Christianity/magic, dnt know. Options

hello. i want to make sure about one thing.
i dont know. i m not saying no/yes to this religion.
but id like to hear your thaughts about Christianity+magic.

My thoughts on it are this simple: Good for them! Go back to your Christian roots and embrace the Enochian, or Rosicrucian, or Gnostic texts. It's about friggen time.

Christianity can easily be combined with magick. especially ceremonial magick.
I often do this.

The church however is a sick and demented organization in my book.

*stares*

That was....childish.


NOTE: The post preceding this post has been removed. DHKitty isn't responding to SFox - Mod Squad

This post has been edited by bym: Aug 23 2005, 01:52 PM

If you go to the root of the question, there is no difference. The real divergence is in the heart of the believer, the belief itself and the methods.

In most Christian churches, what you see on Sunday is the practice of ceremonial magic. They summon spirits, the Christ and the Holy Ghost. A priest is present as the middleman between the spirits (The Trinity, Saints, etc.) and the mortals. A miracle of transubstantiation (or spiritual cannibalism) is done every time. (This depends on the kind of religion.)

I think the real difference is that some Christian priests are only doing this as representative of their organization, doing a routine they don't believe in. Nevertheless, I'm sure some actually believe they are performing a highly magical act, summoning spirits to commune, meditate, confess, etc. (Who knows, they might be the ones performing the real miracles…)

I think some Christian churches don't like using the word magic, because of some definitions of the word and the ever-growing relation with new, non-Christian beliefs.

Let me show you what the “Catholic Encyclopedia” has to say on magic:

[…] it is the attempt to work miracles not by the power of God, gratuitously communicated to man, but by the use of hidden forces beyond man's control. Its advocates, despairing to move the Deity by supplication, seek the desired result by evoking powers ordinarily reserved to the Deity. It is a corruption of religion, not a preliminary stage of it as Rationalists maintain, and it appears as an accompaniment of decadent rather than of rising civilization.

The disease has been widespread; but if one land may be designated as the home of magic it is Chaldea, or Southern Babylonia.

Catholic theology defines magic as the art of performing actions beyond the power of man with the aid of powers other than the Divine, and condemns it and any attempt at it as a grievous sin against the virtue of religion, because all magical performances, if undertaken seriously, are based on the expectation of interference by demons or lost souls. Even if undertaken out of curiosity the performance of a magical ceremony is sinful as it either proves a lack of faith […]

I personally find this extract very funny, because performing actions NOT beyond the power of man with the aid of powers other than the Divine wouldn’t be a sin. But how can a man perform an action that is beyond the power of man? Hmm… maybe with the help of God?

For the some Christian churches(e.g. Catholic), magic equals pagans; it relates to non-Christians who will burn in Hell if they don't follow them. But they sure practice magic! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mf_popeanim.gif)

I hope I expressed my point of view without too much confusion.

Sources: The Catholic Encyclopedia, Occult Art, Occultism
(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11197b.htm)

This post has been edited by Nachash: Aug 24 2005, 12:29 AM

hello. i want to make sure about one thing.
i dont know. i m not saying no/yes to this religion.
but id like to hear your thaughts about Christianity+magic.

Sorry for resurrecting a rather old thread. But i am a Christian Ceremonial Magickian.

They are, in my humble opinion, not mutally exclusive, unless you want/need them to be. Christ himself, raised the dead (necromancy), transmuted materiels (alchemy), and foretold the future (divination). He also told his followers (paraphrased) "You will do all these things and more, if you have only faith"

One man's magick, is another's miracle.

Lots of us about who are quite happy mixing their Christian beliefs with their chosen paths.

Once you have gotten rid of the dogma of the established church and get onto enjoying their rich spirituality in the writings of various Saints and well-known Christian authors, it works well.

Lots of Christian writers have wonderful magickal lives and experiences; they get tested by their demons and enjoy visions of other beings too. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

The Bible contains many direct and unambiguous proscriptions against most kinds of magic. (In Deuteronomy and Exodus; in the story of the Witch of Endor in the Second Book of Samuel; and at various places in the New Testament - I can't give chapter and verse as my concordance isn't to hand, but I'd be quite happy to look them up later.)

And most practicing Catholics would be rather shocked at the notion that they are summoning spirits during the Mass. Christians believe that God is omnipresent; and the idea of a mortal human commanding Him to appear would be considered blasphemous by many. The purpose of the ceremony of the Mass is in some ways the direct opposite of an act of Ceremonial Magick; God is believed to be already present; the ritual is used to open the hearts and minds of the participants in order that they may in some sense percieve His presence.

That said, there are many Christians practicing magick without an apparent conflict of belief. This is especially true in Ceremonial magic, and those branches which deal with hierachies of angels. I'm no theologian, and perhaps someone better versed in Scripture will be able to correct me, but I think this may have something to do with the fact that all the Bible prohibitions seem to relate to thaumaturgy rather than theurgy?

The purpose of the ceremony of the Mass is in some ways the direct opposite of an act of Ceremonial Magick; God is believed to be already present; the ritual is used to open the hearts and minds of the participants in order that they may in some sense percieve His presence.

I truly do hate to sidetrack this thread, but I have to point out that not everyone would agree with this.

For some people, the whole point of Ceremonial Magick is to help them open theirselves up to the greater truths of the universe... making it EXACTLY like the ceremony of the Mass.

Yes, sometimes Ceremonial Magick is used to summon up a spirit which is limited in scope, but another way of saying this same thing (depending on your pov) would be to say that Ceremonial Magick is used to attune yourself to a specific focus of the divine energy which pervades the universe.

Anyway, sorry to ramble, we now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

LVX
AVP

AVP - you're quite right - I was thinking this question through from the starting point of Christianity, rather than Ceremonial Magick, which blurred my thinking, rather. I was speaking of CM in a very broad sense - including goetic, enochian &c, which in my experience do have primarily to do with summoning. Certainly, all of the most moving and effective CM ceremonies in which I have participated have had that as their focus - attuning the participants to the presence of The Divine.

To correct myself - an example of this from Wicca 101 might be: spirits are Summoned to the Circle, elementals and watchtowers are Invited, the Goddess and God are Just There. And in the Roman Catholic mass, the Trinity falls into the latter category, of being Omnipresent anyway.

Catholic mass was once one of the most powerful group workings ever made, perhaps the most powerful in regards to magic. I feel it whenever I go to any church and start singing hymns and listening to the pastor/priest etc. Though there's not one in my area I will surely go visit the mass of the Liberal Catholic Church if I find the time as I hear many good things about them.

It's sheer foolishness to think that Christianity forbids magic, I've read that many a pope have been Angel Magus and I hardly doubt it. This Christianity hates magic idea is, I would say, easily the most misinterpreted theology in the records of our history. Nothing could be further from the truth, the bible warns to not wander errantly down dangerous paths, not to be afraid of the divinity within.

My opinion on this is a simple one: Catholic, Coptic, and Orthodox churches seem more open to the notion that their sacraments are theurgic in nature. I see less willingness to voice this possibility in Protestant denominations.

Likewise, much of what the church stands against is better placed within the category of thaumaturgy. However, there are some theurgic acts which cannot be reconciled with church teachings without a person totally abandoning all reason: the evocation and invocation of daemonic beings (as church theology defines them).

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