Lets Go Bowling
August 21st, 2006, 07:54 PM
Rant 175
The Greatest Magic
"It doesn't matter whether these exist or not."
-Aleister Crowley (paraphrased)
"How many occultists does it take to change a light bulb?
Three. One to claim to have done it. One to argue about what 'change' really means. One to say that it wasn't done the right way."
My chaoist monastic practice phase ended today. I have endured the rigors of blissfully chanting TV jingles until my mind is wiped blank. I have learned that it really doesn't matter what names we call whatever it is we name, because names only falsely imply knowledge. Now, according to the tenets by which I am playing this latest game of wandering around in samsara looking for the gems of wisdom, I must revisit that secret within a secret, the chaoist jihad - which is nothing like what you think. It is more like Manjushri's activity, except in a roguish guise. May this manifestation bring some fresh air.
A lot of you think that the whole magic thing is full of crap. Now, I get that you aren't against magic in a common sense way, as in "that sunrise was magical" or "that tequila session was simply magic." You mean that occult magic stuff where someone wiggles a finger or waves a wand or speaks some gibberish in a supposed ancient language and then goes out to win the lottery. Am I right? I don't even think some of you who feel occult magic is full of crap are against the idea on principle (the idea used to be about personal autonomy and respect for reality - which is largely lacking in today's occult subcultures). And besides, there are always a few true walking glitches sprinkled in amongst any collection of clowns, fruits and nuts. What I think you are against are the pompous or smug attitudes that many so-called occult magicians, witches, sages, or "shamans" (we call these sorts 'shame-ons' where I'm from, as in shame-on-you). Or maybe you are against the attitude of some occultists or magic practitioners that they believe they are innately superior or innately different, and thus have some handle on a part of reality which you are denied. You have seen through some of the game and know that magic is just like any other system of beliefs. Am I right here? If so, I can understand, finally, why you are against the idea of magic.
After having to deal with the occult subcultures for several years now, even though I have learned that magic can work, the vast majority of what is going on in the occult is frankly bullshit, self-deception, enabling, fraud, psychological suggestion, and willing delusion. I don't know about you but I have gotten tired of the self-identified umpteenth level adepts, the hordes of supposed family-tradition witches, the re-incarnations of Uncle Al or other famous people, the poor souls who seriously believed that they were not human beings, and the sorts who were going around with talismans galore because they were paranoid of "magical attack." I could list more types but this should be enough. Chaos magic was supposed to be a grand game to destroy this bullshit, but it only picked it up a notch. And I can see Eris laughing at yet another con-job She has pulled.
Take any typical magical group and shake it. What falls out? You get about three perverts, two Asperger Syndrome sufferers, four people still in rebellion against their parents or childhood religion, and possibly one person with an independent mind. (This doesn't include the self-identified otherkins, or the elves, or 'secret adepts' because these sorts overlap with the others.)
Anyway, back in the late spring I woke up and realized I was tired of this crap and stopped involving myself with anything to do with occult, occultism, magic and the whole lot, including most of its people. I cherish the fruits and nuts of humanity, I really do. But only if they can laugh at themselves. Or they can see through the red-herring of "finding oneself" that so many other "occultists" get trapped into. My whole point is that occultism, occult magic, or anything related, isn't even all that much potent or as real as many of its proponents argue. It is mostly imagined. And yet, some occultists have the temerity to attack the New Age for the same reason. (Pot! Pot! Calling kettle!)
The real magic is in reality. In the normal everyday things that you can see now, not in some teaching or ritual or spell, not even in you while you do such rituals or practice such teachings. (Besides, if you already have it in you, why do the damned ritual? Yeah, I know. You'll say you have to do the rite to bring up the magic. But that is simply a con you have fallen for. Playing tricks to trick your mind's 'anti-magical' trickery is simply a danger of falling into an infinite regression of tricks.) The Greatest Magic is in this world, the material world of sensation and perception that you can see and feel now, and it has nothing to do with your belief system, your 'weirdness,' your occult practices, your hair color, your family, your heritage, your nation, your culture, your job, or whether your pentacle amulet is properly charged, none of it. This is what chaos magic was originally about, even though a lot of it has fallen into the same games it was allegedly trying to expose as games. Every time I see a moonrise, I realize how silly I am with all these interests and studies and relationships and ideas and feelings...I realize how sweet it is to be alive to experience happiness and sadness and how wonderful existence is at heart. (Hey! Buddha! Permission to land?)
An architect visualizes and then designs a building. Within months, the building is created. A novelist daydreams a story and then for the next several weeks writes a new novel based on it. A poet connects with the sublime in ordinary life and spends the rest of the night writing down and editing lines to express that connection. A photographer visualizes the play of light and shadow upon shifting shapes and colors, then works at expressing that in one frozen moment. A dancer has a vision of a moving living expression with her body and then trains for months to be able to accomplish the mastery it needs. A surgeon goes through years of training to be able to visualize anatomy and its problems, before they can truly see, cut and sew. It takes work and dedication, but how is this any less 'magical' than someone rhyming by moonlight for a lover? All around us we see the everyday spontaneous multivalent co-dependent causal interactions between people and other phenomena in this world. (The old Indian Buddhists called this "pratiityasamutpaada" and "sahaja.") How is any of this less magical than what some 23rd level wizard could imagine?
If you are an occultist of any type, and this offends you, I am not sorry. You have to admit that the occult world brings most of the mainstream's hostility and denigration upon itself when its members make various claims to all sorts of things that can not be demonstrated. And then, you must understand, when such people are questioned as to whether or not magic works, they usually respond with some pseudo-anthro or pseudo-psycho speak. Or they respond with "If you don't believe, you won't see it happen," or something along those lines. No wonder non-occultists have the opinions they do. Just for once I would like to see an occultist publicly stand up in response to a similar question, snap her fingers, and voila! make something happen that cannot be explained away by stage-trickery. Just once. (I won't hold my breath.) The old Indian Buddhist tantra practitioners got into a lot of trouble with their societies, and when questioned about their abilities, they pulled off some amazing stuff effortlessly, at least according to the stories we have. So, if you call yourself a magical adept or such, someone asking for a little proof or some results shouldn't offend your sensibilities, now should it?
Sure you can say, "but Irreverend Hugh, you're deep into this magic shit too, and you have seen damned things and you have witnessed other practitioners do crazy shit, you nutty Vajrayanist! And you yourself have participated, so what the hell are you going on about now?" My point, people, is this: Sure I have "seen" "felt" or "experienced" certain damned things and I have watched or participated in or even instigated "magical doings." Some people around me have even claimed I did some damned unimaginable magical things too. So what? How much of this happened outside of any magical group, or magical context? How much of this happened in the real world and how much of this was merely in mine and other's heads because of some smooth psychological suggestion? I venture to say that the vast majority of it was never anything other than self-deception, even social delusion. Magical explanations are not as consistent in telling me what happened as are more down to earth ideas. Just because you have a group of people to enable a belief doesn't make that belief true. That's all I am saying.
The Wizard of Oz has been found out. The hot air has been released. The curtain is up. Belief in magic is like any other belief. It is for the willingly hoodwinked to defend. The ego lays there exposed as the fiction it always was.
Some of you magical sorts will raise the banner and blow the horns and say "But magic isn't supernatural, it is about natural talents that are just ignored or hidden by society." (Of course I never said anything about it being natural or supernatural.) To which I ask which one of the so-called natural talents are ignored or hidden? One example: politicians and celebrities use their charisma all the same, and I see no occultist who has learned a greater glamour than any first rate PR firm or ad agency. If magic is so natural, it should stand to reason that it is commonly used and participated in and is therefore in no need of any occult reification. So why even bother with using a separate word? Sure there are all sorts of excuses as to why we need rituals, tools, and aids, etc. But that's all part of the scam. If magic is so natural, why all the talk, the tools, the rituals, and the gibberish? Yeah, exactly. That's what I thought. Yet another ruse.
Ah! Magic is a talent that must be refined, you say. Sort of like art. But is art natural or human made? Don't be silly here. Nature may have what WE call "art" but such "art" is not 'consciously' made, thus it can't really be "art" now can it? (Okay, so you can pick a god or some gods and say that he/she/it/they created it. But I don't care about that. I stopped blaming reality on the surrogate parents of deity long ago. I think reality just happens...we happen to it and it happens to us and we all happen to each other, and so on.) Art implies an artist. You can get into semantic traps and argue against the definition of art and artist, but remember that language is only useful when we have agreed upon definitions. Anyway, looking at the human practice and idea of "art," we find it nowhere outside of human cultures. And that gets tricky because even the word "natural" expresses a human idea. "Magic" is yet another human idea. And just as one person's "art" is another person's crap, likewise for magic or whatever you call it.
Now, based on the premise that magic exists, you can say that magic could be another talent or some system of practice/knowledge that needs to be refined or honed or developed. I give you that. From this angle, it is easy enough to understand. But it still begs the question of "why?" Why bother with it at all? Maybe it was some evolutionary throwback to a time when we needed it. But now we have technology, psychology, and other sorts of knowledge. Where in there is some separate idea of magic needed? Another issue I could raise here is: If magic is part of the natural or common everyday world (just ignored or unseen) then how do you know that technology or some other modern system is not magic? And this just brings me in a circle back to my original idea. Why bother calling it anything? Why bother separating it from the rest of experienced reality? If you respond with "so the ability to work magic can be developed" I will tell you that there is more such ability being developed in students of music, poetry, and art than in any of the so-called occult fields.
I can't say I can knock occult magic totally, since when I originally went into it I was pretty skeptical of its reality, even while I somehow knew I was seeking some sort of place where I could find others who experienced things that I experienced. But this personal search and exploration which settled the question of magic for myself says nothing about whether occult magic is true or valid for anyone else. It only makes me a weirdo. Open to things a lot of people dismiss. Open to a lot of perceptions that most people casually or habitually ignore. Open to a lot of people that society dismisses. (Even though today I am sick of it all, I must admit that I am used to the whole show now.) I just wonder about all these definitions and attitudes both pro and con. It makes me think again of the question "why bother?" Every other field of human endeavor does the same thing to human perceptions. A photographer is going to perceive visual sensations very differently than someone who hasn't developed those skills. A 'psychic' will sense things about another person's emotional make-up or character that other people usually tend to brush aside. A poet will see how arbitrary language and concepts are and how their nuances and subtleties are used by many to manipulate sentiments.
If you are against magic and are out to debunk it, why bother? Seek a life for yourself. I can see why you would doubt it and from now on I will help you pick out the frauds, but why actively seek out anyone who claims to do magic? If you are into magic, well, chances are you are either too weird or too busy to bother with mucking about with other people's beliefs or practices. (Unless you start a "magical group," then I guess you can play that game.) Either way, if you take some position one way or another, "why bother?" Eris doesn't care. If magical adepts truly existed, they'd be laughing at the argument. And the rest of the gods have all gone out to lunch.
I can see all life as interconnected, but that's because earlier Wiccan rituals and current ongoing Buddhist meditation (analytic and resting) has pretty much wiped out my personal perception of things being fixed essences. There is no such thing as a thing in and of itself. Since I can see all life or existence in this way, I can accept the premise of someone wiggling their fingers and causing change to occur. It is chaos after all. Does such a thing happen often? I won't say because I don't and probably can't ever know. Then again, I can't say I would care either. To be honest, neither can you. In either case, we probably don't want to know the truth, but only what would confirm our prefabricated outlooks. The finger wiggler could be Eris, then what would you do? Cry or laugh? (Though I am pretty certain that Eris would deny it if She was doing it.)
Maybe the Greatest Magic of all is to simply admit to ourselves that besides all of our beliefs, attitudes, rituals, practices, ideologies, nations, allegiances, friends, families, lovers, likes, dislikes, forms, smells, sounds, thoughts...the Greatest Magic of all is the mystery of simply being alive and all of these other things we get so flustered arguing about or defending or attacking, all of these things are simply strategies we have developed to hide from being alive as that mystery. Seeing through these things is what transcendence was originally all about before it got all muddled up. Perhaps the Greatest Magic of all is the destruction of the Great Deception, and the end of delusion. If you can pull that one off...you probably won't need to wiggle your fingers in some weird spell.
-Irreverend Hugh
August 12th, 2006
I am thoroughly enjoying not being an Episkopos. More than I ever enjoyed being one. The other day I got accused of being the first Aga Khan of Erislam and Discordian Jihad, but in reality, that was 'Bob.' If you send his Church some money, they'll tell you why.
The Greatest Magic
"It doesn't matter whether these exist or not."
-Aleister Crowley (paraphrased)
"How many occultists does it take to change a light bulb?
Three. One to claim to have done it. One to argue about what 'change' really means. One to say that it wasn't done the right way."
My chaoist monastic practice phase ended today. I have endured the rigors of blissfully chanting TV jingles until my mind is wiped blank. I have learned that it really doesn't matter what names we call whatever it is we name, because names only falsely imply knowledge. Now, according to the tenets by which I am playing this latest game of wandering around in samsara looking for the gems of wisdom, I must revisit that secret within a secret, the chaoist jihad - which is nothing like what you think. It is more like Manjushri's activity, except in a roguish guise. May this manifestation bring some fresh air.
A lot of you think that the whole magic thing is full of crap. Now, I get that you aren't against magic in a common sense way, as in "that sunrise was magical" or "that tequila session was simply magic." You mean that occult magic stuff where someone wiggles a finger or waves a wand or speaks some gibberish in a supposed ancient language and then goes out to win the lottery. Am I right? I don't even think some of you who feel occult magic is full of crap are against the idea on principle (the idea used to be about personal autonomy and respect for reality - which is largely lacking in today's occult subcultures). And besides, there are always a few true walking glitches sprinkled in amongst any collection of clowns, fruits and nuts. What I think you are against are the pompous or smug attitudes that many so-called occult magicians, witches, sages, or "shamans" (we call these sorts 'shame-ons' where I'm from, as in shame-on-you). Or maybe you are against the attitude of some occultists or magic practitioners that they believe they are innately superior or innately different, and thus have some handle on a part of reality which you are denied. You have seen through some of the game and know that magic is just like any other system of beliefs. Am I right here? If so, I can understand, finally, why you are against the idea of magic.
After having to deal with the occult subcultures for several years now, even though I have learned that magic can work, the vast majority of what is going on in the occult is frankly bullshit, self-deception, enabling, fraud, psychological suggestion, and willing delusion. I don't know about you but I have gotten tired of the self-identified umpteenth level adepts, the hordes of supposed family-tradition witches, the re-incarnations of Uncle Al or other famous people, the poor souls who seriously believed that they were not human beings, and the sorts who were going around with talismans galore because they were paranoid of "magical attack." I could list more types but this should be enough. Chaos magic was supposed to be a grand game to destroy this bullshit, but it only picked it up a notch. And I can see Eris laughing at yet another con-job She has pulled.
Take any typical magical group and shake it. What falls out? You get about three perverts, two Asperger Syndrome sufferers, four people still in rebellion against their parents or childhood religion, and possibly one person with an independent mind. (This doesn't include the self-identified otherkins, or the elves, or 'secret adepts' because these sorts overlap with the others.)
Anyway, back in the late spring I woke up and realized I was tired of this crap and stopped involving myself with anything to do with occult, occultism, magic and the whole lot, including most of its people. I cherish the fruits and nuts of humanity, I really do. But only if they can laugh at themselves. Or they can see through the red-herring of "finding oneself" that so many other "occultists" get trapped into. My whole point is that occultism, occult magic, or anything related, isn't even all that much potent or as real as many of its proponents argue. It is mostly imagined. And yet, some occultists have the temerity to attack the New Age for the same reason. (Pot! Pot! Calling kettle!)
The real magic is in reality. In the normal everyday things that you can see now, not in some teaching or ritual or spell, not even in you while you do such rituals or practice such teachings. (Besides, if you already have it in you, why do the damned ritual? Yeah, I know. You'll say you have to do the rite to bring up the magic. But that is simply a con you have fallen for. Playing tricks to trick your mind's 'anti-magical' trickery is simply a danger of falling into an infinite regression of tricks.) The Greatest Magic is in this world, the material world of sensation and perception that you can see and feel now, and it has nothing to do with your belief system, your 'weirdness,' your occult practices, your hair color, your family, your heritage, your nation, your culture, your job, or whether your pentacle amulet is properly charged, none of it. This is what chaos magic was originally about, even though a lot of it has fallen into the same games it was allegedly trying to expose as games. Every time I see a moonrise, I realize how silly I am with all these interests and studies and relationships and ideas and feelings...I realize how sweet it is to be alive to experience happiness and sadness and how wonderful existence is at heart. (Hey! Buddha! Permission to land?)
An architect visualizes and then designs a building. Within months, the building is created. A novelist daydreams a story and then for the next several weeks writes a new novel based on it. A poet connects with the sublime in ordinary life and spends the rest of the night writing down and editing lines to express that connection. A photographer visualizes the play of light and shadow upon shifting shapes and colors, then works at expressing that in one frozen moment. A dancer has a vision of a moving living expression with her body and then trains for months to be able to accomplish the mastery it needs. A surgeon goes through years of training to be able to visualize anatomy and its problems, before they can truly see, cut and sew. It takes work and dedication, but how is this any less 'magical' than someone rhyming by moonlight for a lover? All around us we see the everyday spontaneous multivalent co-dependent causal interactions between people and other phenomena in this world. (The old Indian Buddhists called this "pratiityasamutpaada" and "sahaja.") How is any of this less magical than what some 23rd level wizard could imagine?
If you are an occultist of any type, and this offends you, I am not sorry. You have to admit that the occult world brings most of the mainstream's hostility and denigration upon itself when its members make various claims to all sorts of things that can not be demonstrated. And then, you must understand, when such people are questioned as to whether or not magic works, they usually respond with some pseudo-anthro or pseudo-psycho speak. Or they respond with "If you don't believe, you won't see it happen," or something along those lines. No wonder non-occultists have the opinions they do. Just for once I would like to see an occultist publicly stand up in response to a similar question, snap her fingers, and voila! make something happen that cannot be explained away by stage-trickery. Just once. (I won't hold my breath.) The old Indian Buddhist tantra practitioners got into a lot of trouble with their societies, and when questioned about their abilities, they pulled off some amazing stuff effortlessly, at least according to the stories we have. So, if you call yourself a magical adept or such, someone asking for a little proof or some results shouldn't offend your sensibilities, now should it?
Sure you can say, "but Irreverend Hugh, you're deep into this magic shit too, and you have seen damned things and you have witnessed other practitioners do crazy shit, you nutty Vajrayanist! And you yourself have participated, so what the hell are you going on about now?" My point, people, is this: Sure I have "seen" "felt" or "experienced" certain damned things and I have watched or participated in or even instigated "magical doings." Some people around me have even claimed I did some damned unimaginable magical things too. So what? How much of this happened outside of any magical group, or magical context? How much of this happened in the real world and how much of this was merely in mine and other's heads because of some smooth psychological suggestion? I venture to say that the vast majority of it was never anything other than self-deception, even social delusion. Magical explanations are not as consistent in telling me what happened as are more down to earth ideas. Just because you have a group of people to enable a belief doesn't make that belief true. That's all I am saying.
The Wizard of Oz has been found out. The hot air has been released. The curtain is up. Belief in magic is like any other belief. It is for the willingly hoodwinked to defend. The ego lays there exposed as the fiction it always was.
Some of you magical sorts will raise the banner and blow the horns and say "But magic isn't supernatural, it is about natural talents that are just ignored or hidden by society." (Of course I never said anything about it being natural or supernatural.) To which I ask which one of the so-called natural talents are ignored or hidden? One example: politicians and celebrities use their charisma all the same, and I see no occultist who has learned a greater glamour than any first rate PR firm or ad agency. If magic is so natural, it should stand to reason that it is commonly used and participated in and is therefore in no need of any occult reification. So why even bother with using a separate word? Sure there are all sorts of excuses as to why we need rituals, tools, and aids, etc. But that's all part of the scam. If magic is so natural, why all the talk, the tools, the rituals, and the gibberish? Yeah, exactly. That's what I thought. Yet another ruse.
Ah! Magic is a talent that must be refined, you say. Sort of like art. But is art natural or human made? Don't be silly here. Nature may have what WE call "art" but such "art" is not 'consciously' made, thus it can't really be "art" now can it? (Okay, so you can pick a god or some gods and say that he/she/it/they created it. But I don't care about that. I stopped blaming reality on the surrogate parents of deity long ago. I think reality just happens...we happen to it and it happens to us and we all happen to each other, and so on.) Art implies an artist. You can get into semantic traps and argue against the definition of art and artist, but remember that language is only useful when we have agreed upon definitions. Anyway, looking at the human practice and idea of "art," we find it nowhere outside of human cultures. And that gets tricky because even the word "natural" expresses a human idea. "Magic" is yet another human idea. And just as one person's "art" is another person's crap, likewise for magic or whatever you call it.
Now, based on the premise that magic exists, you can say that magic could be another talent or some system of practice/knowledge that needs to be refined or honed or developed. I give you that. From this angle, it is easy enough to understand. But it still begs the question of "why?" Why bother with it at all? Maybe it was some evolutionary throwback to a time when we needed it. But now we have technology, psychology, and other sorts of knowledge. Where in there is some separate idea of magic needed? Another issue I could raise here is: If magic is part of the natural or common everyday world (just ignored or unseen) then how do you know that technology or some other modern system is not magic? And this just brings me in a circle back to my original idea. Why bother calling it anything? Why bother separating it from the rest of experienced reality? If you respond with "so the ability to work magic can be developed" I will tell you that there is more such ability being developed in students of music, poetry, and art than in any of the so-called occult fields.
I can't say I can knock occult magic totally, since when I originally went into it I was pretty skeptical of its reality, even while I somehow knew I was seeking some sort of place where I could find others who experienced things that I experienced. But this personal search and exploration which settled the question of magic for myself says nothing about whether occult magic is true or valid for anyone else. It only makes me a weirdo. Open to things a lot of people dismiss. Open to a lot of perceptions that most people casually or habitually ignore. Open to a lot of people that society dismisses. (Even though today I am sick of it all, I must admit that I am used to the whole show now.) I just wonder about all these definitions and attitudes both pro and con. It makes me think again of the question "why bother?" Every other field of human endeavor does the same thing to human perceptions. A photographer is going to perceive visual sensations very differently than someone who hasn't developed those skills. A 'psychic' will sense things about another person's emotional make-up or character that other people usually tend to brush aside. A poet will see how arbitrary language and concepts are and how their nuances and subtleties are used by many to manipulate sentiments.
If you are against magic and are out to debunk it, why bother? Seek a life for yourself. I can see why you would doubt it and from now on I will help you pick out the frauds, but why actively seek out anyone who claims to do magic? If you are into magic, well, chances are you are either too weird or too busy to bother with mucking about with other people's beliefs or practices. (Unless you start a "magical group," then I guess you can play that game.) Either way, if you take some position one way or another, "why bother?" Eris doesn't care. If magical adepts truly existed, they'd be laughing at the argument. And the rest of the gods have all gone out to lunch.
I can see all life as interconnected, but that's because earlier Wiccan rituals and current ongoing Buddhist meditation (analytic and resting) has pretty much wiped out my personal perception of things being fixed essences. There is no such thing as a thing in and of itself. Since I can see all life or existence in this way, I can accept the premise of someone wiggling their fingers and causing change to occur. It is chaos after all. Does such a thing happen often? I won't say because I don't and probably can't ever know. Then again, I can't say I would care either. To be honest, neither can you. In either case, we probably don't want to know the truth, but only what would confirm our prefabricated outlooks. The finger wiggler could be Eris, then what would you do? Cry or laugh? (Though I am pretty certain that Eris would deny it if She was doing it.)
Maybe the Greatest Magic of all is to simply admit to ourselves that besides all of our beliefs, attitudes, rituals, practices, ideologies, nations, allegiances, friends, families, lovers, likes, dislikes, forms, smells, sounds, thoughts...the Greatest Magic of all is the mystery of simply being alive and all of these other things we get so flustered arguing about or defending or attacking, all of these things are simply strategies we have developed to hide from being alive as that mystery. Seeing through these things is what transcendence was originally all about before it got all muddled up. Perhaps the Greatest Magic of all is the destruction of the Great Deception, and the end of delusion. If you can pull that one off...you probably won't need to wiggle your fingers in some weird spell.
-Irreverend Hugh
August 12th, 2006
I am thoroughly enjoying not being an Episkopos. More than I ever enjoyed being one. The other day I got accused of being the first Aga Khan of Erislam and Discordian Jihad, but in reality, that was 'Bob.' If you send his Church some money, they'll tell you why.