yum yum - or even yab yum).

That’s what make gnosticism different from orthodoxy, the knowledge isn’t second hand or heresay - the authors of these scriptures were learned and intellectual people, but they were also writing about things they had personally seen or experienced.

I reached the same point (I think! maybe not) you are wondering about here with enemies.com back in 2000 or so, I had had enough intellectual exploration and speculation for a while and I wanted to know. I mean really know, experience certain things, not just by putting my intellect through its paces but also by experimenting in the real world and letting the world teach me. Get out of the labyrinths of my mind for a bit.

My intellect was exhausted and frustrated and I felt like I had hit a wall and gotten trapped in language and if you ever reach that point yourself you will know too, I guess.

I was strongly influenced in this by the idea of antinomianism, the notion that since we live in the Kali Yuga where life is ever more nasty, brutish and short, people who want to become enlightened need to seek out the path of action, breaking personal taboos, using the pleasures and pains of life as rocket fuel to travel through the the spiritual world.

Of course, its not all that dramatic really and I have no way of knowing if we’re in the kali yuga or not (I’m not even Hindu) but the concept really spoke to me.

You can be a story-teller and a trickster and a radical questioner and a writer and ALSO have real-world esoteric adventures and magical experiences, and amazing dreams and fantastically erotic tales of glory… you just need to be balanced and keep your sense of self somewhere there in the middle.

In my humble opinion. It doesn’t have to be either or. As a very wise man once told me maybe you can even let the colors glass panels overlap.

It’s like that Charles Manson quote I had where he said he didn’t believe in words, and then the interviewer said, “Then why do you use so many of them?”

Your continuing resistance to even just my work in general is more than enough to prove that. Neither of us is as open-minded as the other would seem to like.

“Magic is the most difficult knowledge on Earth, which must not only be mastered in theory, but above all in practice. It is easier by far and much more possible to gain intellectual knowledge than to become a true magician”

Practice is the path to becoming a magician, to investigating the occult, unless Tim, what you’re really doing is investigating it as an intellectual, at which point it’s fair to say you’re a paranormal investigator. There’s a difference between investigating the occult and investigating the paranormal (which the occult can fall into). And though you may not like that other people are categorizing and defining you, remember you did the same with my book and even me. That’s the risk we all take. I’ve been defined as a chaos magician, even though that’s only one approach I draw in my practices. I don’t define myself as such, but other people do. Whether any of us like it or not, by engaing and interactign with other people, we are subjected to the definitions of others. And you’re choice of the title of occult investigator will be just as scrutinized, just as critiqued, as you did with my writing. It’s the game we play when we choose to write.

So yes, the more established people in the occult scene, myself included, don’t really find your claims to be valid, without having gone through experiences to back them up. You’ve as much admitted elsewhere that you have little experience with ritual magic, so again don’t be surprised at the reactiosn you’re getting. To draw from discourse theory, you’re not in the discourse, so while you can critique the discourse of magical practice, you really aren’t an occult investigator, because you’re not in the occult discourse. An investigator does more than just ask questions and post observations. S/he has experiences, practices that will be used to help in the investigation and establish data that can be used to back up the claim and warrant it. you haven’t done that and until you actually do the exercises, until you actually take up a practice of magic and discipline yourself within that discourse you will always get reactions like this. And faking it until ya make it only takes you so far, when you don’t actually attempt to really understand the practices you’re critiquing. that understanding only comes through experience, through actually trying the various approaches of magic…in the end Tom I am inclined to think that far from me playing pretend it is actually you who is doing so.

——————

takes one to know one as they say

besides you are practicing magic

what is this site?

A vortex to shake & stir other people’s realities and try to get the answers to some of your questions

Are you an occult investigator?

Am I a Reverend?

What’s the diff?

One big principle of the occult - “fake it till ya make it”

Ya made it, I think, even if your only goal was to manifest this site, it appears to working well for you!

“Everybody’s a mad scientist, and life is their lab. We’re all trying to experiment to find a way to live, to solve problems, to fend off madness and chaos”

(David Cronenberg)

One other point before I drop this. These folks keep crying foul because I investigate magic/k without practicing it. But does anybody expect a crime scene investigator to actually commit crimes? It seems their task is to get inside the mind of people and figure out how to solve problems based on that.

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LOL!

You’re riffing off them quite well, but this is playing with fire. It’s the underbelly troll-world, where only character assassination and accumulating petty vendettas are power. Back away. Some of these damaged individuals are just a flipside of the loons who will go to a crusade over the face of Jesus on a piece of toast, ego invested in tokens, whether images, ideas or just simple words.