Why We Practice Magic(press.princeton.edu)
press.princeton.edu
Why We Practice Magic
https://press.princeton.edu/ideas/why-we-practice-magic
24 comments
> check out "Liber Null," for example
Oh boy. I skimmed the beginning and end of that book, and the author presents some rather... skewed moral sensibilities around sex (See for example "The Red Rite" near the end of the book).
I guess these counter-culture esoteric/religious movements don't necessarily improve on the human flaws of Christian priests.
Oh boy. I skimmed the beginning and end of that book, and the author presents some rather... skewed moral sensibilities around sex (See for example "The Red Rite" near the end of the book).
I guess these counter-culture esoteric/religious movements don't necessarily improve on the human flaws of Christian priests.
Yeah, please don't read my mention of that book as any kind of endorsement, more like a "wow, look at the wild shit this guy wrote."
I think a lot of the Chaos Magic stuff is written in a spirit of playfulness (though there's plenty of plain dumb stuff too), it's kind of the characteristic of that "movement" in magic to play freely with tropes from every imaginable system and mix them in weird fashions.
I think a lot of the Chaos Magic stuff is written in a spirit of playfulness (though there's plenty of plain dumb stuff too), it's kind of the characteristic of that "movement" in magic to play freely with tropes from every imaginable system and mix them in weird fashions.
Consciousness itself is a magic trick, of a kind.
Alejandro Jodoworwsky (from Jodorowsky's Dune https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodorowsky's_Dune) is a big proponent of something he calls "Psychomagic"
For example, let's say you are anxious about money, maybe you are afraid of suddenly finding yourself with no money - so, a simple exercise to face that fear could be to leave the house, for the day, with no phone and no wallet, or have someone drop you off on the next town over and have to figure out on your own how to get back home
The main concept is to create "rituals" that help you address the fears that hold you back, in a practical way
For example, let's say you are anxious about money, maybe you are afraid of suddenly finding yourself with no money - so, a simple exercise to face that fear could be to leave the house, for the day, with no phone and no wallet, or have someone drop you off on the next town over and have to figure out on your own how to get back home
The main concept is to create "rituals" that help you address the fears that hold you back, in a practical way
Cognitive behavioral therapy calls this exposure therapy. It uses repeated exposure and reinforcement (the same things we use to train dogs to shake a paw), tailored specifically for reducing fear and anxiety.
A theory of why Sufism is popular is that it gives its followers pleasurable feelings (spinning in circles causes pleasure). Similarly, it seems like revolutions gain followers by offering pleasurable feelings too. Forbidden fruits are a great source of pleasure. For example, being attracted to someone of the same sex used to be a forbidden fruit. Then people said that the forbidden fruit is actually OK, and that led to a revolution in civil rights. Right now we have a couple of nascent forbidden fruit revolutions. One is based around becoming stupider, basically: doing psychedelics, believing in magic. The other is based around finding the truth, basically: reading about genetic differences between populations.
The bit about science not being elitist needs a caveat: anyone can try things and make observations, but that doesn't mean other people will believe them. Being trusted as a source of observations and getting them generally accepted is a social process. Consider nutrition, exercise, anything health related. How many people were in your study?
Even then, there's no guarantee. Many papers are ignored.
For some things, cameras help.
Even then, there's no guarantee. Many papers are ignored.
For some things, cameras help.
Anxiety control via rituals? Synthetic boosted ego?
rogual(6)
Much of the world apparently believed that wearing a muzzle and living like a hermit instead of outdoors, exercise, vitamins, and a normal lifestyle would prevent the common cold. Pure magic over rational science. One wonders what the next generation will think of the insanity of the past few years.
Weird Studies covered a book called "Sex Secrets of the Black Magic Experts" (title is meant to be jokey, not serious), which outlines a sort of modern approach to thinking about "Magic." It doesn't advocate for magic in the sense of literally believing that some ritual or invocation has some physically measurable effect. Rather, it's more about the idea that the mindset inherent to "magical practice" - like the interpretation of omens, or making some plea to a "god" or "force" - can be a useful mindset, a sort of different lens to view the world through.
As someone who spent a lot of time in my teens and early 20s consuming various rationalistic media (science books, New Atheist tracts, skepticism podcasts, etc), my knee jerk reaction to "magic" has mostly been disdain. But it's really interesting to consider it from this different angle and recognize that "magical thinking" has been a big part of the human experience for as long as we've been around. Maybe there's a baby in the bathwater there that we're throwing away, and maybe the notion of the "practice of magic" could be approached in a way that excises the dumb while keeping the good. (I've come to similar thoughts about religion and spirituality as I've gotten older).
Plus, as a nerdy metalhead type, I have to admit to myself that some of this stuff is just cool, and so it's been kind of fun to "allow" myself to dig into some of the various literature out there on "magic". (The whole Chaos Magic thing is full of fun and wacky stuff, check out "Liber Null," for example).
I think the Weird Studies pod I mentioned does a much better job than this post outlining the ideas in SSOTBME, and they covered another book, Technic and Magic, that has some similar thinking. Highly recommend the pod if that sounds even vaguely interesting.
Links:
SSOTBME podcast: https://www.weirdstudies.com/141
Technic and Magic podcast: https://www.weirdstudies.com/134