Magic: Who thinks they can do it, and why otherwise intelligent people buy it.

[Faust]

its merely cause and effect.

Exactly that! Anything else is just overly worded and confusing for the sake of confusing

NO IT MUST HAVE CANDLES AND CHANTING AND MAGIC IN IT OR IT CHALLENGES MY WORDVIEW

[NotPublished]

its merely cause and effect.

Exactly that! Anything else is just overly worded and confusing for the sake of confusing

NO IT MUST HAVE CANDLES AND CHANTING AND MAGIC IN IT OR IT CHALLENGES MY WORDVIEW

Come to my healing bossom!

[P3nT4gR4m]

We are psycho-somatic beings... the mind can affect the body functions, just as the body can affect the minds function...

And although one shouldnt rely on psychological will to cure cancer, it sure can help in a matter of degree.

In other words, if you psychically give up on life, it WILL affect your immune system; the percentage that this affects the condition, do, is very variable, and i think, unmeasurable in a quantitative scale.

The effect of stress on the immune system is measurable on a quantitative scale.  "Giving up on life" is a little trickier, however.

OK so we go from "voodoo can kill you"
to "voodoo can give you cancer"

If you believe a voodoo curse can hurt you, it will.

Gullibility/Suggestion - not the voodoo itself, but the response that evokes from you

If I had some asshole waving chicken bones and cats menstruation at me  my stress levels would rise ->More susceptible to cancer.
Its just that the practitioners cause (magic) is not the actual cause, its the actual physical significance of the act.
For instance leaving a dagger on someones pillow to give them bad dreams, same deal, no magic. The actual Physical significance of what happened would effect my mental state and my nerves. I don't think gullibility has anything to do with this, its merely cause and effect.

So we're right back to Arthur C. If you understand it, it ceases to be magic. If you don't then you become hilariously fleece/fuckable.

[LMNO]

Did someone just equate the word "psychology" to the word "magic"?


Because now we're just talking about conciousness manipulation again, which we already covered, and we agreed that it's not "magic".


If you need props and chants and rituals to shift your perceptions, then you're using far too many crutches, and you might need to re-evaluate why you're still wearing robes and waving crystals.  Because your brain doesn't actually need all that crap to do what it does.



On the other hand, we always seem to veer away from "magic as a non-local effect", probably because (1) that's what most people mean when they say magic, and (2) it's waaaay harder to justify or prove.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I always figured that the promise of non-local effect was what got people into magic. The ability to manipulate local psychology was what they got out of it.

Or maybe that was just me

[Jasper]

It does not make sense to think of magic as the direct manipulation of objective reality by paranormal means, because there is no basis except hearsay.  It always amuses me when people talk about REAL magic as the stuff that doesn't exist, and FAKE magic as the tricks, when the truth is quite the reverse.  The real magic is all tricks, and for most people knowing how it works makes it less interesting.  That's not very deep thought, because the fact that the tricks can have the appearance of "magic" (with scare quotes) provides an interesting window on human consciousness. 

[Telarus]

Did someone just equate the word "psychology" to the word "magic"?


Because now we're just talking about conciousness manipulation again, which we already covered, and we agreed that it's not "magic".


If you need props and chants and rituals to shift your perceptions, then you're using far too many crutches, and you might need to re-evaluate why you're still wearing robes and waving crystals.  Because your brain doesn't actually need all that crap to do what it does.


On the other hand, we always seem to veer away from "magic as a non-local effect", probably because (1) that's what most people mean when they say magic, and (2) it's waaaay harder to justify or prove.

I'll disagree with the bolded section just to disagree with something. The mind processes abstract symbols on 2 levels. Abstract symbols can connote something (reference by implication), and denote something (explicit meaning, referencing a concrete phenomena), and most symbols in context do both at the same time. In today's information saturated era everyday objects automatically register as symbols which connote and denote multiple things to different people, most clothing has been 'branded', and everyday language has been emphemerated by Faux News and the 24 hour news cycle.

Code Select Expand

University of Montana Style Guide: http://www.umt.edu/urelations/style/c.htm
[b]connote, denote[/b] "Connote" means to suggest something beyond the obvious meaning: "Mother" connotes "love and caring." "Denote" means to indicate or refer to something explicitly: "Mother" denotes "female parent."

Magic in practice, to me, seems the ability to redefine what symbols connote and denote, and to invoke both responses in the mind at will when appropriate. Doing this TO OTHER PEOPLE doesn't seem hard, and Pen and Teller remain an excellent example of magikians that tell you exactly how they tricked you with their bare face hanging out, expertly mixing crowlean magick and stage legerdemain. Back when we didn't have virtualized blood-sport entertainment of tv and video games, and burning a sorcerer was a good weekend picnic, the genuine practices grew sharp pointy bullshit-spines to survive. You had to converse wiht pervwerted Enochian Agels to learn these tricks, buddy. The ritual behavior mentioned (i.e. 'needing props') serves as an induction to a mind-state where the connotations of symbols get expereinced as Cathexis(i.e. direct, all-over-the-body-at-once feelings). Mentioning Alice, Dorothy Gale, and Wendy Darling to someone who has read Lost Girls creates a different bodily/chemical response than in some-one who has not read that semi-pornographic graphic novel. But the core of it boils down to the fact that every time you burst out in uncontrollable laughter at a WOMP you've failed you're savings throw vs the other spag's LULZray.

There's an old Sufi self-mindfuck where you go about everyday life as if every phenomena/event was a direct message from the Ineffable. I spent a month reading the hand of Eris into everyday events and accidental meetings, a month reading the squiggles of Cthulhu's pseudopods in the clouds, and a month receiving cosmic tx msgs from St. Gulik. I found this retraining of the connotations of things as they're happening, this breaking of your own Abstraction System useful. I 1) realize this is all bullshit and hilarious, which meant I could take it seriously as a psychological exercise and that rotating the diety/godform in question would only improve the exercise, and 2) I have learned what my mind and body does when others try to redefine my connote- and denotations for me. When marketing or an advertisement, or a friend or co-worker's narrative pulls up strong connotations or forges new ones, that's a slight re-organization of your whole personality and the body reacts with pulse and breath.

It's the mindful practice of mindfuck magic that lets you observe your own reactions in order to, just like any other martial art, refine and improve them. To exercise them yourself, and not to let your culture exercise them on you indiscriminately. Most genuine practices from East and West revolve around the shackles that your culture has placed on your mind via their own language patterns, and how to macgyver a useful tool out of those shackles once you break them.

[LMNO]

I stand by my statement that if you need a stick, a knife, a bowl, and a geometrical figure scratched into the dirt during a full moon to enact brain change, you're seriously doing something wrong.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I stand by my statement that if you need a stick, a knife, a bowl, and a geometrical figure scratched into the dirt during a full moon to enact brain change, you're seriously doing something wrong.

No shit.  Give me a room full of deviants, and I'm there.  I can even do it on my own, but that requires concentration and something (anything) to be enraged about.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

 

"We decided it isn't Magic"

Sure LMNO, you and TGRR 'decided'. Crowley, Alli, Carroll, Hine, and dudes from as far back as at least the 1600's and as recent as books published in 2009 decided that it 'is magic'.

But, no... it's apparently much better for two people that don't make use of a system to define that system.

[The Johnny]

"We decided it isn't Magic"

Sure LMNO, you and TGRR 'decided'. Crowley, Alli, Carroll, Hine, and dudes from as far back as at least the 1600's and as recent as books published in 2009 decided that it 'is magic'.

But, no... it's apparently much better for two people that don't make use of a system to define that system.

How much would you charge me, for making a bottomless cup of coffee?

Btw, im also interested in shitting edible marshmallows, and that the ladies all desire me.

I pay well.

[LMNO]

I said "agreed", not "decided".

For the purposes of this thread, there is a big difference, as well you should know.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I said "agreed", not "decided".

For the purposes of this thread, there is a big difference, as well you should know.

So your agreed definition of Magic is based on fantasy RPG, Harry Potter books and the 'pinealist' equivalent of pagans...

Ok then, Magic is 100% bullshit*


* as defined in this thread.

[LMNO]

Considering you have endorsed Crowley's definition of magic as "anything you want it to be," then yes.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I said "agreed", not "decided".

For the purposes of this thread, there is a big difference, as well you should know.

That's not fair, LMNO, making him argue what you said, rather than what he WISHES you'd said.

Think of the strawmen, LMNO.  They need jobs, too.