Maybe It's A Curse?, Curse of the Mundanoeity Options

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?

never found anything that couldn't be explained and understood.

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)

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.

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.

Any spells, invocations, or summonings of will I try myself all seem to run up against a wall, and nothing ever happens.

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.

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

*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

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.

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.

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)

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.

With science, belief is generated by results...with magick, it's the other way around,

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.

atheists can roll around laughing at us and calling us fools and on a superficial level get away with it.

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.

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.

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)

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.

Hmm, I could do that possibly.

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...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.

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