do you believe in magic?

[rae121452]

i don't mean the harry potter bullshit, i mean real magic.

i just finished a book on the history of magic and then i found another one. the idea is that magic is older than organized religions and that people still practice vestigial magic today only now we call it superstition.

"religion and the decline of magic" quote: 'if magic is defined as the employment of ineffective techniques to allay anxiety when effective ones are not available, then we must recognize that no society will ever be free from it."

do you think we can bend reality to influence happenings? is there such a thing as practicing magic?

 

[Philthy_Phil]

In a word. No.

 

[jaF0]

I'm hearing a Lovin' Spoonful song.

 

[PaxNurgle]

So then, you are talking about Alister Crowley stuff, or Wiccan type magic.

To an extent, yes, some of it is real, but... Unfortunately, I also believe that when you tap into that stuff, you are inadvertently tapping into some really destructive spiritual energies that can, and will, almost always lead to harm- both spiritually, mentally, and sometimes physically- to the person who dabbles in it.

Basically, yes I believe it exists, and I try to stay the heck away from it.

 

[rae121452]

I'm hearing a Lovin' Spoonful song.

it has been stuck in my head ever since i wrote that post.

 

[rae121452]

So then, you are talking about Alister Crowley stuff, or Wiccan type magic.

To an extent, yes, some of it is real, but... Unfortunately, I also believe that when you tap into that stuff, you are inadvertently tapping into some really destructive spiritual energies that can, and will, almost always lead to harm- both spiritually, mentally, and sometimes physically- to the person who dabbles in it.

Basically, yes I believe it exists, and I try to stay the heck away from it.

yes, crowley and wicca and so on. the books i've been reading posit that the practice of magic is the most ancient, truest religion, something that has occurred in every part of the world. almost like its an inherent trait in mankind, that christianity and islam and the rest are human inventions, not naturally occurring. and that because it is natural, it has a potency that is not manufactured by humans but is part of a larger spirituality in nature. i believe it, i've always believed it. its easier for me to believe that a tree has an awareness than that some 2000 year dead jewish guy is riding around on clouds in a pink night gown and keeping an eye on me.

 

[sigh]

Both magic and religion attempt to explain and control the unknown and misunderstood. With the rise of rationale and science, the need for both magic and religion has declined, as has the number of their adherents. We're always searching for ways to explain what we perceive. What will come after science?

 

[FGB]

"do you believe in magic?"

Sure. well I believe their is such a thing... mentions it in the Bible ya know... sorcery and stuff.

Says stay away from it.

Some of the Apostles and such butted heads with it.

 

[Tryharder62]

It matters who/what the magician is seeking their power from.

 

[thør]

I'll tell you about the magic, and it'll free your soul...

 

[magicalmoments]

The sacred books of the great religions are full of this shit and each and everyone of you who put your faith in them, Hindu, bhuddist, jew, Christian or Muslims, then you believe in magic.

 

[pecksniff]

It matters who/what the magician is seeking their power from.

Indeed, the Western Esoteric Tradition included a lot of magicians who invoked the Trinity or saints when casting spells. In Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, Faustus starts out with a magic circle inscribed with names of God "forward and backward anagrammatized" (but what he conjures up is the demon Mephistopheles, who explains that to "rack the name of God" is just the perfect way to attract the attention of devils).

 

[rae121452]

It matters who/what the magician is seeking their power from.

this was addressed in my books. the idea of evil spirits, demons or satan are pretty much christian ideas. lucifer wasn't originally the devil, he was an archangel expelled from heaven for the sin of pride. he was also the most beautiful and god's favorite. demons are simply the manifestations of the old gods, renamed. even they aren't pure evil except to christianized people who don't believe you should commune with them. there are spirits who are mischievous, mainly because they're jealous of humans for having a place in the corporeal world. even they only want to annoy you. sammael, the angel of death, is an archangel who was originally a symbol of mercy because he freed moses from the trial of old age. christians made him evil because...death.

i guess i'm going on and on about this because even tho i'm old, these books made me open my mind and look at things differently, which is never a bad thing. it also validates my whole revulsion of organized religions.

 

[rae121452]

Indeed, the Western Esoteric Tradition included a lot of magicians who invoked the Trinity or saints when casting spells. In Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, Faustus starts out with a magic circle inscribed with names of God "forward and backward anagrammatized" (but what he conjures up is the demon Mephistopheles, who explains that to "rack the name of God" is just the perfect way to attract the attention of devils).

and voodoo is just a synchretization of african and christian beliefs.

 

[rae121452]

do you believe that magic is a power that can be harnessed, either sympathetically or ritualistically?

 

[pecksniff]

The late stage magician and skeptic James Randi for a long time offered a million-dollar prize to anyone who could demonstrate a paranormal or magical ability under controlled laboratory conditions. Just being able to influence the outcome of a series of coin tosses or dice rolls in a statistically significant way would have been enough to claim it, but nobody ever succeeded.

 

[PaxNurgle]

Yes, BUT: Assuming it leads to tangible results, the results are almost always destructive- typically more so to the person who actually harnesses them than to the objective. Which, again, is why I stay faaaar far away from it.

 

[pecksniff]

and voodoo is just a synchretization of african and christian beliefs.

In the U.S. we usually think of voodoo as a system of magic, but it is really, essentially a religion -- what we might call magical practice is only a sideline. Voodists believe in one supreme God, Bondi (from the French le Bon Dieu), but that He is too exalted to take an interest in human affairs, so they pray to lesser gods.

 

[pecksniff]

So then, you are talking about Alister Crowley stuff, or Wiccan type magic.

There is a difference in the Western tradition:

There is the high magic or ceremonial magic, the magic of educated men (rarely if ever women): Altars, swords, chalices, incantations in Hebrew, Greek or Latin, symbols from astrology and alchemy, and elaborate theories about how magic works. That's Aleister Crowley and Eliphas Levi and the Golden Dawn and the Ordo Templi Orientis.

And then there's folk magic: Incantations in vernacular language, no theory to speak of, and no equipment or ingredients that would not be available to a medieval peasant.

The word "witch" originally meant a folk magician who used magic for malicious purposes. There was also a recognized category of "cunning folk," legitimate folk magicians who, among other things, hired out as witchfinders. But witch-hunting was very rare in medieval Europe.

Then, around the time of the Reformation, a new idea emerged: Witches were not merely evil magicians, they were Satanists. They were in league with the Devil, they got their powers from the Devil, they attended witches' sabbaths in remote places where the Devil showed up in person and they worshipped him by kissing his hindquarters. That's when witch-hunting became a socially important phenomenon. Mainly in Protestant countries -- the Catholic Church's position was that most reported instances of witchcraft were simply popular hysteria.

Some 20th-Century scholars took this view seriously, except they classified the witches as pagans rather than Satanists, as in The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, by Margaret Murray. She believed it was all a survival of pre-Christian religions, practiced underground during the Christian era.

Wicca was founded by Gerald Gardner, who claimed to have been initiated into a witch-cult of the above type, but no historian or anthropologist takes that seriously any more -- almost certainly he just made up the whole thing out of books. Any real-life "witches" before then were merely folk magicians, not pagans and not Satanists.

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

i don't mean the harry potter bullshit, i mean real magic.

i just finished a book on the history of magic and then i found another one. the idea is that magic is older than organized religions and that people still practice vestigial magic today only now we call it superstition.

"religion and the decline of magic" quote: 'if magic is defined as the employment of ineffective techniques to allay anxiety when effective ones are not available, then we must recognize that no society will ever be free from it."

do you think we can bend reality to influence happenings? is there such a thing as practicing magic?

No.

I'm amazed that anyone still asks that question.

 

[pecksniff]

No.

I'm amazed that anyone still asks that question.

I'll get you, and your little dog too!

 

[pecksniff]

Yes, BUT: Assuming it leads to tangible results, the results are almost always destructive- typically more so to the person who actually harnesses them than to the objective. Which, again, is why I stay faaaar far away from it.

Why would that be, I wonder? Why should magic be dangerous?

 

[pecksniff]

I read once that the image of witches wearing conical hats was Church propaganda dating from a time when conical hats had been a hundred years out of fashion but were still worn in remote rural areas. The message was, "Witches are ignorant hicks! All us hip, with-it city folk are Christians!"

Also, the image of witches flying on broomsticks may be based on an old fertility rite where one would straddle a broomstick and hop around a field to be plowed, the fertility-significance being based on phallic symbolism.

 

[Champakian]

If you mean stage magic, yes.
It's the art of illusion.

Otherwise, no. Emphatically so.
It's the art of delusion.

 

[oneblueye]

hey...

i don't mean the harry potter bullshit, i mean real magic.

i just finished a book on the history of magic and then i found another one. the idea is that magic is older than organized religions and that people still practice vestigial magic today only now we call it superstition.

"religion and the decline of magic" quote: 'if magic is defined as the employment of ineffective techniques to allay anxiety when effective ones are not available, then we must recognize that no society will ever be free from it."

do you think we can bend reality to influence happenings? is there such a thing as practicing magic?

:the World's Greatest Sorcerer: Nikola Tesla