The Truth about Magic and of it's Origin, An old thread that lost it's name Options

Some while back I got into a mad frenzy and deleted all my posts...
and with it the title of this thread.
It might be unfair to the others since the thread is not mine alone.
So here I give it back it's original title.

I don't recall what I wrote in the first post. Only that it was the truth about magic and it's origin, haha. (I can't possibly be the only one that has been drunk or drugged while writing posts.)


-thief

This post has been edited by thief_and_a_liar: Sep 8 2005, 11:24 AM

Breathing is the act of magic, as well as the simple act of making a coffee (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) it can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be.

Crowley define magick as the act of creating change to occur in according to our will.

I think "magick" has been with us since man existed, it is simply the act of thinking and getting things done. For me, "magick" is the ancient psychology of creating change with the help of nature, motored by the engine of our own thoughts. In the modern days, we call them NLP - Neuro Linguistic Programming.

However, as simple or complicated you want to perceive "magick" is, it is there and happened around us whether we will it to happen or we unconsciously made them to happen.

for me. "magic" is sleight of hand, illusionists tricks, the stuff that David Copperfield does....ya know, tricks...that's all "magic" is...

but "Magick" is the act of life, of growth at a certain amazing speed (thus seeming sometimes an illusion), a questioning thought answered by apparently no one visible just like that....the dawning realization that we are just a part of a much much bigger environment than our actual world...to me, that is Magick....


Just though i'd put in my 2¢ ...

Brightest Blessings!

I don't find much difference between with a "k" or without.

Everything has a trick to it. Just got to find out where the trick is.

Magic is all about the seeking of knowledge in how to control and use the enegies that flow around us. How you choose to use it is another matter. It cannot really be defined as a trick, as a trick is an illusion and not real.

Granted less technologically advanced peoples would look on what we have in our day to day lives as Magical. However, to dismiss their knowledge and to describe them as kids and neo-junkies eating cactii, is a sweeping statement stemming from a personal lack of knowledge into what magic in its truest form is really all about. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wandwizard.gif)

Trick n.
1) An act or procedure intended to achieve an end by deceptive or fraudulent means.
2) A mischievous action; a prank.
3) A stupid, disgraceful, or childish act or performance.
4) A peculiar trait or characteristic; a mannerism.
5) A special skill; a knack.
6) A feat of magic or legerdemain.
7) A difficult, dexterous, or clever act designed to amuse.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) There's a trick to everything... even definitions.

By definition, the definition must first be defined to be definable. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/drugs.gif)

Hoyle's law with a different face. "The rules of a game cannot be explained to anyone who is not equipped with the language to understand them. By the time you can be taught the rules, you no longer need to be."

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/33.gif) Will this do?

Hmm I think we have drifted somewhat from the topic here!!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/butcher.gif)

Indeed... sorry - gonna have to prune this.

Magic has been around as long as humans have gathered together in groups or societies. Used by practiotioners to either to heal, conquer or to control events going on around them. Magic is the doing of something unseen and unexplainable which does not fit into our concept of the way of things. The real question is, does it really work, from my point of view it does.
For most people though the tendency is to dismiss what is not proven or cannot be seen, strange when one considers that we use ielectricity every day. This is accepted as existing despite us not being able to see it.
While in the forces I was on a short tour of an African country. I had some free time and took the opportunity to visit the local Shaman. I saw him do things which were unexplainable (and without the gadgets and special effects of a Mr Copperfield), more importantly I could feel the flow of energy.
To know and understand magic you must have an open mind, the will to work and study hard combined with a hunger for knowledge. In short don't knock it 'till you've tried it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wizard.gif)

To that magic-ck question Jules brought up...
If it wasn't for Crowley's unlimited desire to be different at all cost, nobody would ever confuse illusionist tricks with battling demons in flaming circles (there is a thing in conversation called context). So yeah, I don't like the magick spelling.

to me it was magic before it was magick. I also am one who can claim that I deteste the spelling because it attempts to reidentify it. If we all know in our hearts what it was before it was confused with sleight of hand then why must we re-spell or re-label it?

I once heard a tale similar to what thief has said. It is about a group of beings that existed when the universe was young. There were these people called star children who were in fact just that - children. And that's exactly what they did - everything they created and made manifest through their will and desire was an act of play for them. Creating multiple worlds and galaxies and to this effect if they were all destroyed in a day and the children had a whim to do so, they'd create it the following day.

This isn't very different from our current concepts of magic. We still utilize will and desire but maybe some of us are just a bit too serious about it. Maybe we could take a lesson from the carefree nature of the playful acts of the star children.

As Arthur C. Clarke said:

Clarke's First Law:
"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

Clarke's Second Law:
"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."

Clarke's Third Law:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

"Magick" seems to be a word that is used for some things we either don't have better words to describe for lack of context or we are just too full of it and/or too lazy to bother defining what it is in clear language. A lot of nonsense that has nothing really to do with Magick seems to get lumped into it and that deeply grieves my heart as all of that BS is what makes it difficult to convey what it is we are doing. Some of us are calling what we do Magick when it really isn't. The result of which is like the first post in this thread. By the way, there is no "real truth" behind anything.

This post has been edited by HenrySpencer: Mar 31 2005, 01:07 AM

"Magick" seems to be a word that is used for some things we either don't have better words to describe for lack of context or we are just too full of it and/or too lazy to bother defining what it is in clear language.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/ac42.gif) Pree-cisely.

Something can't really be discussed properly if no-one is willing to solidly define the term. It seems "magic/k" means whatever we want it to mean, which just makes the word, in effect, useless.

I am with Henry Spencer here about the lack of a better word, but which word would be better?

The word is accepted with the k mostly for people who like to think of themselves as more than illusionists as others generally understand what they mean by it - it serves its purpose as a catchall word, but this is not really a problem since people who start talking more specifically will lay out their terms.

The naming of it has little to do with the truth of magick; this for most lies in the experience of it themselves since no amount of argument will convince a skeptic or turn away someone who believes because there seems to be the evidence for it.

Magick, with the "K", denotes the Magick of Thelema. I say for general use we adopt the word "Modusfomus". As good as any. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tomato.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rofl.gif)

Magick really has nothing to do with this ---> (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wizard.gif)

Hey.
I forgot I had created this thread. I think I was drunk too. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

HenrySpencer here gives us an impression that he knows what is magic and what is not. He ain't telling though. He certainly know that I have no idea. Let me quote:

A lot of nonsense that has nothing really to do with Magick seems to get lumped into it and that deeply grieves my heart as all of that BS is what makes it difficult to convey what it is we are doing. Some of us are calling what we do Magick when it really isn't. The result of which is like the first post in this thread. By the way, there is no "real truth" behind anything.

I seem to be the result of something here...

Well, it's a big topic that probably shouldn't be put into a simplified generalization ( the ones I like so much to make). Magic for me has to do with the Mind. Manipulation of own beliefs, emotions and thoughts. Let's say you take an object, any object, and turn it around in a way you never tried before, and the next day you get what you wanted. Hell, that's magic! (But for HenrySpencer this is not magic.)
I focus on playing like a child, getting amused and fascinated by things around me, and from this I get creativity in abundance. Would I have thoughts like this if I never explored the world of magic? (I have no idea.)

Magic is a broad field. So I'd like to know which parts you condemn as bullshit.
Myself I see potential in all.


-thief

Yes you could assume that when you leave off the first part of what I said.

"Magick" seems to be a word that is used for some things we either don't have better words to describe for lack of context or we are just too full of it and/or too lazy to bother defining what it is in clear language.

With that added back to what you quoted from me your argument falls a bit short. I nowhere suggest that I know what "is" Magick and what "is not" Magick, just some "maybes" and relative opinions. However, I do agree with the manipulation of the mind and nervous system as the #1 part of the practice of Magick which is something you did not quite make clear in your first post and why I disagreed with you initially. The changes that occur in conformity with will don't seem to be physical changes until you develop the faculties to perceive things differently, hence the changes are simply products of altered perception and Magick becomes a way of thinking about the world which alters how you interact with it. In other words there may not be any "real" changes at all but just a new way of experiencing something or interpreting events or simply just paying attention. The map is not the territory but for Magick to work you must act as if the map is indeed the territory but to stay down to earth it helps to keep this practice in mind lest you start living out your self-induced delusions and start detaching yourself from so-called "mundane" life. Magick may be more of a way of engaging the world and not an escape from it. I have been at this stuff for quite some time and have never experienced anything supernatural or paranormal. It is those aspects of supernatural and escapism that are usually injected into it that I tend to disagree with and the literal belief in them and I don't consider that Magick but more as a delusional bi-product of it's practices. But you can take it how you want but remember to look closer. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/search.gif)

This post has been edited by HenrySpencer: Jun 19 2005, 04:38 PM