Magic: Define

Rothen

lets not get caught up on spelling here, i simply spell it magic, you may add or take away the 'c' or 'k' as you wish.
but i digress.

Magic, do you use it? Do you use it often, or for special occasions? Does your path involve magic? finally define magic.

Yes, i use it, a lot.

Magic: best way i ever saw it described: 'Inspiration for magik works the for me in the same way inspiration in music does. I know a selection of chords, i know what i am good at, i know how they sound together and the effect it produces. It is the same with magik. i know somethings work, i have ideas about others and i know the approxiamate effect it will produce.'

Nevyn

Well you are obivouly looking for what people personally think
and not the stock answers from books,
so why dont you start the sharing first with what you
perceive, think, feel, know it to be ?

Rothen

im not a spell beggar, not that you are accusing me of being one. I'd like to think I never was

I personally couldnt put it in better words than that of above.

Todays magic is tomorrows physics as yesterdays alchemy is todays chemistry.

What is it? That I am not sure, i mean, i could not put it in a single word. But is some external energy that I can manipulate to do as i will.

Nevyn

Todays magic is tomorrows physics as yesterdays alchemy is todays chemistry.

yes esp in relation to the HERMETIC LAWS

1. The Law of Mentalism: The Universe is mental. We exist in the mind of the All. That part of us which is deity makes up the world and everything in it.
''The All Is Mind; The Universe Is Mental.''

2. The Law of Correspondence: We exist in all planes, astral as well as physical. Or rather planes independent of the physical.
''As Above, So Below;As Below, So Above."

3. The Law of Vibration: Everything is in motion and vibrates with its own rate of the vibration. ''Nothing Rests; Everything Moves; Everything Vibrates''

4. The Law of Polarity: Polarity = Power. All things are dual, everything contains its opposite. ''Everything Is Dual; Everything Has Its Pair Of Opposites; Like And Unlike
Are The Same; Opposites Are Identical In Nature, But Different In Degree;
Extremes Meet; All Truths Are But Half Truths ; All Paradoxes May Be Reconciled.''

5. The Law of Rhythm: All things are in some way circular, spiral, cyclic, and in order to function the best way, you must adapt to live in harmony with natural rhythms. ''Everything Flows Out And In; Everything Has Its Tides; All Things Rise And Fall; The Pendulum Swing Manifests In Everything. The Measure Of The Swing To The Right Is The Measure Of The Swing To The Left; Ryththm Compensates''

6. The Law of Gender: The law of polarity, applied. Everything has both masculine and feminine components and energies. ''Gender Is In Everything; Everything Has Its Masculine And Feminine Principle; ''Gender Manifests On All Planes.

7. The Law of Cause and Effect: There are no coincidences, nothing happens by chance. Everything is a cycle. For every effect, there is a cause, and every cause is an effect in something else. ''Every Cause Has Its Effect; Every Effect Has Its Cause; Everything Happens According To The Law; Chance Is A Name For The Law Not Recognized; The Are
Many Planes Of Causation, But Nothing Escapes The Law.''


As Physics has advanced with wave partical theory it is funny to reflect on
the law of vibration.

also of intrest. http://www.ace.net.au/darkmoon/mglaws.htm

and http://www.ace.net.au/darkmoon/magick.htm

Personally I dont like any magical system that is with out moral guidance or
interaction with Deaity.

Rothen

Thaed wrote:

yes esp in relation to the HERMETIC LAWS .

T'was Interesting, cheers!

Thaed wrote:

Personally I dont like any magical system that is with out moral guidance or
interaction with Deaity.

That I do not agree with, surely the point of magic is to go beyond your limits and setting limits (moral guidance) on yourself, defeats the purpose of using magic.

What are your thoughts on Karma etc?
I think its a load of crap, the universe deals you **** sometimes, deal with it.

Interaction with Diety?...em yep, but there are entities more suited to protection, learning etc that you could ask, although i do ask my diety for protection from unwanted entities.

cat_rant

Rothen wrote:

Magic: best way i ever saw it described: 'Inspiration for magik works the for me in the same way inspiration in music does. I know a selection of chords, i know what i am good at, i know how they sound together and the effect it produces. It is the same with magik. i know somethings work, i have ideas about others and i know the approxiamate effect it will produce.'

that sounds very bard like, as in using music in your spiritual work, i heard there may be a workshop at Faille Driocht? (sp) this year on magical soundings.

i find singing is a great way of raising energy and also dispelling it now if i can work on the singing part i'd be doing well! Theadydal has heard me warbbling away

lets just say it leaves much to be desired

because im not trained yet, with me any magical work i do basically comes down to 'damage control'
hopefully though that will change soon

cat

Rothen

Okay, I'm gonna bring this back up.

What type of magics do you use? Ceremonial, chaos etc?

ancathach

On the point of the seven hermetic principles, Ms. Billinghurst obviousily rehashed from a modern treatise, "The Kybalion", attributed to "three initiates", one of whom is most probably Paul Foster Case, a high ranking member of the Golden dawn and founder of the modern mystery school "Builders Of The Adytum". (see www.bota.org)

The Kybalion goes into each category in much more detail than is covered by Ms. Billinghurst and I have it in PDF format and will willingly pass it on to anyone with a genuine interest if they e-mail me offlist.

On the point of morals and magick there are a lot of moral hang ups stemming from a social rather than divine schema that smack of the "thou shalt nots" of orthadox paths.

One morality which lacks the orthadox moral dynamic, and used in many magickal circles is Aleister Crowley's law of Thelema which states:

"Do what tho wilt shall be the whole of the law"

This statement is basically a free licence by any standard understanding, but AC had a special understanding of the term "will" to denote ones higher purpose. So ones purpose is to be lead by ones highest ideal, and the use of "wilt" the present tense of "will" only reafirms it to be a living ever guiding law.

But perhaps I'm muddying things, how is this persay magickal? AC's definition of magick was "magick is the art and science of causing change in conformity with will" that is to say, all actions led by this higher purpose is essentially magickal- magick is not a "technical" art by his definition, although it has this aspect and this aspect can greatly aid in the following of the Will.

The law of thelema is suplemented by "love is the law, love under the will"- all acts of will are acts of union with the divine purpose, all acts are led by the cosmic influence, and the specific influence of the indivdual, led by the Higher Guardian Angel, plays a part in the much larger whole. As all acts of will are union, they essentially begin to link the individual with the divine source, giving the law of thelema a divine philosophy rather than a social moral dynamic.

Deity is beyond morality because deity is not a matter of good and bad- these polarities are a show of manifest existance, from our division from the body of light, to our division in manifestation by way of gender, colour, and essentially morality. This divisionism is the division we have, and which we create with deity.

AC put it nicely when he said "The devil does not exist. It is a false name invented by the black brothers to imply a Unity in their ignorant muddle of dispersions. A devil who had unity would be a God"

;-)

Our duality reflects our nature, our social environment and shouldnt be supposed or held up as divine law. If we want a morality, say it for what it is, our need for division.

Magick is often decribed by colour- black, white, and grey. All magick is white! why so you may ask? White is the combination of all colours, and magick represents a full spectrum far beyond monochromes, or far beyond any one tone on the spectrum- by dividing the spectrum we are restricting the work of the union of the dualities and the reassembly of the body of light.

Brian

__________________________________________

On the question of my tradition, I think qabalistic, and ceremonial celebrates my primary means of manifesting magick although I do not confine myself to any one colour on the spectrum, nor one tradition. I'm an eclectic magickal worker (although I do tend to focus for a given working for reasons of strenghtening certian virtues ect).

Magick is essentially the same force, encapsulating all potentials and can manifest in many ways, or the axim commonily attributed to chaos magicians, "if it works, use it!"

PhantomBeaker

Thaed - So in the hermetic laws of gender, how do trans people count? I noticed in the site there was a reference to androgyny - and while some of the trans population would consider themselves primarily androgynous, how would others along the transgender scale count (i.e. from transvestites to transsexuals)? What about Intersex people?

As for my own definition of magic - intent, or a well-crafted desire. Beyond that, I don't know. My own use of it... um there are occasions where if I'm not bloody careful I can do things that are not helpful to me. Beyond that, I'm not really sure how often I use it beyond those times of "OH SWEET.... Holy CRAP! Don't let this happen! Please let this work in my favour" - which tend to work in my favour then. Maybe my life just managed to take an upturn.

Phantom Beaker

Nevyn

PhantomBeaker wrote:

Thaed - So in the hermetic laws of gender, how do trans people count? I noticed in the site there was a reference to androgyny - and while some of the trans population would consider themselves primarily androgynous, how would others along the transgender scale count (i.e. from transvestites to transsexuals)? What about Intersex people?
Phantom Beaker

Well transvestites like to wear the oppsite genders clothing but still consider themselves to be their gender asgined to them with thier gentials, unlike transgendered people.

The more traditional orders of magic would say you work with what is in your pants. But if on the material plan you have one set of gentials and in your heart, mind and on a power and astral level are manifest with what for you is your true gender then that has to be taken into consideration.