The Laws Of Magick, Concepts under review. Options

The Laws of Magick are the basis for most spellwork and sorcery as far as the majority of us are concerned. These concepts are the longstanding observations from, well, probably as long as humans are capable of accurately recounting. I am starting a journal/grimoire to put my own observations in. I am taking the Laws of Magick and reviewing them to see what all needs replaced or removed, or quite possibly, added. I have already started and quite honestly I am not sure how to proceed. Any ideas on magickal testing to prove or disprove any Laws without associating any of the other Laws would be most helpful. If testing these Laws proves impossible without associating any other laws, please at least keep the use of other laws at a minimum. And if it really does prove impossible to keep other Laws unassociated within the testing of the various laws, then i will proceed as if I were facing the world's greatest Rubik's Cube. Trial and error, time and time again... and when I'm done(who knows how many years from now) I will be sure to report my findings to these forums so that everyone may question it, confirm it, ponder at it, or whatever the case may be. Thank you for at least reading, even if you think that I'm wasting my time.

I do rather appreciate your scientific approach, but I think you may have difficulty working in absolutes & strictly defined mechanisms when studying magick.
There are many paradigms or 'models' of magick, which contain notably different rules & interactions. I personally find that diversity is the only rule you can absolutely count on. As soon as you think you have a hard & fast rule, you will find a dozen exceptions.

you might find this article written by Frater U.: D.: to be interesting, it's a discussion of different models (or paradigms) for working magick :
http://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/chaos/texts/model.html

Also, I have written an article on the topic of 'how magick works' myself, which covers some different aspects of the topic.
I'll paste it here :

How Magick Works & Relativism
by: Kathryn
(copyrighted material)

In simplest possible terms:
'magic works however magic works, and magic doesn't work however magic doesn't work'

In other words, the idea that there is one single 'true' concept which adequately and forever explains the functionality of magic... is, in my opinion, a flawed approach, and the root cause for the myriad dogmatic approaches to magic which exist in the world.

It works, or it does not work. if it works, then it works by whatever method, means, principal, etc. can reliably make it work. repeatability, and being able to be substantiated, are the measure of validity in an approach... but ultimately, its just an approach, not a "truth". So nothing is 'true', just effective (or "apparently effective")
__

Consider the idea of what I call a "working model":

Imagine if you will, a monkey (lets call him George) in a laboratory cage. Now imagine that a lab technician (lets call him Frank) sets up a device within the cage, which consists of a lever and a chute from which bananas will drop into the cage when the lever is pulled.

In time, George will become aware of the cause & effect relationship of pulling the lever and receiving a banana. But HOW does it work? what brings the reward? How will George explain this newfound sense of causality?

Lets say that George understands the lever to be the phalus of the banana god, Nanner. (now many centuries later, monkeykind will debate at great length whether the lever is truly Nanner's penis by way of transubstantiation, or whether it is merely the symbol of Nanner's universal phallic-ness... but I digress). It is the understanding of George, that if Nanner's phallus is fondled, Nanner will rain down the blessing of curved yellow fruit on the faithful fondler. And so, George's reality is understood to be a small world, with bars at its edges, ruled over by the benevolent god Nanner, who rewards his faithful.

Now then, is George right? Is it actually Nanner who gives him bananas? Or is it just a few gears and a trapdoor? To us, the question seems pretty silly. BUT, George's version of things is an excellent "Working Model". You can say that George's ideology is askew, but when he pulls Nanners yingyang, it rains bananas, immediately. And that's pretty darn powerful magic if you really think about it.

The point of all this, is that the issue of 'truth', is not the same as the issue of 'effectiveness'. And further, beyond this, is the larger realization that effectiveness can lead to delusions of truth!

Because of the potency and reliability of George's 'Nanner Magic', he will probably never come to question the validity of his paradigm. And because Frank loads the banana chute every Tuesday, he too will never question the validity of his own concept of what causes bananas to fall from the chute. George will never stop to think, "is it just some mechanical device?". And Frank will never stop to think "am I really just an agent of Nanner's will?".

Of course this is why, on the final day of reckoning, when Nanner begins his reign of terror on earth, Frank will be put up against the wall and peeled with the rest of the nonbelievers.
___

all of which is to say, "One cannot honestly know the absolute 'really real' truth... But one can produce a banana here & there"

I do rather appreciate your scientific approach, but I think you may have difficulty working in absolutes & strictly defined mechanisms when studying magick.
There are many paradigms or 'models' of magick, which contain notably different rules & interactions. I personally find that diversity is the only rule you can absolutely count on. As soon as you think you have a hard & fast rule, you will find a dozen exceptions.

Mmm... it is possible that in a very large cage, over hundreds or thousands of years, monkeykind may produce a few minds who begin to question the validity of the Nanner religion's claims. Not because they question whether or not the cause and effect relationship exists, but for the same reason the claim that God held you on the earth was questioned by 'outside of the box' thinkers.

Now, if we say that it is God itself which secures us against the surface of the earth, that's not really wrong in a grand cosmic sense if we consider God to be the source of gravity - but the difference is that knowing that gravity is at work suggests a blind force or mechanic that can be understood, used, and manipulated with the right application of knowledge and know-how.

I have encountered a lot of different magical traditions - both in private study through books, articles, correspondence, etc., as well as through individuals able to competently discuss a wide variety of paradigms - from many different cultural and social structures. Many of those traditions hold, like most religions, that they are the 'true' paradigm or that they are otherwise unique or special in their application and understanding of 'magic' by various names. Chaos magicians especially love the idea that they can escape 'dogmatism' in magic by shifting paradigms freely. Even direct energy manipulation with practically no traditional structure of paradigm at all (by this I mean classical mythological elements) and if there was a box, that escapes it all together. And yet, regardless of the paradigm or traditional structure in place, that structure is 100% of the time, in my experience so far, always based on fundamental mechanics that are present in various other traditions as well. Not all traditional structures have models to incorporate all of the mechanics - and doing so is, in my opinion, the true, rare synthesis of Magical Art - but no tradition i have encountered so far has had even one completely unique mechanic behind it's model which is not present in any of the other traditions I have encountered; and I'm really only talking about maybe a dozen and a half or so discrete cultural traditions of magic, eastern, western, tribal, ceremonial, aboriginal, and various combinations thereof - I'm not really counting Chaos Magic or Energy Work, being that they are essentially attempts at operating mechanically without a strict model in most cases.

I might be mistaken, but it seems like you could be confusing the idea of magical laws with magical mythology - color evokes a response, vs. Red makes you Angry. One is mechanical but will operate differently under different individual circumstances, whereas the other is a mythology constructed within a particular paradigm to demonstrate or apply that mechanic (random example, I'm not suggesting red equates anger).

I've already stated my opinion on the nature of the laws of magick elsewhere a dozen times here, so instead I am curious: You say there are various models of magic - true - which contain notably different rules and interactions - in terms of traditional elements, this is also true; however, can you explain some of the differences as being based on separate sets of fundamental laws? Are these discrete models - and I'm thinking here western esotericism vs. african tribal magic (in terms of the degree of difference, not specific traditions) - effectively utilizing and experience different mechanics all together, or are they really just adressing those mechanics in different ways?

And, I'm not refuting the claim here that if magic works, then it works; and if it doesn't it doesn't - that's is the least degree of a working model of mechanics that I think a person needs to approach magic realistically, and it's certainly a way to evaluate the validity of a particular practice in your own sphere. However, knowing that there are mechanics at work frees one entirely from the necessity of a paradigm at all, and allows for that synthesis of models. If we don't look at the mechanics by which magic operates outside of our mythological explanations for it, then we can't really ever grasp magic itself at all, only whatever mask of it that works for us.

peace

This post has been edited by Vagrant Dreamer: Dec 22 2009, 06:02 PM

ha. kath, you have a seriously awesome sense of humor. unless you completely didn't mean any of that to be funny, in which case you're even more awesome. LOL. ahhh.... well. as usual the regular handful of brilliant minds has stretched my paradigm beyond what would've only been a trippy dream yesterday. indeed it's something to think about. but all the same, i'm going to continue to research magick and attempt to solve it in the way i stated above. although you guys really deflated my motivation for it. i've been falling off of the gnosis train recently, so research and conversation (like this one) is my only fall-back. although now i'm thinking i should just try to shift my paradigm even further. although i feel like researching to the point of exhausting all resources is always best before moving on to that.

hehe, yeah, Nanner is meant to be kinda tongue in cheek (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) but also to have some fairly serious points, humor with a serious message (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Are these discrete models - and I'm thinking here western esotericism vs. african tribal magic (in terms of the degree of difference, not specific traditions) - effectively utilizing and experience different mechanics all together, or are they really just adressing those mechanics in different ways?

very interesting question.
I think, that in some cases, it is true that people are doing the exact same thing but calling it something different, and using slightly different ritual "props", etc. So that what you have is two different traditions and one basic belief/method (underneath the dogmatic trappings).

And I think that in other cases, people are doing things which are actually quite different in terms of the functional mechanics of it.
I can think of a number of magical 'effects' which could be arrived at by more than one 'different' mechanical method, even within the same paradigm/system.
I think that frater u.d.'s little article on models of magick is basically an attempt to refine things down to a few core 'basic' mechanisms, or theories, about how magick works. I think he's doing, in a way, much the same thing as the original poster was hoping to do, but on a very generalized level.

Of course all of this is a matter of perspective... I am basing my opinion on my own experiences & practice as well as studying that of others. But as i pointed out before, successful magick & strong correlations & mechanisms & intricacies, etc. of my own working systems (plural), can be deceptively self-reinforcing, leading one towards a false sense of 'rightness'.
I'd sum up by saying that I have numerous ideas about how magick works, I don't think all magick is actually functionally 'done' the same way, at the most basic level, and I'm always open to new ideas about how magick works (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I suspect that until I achieve my spiritual goals, all of this will remain 'a matter of perspective' to me.

And then on a less cognitive level, I have my patron, with whom I interact intellectually, but when she offers input on how things work, I tend to regard it as somewhat more 'solid' than if it is just my own theory which proves reliable. But then she is herself pretty relativistic in explaining things, generally her input on a topic of magical practice is that the reality of it is something which cannot be 'perfectly' captured by any set of words, like any 'label' it will always fall short of fully embodying the entirety of the thing described. So you can have numerous descriptions ("complex labels") of the magick, which each perhaps contain 'some' truth, but none containing 'all' of it. ...Much like the parable of the blind men & the elephant, actually.
Anyway, I do regard her input as 'trusted' in a way which I can't logically substantiate though. I know her, very intimately, and I simply do trust her word. Her input gets sort of a 'free pass' on conflicts with my own understanding, as she has repeatedly been born out as having a much deeper and more accurate insight than I.

Are frater u.d.'s models of magick just the trunk and ears and tusks of a single elephant? I find that really hard to answer. I'm going to have to go with "I don't know". I would say that 'everything' in this universe (and any of it's subtle layers) is all part of one big elephant, so in that sense, the science of a flashlight and the art of summoning could be said to be all part of "designing an effect in the universe" and all one basic grand thing... but, I don't think they work on exactly the same principals... it depends on how 'generalized vs. specific' you choose to regard the matter I think. Sort of a categorizing affair.

kudos, my brain feels quite stretched out by your question & the resulting thought trains. if I have seemed to give an answer, I am misrepresenting my thoughts. I have instead found myself exploring a plethora of subsequent questions. merci beaucoup (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

This post has been edited by Kath: Dec 26 2009, 04:04 PM

I have found that my own divinity tends to express itself through various facets and faces, each of which approach the myriad angles of life - not just magic, but the all inclusive experience of living and being - from drastically different angles. The only thing they are consistent in is that they tend to agree that the substance of creation can be grouped and regrouped infinitely, and from this cosmic alchemy arises every possible thing. At the same time though, the process by which that alchemy takes place, from the most gross and material level to those so subtle we hardly count them as created at all, is by most accounts apparently far less infinite. To me, that kind of paradox - the finite giving rise to the infinite in a finite expression of eternity - is the earmark of something worth investigating in earnest. When that was first 'quoted' to me, magic became far more simple in its execution, I think, for me, but more difficult in scale.

I think I want to define what I personally mean when I say 'mechanical' in relation to magical process. I do not so much mean the actual churning of the gears of creation which ultimately is responsible for the changes that take place in existence - all of which I consider, in the most broad and encompassing sense, to be alchemy and magic - as much as I mean the basic tools which we use to cause the gears to turn the way we want them, when we want them.

Take for instance the law of vibration, which we can narrow down to the law of names in a particular tradition. In essence, of course, to know the name of something is to be able to influence it in some way. To what degree is questionable and then there is the consideration of different kind of names and what they really refer to, and so on.

This mechanic arises in different ways throughout virtually every tradition. You can't affect something you can't name. But, it's not always as simple as knowing a person's given name - sometimes it requires a full name, sometimes a special hidden name, other times nick names or childhood names. Sometimes you need the mother's birth name in order to have power over a person's name at all.

But, of course, some of us do our magic without names at all. Or do we? If I want to effect some change on a purely energetic level, I process everything first in my phenomenal mind - that is, i think thoughts, I identify concepts, I order processes, all of this I do on some level and in various combinations depending on the effect, before I make contact with the energy, or energies, that I want to work with, which I identify in various ways from their emotional resonance to non-phenomenal qualities which can't be expressed in words, but equate none the less to a variety of conglomerative concepts that, although outside of my physical experience, identify those energies none the less.

In so many ways, these are as much names as spoken names are. In a way, the law of names is really just the law of labels, and everything - absolutely everything - experienced on any level is named in this way. We can say that some things don't have names, but really we just have to widen our idea of what a name can be - and I'm not the first person in human culture to say it - and on what level a thing is named. For me to work magic on or around a particular individual, for instance, I'm less concerned with their name than a direct connection to their energy. And when i can I do utilize the law of contagion but I prefer to be able to make a connection to the individual's 'true name' as it were - their energetic presence, the impact they create in the subtle realm.

So in a third revision we might make this law even more universal in calling it the Law of Identity - Law of Knowledge is considered the most general but I think for practicality Identity is one specific kind of knowledge one might find more easy to take into consideration.

This then is a univeral mechanic of magical practice - it may come in a different name (hah, no pun intended), or operate on various levels of consciousness, but the fact remains that in absolutely every tradition the Identity of the Ends intended, the individuals involved, the energies contacted in whatever way, etc., some or all of these and others are going to be necessities in any paradigm. "Names" are therefore an absolute essential to magical practice. Even outside of phenomenal consciousness there is identity, although it takes on a different meaning. Right up until the total Oneness - at which degree there is no law, no magic, no alchemical process anyway, so it becomes moot.

I believe that the understanding of magical laws - that is to say, those various essentials, the baseline necessities of magical operation - is not an impossible thing to achieve or apply. At the same time I also don't believe that collecting some grasp of these principles necessitates a self-reinforcing paradigm of personal 'rightness'. This is mostly because 'rightness' or 'wrongness' is moot. If you are able to cause magical effects, then you are applying magical law - you may not understand all the levels on which this is true when you cause that effect, but if a thing is happening, then there is a cause, and there is a relationship between cause and effect which must be necessarily describable in mechanical terms.

Your patron is correct, not that you need me to tell you, in saying that there are some elements of magic which cannot be captured by any set of words. But that doesn't mean that there are no absolute mechanics - just that some of those mechanics must be grasped on a higher level than the purely phenomenal mind. I loosely equate your experience with your patron as being similar to my own experience with what I express as my own Divinity. I'm hesistant to say that we share the exact same experience, but I understand what you mean when you say that her input gets a 'free pass'.

Almost all description of magical laws, must be allegorical by necessity. Its the famous axiom "That which is above is like that which is below; and that which is Below is like that which is Above" - the allegory which can be grasped by the lower or phenomenal mind, is similar to the actual thing which is in the Higher Mind, the non-phenomenal consciousness. I think that this caveat is a critical part of the discussion of magical laws, so that anyone approaching the subject matter can understand first that what they are 'seeing' is only a pale expression of the truth.

But it is still worthwhile to involve oneself in for two reasons. First, because when that 'lower form' of some law is passed into the lower mind of the student, they then have access, over time, to it's higher expression. That doesn't mean they can express that higher existence in words, just that within their own sphere they then can truly apply it. Second, I believe that if we are going to expand our ability to communicate things in 'words' as it were (even if 'words' takes on a new meaning itself) then it is necessary to pursue higher expressions of concepts and continue to try and discuss them phenomenally in some way.

However, to make this conversation more constructive, I'll pose this: Consider some magical effect of which you are capable, and of which you are comfortable describing you particular technique. Take into consideration possible necessities to execution, prerequisites, if you will, and allow us the opportunity to compare and contrast in what way we would accomplish the same and how, according to our own paradigms, we understand said magical effect to come to pass based on our own understanding of the mechanics of our magic - in those cases where, of course, we have any hypothesis regarding those mechanics. In the interest of escaping paradigm, I have been considering mechanics for well over a decade.

If you need to illustrate or even give birth to concepts in order to fully express yourself, feel free. We can pound out details and clarify things over time. What I hope to come to ultimately, is some common ground wherein we may expose the ways in which we think differently, and the ways in which we think similarly.

I suggest this, not in a way of illustrating anything akin to 'rightness', but as an exercise of analysis of things not commonly subjected to such, either because they elude analysis by their very nature, or because analysis doesn't traditionally serve any purpose.

peace

It would be tricky. I'm not exactly a 1-paradigm sort of girl... so, most of what I practice or theorize is already pretty heavily scoured for crossover concepts and hidden similarities with "most" other paradigms. And I don't just use a single conglomerate paradigm, but move within a sort of subset of paradigms.

If there is one aspect of my magick which differs from the traditional western esoteric approach more than others, it would be my general love for very 'direct' magick. The western system, for the most part, is based on summoning (not all of it is, but it is the mainstream method). Western esoteria seems fairly strongly represented on this forum, so that might make a decent point at which to contrast. While the summoner looks to solicit an entity's assistance, I myself look to try to do (myself) that bit of magick which the summoner was hoping the entity would do for him/her. I have an innate sense that relying on entities to do all the work is somewhat self neglecting, dependent, and disempowering. Of course that is a matter of perspective. But when I *do* engage in summoning, whatever it is that I want to do, is never actually as important to me as knowing how to do it. So I lean *heavily* on the old motto "Give a Kate a fish and she eats for a day, Teach a Kate to fish and she eats for life". So I seek to be taught how to "do" things rather than seek to have things done for me.

I do feel that there is a difference between basic mechanisms such as direct magick, evocation, sigilization, invocation, etc. now this invocation and that invocation, while wildly different in ritual style, may actually be very similar, but it still seems different to me compared to say... I dunno, 'candle magick'. bad example perhaps, since you can clearly use candles in invocation, but hopefully the jist of what i'm saying is getting across.

I'll try to describe a specific example of a specific working later, I am afraid a lack of sleep is catching up with me at the moment.