An experiment with Babylon and LMNO

[The Good Reverend Roger]

what rata just said... the  1 2 and 3 are pretty common and have been well established definitions for a long time

Still a crock.

You have dime-store psychology, wish fulfillment fantasies, and sleight of hand.

Why do we need new terms for these?

[fomenter]

tilting at windmills... in an effort to patently explain the difference between the three to the dirty hippies  and mush heads we are trying to clarify the difference for them by adding numbers

[The Good Reverend Roger]

tilting at windmills... in an effort to patently explain the difference between the three to the dirty hippies  and mush heads we are trying to clarify the difference for them by adding numbers

I see.  Why not just feed them more dope and let them sink back into the land of unicorns and fluffy white clouds?

[fomenter]

there does seem to be a certain masochistic feel to the endeavor....
i am still holding out for the sadistic pay off laughing at their pain when their fluffy bunny harry potter world crashes down around them and they thrash around looking for excuses for why they  failed to prove their power,
but the experiment seems to be derailed, the magic believers aren't lining up to prove their powers for some reason 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

there does seem to be a certain masochistic feel to the endeavor....
i am still holding out for the sadistic pay off laughing at their pain when their fluffy bunny harry potter world crashes down around them and they thrash around looking for excuses for why they  failed to prove their power,
but the experiment seems to be derailed, the magic believers aren't lining up to prove their powers for some reason 

Because they realized the first of two horrible truths.

1.  They aren't attracting females with their mahdgjickque on this board.

All that remains is the second horrible truth, which they will figure out eventually.

2.  They will not attract any females ANYWHERE by talking about mahdgjickque.  I mean, outside of the ones that live in the bus station.

[fomenter]

if you like the bus station panhandlers/rainbow-family gathering dirty hippie chicks with a fifth covered baby on their hip and enough body hair to braid a rope magic is the gig for you...

[The Good Reverend Roger]

if you like the bus station panhandlers/rainbow-family gathering dirty hippie chicks with a fifth covered baby on their hip and enough body hair to braid a rope magic is the gig for you...

And they still won't get any.   

[Cain]

The dirty hippies are now mostly part of the Jesus crowd, anyway.  No nookie unless its an after-marriage deal, and that could take some time.  Not to mention any talk of any magic, including stage magic, will invoke cries of devil worshipper (see: Florida teacher and the amazing vanishing pen for more)

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

but the experiment seems to be derailed, the magic believers aren't lining up to prove their powers for some reason 

I volunteered for the next round several pages ago. I am pretty sure we are waiting on someone to tell us when to start.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The dirty hippies are now mostly part of the Jesus crowd, anyway.  No nookie unless its an after-marriage deal, and that could take some time.  Not to mention any talk of any magic, including stage magic, will invoke cries of devil worshipper (see: Florida teacher and the amazing vanishing pen for more)

Yeah, that was a hoot.  It made me proud to be an American^TM.

[Iron Sulfide]

what rata just said... the  1 2 and 3 are pretty common and have been well established definitions for a long time

i was addressing all who spoke up about my calling it all cheating. i gave explaination invoking the current metaphor system (semantic labeling with subscript numbers, introduced here by the OP, assholes) and digressed why i felt all three forms were cheating.

and rat- i know you're trying to be diplomatic and bridge the differences, etc... but with all due politeness, fuck off. i've read crowley and regardie and some carrol (he's not as fun), et cetera, and those experiences are exactly why i perceive magic1 as cheating.

when a wiccan casts a spell and claims change occured, and you ask for proof, they take the (usually) subjectivity route and yadda yadda their way around logic and science. in that sense, people employing magic2 are cheating by refusing adequet testing and measurement (or really, any testing or measurment).

Not to meantion that almost any renouned psychic or such that 'employs" magic2 has aactually been someone using a form of magic3.

so it may have well been more accurate to say that all discussed forms of magic require one to cheat at some point, but that was too much typing. so yeah. fuck. off.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

what rata just said... the  1 2 and 3 are pretty common and have been well established definitions for a long time

i was addressing all who spoke up about my calling it all cheating. i gave explaination invoking the current metaphor system (semantic labeling with subscript numbers, introduced here by the OP, assholes) and digressed why i felt all three forms were cheating.

and rat- i know you're trying to be diplomatic and bridge the differences, etc... but with all due politeness, fuck off. i've read crowley and regardie and some carrol (he's not as fun), et cetera, and those experiences are exactly why i perceive magic1 as cheating.

What experiences? "Those" don't seem to be describing much of anything here. I don't give a shit if you like or dislike Crowley, Carroll etc... I'm just stumped on 'cheating' in any sense there.

when a wiccan casts a spell and claims change occured, and you ask for proof, they take the (usually) subjectivity route and yadda yadda their way around logic and science. in that sense, people employing magic2 are cheating by refusing adequet testing and measurement (or really, any testing or measurment).

Don't disagree... if you say you can guess random die rolls and fail, or just can't under testing etc... then its cheating to still claim you can. That seems reasonable to me.

Not to meantion that almost any renouned psychic or such that 'employs" magic2 has aactually been someone using a form of magic3.

so it may have well been more accurate to say that all discussed forms of magic require one to cheat at some point, but that was too much typing. so yeah. fuck. off.

I agree with the bit about renouned psychics... but I'm still confused on your conclusion. However, I'll fuck off if you'd rather not discuss it.

[Iron Sulfide]

forgive myself if i've been a bit rude in unwarranting situations, rat. it's been hell in a retail shopping bag for me these past few weeks and i'm feeling a bit disgruntled.

back to why systems of magic1 are (IMO) cheating: whether it's Crowley, Jung or The Next Big Thing™, we're talking about systems of psychology and parapsychology aimed at (basically) brain-hacking and recoding. Nature already does this, infirming a whole lot more than just survival strategies and social behaviors. Is it cheating to alter your brain in such fashion? No, not necessarily. I never said cheating is inherently wrong either, but then i also try to approach semantics and behavior in a post-moral fashion.

if a person had behavior "A"- something ungainful and deleterious to that person, perhaps immobilizing depression or paranoid delusions or an obsession with rubber ducks- and said person wanted to alter behavior A or replace/negate it altogether, there are two basic options available: quick-fix and long-hauling. Long-hauling can take years, even decades of work and guidance through things such as psychotherapy, self-analysis, etc...things that magic1 might be considered a precursor to. Quick-Fix solutions include pharmacology (prescribed or not), self-help gurus, hypnosis, brainwashing and the like, and typically produce "results" in a person in a much shorter time, though such results tend to be shorter lived when used alone.

That said, my position is that Crowley, et al, fall somewhere between self-help and parapsychology. They and other mystical systems may indeed take certain "students" years to understand, let alone master (and i am no master), but they are simultaneously aimed at long-term and short-term brain-change.

So cheating, in my choice of definition, is a strategy that makes something easier than it would otherwise be. and i never said there was something wrong with it (but it may be unfair in a test such as the one LMNO was/is conducting.)

again, apologies about the hostilities, but someone telling me to "go read crowley, carrol and that other guy" is akin to that newb who recently suggested members of the board read up on the 8-circuit model, general semantics and e-prime, etc...

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Ah Oh! You probably think computer hacking is cheating too whereas I simply consider it making use of my knowledge of information systems 

I think I grok what you're saying... we're cheating the 'norm'... that is rather than accepting the mental programs we picked up along the way like a good little primate, we modify, change, break, poke, rewrite, buffer overflow, crosssite script our own heads... which is cheating compared to the more passive self-programming that most humans do.

?

[Triple Zero]

Yeah, cheating is basically defined as acting outside of the "rules of the game".

In that sense, perhaps one of the most distinguishing features of Discordianism compared to traditional religion, is that cheating is considered a good thing.

Hm I never considered it like this, but the above makes a very good "one paragraph explanation of Discordia", IMO.

(and the fact that it is actually two paragraphs makes it nicely self-referential)