QUOTE(davisxmonster @ Jun 8 2009, 09:22 AM)
Well Imperial arts doesnt have a website, just books (from what i see)
it was www.truthaboutmagic.com, but apparently he's taken it down or it lapsed one or the other. His books are more than likely worth the rather generously low cost though.
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And i can see what you mean about experiences and such, but it's rather ineffective.
Understanding how things happen and why is part of doing effective magic. It's only ineffective if you're just looking, not watching. Examples anyone?
Take magic for a job. You might not have applied for a job before being only 15, but you might have mowed lawns for money, etc. Who knows. In any case there are factors at work. There's the labor itself and whether you are capable of accomplishing it. There is the attitude of the person hiring you, as well as your own as a potential employee/laborer. Within just that there is the time of day, various factors in both parties' personal lives, possible biases for or against you or the employer on the part of both parties. Then there's the market at large, the way the two of you communicate, the non-verbal communication under the verbal communication, and a limited number of 'chaos factors' which are a given in almost any situation.
These things all seem mundane, and if you're just 'looking' and not 'watching' with the correct perspective - the one I was telling you about - then they just look like common sense factors. From a magical perspective, they are all predictable energies (except the chaos factor which is where most of the magic will come into play) that can be manipulated using the appropriate sympathetic foci - the 'ingredients' and tools, symbols, etc. which are representative of the archetypal energies therein taking shape as the things which you are only 'looking' at, as your perspective is at present only one of looking and not watching.
The labor itself falls under the earthy category of energies elementally, and has astrological elements as well (we're not totally talking about astrology, but the archetypal energies that the astrological spheres represent), those of mars for something labor intensive like mowing lawns, something saturn intensive for something like being a banker, something mercury intensive for work along the scholarly lines as well as medical professions, etc. The attitude of the person hiring you is less predictable by what you want is something amiable like a venus attitude or jupiter if you want them to not only hire you but pay you well, this falls under the category of invocation to either of these spheres. Possible biases ultimately come down to the interaction of the energies of the two of you, and as energy can be influenced before hand in your favor. The timing is involved in personal life affairs which might affect the attitudes present, which can also be influenced energetically, guiding the interview to an appropriate time where the two of you will be in amiable spirits and more likely to trust and commit to employment. The communication falls under the air element as well as mercury and possibly venus depending on the job, and the non-verbal communication falls primarily under venus regardless of the job. The chaos factors will be those elements of chance and change which are the catalysts for magical action to take place - seemingly random occurrences which ultimately bring about the energetic changes you need to happen to ensure that at the time and place of your choosing the energies are at play and play to your benefit.
You have to have the right perspective to see these things this way though, and a teacher can't give you that perspective. You have to earn that on your own, and no teacher in the world can teach you magic if you don't develop the perspective of observation first. A teacher can give you a list of spells, and tell you when to case one or the other, but if you can't see the world magically your magic will always be hit or miss, never predictable, and never reliable.
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Yay i cast a spell for $500 and it worked! What does that mean? The ritual must have been done right, or the phase of the moon.
It means you spent too much money, but if a spells works then yes it means it was done correctly with the right perspective.
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Aw I did a ritual for a job and nobody will hire me, now im dying of starvation. What does that mean? It means i needed a teacher. Maybe then it would have WORKED.
Just the presence of a teacher in your life does not make magic work for you. What it means is that you didn't do the ritual with the right perspective, didn't use the appropriate sympathetic influences, and probably did it half-ass thinking it probably wouldn't work anyway.
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Im learning, and taking in experiences... but again, a teacher is what really helps.
not a metaphorical abstract concept of a teacher in the universe
an actual teacher.
Since you arrived here on the forums, you have had people personally catering to your questions, answering with a variety of perspective on individual matters. You've had people give you instructions, offer advice on minutia of magical operation, and try to direct you on the course that will bear results if that course is followed, the instructions executed, and the advice taken with a grain of humility. You have not done these things, and now are complaining that you want a teacher!
You come from a cultural background where the teacher is responsible for the education of the student. In all the world this is a fairly new and rare attitude towards the teacher/student relationship. Classically - and currently in most of the world's many cultures - this is a backwards idea. It is the student who is responsible for learning, not the teacher who is responsible for teaching. The teacher is there to direct, advise, answer questions, and be an anchor for the student in the students personal quest to learn.
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What if you took Spanish lessons, and the only thing they did was drive you to the spanish speaking side of town, and say to figure it out?
They'd be a damn good teacher, because anyone who speaks another language fluently, learned to do so through immersion in the culture to which that language is native. No one learned to speak a language fluently by reading a book or working with a teacher one on one even intensively for any amount of time. Immersion, observation, critical thinking, and practice within a culture, is the only composite way to master a foreign language. You don't have the life experience to know that yet, or you wouldn't use that as an example.
And that's just it! That is exactly your problem! You want to learn in some personal relationship with another individual and you don't seem to realize - despite the advice and repeated revelation from dozens of people who've been at this a lot longer than you have (you'd probably have no respect for a teacher anyway, who would want to be that person?!) - that the problem is not with the knowledge or the instruction or the advice, the problem is that you won't follow any of it, you won't try it, and you won't even attempt to develop or maintain a magical perspective in which you will learn magic naturally, either following instruction and advice or not!
You've had teachers since you got here! What do you expect a teacher to do or be? You haven't even defined that yet. You probably don't know, or all you have are high-school and grade-school teachers - in the american public education system which is just awful - as guidelines of what a teacher should be. Grow up for just a moment and really consider what you have here and now. You ask questions, we address them. You want advice, we give it. You are puzzled by an experience, we offer perspective. You have theory to read about here, experiences to peruse and try to learn from, public debates to help you gain your own perspective or even adopt someone else's.
And all you can ever do is turn your nose up at it. Frankly, you just aren't ready for a teacher, whether you think so or not. You don't really want a teacher, you want an easy ride. There isn't one, so you can either waste more of your incredibly precious, non-refundable, limited time looking for one, or you can wake up for gods' sakes and pay attention.
peace
This post has been edited by Vagrant Dreamer: Jun 8 2009, 06:07 PM
Magic Teacher
davisxmonster Magic Teacher Jun 5 2009, 04:10 PM
Jun 5 2009, 04:10 PM
