Thinking of Magick in New Ways, Some bad science, please forgive Options

Philosophy

Long before I began to serious study and practice the Occult arts and sciences, I had an idea that magick was something that you do. It's an act that one engages in. You pray, you curse, you bless, you [insert appropriate verb here]. This is a fairly common view of magick.

I've expressed to a friend recently that I'm finding this to be a waste of time. Magick is such a dynamic and integral part of everyday life (whether people know it or not) that it seems wasteful to consciously think about and "do" it. What continues to come to mind are the words of Ghandi: "We must become the change we want to see."

This, when applied to the realm of the Occult arts and sciences becomes something captured by Taoism's concept of Wu-Wei; action through inaction.

Wu-wei refers to behavior that arises from a sense of oneself as connected to others and to one's environment. It is not motivated by a sense of separateness. It is action that is spontaneous and effortless. At the same time it is not to be considered inertia, laziness, or mere passivity. Rather, it is the experience of going with the grain or swimming with the current.

http://www.jadedragon.com/archives/june98/tao.html

When I think about how I can cast spells simply by reading or writing them, or how I can charge and fire a sigil just by creating it, I'm reminded of this concept and the words of Ghandi.

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Science

Quantum physics has confirmed that our thoughts have a direct impact upon reality itself. What we think and the very act of observing affects matter and energy at its most fundamental level. Experiments involving water, conducted by Dr. Masaru Emoto, has shown us that this is, in fact, "true."

Dr. Masaru Emoto discovered that crystals formed in frozen water reveal changes when specific, concentrated thoughts are directed toward them. He found that water from clear springs and water that has been exposed to loving words shows brilliant, complex, and colorful snowflake patterns. In contrast, polluted water, or water exposed to negative thoughts, forms incomplete, asymmetrical patterns with dull colors.

http://www.whatthebleep.com/crystals/ 

Back in the 1960s, Dr. Bernard Grad, a biologist at McGill University in Montreal, carried out a fascinating series of experiments. He had a healer lay his hands on one of two containers of salt water. After this treatment, he soaked seeds in both containers, a process guaranteed to slow the growth of the plants when they sprouted.

The plants from seeds soaked in the water treated by the healer grew taller and faster than the plants from the other seeds. Somehow, energy from the healer's hands was entering the salt water and changing things, somehow preventing the salt from injuring the seeds.

Our thoughts and intentions can literally change the way the world works on certain levels. Now, when we tie together the idea of becoming the change we want to see, the idea of action through inaction, and the concepts explored by magick, what do we come up with?

We come up with something that seems pretty lazy, but let's look at that concept of Wu-Wei again:

It is not motivated by a sense of separateness. It is action that is spontaneous and effortless. At the same time it is not to be considered inertia, laziness, or mere passivity.

We come up with the possibility for people to cast spells by just reading or crafting them; for people to charge and fire sigils simply by creating them - we begin to see a more integrated method of magick which involves less "doing" and more "being."

Magick becomes less about creating change in the world "out there," and more about internal alchemy. About becoming the change, about dissolving the boundary between "you" and "everything else."

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Magick

Before the New Year, I set out to attempt something in conjunction with my Chaos Magick Paradigm. I wanted to encourage my city to become a convergeance of Solar Energy. I'm a rather big fan of Spring and Summer; living in Canada, it's easy to understand why - we're locked in winter for nearly nine months of the year.

Everyday, as I set out to University or to work, I would look out the window and instead of seeing ice-and-snow-covered civilization, I overlaid a vision of the city in full-spring. Clear blue skies with fluffy white clouds. Visible streets and side-walks. I felt the warm temperature, I saw people wearing loose garments rather than parkas. I smelled impending rain, or humidity. I heard the sounds of the festivals downtown.

In my first week of doing this, we experienced above-average temperatures for that time of year. In december, the snow was melting! I continued this through January, February, and March. There were days when I faltered in my visualization, and blizzard-conditions would set in. Typical winter-weather for this region. Sometimes it would take days for my visualizations to set in; sometimes it would take hours.

The last time I ever did any active visualization was before I did a ritual that I called the "Descent of the Sun." After that, I let nature take it's course, and we've enjoyed an attempted Spring ever since. This ritual was the only active magick that I tried throughout the entire experiment. Every other working of magick was full-on sensory overlay. There was no active magick - not a single candle lit, no chanting, no herbs, stones, incense, invocations, evocations, sigils - only my experience.

One of the individuals in the movie What the Bleep Do We Know is quoted as saying:

The brain doesn't know the difference between what it sees and what it remembers.

When you look an object, and when you close your eyes and visualize that object, the same synapses in the brain fire. In your brain, there is literally little-to-no difference between sensory input and memory. The implications of this for the Occult arts and sciences is far-reaching.

Magick through inaction. This goes beyond "why" and "how" magick works - this shows a new way of practicing altogether.

I really enjoyed the intial post of the column. I can't agree that there is no ritual in eastern ways. There are differences, more focus on meditation, etc. and perhaps the difference is that it includes these things. Tai Chi and hindu practices including tantric sex fit perfectly into the definition of ritual.

UniOne, I would consider reading your web links but they are always displayed as .doc type files. These will not display in most web browsers and require them to be downloaded. Have you thought of converting them to .html. Word Documents are a pain for mac or linux users too. I'm not a real fan of downloaded word documents because they can contain maliscious macros, whether intended to or not.