On 11 Jun, 18:50, mika
gmail.com> wrote:> On Jun 11, 4:00 am, Chade wrote:
>
>> On 10 Jun, 18:21, mika wrote:
>
>>> What exactly do you mean by "low magic"?
>
>> For a native English speaker an irreverent answer would be magic that
>> doesn't involve speaking foreign.
>
> heh
>
>> More seriously, I would divide low magic and high magic by the
>> complexity of the system used, specifically the level of abstraction.
>
> Are you saying the distinction solely relates to the system itself and
> not to the purpose or intent of the work being done?
>
> I don't have an opinion on this myself, as I don't separate between
> "low" and "high". I don't see the point in using those labels.
>
In medieval times larger settlements in Europe were often built on
higher ground, as it is more defensible. The most productive farming
tended to happen on low-land areas. The story goes that 'high' magic
was generally practiced in towns where the more educated people were
where as 'low' magic was practiced on low ground by peasants.
So people doing high magic could speak Latin, study books, use ink and
parchment and so on. Low magic was simpler, not necessarily used by
stupid people, just people with more basic resources.
One could argue that high magic tended to have more spiritual aims,
more time on their hands after all, but there was no shortage of
'high' magic done for material gain. Just as there was probably some
low magic done to help people become more in touch with the world.
Of course in the modern west most people can both read and afford
books. And have the leisure to indulge in spiritual practices that is
open to those who have a choice over what to eat for dinner. Which was
the background for the neo-pagan re-construction, now a largely
spiritual movement. (Although of course bookshop shelves groan under
'teen witch recipie books', (Roast with plenty of garlic).)
Still, IMHO the mainstream of western magic can still be divided in to
two styles.
>>> alt.magick is not a pagan newsgroup. Crossposting to pagan and wiccan
>>> newsgroups may add interesting perspectives to the discussion of
>>> magick, but if you're interested in discussing paganism, alt.magick is
>>> not the place to do it.
>
>> I agree that alt.magick is only rarely the place to discuss theology,
>> and I don't intend to. Real magic includes hardly any theology which
>> is what I meant by baggage.
>
> Yet it includes a discussion of paganism, which is a religion even if
> there's 'hardly any theology'.
>
> There's religious based (moralistic and/or superstitious) statements
> throughout the book, don't trick yourself into believing there's no
> baggage.
>
Sure, but I don't think there's anything in real magic that we can
discuss that will trigger cries of 'you can't tell me I'm not a real
priestess'.
>> However we've already discussed that there
>> isn't a single clear dividing line between magic and religion in the
>> debate about chapter two.
>
> I agree with the above if you're strictly talking about "magic" as
> defined by IB, but completely disagree if by "magic" you also mean
> "magick".
>
Do tell.
>>>> Because during ritual one's sense power is as if it's an external
>>>> force,
>
>>> Not for me. I never bought into that bullshit.
>
>>> Why do you assume it's like that for everyone?
>
>> Because of my own experience and the uniformity I encountered in
>> accounts of magic. However if you tell me that your experience is
>> different I'll take that on board.
>
>> In, say, the lbrp you don't feel the breeze of Raphael, the heat of
>> Micheal, the cold damp of Gabriel, the heat of Michel and the coolness
>> of Auriel like it's external, before it's internalised, and afterward?
>
> I don't feel any of those things at all. Perhaps because I wasn't
> told I must feel them or else I'm not doing the ritual properly, so I
> never had to convince myself it was happening in order to believe my
> ritual work was a "success".
>
Perhaps.
>> How would you describe it?
>
> Initially, I went through the motions/words of the lbrp and simply
> visualized the elemental triangles in corresponding colors for each
> direction. Eventually, those images started to shift 'on their
> own' (unconsciously); for example instead of being about human-sized
> as I had been visualizing the triangles, the earth triangle appeared
> one day the size of a mountain. The others changed a bit as well.
> Then one time I 'saw' and felt energy flowing from the triangles up in
> front of me and down behind me, up my right side and down my left (if
> you do the lbrp you understand why it worked out like this), forming a
> sphere of fluctuating 'energy' around me, where the nature and
> intensity of the 'energy' varied depending on its source and
> destination (so to speak). In other words, it's not a uniform
> sphere. I then saw myself at the center of this sphere, stable, as if
> I was part of a gyroscope. Thus I realized, as I go about my life,
> this (symbolic) sphere surrounds me and would stay fixed in its
> directions as I moved around in every direction within it. That is,
> if I turned to the left from my initial position assumed during the
> lbrp, then the 'energy' that forms the sphere would be flowing down in
> front of me, up behind me, up my right and down my left. The sphere
> is fixed, I rotate within it. I still experience the lbrp like this,
> with some further variation that I won't go into here.
>
> That's about all I can describe with words. I can't express in words
> the feelings or perspective or awareness that results from
> experiencing being within this 'gyroscope', but others I've spoke with
> who have much experience with the lbrp knew exactly what I was talking
> about without me having to explain further. I hope you do as well.
> I'd be happy to answer any questions about it though, if I can.
>
Having practiced the LBRP for a while I can relate to your account,
although I wouldn't describe in in quite the same terms.
>>> I'd argue that people get confused because they're seduced by the
>>> misleading description in the first place.
>
>
> I don't understand what you mean by "reduce its power to evoke
> immediacy". Or what you're referring to with "adding post-hoc
> qualifiers".
Well, you gave a account of your experience above, using terms like
'saw' which are easy to relate to and make your meaning clear. If you
had used terms like "mentally superimposed visualisation" you would
have dodged using an reference to an external sense, albeit in single
quotes, but I think don't your account would have been quite as easy
to relate to.
