My life is...decidedly mundane. I have never seen anything magical, never felt any presence of any ghost, spirit or god, never found anything that couldn't be explained and understood. My delusions may be that there is magic, but no matter how I search, or how I look within myself, nothing emerges. I need to find magic in order to have hope again, but can't find it at all. Any spells, invocations, or summonings of will I try myself all seem to run up against a wall, and nothing ever happens. Any person I've met who claimed access to some form of magic turned out to be a charlatan, or a swindler.

This isn't some run-of-the-mill dry period. I've existed for nearly three decades without a single whisper of magic coming my way. It's not that I'm closed to it, or avoiding it. It's not that I just haven't been looking long enough. I know very well what magic is, so I can't be mistaking it for something else. So...maybe I'm cursed?

It would explain a lot if I was under some sort of curse. I sure can't live without magic, and there doesn't seem to be magic, and that contradiction... well maybe it's that I'm being blinded, or held off from it somehow? How would I tell if there was some influence preventing me from perceiving or running into magic?

I don't seem able to believe in anything, so maybe that has something to do with it?

Maybe look into past life regressions. Its a long shot, perhaps, but I have never met anyone who had an earnest desire to experience magick, who simply didn't. Are you sure you're paying attention? But, it is possible that for some karmic reason you are not able to find magick in your life. If that were the case, you would need to find out where that karmic issue comes from and resolve it. You can probably find a good therapist - who comes with some kind of references - who does past life regressions. However, even they will tell you - it's not like picking an issue and then going to find out where it comes from. Karma is complicated, and there are layers upon layers of causes. Maybe you will find out in the first session, maybe it will take some time. Hard to say.

Another option - find a spiritual master and undergo an initiation. Sometimes it just takes on intense spiritual/mystical experience to jumpstart your magickal consciousness. There is a woman in india called the Hugging Saint - forget her name - who they say when you hug her, she clears away all ignorance. Of course I'm sure it is temporary, those sorts of things always are unless you dedicate yourself spiritually to that ideal, but a peak experience of awakening is permanent whether you pursue it or not; you're never the same after those sorts of things.

Also, while I think it's been said before in response to a similar post, don't discount the value of seeking 'little magicks' in your life. Life is magickal - when you really look at it, almost everything happening falls into the category of 'impossible' by any 'sound' reasoning. Try to identify your true self, try to understand the First Person Perspective, and how your consciousness expresses through your physical existence.

A lot of people suggest that magick and spirituality are separated in some way. I disagree with that. Spirituality is, at it's essence, to embrace the magickal nature of existence whether you practice magick or not. Magick itself is applied spirituality, transformation - whether that means transforming lack into abundance, inner weakness into inner strength, or any other change you want to make in your life. And that is the same thing that spirituality is about. So, focus on your spirituality as well perhaps. Spiritual people tend to have more magickal lives, and see meaning in things and situations that others would not.

I could not say for sure why one person can experience magick easily, and another cannot. My Hermetic paradigm suggests that it is a matter of spiritual evolution, but honestly I believe that anyone with an earnest desire, with a pinch of understanding, can lead a magickal life. You just need to live life as though it were magickal - then it will respond magickally.

peace

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/ac42.gif)

Fear & desire can impact a lot too. Do you really want something magical to happen even if it would mean changing an important aspect of the world? Say you see someone levitate in a open field, you're convinced they've done something "magical." All is well & good for magic; but what sort of position does that put view of gravity? Newborns are afraid of falling, people die every day from the simply taking a wrong step or slipping on something, flight was a fevered dream of mankind for ages. And now, here's someone, without a shred of respect for the laws of nature, floating mid-air like it was nothing!
I can't count the number of times I wasn't prepared for bizarre things to happen to me. I used to shut strange things out, easing my anxiety by either trying to find a scientific explanation (about as well as Star Trek) or shifting into denial. After a while you can eventually learn to take things in stride and be more open to any change, if there's one thing weird stuff can do best, it is to help you keep an open mind.


Then there's expectations; if something doesn't happen juuust the way it was expected, all sorts of feelings or maybe just laughter springs up. Sure a chemist may be able to turn lead into gold, but is it magic if they do it in a drab lab instead of a lovely light show? There are so many different ways to classify something, that your day could be filled with all sorts of "paranormal" occurrences, yet you still yearn for "magical" events.
I took precognition for granted years before realizing it was something actively sought by fevered stock-market and lottery players. Not to mention stuff like synchonicity or prayer or technology or thoughts or symbols or...

You could be cursed :-P but not likely.

Forcing it can be hard and difficult. I don’t know really what to suggest. I realize now how bizarre my childhood was, my friends and such growing up.

Movies like “What the bleep do we know” might trigger something. Brain Washing like “The Landmark Forum” might help. Going and doing Yoga at a gym or studio might help. All those things will help in other ways no matter what.

However the “magickal” point of view, is just a slight bit different then the mundane one. It is that our existence is more then just random collisions of energy.

If you can, take a long course (5 weeks+) in tarot or some other divination, do what is asked of you. Keep a Journal of your progress or lack there of.

Lately I have been wondering how is it that I know a female is attracted to me? It is something I usually pick up on quickly but because of fear of rejection (I think, though it does not fit with the rest of my life) I avoid till it is obvious.

I am now trying to figure out if it is body language that I notice, the looks, postures, voice modulations… or if it is the feeling I get.

In doing this I am of course not trying to look at people directly (my normal way of being) so it is hard to nail down.

Another idea, if you have the cash to spend…get a physic reading, be honest and upfront. Then after 2 months, get another different one, repeat after about 2 months again.

Then read everything you wrote about what they said…was it more coincidence or more on par. Did situations they claimed would be good come up and you did not take advantage of at the time, where the readers full of it?

Last I recommend picking up a decent how to in any tradition you like, and following it exercise per exercise.

In order of cost for what I recommended.

By money.
Rent “what the bleep”
Buy a book
Take yoga at gym or community college.
Do the three tarot readings
Take a long tarot class
Do the Landmark forum.

By time
watch “what the bleep do we know”
Do the three tarot readings
Do the Landmark forum.
Take a long tarot class
Take yoga at gym or community college.
Read a how to book

By use in other aspects of your life.
Yoga
Landmark
Book
What the bleep
Tarot class
Tarot reading

Lastly I recommend Big Mind, you can get it in a DVD set or other less legal fashions, three hours and you will be in a different and powerful mindset then you have ever been in your life. If you watch it and follow the instructions (very easy) with little or no distractions. Other then watching with full focus all you have to do is change the way you are sitting about 10 times, you change the way you are sitting to any way you wish. You also question yourself from different perspectives…that is all.

This can be the most profound of my suggestions…but getting the video is in that grey area of things to do. I don’t know the cost for it by itself but the one I have came in an expensive bundle, and they don’t sell that one on its own, but I have seen a new one that they do. I have noticed the one I have in p2p networks.

Those can be dangerously misleading I've heard. Hold on...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory

I guess this isn't so big a concern though, since I already have false memories. Might be something to consider.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/shok.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/roflmao.gif) Sorry, I'm chronically unemployed, and in the USA. No health care for the likes of us.

I would love it if I could find an Aikido master. I miss that discipline so much, but there isn't so much as a dance studio around here, much less an aikido dojo. But masters of any sort are very hard to find. I've tried talking with pastors and counselors and such, but it's hard enough to even convince them that something is wrong at all, much less work towards that kind of experience.

How so? Life seems pretty possible to me, considering it's right here in front of me. I think what you mean is that life defies explanation, but that doesn't seem to be the case either. I dunno. If you define magic as air, then there's magic everywhere, but I don't define magic as air.

That would be so awesome! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) I strongly desire that feeling of uncertainty, that I don't know the big picture and life still has some surprises in it for me. So hard to find it though: no escape since the system is closed.

You want to know what I fear? I fear inevitable doom. I can deal with dying if I walked into it, but the idea that certain things can happen, and indeed everything that happens is pretty much inevitable, the end result unavoidable, that terrifies me to no end. That's the worst fear that breaks through my mental fog sometimes late at night, that no matter how hard I try I'll just die instead of doing what I need to do. I've seen death; I've picked it up and held it in my hands; I've watched it solemnly across a hospital bed, and then in an urn at a funeral. I've not seen magic though, so it leaves me scared to death that I might be doomed never to experience magic, since there's no way it could appear before I die and can't experience anything.

I don't know what that fear would do for or against finding magic. Maybe I search for it too hard? How would searching for it less desperately have any effect though?

Trying to find an explanation is great, but you start running into problems when you really do find explanations, and there's nothing more left to doubt. Wouldn't that scare you more than the unknown?

Yeah it could. It can work the opposite way too, where your life could be filled with completely banal and mundane occurences, but you consider it all to be magic. It's a dangerous thing to try and achieve something that is poorly defined. It's like trying to hit a moving target.

I probably should do a thread on my definition of magic. It's really simple and specific and uh... impossible. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/doh.gif)

Ack! Beware that movie! Please read this. http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/bleep.html[/url]
Yeah, if I want pay $300 to sit in a room and get yelled at for 3 days straight. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Click here for information on why that place is a scam http://www.caic.org.au/index.php?option=co...=1243&Itemid=12

You know, this is what had me worried that this was a curse. I was trying to get back into my Hatha Yoga with one of those cheap community college classes (real cheap with a fee waiver!). But every time I tried to ground and center, quiet my thoughts and such, I'd have these awful fits of pique where the utter futility and worthlessness of etc etc all came crashing down on me. But only if I tried to meditate. The teacher didn't seem concerned that I had to sit there fighting off a natural trance, instead of joining with the rest of the meditators, but that's cause she was an incompetent boob who should have stuck with teaching fencing. But my reaction to something that should have helped my mental state, along with other strange (yet totally explainable) progressions in my life, gave me the idea that it might not just be me that's the problem. The lack of magic, the lack of serendipity, and how somehow I've ended up in a state of modest comfort with a computer, but no human contact, no career or job prospects, no school to attend nor money to attend it with, no community, no easy way out of town, rotten busses... seems like something is interfering with me, even if that something is a terrible nothing.

Where do you find courses for that stuff? I've already stated my opinion about the Tarot deck, but there may be some other methods of divination that would do the trick. http://www.sacred-magick.org/index.php?s=&...indpost&p=34132

Maybe... I haven't heard of that movie before. Movies don't seem to be as life changing as the substantial stuff you can reach out and grab with your hands though. It's easy to read about how to improve onesself, but most of us already know everything that self help books have to tell us. Anyway, maybe I'll see about finding a torrent... I most certainly don't have cash to spend. Haven't had a job since May, and even that one paid crap (like, 2 hours a day wages).

Cool, I now know exactly where you are at as far as outlook on life in general…well not exactly but I know the general symptoms.

Everything I recommended I have done, what the bleep was a good movie to start the subject, when I saw it I was not so impressed by it then by the conversations I had because of it. However it did lead me down many roads of inquiry.

The point of everything I recommended is to get you out of your comfort zone. From your post it is clear that you have some true issues in that department. Personally I think the Landmark Forum would be the most interesting place for you to go.

What that experience was for me was a multitude of things. Mainly it is a challenge to your ego. They try to do it from every possible angle, some things fit for some people other things fit for other people. The only thing I can recommend to anyone that does it is to participate in it as much as possible…it is 3 days (might be two now) and you paid your money…take advantage of it.

In all honesty, I went into it because a friend told me to do it, and I said I would do it if after a year he felt the same way. He did so I took it (3 day version). I did what was asked of me, and in many ways it was the second most emotionally excruciating few days I had in my life up to that point. However it was a trip worth taking in every way. Hard to describe and or explain.

What I am reading in your e-mail is the perfectly normal and common experience (everyone does it) of living a protected life. You have constructed things in your life so that the amount of risk you take is minimal.

You like me would say “WTF” I have done this and this and this other thing………….
Making a list of hundreds of things that we consider “risky behavior” but it is all so ego driven we do not step out of our safe zone.

Ask my friends and they all know I will help them move, and I would help them move bodies. When there is something I promised to do, I will do it, even if it is a determent to me. For me that or life threatening or a challenge is not “risky behavior”. Also being the fool, idiot, or being wrong are not risky things for me…Not being loyal is an issue. Allowing myself to fail is an issue. Allowing myself to not know is an issue.

How does that manifest?
If I don’t know something that I feel I should, by the next week I would have learned a lot.

After landmark I allow myself to go on not knowing. Many hobbies I dropped once I figured them out, once I became really good at them, or was at a point where I was in the “top” level. Now I can enjoy things for the sake of enjoying them and not needing to know everything.

It may seem like a great trait to have, but it is obsession, now I control it much better and instead of it controlling me. It is a tool I have, and can usually turn on at will as opposed to “having to do it because I need to”.

I can also not take up a challenge, I am not speaking of silly challenges, but there where things I perceived as true challenges, now I can walk away from them. Many people learned how to push my buttons that way, that is now done.

The only silly thing about the forum for me was two things, I figured it out quickly, I got in the space they where trying to get everyone to quickly…because I had done an initiation before. But that is what it is at it’s essence.

There are a million and one things people can recommend for you. You have chosen on some level to filter yourself or shield yourself from certain perspectives. The only one who can open that up is you.

For arguments sake, if it is a curse…there is no curse other then ones that kill you outright that last a really long time, unless the cursed person makes the curse part of their life, on some level they need to choose that it is their world.

I can explain how this could be done, but it is pointless for this conversation. Ultimately you decided at some point to live the life you are living. The thoughts you have reinforce this.

In some traditions this is your “hell”.

No matter what anyone recommends, you will choose to remain there, until you choose not to.

The Classic Devil in any of the Waite/Smith decks, shows the lovers imprisoned by chains loosely tied around their necks. And in many decks it shows the devil as blind or with poor eye sight. This is to signify that it is an illusionary prison, as real as anything can be…until it no longer is.

If you looking for books…it is something you need to take on. Not just read and discard. I would recommend the following.

Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki

Both very Zen, both very simple reads, with simple exercises…note I say simple not easy. Some things are a dated in the books, but it is easy to adjust the exercises to current living…cell phones, computers, and such.

Big Mind is not a movie, it is a procedure/seminar. It is a 3 hour exercise of perspective. If you learn to control your thoughts, you control your experience, you control the events in your reality…that is not big mind…all big mind is, is a series of different perspectives that you go through.

If you watch and follow along without analyzing it to death, you will get something out of it.

Finally, I come to the biggie. It is all about your inner dialog. I have a post where I mention this. In some detail.
http://www.sacred-magick.org/index.php?sho...410&#entry34410

But I think with you it is the big issue and would really examine it. Therapy would truly be my recommendation, but I have avoided it for financial reasons and I am not in a dire financial situation as you are at the moment.

I will admit that at this point, I can enter almost any emotional state, at will. It is not anything of major intensity. If emotions had knobs like volume rated 1 to 10, I can get to 4 in any emotion in about 30 seconds usually in less then 2. Going to confusion, angst, terror, sadness or any of the emotions I don’t like are work for me and take the 30 seconds. But I can go to happiness, joy, rage, anger, compassion….very fast.
This took a lot of practice.

I credit the Landmark Forum with a breakthrough there…I was doing it, but I had feelings that I was faking it until a month or so after I did the forum. I felt like a method actor through life when I did it. The internalization that our emotions are reactions to our world, changed that for me. It also allowed me to sleep much better. I was a classic insomniac, I still prefer to be up at night and sleep during the day, but I can pretty much control my sleeping much better now.

Back to your inner dialog. Do you think that your inner dialog it you thinking? If so how is it when you are in an emergency situation or doing something you can do by muscle memory that your inner dialog is not part of the equation, and usually either not aware or many seconds behind?

Ok, now that we have objectified it, start paying attention to it, and start playing with it. The big powerful thing in “What the bleep” is the identification of the “witness”, getting there is the only point of that movie and I don’t care what half truths they told getting there.

Now, what is it about your inner dialog that makes you not want to step out of your box. What is it that makes you so emotional at a job, that you can’t keep it? Or what makes you be late?

We have all worked with morons, and morons in places of power…a job is just about paying bills, it is not your life. I don’t know any of the details, and I honestly don’t care to know. But I can tell you that I was fired for the first time in my life, from a job I had for four years and truly hated. I loved the Job, I loved doing my job, I hated that I had to fight to do the right thing every time. What I failed to do was figure out, my job was not my life, I could do what was asked of me and move on…most everyone else does, but it is not in my nature to do so. I was wrong, it is totally in my nature to do the best I can with what I am given and asked to do.

There was no reason why I should not have left there by the second year when I was sure things would not change. I am much happier now, even if I don’t make quite as much money, I also do not work nearly as much.

The Nike slogan of “Just do it” is very to the point of the matter. There is no reason to get emotionally involved in our job. We should enjoy it, and enjoying it is truly just a state of mind. If a place is truly screwed up, make a complaint, and leave. If legal action is necessary, do it, but one should never want to work for idiots or crooks.

You do not see magick, because you choose not to see it.

There are times when I truly marvel at the rain. I know very well how it works. But at those moments (not every time it rains, but usually at least the first good rain of the season) if you said it was not Magickal, I would smile and truly pitty your vision of the world. There are other times where if someone said it was magickal I would laugh and think they live in a wonderful little fairly land.

It was not until recently that I truly discovered what that choice is, how profound it is. Often our self imposed prison is sooo real, it is impossible to get out of.

However the choice is ultimately yours. I avoided going to gyms for hatha yoga, I had a great teacher and to this day love to be in her presence. Every time I listened to people doing yoga at a gym it seemed more like an aerobics routine then a yoga session.

But because of geographic issues, I no longer can be with my teacher. So the day before yesterday I went and did yoga at the Gym. First time in a year that I did yoga with other people. Everything was wrong, the mat I took was too rolled up, and the volume of the PA was annoying. The names the instructor had for everything was different, the warm up was screwy, my left wrist was in pain and giving out by the 30 minute point...The relaxation at the end was all messed up, and the teacher was distracting to me.
I ended up having a great session, I am still sore from it, but it was great in that it took me out of my comfort zone, and I enjoyed it. I got home, went right into my meditation practice, and am still feeling the “high” from it tonight.

My recommendation is if you need to get all the data you need to, find every reason not to do something, and then do it anyway. But allow the experience of it to stand on its own.

People can describe thousands of reasons to not fall in love with another human being. Hell, they can even describe that it is nothing more then chemicals and electrical reactions in the brain for the propagation of the species, and the rearing of our young. However if you experience it, you can’t help but be happy about it…until you loose it and decide to dwell in the loss instead of the greatness of the experience.

Your life experience is determined by you. There is nothing in your past that determines how you will be tomorrow. You can become a saint, a mass murderer, a sadist, an athlete. You may never become an astronaut or Olympic gymnast, or anything that requires the judgment of others to determine. But the plethora of choices are still limitless. Many of the choices require big steps, having the model life does not happen in a day.

But the key to everything is knowing your self. The first step in that is learning how to manage your inner dialog. It is not about control, the more you try to control it the worse off you will be, but it is usually the first step in learning how to manage it.

It will never go away, it will pop up at the most inappropriate times. Having a really funny and crude thought at a memorial service of a close friend is my personal favorite. I could not explain to the people sitting next to me (his family members) that when the minister was explaining about god taking the young and him being in a better place. I imagined him having sex with some porn star while watching a musical on a big screen TV and smoking a joint with a big smile on his face. It was a great thought, but most people would not enjoy my humor at the moment.

Now, all of that does not mean that you can’t trick it, but that always take a bit of effort. It also does not mean you should ever think it is a bad thing, no it is a great thing, we are never truly alone. But that inner dialog is not us, we should objectify it and not ever think it is us. It is no more us then our body is us. If you think our body is us…stop and think about it for a while.

Can you loose a leg? Are you still you?

Go through every body part, and really think about it’s function and then figure out if it is you or not. The brain is the tricky one. You need to break it up into small parts, one by one, you are still you without them. So then you are left with there is either nothing in this physical realm that is me, or it is the collection of my experiences.

Well start going through your experiences, the biggies that you think defined you. Figure out how they defined you. What changed after that point.

The reality is, nothing except the dialog you had with yourself. Nobody loves me, I am not worthy, I need to be smarter, I need to be faster, I need to be funny…I need to be cynical so nothing can get to me.

So we come back to the inner dialog. But if I can notice or witness the inner dialog…then it is an object and not me.

So what are you?

I am going to try and attach a text that might be enlightening in the opposite direction. Use the edit, replace command from the menu to change all the John with your name. in Word and notepad it is edit>replace in the menu, and select replace all.

This has gotten way too long and I can truly go on forever and not really move this conversation further without your input.

If you approach something with the perspective that something is missing, you will treat it as if something is missing. If it was already happening constantly, you wouldn't be wishing for it to happen, right? So approach everything you want to have happen as if it already is.
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

If you consider it something, it will be that; the only ultimate judge of what is and is not, is you. Of course, most people (myself included) find it easy to just copy other people's considerations in a the case of an information vacuum.

I know I identify a lot with my ability to experience thoughts, it makes meditation a real pain in the neck for I get terrified when sensing thoughts as somehow independent of me, whatever me is. Often I can feel my aversion to meditating because I remember how scared I got the last time. Fortunately, it's decreased the more I've done it as my ego(?) has come to accept it doesn't mean annihilation to just sit around doing nothing.

Just wait until they make full sensory interfaces and perfect 3D printers! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

I'm guessing you'd find you actually have...if you really thought about it. The explanations that tend to get trotted out for *some* things by science are so laughably absurd that it's amazing how anyone can believe them. Case in point...they worked out mathematically a while back that the odds of the Earth having developed randomly were on the order of several hundred thousand trillion to one, given the number of different variables involved...yet there are still some atheists out there who think the planet did get here entirely randomly. One of the main reasons why I have so much respect for atheism is because as a belief system, it takes more real faith to believe in than I've ever been able to generate as a theist. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/13.gif)



That's the point...that you think it's a delusion...although then again, here's the trick. You're actually right.

You seriously do sound, however, as though your only real problem is a rather terminal case of empiricism. To use a cliched and horribly overused paraphrase, you've convinced yourself a little too thoroughly that there really is a spoon. There truly isn't, you know. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/13.gif) It's simply that the illusion genuinely is sufficiently solid that you only really start to see proof that it is an illusion once you've almost completely conquered it anywayz, I'm guessing. You probably wouldn't have much trouble believing that gravity wasn't all it's cracked up to be if you could already fly...but unfortunately, you don't get that ability to start out with.

With science, belief is generated by results...with magick, it's the other way around, at least to some degree...yes belief is still generated by results, but it's a self-perpetuating loop...and a certain amount of honest to goodness blind faith does have to come first...that's the whole reason why atheists can roll around laughing at us and calling us fools and on a superficial level get away with it. I'm guessing that until you start getting the siddhis, as an example, any kind of proof that they're able to measure is going to tell them that they're right, and that we need to be sent to a padded cell. For a long, long time however, the only proof you're going to get will be that recorded by your own senses...and if you're very lucky, the occasional corroboration from someone else...but I get the feeling that more than anything else, that's why madness can be such a risk for us as well. If you need to convince yourself at first that what seem to be delusions are real, then madness sets in when you can no longer tell which delusions maybe are real, and which ones definitely aren't. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/13.gif) Boolean logic's yes or no becomes yes, no, or maybe.

Use ontology (your perception) rather than totally hard empiricism as the source of your evidence...since truth be told, the empiricist model is actually broken anywayz, to some degree. If you had already seen a ghost, you'd already know that. The reason why the empiricist model is such a trap is because it genuinely does work probably 90-95% of the time, and so science in its' myopic arrogance tends to merely lump the other 5% under the heading of parapsychology, and then proceeds to conveniently forget about it altogether. You're never going to see empirical evidence (at science's current level, anywayz) for the existence of astral space in particular, and that is the main thing that magick deals with from what I've seen.



Fine...cool, even. Learn about sigilisation, and then do a sigil to influence the statistical outcome of something simple...let's say you want the sigil to cause your mother to have the idea to give you a phone call sometime that day. Don't get hung up on all the blather about the burning need (and supposedly insurmountable difficulty) of achieving gnosis for spells, either. Draw the sigil, and then enage in that activity which your parents might have once warned you would cause blindness. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/13.gif) At the critical moment, or as close to it as you can manage, get a mental image of the sigil in your head. Then after you've washed your hands, burn the sigil, and do something else for a while that has no relation to magick entirely.

Later on, if you get a phone call at any time during that day which happens to be from your mother, allow yourself to believe that the sigil worked. Yes, maybe there concievably are other possible explanations for why the sigil worked. Ignore those, for the time being, and tell yourself that it was the sigil...there are times when logic will help you, and there are times when it won't. Realise that your first spell, no matter what it is, isn't going to give you airtight logical proof that magick works...and that that's ok.

If you get to that point, you've successfully cast your first spell. 100 Harry Potter points, and lather, rinse, and repeat, until you get an outcome which you do find genuinely difficult to explain other than as the result of a spell. Eventually it'll happen.

In my own experience, anywayz, one of the single main defining elements of any kind of supernatural experience is that the explanation can nearly always actually go either way. A sufficiently determined muggle can find a seemingly empirical explanation for just about anything, even if the rest of us think his rationale is gonzo. Likewise, however, there's equally as much (and often, a damn sight more, actually) room for a magical explanation as well. Early on, at least, it's a case of realising that both the muggle explanation and the magical one are equally optional, and that if you want to get to the point of realising that magick genuinely does work later on, you simply have to choose the magical explanation for now.



*grin* Yep. It's got everything to do with it. Go forth, and muggle no more. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/00000008.gif)

This post has been edited by Petrus: Dec 2 2007, 01:51 AM

Well I won't fall for scams like L$ndm$rk Forum, but you're otherwise totally right. I'm really struggling now to get free of this place, but until that happens I'm stuck in the comfort zone. :/

Close, but not quite. Most of my life has not been constructed by me. So it's not that I simply decide not to move away, but that my fault is in not being able to get out of the house before 3pm, but there is also the bus fare I can't afford, the poor routes and scheduling. There is the dearth of decent employment since the few people who actually can afford to hire are rotten multinational fascists. There is the insistence of these stupid cats to sit on me and discourage movement. There is the rotten treatment I got by our benevolent educational institution. All the people I've approached and beseeched, only to find out they don't have a clue and I'm wasting my time. Having a exciting life seems like a matter of being part of some special club, far as I can see, and I'm not invited. So forgive me if I choose harsh words in critique of your opinion that I have some obsession with avoiding a sensible amount of risk, and I'm somehow incapable of doing a cost/benifit analysis. Heck I take more risks than most people I encounter.

There is a difference, my friend, between choice and perception. You should say that someone "sees that it is their world" instead of "chooses that it is their world." Blaming the cursed for being cursed is easy to do, but you're better off admitting that they have a problem, that all is not well in the world, and that way you don't have to make up some rationalization about why they're cursed. Don't blame someone for losing hope; instead find a way to give them hope, or do nothing at all.

I consider that to be a very crafty lie myself. For too long people have imagined that they can escape any prison, that they can reach any dream that they have, if only they work hard and earnestly enough. It's equivocation, a false prophecy that has no certainty: most of the time hard work is more trouble than it's worth. There are a few people with a lot of money right now because they milked other people pretending that they would have a chance, but leaving them frustrated and confused in the end. The propaganda is that the chains are loose, but once someone tries to take them off suddenly you see them tighten terribly.

Then again, some people like to wallow in their own misery and would indeed be held by loose chains. Heck some people even think that's kinky. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

There's no one single thing wrong with me. What is it that makes you always get to your job on time without error? How other people do that I have no idea. Even if I wasn't depressed, it's just baffling to try and imagine keeping track of time that exactly. I don't usually get emotional at work either, but do suffer some emotional fallout afterwards. Even if I was calm, collected and confident in job interviews (actually I kind of am), the employer cares about what you can do for them, not about whether you're happy or sad.

We are very different people, you have to realize. I have never had a job for more than 3 months. I don't have a career, no specialty, no track record. I didn't throw myself into the workplace environment, make a buttload of cash, and then decide that it was too stressful and live out the rest of my life easily. I'm at that stage where I don't have the cash in the first place, so living life easily is something that other people won't let me do since as they put it, I can't afford it.

Oh good Gods. Could you just... not use that slogan? Please? I mean, not to be offensive or anything, but when someone says, "I can't do it," that generally means that they tried to do it, and it didn't work. They "just did it" and something went wrong. So basically any time you use that slogan you're telling them to repeat what they did last time, which failed, and you're offering no useful advice. Since you treat it as if it were useful advice, it actually becomes harmful because if they don't follow your advice you hold them in contempt, but if they do follow your advice they will fail, causing you to hold them in contempt.

I will grant one thing: if someone is afraid and nervous about continuing, then they can close their eyes and rush into the fray, and overcome their fear through action. That is the only time you can say "just do it". If someone's struggling, failing and depressed, "just do it" should not be said at all. It's a way of overcoming fear, not overcoming frustration and melancholy.

You know, it doesn't rain here either? ;_;

You can pity my vision of the world all you want, but it doesn't make my vision any less correct. What you need to do is change my vision, introduce contradiction into my paradigm. What I'm saying is, I know the way I see the world is a sucky way to live, but if you've got a better idea then show me the money.

Uh... if pop songs are any indication, it's exactly the opposite of what you said. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Heh, contradict yourself much? What you mean to say is our choices are limited, but there are still many choices we can make that will change our lives in dramatic ways. Unfortunately none of the choices I've found lead in the direction I need to go, but I agree given our harsh limitations there is still a lot that can be done. Whether doing it is worth a hill of beans is another matter.

I've seen someone fall victim to a brain stroke before. Heck in my vain attempts to cure my mental malady, I've run into people who have some terrible head trauma. I think Alzheimer's is the worst of all of it, you can literally see someone crumble away piece by piece. And they know it too, until the very advanced stages of the disease... Alzheimer's is what finally convinced me that there's no way for us to have any kind of immortal soul. It all dies in the end, without some kind of magic to turn the tide.

Eh, actually I guess sitting in a waiting room with someone in the throes of Alzheimer's for a few hours wasn't exactly a biggie. What kind of experiences do you think I've had? My life hasn't been one with much at all ado in it, but maybe I'll come up with something later.

Hey if I was scared something was going to get to me, I'd be over there on the right hand worshipping a pretend God. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mf_popeanim.gif) What you see here is the raw and unfiltered, so if you think it's some kind of defense against the likes of you, don't worry I don't feel like I'm in threat.

I'm a synx! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tickedoff.gif)

Yeah, you wrote a really awesome post. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I wanted to take some time to respond to it. I'll try reading the attachment later when I'm not quite so inwardly knotted.

Oh They did, did They? I'd love to see this mathematical working that They used to prove stuff with. Seriously though, the Earth developed when the nebula that was our solar system collapsed into a star, and the gas got burned/blown off the inner planetoid thingies leaving only the rocky core behind. That's the most plausible explanation I've heard before. You could call that random I guess, but claiming the Earth's formation is random is kind of like claiming that the direction dice fall is random. It's not. They always fall downward.

If I could get it to bend like Neo did, I'd be considerably warmer to the notion that you might be right. Besides, even in the Matrix there is a spoon; it's just not a spoon. It's a program that acts like a spoon. But believe you me, I'm trying my darndest to find a way to hack reality. It just seems not to have any chinks at all. Even here I'm trying to fix that.

Er, science and magic are not at odds with each other. I think that's just something the church dreamed up. If you ever read some of those steampunk novels, there are lots of stories where magic and technology go hand in hand. For science, magic is like a release valve. It's the big escape clause keeping us from reasoning ourselves into a corner. The absence of magic therefore worries and distresses me.

In my experience there are two kinds of atheist in this regard. The first doesn't laugh at you, but tries to clue you in with reality. The second doesn't laugh at you because they could care less. Atheists I've found laugh at comic strips, and only talk about religion in how they're worried about its effect on their legal system.

Huh, so I've spent a whole year living in a reality that isn't governed by empirical evidence? Who knew!

I think the reason why the empiricist model is such a trap, is because some people just have to have an enemy. They make up foes and nemises anywhere they can, desperate to find someone to fight against, to oppose. Having a \"them\" is a very useful tool, because it motivates people to take your side without fully questioning your motives or reasoning. So people aren't confident about their own paradigm or way of seeing the universe, so they make up these scary monsters called \"empiricists\" and warn everyone against the dangers of falling into that trap. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/harhar1.gif)

Hmm, I could do that possibly.

Conformation bias is a messy thing indeed. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/hmm.gif)

Seriously though, lately I've been trying out some good old Gypsy curses. Not much luck there though. Perhaps sigils will be different, but you just saying that without evidence or mechanism, is not really increasing my confidence that they will be different.

Have you ever tried to start out with good ol' fashioned energy work? It's a perfectly natural human talent, it's part of your biology, and anyone can do it. There's a question of doing it right, but, once you get the basics, it can lead to all sorts of magickal experiences. Some people just need to start in the right place.

A lot of what I'm reading here seems to be a rather victimized point of view. I mean, are you married? Have children? Any attachments holding you down where you are? If you're unemployed I'm pretty sure you aren't attached to a job. If you don't like where you are, leave. Sure it's probably a hard road if you have no money, but there's nothing keeping you from hitch-hiking to a new place, finding some kind of adventure somewhere else. And who knows, the process might be quite a magickal one.

And what I mean by finding magick in every day life has nothing to do with defining magick as 'air' as you sarcastically put it. Though if you're going to take a perspective like that, you might as well. You omitted the part about identifying your perspective, and contemplating the nature of your consciousness. Just because there is a scientific explanation for the way that the world works, does not make it less miraculous that it is working that way. We have not found, in space, after thousands of planets, any other planet like ours, with intelligent life like what we have here. Or, we have and no one is telling us, but that's a different story. The change from waking state to dreaming state, experiencing a whole other reality while you sleep, is magickal. The way an entire group can act as a single entity, without anyone's intention causing it to do so purposefully, is magickal. The process of discovery is magickal. The manifestation of creativity is perhaps one of the most magickal things that we all do at some point or another.

I have met lots and lots of people who insist that they're life lacks something, and they don't know what it is, and they don't know how to find out. People who say things like, "Well I hate my life, and I hate where I am, but I can't change it." That's a ridiculous thing to say, of course you can change it. People are adaptable, durable, changeable - anytime you don't like your life, anytime it's not giving you what you feel you need, you can change it. People are usually just afraid of the consequences of change, afraid of the hardship that might come with it, and are in reality comfortable where they are.

You sound like you're comfortable where you are. You make excuses to stay there, you explain logically why every suggestion is pointless to pursue. You're getting answers from people who went to lengths to put themselves in uncomfortable positions to change their lives, but you don't want to follow anyone's advice. You're asking these questions in the first place to prove that your situation is hopeless by deftly discounting everything that comes your way. You've already decided that you are where you want to be. You even mentioned that you're depressed - though I saw no implication that you're always this way, one of the classic symptoms of depression is to convince oneself that there is no way out from under it. An insidious imbalance that is.

Nothing will change your perspective on life in a drastic way, nothing will infuse your perspective with fresh vigor and optimism, like a drastic change that upsets everything you are comfortable with. No one is dictating your life, and the supposition that it even might be true is laughable. You are not tied down to your chair at home. You do not have armed guards at your doors, keeping you there with the threat of death.

You are afraid, and that fear is keeping you from experiencing life like you want. Fear is meant to keep you alive, that's all. But it has a tendency to run rampant if unchecked, convincing us that everything will kill us because we are alive and relatively healthy where we are - it controls us with the possibility that things might be worse in other conditions, therefore we might as well stay where we are because while things could get better, they could also get worse.

You could do hard labor to make money. You could sell your stuff. If you really wanted a job, you could get one. Obviously it's not important enough to do anything uncomfortable.

You could change your situation, your entire life. You are attached to things - your home, your lifestyle that you obviously dislike, your town, your comfort zone, your opinions and personality, all of the transient things that you are reminded, as you said, in moments of clarity that one day you will die. You are paralyzed by that revelation rather than freed by it, and that's part of your problem. Where did you come from? Where are you going? What will happen when you die? These are questions that can lead you into a magickal life, but instead of asking them, and acting as though you believe it when you realize you're going to die one day, you are ignoring them, ignoring that revelation, and continuing about your pointless existence as though nothing is wrong, when it obviously is, and you are even here, saying, "I know something is wrong, and I want to do something else."

It's all harsh, I realize, but it's pathetic. I see two people, aside from myself even, offering all manner of solutions for you to consider and think about, a handful of categories that could easily lead to something fruitful if you'd give it some thought and even come up with something based on what you're hearing and your own creativity. But instead you continue to complain and be depressed.

If you want change, get it. After all of this, I can tell you why you aren't experiencing magick. Because your mind and your lifestyle are too rigid for it. You're locked into it, and obviously don't want change, and that is what magick is about - change. You could even define it as just that - change itself. A mechanical universe would make no wrong turns, would develope along a straight line. Everything would be easy to understand, ultimately, because it's all one big equation, matter and energy doing what they do. But there is randomness, apparently, and things do change. People can be one person one day, and the next day turn it all around and be someone else, have another life, change everything. That's magick. Some people do it with symbols, arcane language, and transcendental energy work - some people simply exercise their will and change their lives. Magick is discovered along the way, when you look back and realize what an incredible turn everything took.

But if you don't want to believe - and it's obvious you don't - and you want to stay where you are comfortable - and it's obvious you do - then suck it up and at least enjoy your mundane life. With the attitude you have about this, and where you are, it'll be an act of magick if you do change it.

peace

quick reply to topic started:

Well start by creating a psi ball to understand the basics of energy and conciousness.

then try things like moving a candle flame if you want to be expert in energy manipulation. but start with the psi balls. that will make your mind more aware of energies you dont notice.

Life is a contradiction. It is pointless and empty. There is no point to it, there is nothing to get done. It is also everything.

The only thing we control in life is our reaction to things.

You may rather blame outside factors on things. But events are events. I get attacked, or assaulted, I suffer an illness….those are all events. I am not saying they are my fault.

It might be my fault, it might not. In reality it does not matter. My reaction is all that matters. My take on it is all that matters. It is the only thing I control. What I think and what I do about things.

As far as work life goes. It is funny that you mention being late as that is why I was fired.

80% of my jobs have been 3 years +. I have been late very often (about two times a week on average). I make up for it in work ethic, talent, and understanding my job.

For certain bosses tardiness is intolerable, for most it is bothersome…but I stayed on, I got promoted and so on.

Your employers interest should never be the well being of it’s workforce. It should be it’s product. Care for the workforce should be of interest only in this betterment of the product.

I want to make it clear. One should not blame the victim of anything, but you can wallow in it, or you can move on.

Alzheimer's or any trauma to the brain is terrible. My only connection is the people I know who are going through it. Not Alzheimer’s but brain damage. I know people who’s life became hell, I know people who’s life became more difficult but they are still who they are and enjoy life. The people I know with Alzheimer’s I did not know before they had it in advanced stages, so I don’t have a point of comparison.

Stroke victims I know well, other then that they are disabled, and deal with that as they deal with it, they are pretty much the same. One wasted away because of feeling useless, the others learned to live their new life. One I know that thinks it was probably the best thing that happened to her, changed her outlook on life.

By the way, the my needing to be cynical so things don’t get to me was all about me, if it has some charge for you, examine it. If it has nothing for you, then why did it come up and not the “Nobody loves me, I am not worthy, I need to be smarter, I need to be faster, I need to be funny” .

Raw and unfiltered…LOL. I would venture that if you examine that you would know that even that is untrue. I know I used to think of myself that way, but I filtered everything. Anything that I say has a context that I add to it. Specially when dealing with people. I used to love to use the “truth” to mess with people. I was much more honest then most people I knew, but not by much.

There is a difference between being truthfull and allowing the your thoughts to spew out of your mouth. Do we tell our loved ones that we are frustrated because of our strong caring feelings for them and that we love them, while we are having an argument? That is truthful. But we don’t do it. it does not serve our purpose to persuade.

Ultimately, you are just trying to be right. Congratulations, you are right. You are cursed, your life will not amount to anything because someone or something was annoyed by you or your ancestors enough to put enough energy into a curse that it would determine the rest of your life.

You are right!!!!

You are right!!!

I am wrong, and everything I have said before and will say in the future is likely wrong, unless you deem it to be right.


You may think I am being sarcastic, or sardonic, but I am not. In this, I am totally serious. This is the human outlook. Everything said or shown is processed by us, and we deem it’s validity based on our choice filters of perception. Some days we are more accepting other days less.

However, you are always right, in how you think. What is more, you will create self fulfilling prophesy for yourself in the oddest ways. So in many cases it is more important to be right, then anything else. I can not challenge that, I can not say or recommend anything that will overcome that unless you are willing to overcome it yourself.

It is clear to me that at this point you are not at a stage where you are willing to accept responsibility for your reality.

I have a hard time not making jokes at your expense. “It’s the man keeping me down”…the MAN does not give a rat’s rear about you.

I do not know of a better place to learn your insignificance then the military. There is power in knowing the pointlessness in life, the value of your life, (about $5 assuming just mineral contents).

All my friends who have been through the military, well the Marines, have an outlook that is very similar. You don’t sit and whine about a situation, you do something about it, or you move on.

Ultimately my only real response to any of this is simple and already mentioned.

How is the way you think working for you?

Well, based on the way you've reacted in response to other peoples' suggestions, I'd say you're at an impasse in life. You feel something like you're wasting your time but don't know what you could be doing to spend it better. If you think the specific type of magic you want to perform is the key to your happiness, you're wrong. Even if you live somewhere as barren as Alaska, there's still more than enough experiences within walking distance of your house to last several lifetimes. Magic is just one of the many things that would make your life feel less mundane. Try moving back a step and looking at magic as one of many paths you could go down. If magic doesn't seem to work for you, don't go beating a dead horse.

I'm glad you're not taking my word for it...don't...by all means, the only evidence that really counts is your own! And sure, sigils are different. Sigils being different was the whole reason why they started being used, from what I saw. From what I'm reading, personally I wouldn't try and rely on a sigil for something complex or something that say required/wanted evocation of a major league spirit in order to pull off. The thing is though that once you get to the point where you're ready to do that sort of stuff, skill wise, I'm assuming you generally also don't have any problem with believing this whole magic thing is real either.

At the moment all I'm doing is working on the Qabbalistic Cross and gobbling down theory as hard as I can go. I've done a few sigils, and had some interesting experiences...I've been reading theory most of my life actually, in one form or another...but the practical stuff takes real juice, and that's where I'm still seriously lacking. Hence, if you're having trouble believing that truly big mojo is real, don't worry about it...get your astral senses going very firmly first, and pick up the groundings/banishings, (apparently the equivalent of the scales in terms of the piano) and by the time you get to the big stuff, the prep work you've done will by itself probably have given you more than enough experiential proof on its' own. That is what I'm doing, anywayz.

Hey Pandora,

Look into the research done by Dr. Persingerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet
My best friend is a neuroscience student of his, and they do a lot of research on temporal lobe sensitivity, basically looking into why some people have spiritual experiences and some people don't. It sounds a lot like what you're describing; their theory is that depending on how sensitive to electro-magnetic waves certain parts of your brain are, you may sometimes feel a "presence" in the room with you, or somehow feel as if something is "watching" or "watching over you." I'm an amateur paranormal investigator and a lot of times when people have rooms in their houses where they feel like there's a presence there or they feel watched whenever they're in there, there's a lot of high electro-magnetic field activity (hence why a lot of ghost hunters look for EMF readings.)

I wouldn't get so down about it; you may be one of those people that simply doesn't have a sensitive temporal lobe and therefore you don't pick up on those electromagentic fields that cause people to "feel" or "experience" things. My husband is an athiest; he claims the same as you, that he's never had a spiritual or enlightening experience, and we've both taken psychological tests that show he has a very, very low sensitivity to those types of magnetic fields. Whereas I have a really high one, and I'm a very spiritual person and I've had numerous spiritual experiences.

Just remember that just because you don't feel sometimes doesn't mean that nothing is out there (IMG:style_emoticons/default/13.gif) There's a scientific reason for what you feel...it's not because there's nothing supernatural or amazing out there, it may just be a matter of magnetism and your brain. Keep searching, and realize that spirituality is faith...."feeling" things is all well and good, but true power and self satisfaction comes from being able to change the world around you for the better.