15 Reader Responses

1. Blair Warren Says:
   August 13th, 2005 at 2:02 pm

   It’s as if you are reading my mind. This is a question that has been haunting me lately. While I am very intrigued by magick, I am not a practitioner and am put off by much of the obscure terminology. Still, I think this is exactly what draws many people in and what gives it the intrigue necessary to activate one’s imagination so that the magick can actually work. I know that when I read anything that is pure “technique,” it rarely succeeds in engaging both my mind and emotions, and thus, falls flat. Though I would love to see a more “secular” approach to magick, I’m not convinced it would be as effective.

2. zacharius Says:
   August 13th, 2005 at 2:14 pm

   pretty much anything stripped of arbitrary categories and taken to a highly abstract principle based level starts to look like magick.

   a lot of this success-strategy/self confidence bollocks, like anthony robbins, has sort of secularised the ego-refinement methodology of the alchemists, but tends to stop short of the metaphysical.

   a consumer based culture shortly masters any and all methods of getting what you want (and the flipside, manufacturing wants) but seldom goes towards questioning the wants themselves, or the consciousness of wanting.

3. Rev max Says:
   August 13th, 2005 at 2:16 pm

   Hey yo

   Liber Null and Psychonaut by Peter Carroll is interesting

   The Job by William S Burroughs is also helpful

   Carroll does a good job of explaining AO Spare’s sigil concept in a way that makes it easy to use

   Burroughs explains how to use tape recording or cut-ups to effect change in tha real world

   In both instances the idea is that the sigil or the ritual is a way to bypass your rational, conscious mind - the psychic censor - and tap into the power ofthe subconscious directly.

   Any ofthe boooks by Max Freedom Long about Hawaiian Shamanism (huna) are good too, they had a very well developed system that was what you say here (vanilla) and based almost entirely in their ability to pull up power from the navel and project it. ANd when you keep reading about it you realize what they are really talking about is the id.

   The trickster gods in many afro-carribean religions - the ones you have to propiate before they will open the door for you to communicate w. the other gods - have id-like, subconscious qualities as well: childlike, stubborn, mischevious, but very powerful. The whole trick is summoning that part of yourself without sabotaging it, that why all the “props.”

4. Rev max Says:
   August 13th, 2005 at 2:47 pm

   I wa sthining about this soem more - thougts off of th top of my head

   OI think there ar three rsons why people don’t try magic

   1.They’re scared of or feel guilty about it
   2.They don’t believe in it
   3.They’re lazy - too much work

   OK, so everytype of magic system has an accompaying worldview that makes it work - some briefly (there are probably others)

   1. Animism - nature spirits, eg, a rock has a soul & intelligence, so do a stream a tree
   2. Plotheism - living archetypes on the imaginal plane, eg., war gods, love goddesses, deified ancestors, etc.
   3. Dynamism/Energy - power in the human soul/psyche/unconscious/nature

   Carroll says you have to have to buy into worldview for the spell to work. If you stop believing in it the second the ritual is over thats fine - but you need to really be committed to it right while you’re doing it in order to bring the focus concentration and subconscious OOMPH necessary to really send somehing “out there” and hit its target

   So all primitive magical systems are fille dwith various devices that short-circuit rational critical thinking temporaily, long enough to “open the doors” and let the horse out of the barn, open the genie bottle, whatever you wanna call it

   Trance, dancing, drumming, dreaming, weid arbitrary symbols & sigils, being frightened, feeling lusty, angry etc - things that really mobilize your psyche and knock out the critic/censor temporarily

   Regarding motivation and doubt (skepticism is great but it doesn’t help with magic) for me it has been terrifically helpful to study and read about as many worldviews /models as possible and try to figure out where they overlap so that I can incorporate and integrate as many tools as possible

   So certain things can help you belive in by seeing it work : taking musrooms for example, and seeing the en energy fields around people, spirits crawling around in trees or coming out of the earth. Once you know they’re there its hard to deny afterwards. Or trying little experiments with lighting candles hoodoo-style, or creating and then masturbating over sigils carroll-style. I don’t still do those things, they only had to work once for my worldview to rearrange itself into a structure that made magic possible

   There’s a native american saying “You have to beleive in gods to see them”

   Also it has been helpful for me to read Jung, Burroughs, Tantra, Taosim, Huna etc and get different theoretical models so that my fiercely proud intellect has some way to get a handle on what I’m doing so that I don’t feel lame about it when my concentration wavers, eg synchronicity, etc.

5. Rev max Says:
   August 13th, 2005 at 2:57 pm

   Oh anyway, RE: secular. Once i would have understood what you meant but now I’m not so sure. I mean what does secular mean? What is religion?

   To me, religon means buying into an ethical structure, a vision of an afterlife etc - but there are primitive magical forms that don’t really sweat or pay much attention to either of those things - that are almost 100% focused on using magic to acheive goals and don’t waste a lot of time dealing with ideas of reward or punishment

   Something can be magic without being religious but that doesn’t necessarily make it secular - there is still a belief in gods, spirits ancestors, etc, the practitioners just don’t try to get out of the system the things that most people would think of as being “religious” i.e., reasons to be good, or places to go after you die.

   To me secular seems to imply disbelief in or rejection of the whole idea of influencing things through non-rational processes - well, OK, now that I think about it a lot of people who practice yoga in an attempt to manifest siddhis (powers, eg clairvoyance, invisibility) don’t nexessarily believe in anything supernatural - they think that the kindalini and the third eye and all of these other marvellously esoteric functions that yoga describes are simply aspects of the nervous system that western science desn’t know about and can’t get a handle on.

   But still they believe in “occult” things so does that make’em secualr? I dunno. Is kung fu secular? I guess it is right up until you get to the area of developing your chi. How about Jungian psychology? I guess right up until you start dealing w. archetypes, then you have to decide how you want to interpret those.

   Forgive me for sounding inarticulate I guess I’m just not sure if I understand the distinction between secular and non-secular. You can have a scientific or psychological explanation for how and why magic works but then you still have to at least temporarily buy into whatever model it is that you are working with in order for the model to be effective i think

6. hf Says:
   August 13th, 2005 at 3:46 pm

   http://omnimancy.com/main.html fits the bill, and technically it doesn’t mention Gods much. But as revmax implies, we don’t know if this addresses your question or not.

7. Fell Says:
   August 13th, 2005 at 4:57 pm

   Finding True Magic: Transpersonal Hypnosis And Hypnotherapy / NLP
   http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/096552101X/

   I picked this up, haven’t read it yet though.

8. Occult Investigator Says:
   August 13th, 2005 at 5:51 pm

   Max, I like your reasons as to why people avoid magic. But I think I would add:

   4. They don’t “get” it - it doesn’t utilize a language or symbol system which they understand.

   I’m not sure if I’m much worried at the moment about defining what is and what isn’t occult or secular. What I do want to figure out though is: is there a way to talk to people about this stuff that doesn’t freak them out and/or which could be a good springboard for understanding how other more traditionally occult systems operate?

9. Rev max Says:
   August 13th, 2005 at 6:17 pm

   They don’t “get” it - it doesn’t utilize a language or symbol system which they understand.

   ————–

   For example Peter Carroll talks a lot about his own magical order that he founded the “Illuminati of Thanateros (thanos + eros).

   Reading the book, he had a lotta fab ideas but a lot of the arbitrary terminology he introduces (e.g., he says “kia” when lifeforce, chi, prana, ashe, bioleletric energy would have done just as well) kinda seemed hokey to me.

   So in the end his whole system didn’t resonate for me, even through it opened the door for me and convinced me a lotta this stuff actually does work, which was maybe all I was suppposed to get out of it in the first place.

   ————–

   I’m not sure if I’m much worried at the moment about defining what is and what isn’t occult or secular. What I do want to figure out though is: is there a way to talk to people about this stuff that doesn’t freak them out and/or which could be a good springboard for understanding how other more traditionally occult systems operate?

   —————-

   I think NLP, hypnosis, self-improvement, self-actualization, synchronicity, superstrings, hyperspace, the MW interpretaton of quantum physics, all are ways to try to talk to people about these sorts of things in ways that won’t freak them out.

   Too bad it has to be that way I think. WHy reinvent the wheel? Then again a lot of old-school magical paradigms (European, Jewish, African, Asian) are weighed down by ideological assumptions of their own that a lot of people might not just be able to hang with.

   Asian systems you got a guru. African ones involve a lot of secrecy and fear. Kaballah and Goetia revlve around the whole Judeo-Christian Biblical worldview, etc.

10. Jacob Says:
    August 14th, 2005 at 7:52 pm

    I simply can’t separate spirituality from aesthetics, but other people seem to appreciate a more stripped down approach (which is often helpful too.) I find that early on, as an introduction, we don’t want the baggage of iconography and mythology, and simply want access to the techniques, but as one’s involvement becomes deeper and more elaborate, one naturally begins to project their aesthetic and mythic sensibilities onto their magickal/spiritual paradigm.

11. Occult Investigator Says:
    August 14th, 2005 at 7:57 pm

    That reminds me, Landmark Forum is absolutely a system of secular magick, in addition to NLP - and though their terminology seems to differ, they share a lot of basic philosophies…

12. prunesquallori Says:
    August 15th, 2005 at 10:15 am

    Rev max: I would think that the reason Carroll uses “kia” is beause that is what AOS called it.

13. rev max Says:
    August 15th, 2005 at 2:08 pm

    I would think that the reason Carroll uses “kia” is beause that is what AOS called it.
    —————–
    i would think yer right
    still doesn’t resonate w. me tho

14. alistair Says:
    August 15th, 2005 at 5:19 pm

    anthony robbins was a student of richard bandler, who along with robert grinder originated the first “nlp”. nlp is hypnotherapy with precise language patterns, vocal inflections and rhythms embedded within. an urban, air-conditioned shamanism. wizardry. the more theatrical the better. story-telling for the entranced. and entrance into a new reality. a paridigm shift of possibilities.
    in terms of “getting” nlp. there is nothing to get. the process occurs in the mind of the client. they do it to themselves. like magic.

15. Nicq MacDonald Says:
    August 15th, 2005 at 6:14 pm

    Hmm… a lot of chaos magic, simplified magic, etc. seems rather lazy and ineffectual to me. I guess part of why I’m more attracted to the “conservative” branch of occultism these days is that having to go through formal ritual and perform procedures with a degree of precision is that it stops the beginner from becoming lazy. Most avante-guard artists don’t leap into their innovations fully-formed- they still learn the same procedures and techniques that have been used in their art form for centuries, study the great masters, etc.- once you’ve mastered the old forms, and proved that you have the capability and discipline, you can become an innovator. Until then, suck it up and follow the master.

    As for magic being “religious” or “secular”, I really don’t think that there is such a thing as “religious” magic. Religion implies, to me, a self-effacing devotion to a higher power; any self respecting sorcerer is going to balk at such a notion. While much of the terminology used in magic is seen by the “profane” as “religious”, there isn’t anything inherently religious about it. The occultist does not see devotional material, the occultist sees tools. Laws of nature and supernature. Techniques for manipulating the spiritual world. At heart, all magic could be considered supersecular- neither secular nor religious, but “of the otherworld”.