What Is It Capable Of? Options

I'm relatively new to the serious study of magick. I've been reading some of the works of Aleister Crowley, Gerald del Campo, and other thelemists. After reading about thelema, I'm left with the distinct impession that magickal workings are, in practice, essentially useless. All of the claims of "magickal" happenings seem to be spiritual and introverted in nature. They seem to be a means to better understand one's self, much like buddhist forms of philosophy and mysticism. Here is what I want to know: What are the actualy practical applications of magick? Is it possible for magick to effect dramatic, tangible change in a subject outside of the practitioners own mind? What kind of changes can be observed?

Hm, after having thought about something, I think it's worth sharing my own view of the relationship between abstract and logical thought. As I said, logic is a tool that shouldn't be discarded, but also shouldn't rule the mind singularly.

When you are putting a puzzle together, most people start by fitting the border together. After this, they start moving inwards towards the middle, occaisionally finding a few pieces that go together, before those pieces actually have a place in the puzzle.

Ruled by logic, one must start at the edge and work their way in. Each next piece must fit into the piece already laid down. This process is accurate, but slow. In order to accelerate it, the person putting the puzzle together must think outside the normal limitations of 'which piece comes next', and strive to see the bigger picture, allowing the pieces to come together within that more intuitive understanding.

Intellectual progress is similar. Intuition keys you in to the insights that will expand your knowledge, logic will help to analyze and apply those new insights, and both of these tools are empowered by the ability to suspend reason all together and take into account wild possibilities.

However, without reason, intuition and chaotic inspiration are too unwieldy to operate by - actions are rendered inert by their disconnection from one another. Logic is about continuity, chaining together ideas and actions in a way that makes them effective.

If you recieve a mystical insight through intuition, it can be applied before you fully understand it. if you think about it, technology and science are the same way - we often apply principles that we don't understand before they are 'connected' to the rest of the puzzle. But, by applying it, we are able to begin expanding that 'puzzle piece' outwards until it does meet something already established as part of the greater knowledge base.

All that's a little fragmented, but it occured to me after the last post, while watching an episode of dexter. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/hmm.gif)

understanding the purpose of each aspect of consciousness makes the whole process of being conscious far more effective, so far as my experience leads me to understand. There are even categories beyond the ones mentioned, and all of them can work in tandem to understand a single concept. The better we understand the place and process of each aspect of our intelligence, the more completely we can grasp the significance of a particular concept - logical, intuitive, emotional, abstract, the list goes on...

peace