devnulljp wrote:Derelict78 wrote:This may clear up some things about Magick and what it is.
Crowley defined Magick as "the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will." He goes on to elaborate on this, in one postulate, and twenty eight theorems. His first clarification on the matter is that of a postulate, in which he states "ANY required change may be effected by the application of the proper kind and degree of Force in the proper manner, through the proper medium to the proper object." He goes on further to state:
Magick is the Science of understanding oneself and one's conditions. It is the Art of applying that understanding in action.
All of which is meaningless word salad.
Ruh ro' Raggyy....we're straying into my territory here too..... I'm enjoying reading through everyone's thoughts.
There's a lot of controversy surrounding Crowley, and I'm sure that Derelict78 could school me on the man himself. I never could get into Thelema and enochian, ect, because it's too dry for my taste. Which is why I originally posted the picture of LaVey. Who, as I'm sure most people know, has damn near the same amount of controversy surrounding him. Crowley liked to speak like in Derelict's quote, but LaVey was much more straightforward. What Crowley (I believe) was trying to say in that passage, is that magic (I refuse to give it a "k") is seeing a set of causes, effects, and circumstances, and then using those things to get what you want out of a particular situation. At first, this sounds like normal human behavior; what any of us would do in order to get what we desire. BUT, in his systems (his forward to a particular version of Goetia states it well....) and much more so in LaVey's, it is recognized that you can trick yourself into different behavior.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PsychodramaAnd, on the 6th page, Crowley's introduction to Goetia, which seems to support a similar idea:
http://hermetic.com/browe-archive/pdf/goetia.pdfLaVey used the word "psychodrama" a lot, when he talked about "Greater Magic." His idea was that even though we can be very rational and logical, we still slip up and believe nonsense. Our brains make emotional decisions before logical ones. This is being discovered in modern neuroscience. We tend to rationalize an emotional response, rather than asses data and make a logical decision. It's the way our brains are set up. If you're hiking in the wilderness and hear a branch break, you get tense and on edge. Is it a mountain lion? Nope. The wind. Safe. But your brain's first reaction is "oh, shit!" because survival takes precedence. Back to my point....
LaVey also coined the term "intellectual decompression chamber," meaning a place set aside for one to leave their logical judgments at the door and get the emotions out. Jodoroswky coined the term "Psychomagic," which is a variation of the same concept. His idea is that every object we see in our ordinary, everyday lives holds subconscious meaning for us, and that if one wants to fix psychological issue, they can be prescribed what he calls a "psychomagic act." These acts are tailored for individuals for their individual issues, but it boils down to finding a set of objects, places, and circumstances that will help to fix the problem at hand. In LaVey's greater magic, one would "ritualize it out of his/her system."
The key to it is that the subject was to actually
want things to change. Before I get bashed because that sounds like a line of bullshit, let me explain. It is my idea, and many others', I'm sure, that we are where we want to be in life. Each of us, individually, that is. This especially applies because none of us live in third-world countries. People need a force of opposition, be it physical danger, emotional or intellectual opposition, etc. Or else they seemed to be consumed with "climbing to the top." That's why every time one of these topics comes up online, it goes on and on and on like this. Opposition gives motivation, no matter what form it takes. Some people create their own drama and problems because in a roundabout way, it gives their conscious selves a meaning to exist. If the church didn't have the devil during the dark ages, how would it have stayed so strong? Take hypochondriacs, for example.
Sooooo, if one doesn't want their particular issue to be resolved, they are somehow thriving off of a masochistic need.
This is starting to fall into the original question posed in the thread. I like LaVey's ideas the best, because they are a marriage of logic and emotion. It can be simplified as such: your "logical brain" knows what your "emotional brain" is up to, but realizes that it is necessary, to a point, for your happiness in life. A big theme in the thinking he outlined was "indulgence, not abstinence." BUT also, and equally importantly, "indulgence,
not compulsion." We're here for a very relatively short time, and it's pointless to spend all that time thinking about what happens when we die. Here's another one, "death is the great abstinence, life, the great indulgence." Enjoy life. Because self-aware consciousness is pretty cool.
