Chaos Magik

[Cain]

Very true.  Of course, it could just be because what I study considers itself to be a social science yet is so bloody unscientific I tend to treat it and the social sciences in general as an almost wholly seperate category (except for some parts of psychology, which can be very scentific at times).

[Vene]

In the defense of social sciences, at least they try to apply the scientific method.  But, it's not nearly as strong as the theories in physical sciences.  And this is coming from somebody that studies physical sciences.

[Cramulus]

Maddijiicke is complete and total bullshit.
Just do something stupid/strange for the hell of it.  Well, I guess letting your buddies see you try and work your maddijiicke may be worth a laugh (bascially what Apex just said).

It's not "complete and total bullshit", but a lot of it is.

I'm gonna side with Ed Wilson and Wes Unruh, the writers of the Art of Memetics...

Magic is no longer restricted to ceremonial tools and garb. Magic [in this book] is about taking the cultural forces around us and using them to shape reality.

By that measure, every commercial you see is doing sigil magic. If we accept that as a definition, I think magic is a very powerful tool... just it's a lot easier to swallow if divorced of its arcane "bending laws of physics" aura.

Magic was once a much larger field of study. Over the years most of the ideas that were once confined to magical theory and practice have been isolated and reformulated in different fields of study. Magicians are left guarding only a few nuggets of practical application that remains unique to magic. For the most part, interaction with essences generated from patterns, the manipulation of belief to alter subjective experiences, and non-local action of thought and will are all that remain solely under the banner of 'Magick' and even these few ideations are being carted away into other disciplines. So why not just study those other disciplines?

We feel there is still value in the study of magic; in particular the language system that has been built up dealing with subtle connections, forces, and objects of the psyche. We believe that with grounding in the theory and experience of causing the improbable to become possible, an individual becomes empowered to reverse-engineer the hyperreal world of post-modern discourse. We believe that magic is much more than sleight of hand or sleight of mind, and know that what has been carted away into the sciences of harmonics, of chemistry, of quantum physics still haunts the spectral core of this abstraction labeled sorcery, magic, thaumaturgy, mojo, hoodoo... and in precisely the same way, magic haunts sciences, both hard and soft. One doesn't need to dig far to find elements of wizardry in neurolinguistic programming7, or marketing, or psychology. We do not react directly to the world but rather the world as it is filtered by our nervous system's habits of punctuation. We break down the world according to what we expect to find, how we move indicates what is important to pay attention and what our word systems point out or hide. This is what Kenneth Burke refers to as the terministic screen, and is very similar to what Robert Anton Wilson meant when he discussed Reality Tunnels in his work Quantum Psychology.

[Cain]

The people behind Chaos Marxism have a very similar outlook.  They consider magick, politics, marketing and advertising etc to all be the same things - attempts to influence and change how you think.

And these people are outright materialists.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I have to agree, in some sense, with Cram here...

Chaos magic, as a model doesn't seem like complete and total bullshit, based on my experiences. The bullshit comes in when people confuse the menu and the meal... when they confuse the metaphor with something real. I've taken classes taught by both Phil Hine and Peter Carroll (Antero Alli too)... in all of these variations on Chaos Magic, I don't recall the instructor  making claims about physics. Physics as metaphor, sure... modifying psychics as really real... well there were a couple students that made such claims, but mostly people seemed to think they were a bit nutty (like the woman that claimed she could throw fireballs from her belly).

In the end, however, mosbunal of the concepts of Chaos Magic are well discussed in The Art of Memetics (see also Phil Hine's Book of Atem)

[Cain]

Thats why I keep suggesting a new term.  'Magick' seems too loaded.

[Cramulus]

Troof. I don't want to identify myself as a magician, but I AM essentially doing "sigil magic" with POSTERGASM and the other insane projects that seem to occupy all my time. There's gotta be a better word.

Reality Hacking?

[Cain]

Culture hacking may be better.  It implies a level of subjectivity in what is being done, which I rather like.

[Lies]

Meh, I just lump Chaos Magick, Postergasm, culture hacking, reality hacking and whatever else as "having fun".

And I can't think of anything more mystical and profound and spiritual and magical then 'having fun', personally.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Culture Hacking, Mind Hacks, Memetic Warfare?

Magic, in my opinion, still has its place as a model. It has a lot of existing symbols which, when taken as symbols can provide a useful map... one that has been developed over centuries. If you examine Magic and Memetics together, I think (in my opinion) that you may find a more clear map than simply examining one model (only memetics, or only magic).

For me, at least, it seems important to look at reality through as many models as possible... this past Fall/Winter I read Book Four, Book of Atem and Mind Hacks all together and found that they seemed (to me) more clear taken together than any of them taken on their own.

[Vene]

Maddijiicke is complete and total bullshit.
Just do something stupid/strange for the hell of it.  Well, I guess letting your buddies see you try and work your maddijiicke may be worth a laugh (bascially what Apex just said).

It's not "complete and total bullshit", but a lot of it is.

I'm gonna side with Ed Wilson and Wes Unruh, the writers of the Art of Memetics...

Magic is no longer restricted to ceremonial tools and garb. Magic [in this book] is about taking the cultural forces around us and using them to shape reality.

By that measure, every commercial you see is doing sigil magic. If we accept that as a definition, I think magic is a very powerful tool... just it's a lot easier to swallow if divorced of its arcane "bending laws of physics" aura.

Magic was once a much larger field of study. Over the years most of the ideas that were once confined to magical theory and practice have been isolated and reformulated in different fields of study. Magicians are left guarding only a few nuggets of practical application that remains unique to magic. For the most part, interaction with essences generated from patterns, the manipulation of belief to alter subjective experiences, and non-local action of thought and will are all that remain solely under the banner of 'Magick' and even these few ideations are being carted away into other disciplines. So why not just study those other disciplines?

We feel there is still value in the study of magic; in particular the language system that has been built up dealing with subtle connections, forces, and objects of the psyche. We believe that with grounding in the theory and experience of causing the improbable to become possible, an individual becomes empowered to reverse-engineer the hyperreal world of post-modern discourse. We believe that magic is much more than sleight of hand or sleight of mind, and know that what has been carted away into the sciences of harmonics, of chemistry, of quantum physics still haunts the spectral core of this abstraction labeled sorcery, magic, thaumaturgy, mojo, hoodoo... and in precisely the same way, magic haunts sciences, both hard and soft. One doesn't need to dig far to find elements of wizardry in neurolinguistic programming7, or marketing, or psychology. We do not react directly to the world but rather the world as it is filtered by our nervous system's habits of punctuation. We break down the world according to what we expect to find, how we move indicates what is important to pay attention and what our word systems point out or hide. This is what Kenneth Burke refers to as the terministic screen, and is very similar to what Robert Anton Wilson meant when he discussed Reality Tunnels in his work Quantum Psychology.

I'm not a fan of digging through shit to find a small amount of something valuable.  And, if you want to define magic as cultural forces, then I have a lot harder time seeing that as complete garbage.  But, it's so detached from what magic was historically that I can't really see it as magic.

[Agrippa]

I love chaos magicke because it allows me to masturbate over my own silly drawings with reason

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Maddijiicke is complete and total bullshit.
Just do something stupid/strange for the hell of it.  Well, I guess letting your buddies see you try and work your maddijiicke may be worth a laugh (bascially what Apex just said).

It's not "complete and total bullshit", but a lot of it is.

I'm gonna side with Ed Wilson and Wes Unruh, the writers of the Art of Memetics...

Magic is no longer restricted to ceremonial tools and garb. Magic [in this book] is about taking the cultural forces around us and using them to shape reality.

By that measure, every commercial you see is doing sigil magic. If we accept that as a definition, I think magic is a very powerful tool... just it's a lot easier to swallow if divorced of its arcane "bending laws of physics" aura.

Magic was once a much larger field of study. Over the years most of the ideas that were once confined to magical theory and practice have been isolated and reformulated in different fields of study. Magicians are left guarding only a few nuggets of practical application that remains unique to magic. For the most part, interaction with essences generated from patterns, the manipulation of belief to alter subjective experiences, and non-local action of thought and will are all that remain solely under the banner of 'Magick' and even these few ideations are being carted away into other disciplines. So why not just study those other disciplines?

We feel there is still value in the study of magic; in particular the language system that has been built up dealing with subtle connections, forces, and objects of the psyche. We believe that with grounding in the theory and experience of causing the improbable to become possible, an individual becomes empowered to reverse-engineer the hyperreal world of post-modern discourse. We believe that magic is much more than sleight of hand or sleight of mind, and know that what has been carted away into the sciences of harmonics, of chemistry, of quantum physics still haunts the spectral core of this abstraction labeled sorcery, magic, thaumaturgy, mojo, hoodoo... and in precisely the same way, magic haunts sciences, both hard and soft. One doesn't need to dig far to find elements of wizardry in neurolinguistic programming7, or marketing, or psychology. We do not react directly to the world but rather the world as it is filtered by our nervous system's habits of punctuation. We break down the world according to what we expect to find, how we move indicates what is important to pay attention and what our word systems point out or hide. This is what Kenneth Burke refers to as the terministic screen, and is very similar to what Robert Anton Wilson meant when he discussed Reality Tunnels in his work Quantum Psychology.

I'm not a fan of digging through shit to find a small amount of something valuable.  And, if you want to define magic as cultural forces, then I have a lot harder time seeing that as complete garbage.  But, it's so detached from what magic was historically that I can't really see it as magic.

I think it may be detached from the popular beliefs and myths about magic... but reading Crowley, Regardie, even Abremelin... if you look at it as consciousness change (modifying one's own reality tunnel) and culture hacking (using memetics/mindfucks/rituals/etc) to modify other people's reality tunnels... then suddenly 'magic' doesn't seem nearly as detached from what we're discussing.

Quote from Uncle Al:

My message is then twofold; to the greasy bourgeois I preach discontent; I shock
him, I stagger him, I cut away earth from under his feet, I turn him upside down, I
give him hashish and make him run amok, I twitch his buttocks with the red-hot
tongs of my Sadistic fancy—until he feels uncomfortable.

But to the man who is already as uneasy as St. Lawrence on his silver grill, who feels the Spirit stir in him, even as a woman feels, and sickens at, the first leap of the babe in her womb, to him I bring the splendid vision, the perfume and the glory, the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. And to whosoever hath attained that height will I put a further Question, announce an further Glory. It is my misfortune and not my fault that I am bound to deliver this elementary Message.

"Man has two sides; one to face the world with,
One to show a woman that he loves her."

We must pardon Browning his bawdy jest; for his truth is ower true! But it is your own fault if you are the world instead of the beloved; and only see of me what Moses
saw of God!

It is disgusting to have to spend one's life jetting dirt in the face of the British public in the hope that in washing it they may wash off the acrid grease of their
commercialism, the saline streaks of their hypocritical tears, the putrid perspiration of their morality, the dribbling slobber of their sentimentality and their religion. And
they don't wash it! . . .

- Liber CLVIII "The Solider and The Hunchback http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/libers/liber148.pdf

That sounds, to me,  far more like an admission of 'culture hacking', than a mystical, magical realm of twisting physics.

[Vene]

Damn Discordians making me think! 
I'll have to look more into this.

[LMNO]

Rat, great AC quote...

But if that's one of his aims of Magick, then he is truly the only Honest Macgikian the OTO has ever known.


Which kind of makes one question the definition in the first place.