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Sand
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05 Dec 2010, 7:03 pm

BlueMage wrote:
Magick is real. Most people think it's ridiculous to believe that magical rituals could possibly accomplish anything, but that's just because most people are uninformed. Rituals are just what is going on on the surface. To a person who has never seen a lightswitch before, it may seem ridiculous that simply flipping a switch can light up a room. But an informed person knows that the switch is connected to wires and voltage and infrastructure that allow it work like "magic".

That's the way magick works: through study and training of the mind, one learns how to create metaphysical constructs on the astral plane and how to connect them to metaphysical sources of power. And so tools like wands and words of power work just as the switch to get things working.

If you are really interested in magick, read a book. Then read another book, then another book. Forget about looking for approval from society at large or the mainstream media. Reality does not work as it appears to work on the surface. Magic(k) is a complex and esoteric subject you are not going to understand by reading a few comments on an internet forum.

Here are some books I recommend:
Modern Magick by Donald Kraig
More Simplified Magic: Pathworking and the Tree of Life by Ted Andrews

Ceremonial Magic & The Power of Evocation by Joseph C. Lisiewski (Actually just go to amazon dot com and read at least the beginning part in the preview)
Authors: Dion Fortune, Israel Regardie, Franz Bardon.


Looks like Harry Potter has all the capability to start a new religion. (Or revive an old one.) In the insane ward that has become the USA I am not surprised.



techstepgenr8tion
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05 Dec 2010, 7:35 pm

What makes you so certain he's not from Finland?

BlueMage wrote:
Here are some books I recommend:
Modern Magick by Donald Kraig
More Simplified Magic: Pathworking and the Tree of Life by Ted Andrews
Ceremonial Magic & The Power of Evocation by Joseph C. Lisiewski (Actually just go to amazon dot com and read at least the beginning part in the preview)
Authors: Dion Fortune, Israel Regardie, Franz Bardon.

I might read some of these just from my own curiosity about the internal realities of certain things like this.



JNathanK
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09 Dec 2010, 3:50 am

I think something like it could very well exist through synchronicity, but I think there's limitations to it if it exists at all. I think stuff that requires alters and paying lots of money and special wands is just a scam though.



Wiki - Synchronicity



hpcrowley
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24 Dec 2010, 12:53 am

A lot of it depends on your definition of Magic(K). Flashy, overt, Harry Potter-level displays of change in ones environment due to rituals is bunk...the real effects of magick are very subtle. this subtlty has the unfortunate effect of making it totally unprovable.
My favorite definition of Magick is Uncle Al's classic "the Art and Science of causing change to occur in conformity to your Will". By this definition, any willful act is a form of magick. As for the OTO style ceremonial rituals, they are silly to the uninitiated, but they are also both meaningful and fun to those who practice them.



Sand
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24 Dec 2010, 1:14 am

hpcrowley wrote:
A lot of it depends on your definition of Magic(K). Flashy, overt, Harry Potter-level displays of change in ones environment due to rituals is bunk...the real effects of magick are very subtle. this subtlty has the unfortunate effect of making it totally unprovable.
My favorite definition of Magick is Uncle Al's classic "the Art and Science of causing change to occur in conformity to your Will". By this definition, any willful act is a form of magick. As for the OTO style ceremonial rituals, they are silly to the uninitiated, but they are also both meaningful and fun to those who practice them.


If you can't turn lead into gold or call up demons to revenge yourself, what the hell! That's not magic, that's just self delusion.



ruveyn
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24 Dec 2010, 1:17 am

Sand wrote:

If you can't turn lead into gold or call up demons to revenge yourself, what the hell! That's not magic, that's just self delusion.


The only way the Muggles have to transmute elements are very expensive particle accelerators. The Wizards and Mages are much more efficient.

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24 Dec 2010, 9:19 am

Sand wrote:
hpcrowley wrote:
A lot of it depends on your definition of Magic(K). Flashy, overt, Harry Potter-level displays of change in ones environment due to rituals is bunk...the real effects of magick are very subtle. this subtlty has the unfortunate effect of making it totally unprovable.
My favorite definition of Magick is Uncle Al's classic "the Art and Science of causing change to occur in conformity to your Will". By this definition, any willful act is a form of magick. As for the OTO style ceremonial rituals, they are silly to the uninitiated, but they are also both meaningful and fun to those who practice them.


If you can't turn lead into gold or call up demons to revenge yourself, what the hell! That's not magic, that's just self delusion.


I take the whole 'lead into gold' thing of alchemy as a metaphor. Alchemy is about personal evolution and spiritual development. You take the leaden human and perfect him into spiritual gold.


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ruveyn
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24 Dec 2010, 9:25 am

Moog wrote:

I take the whole 'lead into gold' thing of alchemy as a metaphor. Alchemy is about personal evolution and spiritual development. You take the leaden human and perfect him into spiritual gold.


That is not what Isaac Newton thought and he was the last of the great alchemists.

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24 Dec 2010, 9:38 am

ruveyn wrote:
Moog wrote:

I take the whole 'lead into gold' thing of alchemy as a metaphor. Alchemy is about personal evolution and spiritual development. You take the leaden human and perfect him into spiritual gold.


That is not what Isaac Newton thought and he was the last of the great alchemists.

ruveyn


He might fallen for the story, or he was perpetuating it for camouflage. Old Isaac was reputed to be a bit of an occultist on the side, or so I have read.

Not having access to the private recesses of his mind, I would not claim to know any of what he thought, only what was written and disseminated by or about him.


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ruveyn
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24 Dec 2010, 10:53 am

Moog wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Moog wrote:

I take the whole 'lead into gold' thing of alchemy as a metaphor. Alchemy is about personal evolution and spiritual development. You take the leaden human and perfect him into spiritual gold.


That is not what Isaac Newton thought and he was the last of the great alchemists.

ruveyn


He might fallen for the story, or he was perpetuating it for camouflage. Old Isaac was reputed to be a bit of an occultist on the side, or so I have read.

Not having access to the private recesses of his mind, I would not claim to know any of what he thought, only what was written and disseminated by or about him.


Not only reputed, but actually so. A large cache of Newton's unpublished papers and correspondence was bought during the 1930s by non other than John Maynard Keynes. It showed Newton to be an alchemist, a mystic and a confired God Phreak who wrote four times as much on Alchemy and Mysteries of the Bible than he did on Physics and Mathematics. Newton was a Wizard more than he was a Physicists.

For a thorough picture of the real Newton, not the marble and plaster Newton that rationalists love to construct read the best biography of Newton written: -Never at Rest- by Richard Westfall.

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24 Dec 2010, 11:12 am

ruveyn wrote:
Moog wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Moog wrote:

I take the whole 'lead into gold' thing of alchemy as a metaphor. Alchemy is about personal evolution and spiritual development. You take the leaden human and perfect him into spiritual gold.


That is not what Isaac Newton thought and he was the last of the great alchemists.

ruveyn


He might fallen for the story, or he was perpetuating it for camouflage. Old Isaac was reputed to be a bit of an occultist on the side, or so I have read.

Not having access to the private recesses of his mind, I would not claim to know any of what he thought, only what was written and disseminated by or about him.


Not only reputed, but actually so. A large cache of Newton's unpublished papers and correspondence was bought during the 1930s by non other than John Maynard Keynes. It showed Newton to be an alchemist, a mystic and a confired God Phreak who wrote four times as much on Alchemy and Mysteries of the Bible than he did on Physics and Mathematics. Newton was a Wizard more than he was a Physicists.

For a thorough picture of the real Newton, not the marble and plaster Newton that rationalists love to construct read the best biography of Newton written: -Never at Rest- by Richard Westfall.

ruveyn


That sounds very interesting, I would like to read that.

Is that John Maynard Keynes the economic theorist? How curious.


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ruveyn
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24 Dec 2010, 12:28 pm

Moog wrote:

That sounds very interesting, I would like to read that.

Is that John Maynard Keynes the economic theorist? How curious.


The very same. John Maynard Keynes was one of the few economists who know how to get rich without government subsidies. Just about everything he touched or invested in payed off handsomely.

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24 Dec 2010, 12:56 pm

Legato wrote:
Tarot card readings, horoscopes, and things of that nature are sufficiently vague that, if one is so inclined, one can piece together the pieces of "information" to accurately describe parts of their life. The emphasis is your mind and what you make of it - but what you make of it has zero bearing on the truth and objective reality.

I used to believe in spirits and gods and magick, but the singular thing I came to realize throughout the years of beliefs and rituals and everything is that, well, nothing happened. Anytime I had supposed that something did happen as a result of my magick, it was always because I wanted the result to be influenced by my magick. In other words, the entire idea of psychic powers and magick plays on the EGO. The whole notion that you have magical powers is seductive.

Anyway, believe whatever you want to believe. Just, please, don't make any decisions based on unfounded beliefs. Don't change relationships with people, don't avoid medical science, and don't seduce other people into believing that crap. Indulgence in fantasy is one thing, but when you mesh your fantasy with reality, people often get hurt in one way or another.


oh yeah Wicca is total BS but praying to jesus to get better and find a new job
thats totally solid :roll:

I always am baffled how stupidly insulting people here are, tearing into other peoples' beliefs but then getting all bitchy when someone remotely questions theirs
you chuck out one belief system you think is asinine merely to pick up one that makes just as little sense
its about faith, or is faith only for christians



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24 Dec 2010, 1:49 pm

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBUc_kATGgg[/youtube]


if the results of your "magical" endeavor are indistinguishable from the results of random chance, you could have better spent your time baking cookies.


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techstepgenr8tion
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24 Dec 2010, 2:08 pm

waltur wrote:
if the results of your "magical" endeavor are indistinguishable from the results of random chance, you could have better spent your time baking cookies.

Well, Carl Jung might be right in that its really about interplay with the subconscious. Just for that value it may not need to be anything more real than lavish self-administered attempts at synergy. Of course if they start sacrificing backlavah or perfectly good beer that could be an issue.



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24 Dec 2010, 2:18 pm

Libations have a respectable history as a form of sacrifice requiring minimum prep and energy drain.

Baklava is something else again - not sure I could go that route. Giving it up for lent is bad enough.

I have a great recipe obtained from one of my students years back. A Palestinian version, it is a bit lighter but we think better than most Greek and other versions we have tried.