Re: virus: magickal perspective

PHYCONUT (ajs231@is7.nyu.edu)
Wed, 25 Feb 1998 14:34:43 -0500 (EST)


At 12:01 PM 2/25/1998 -0500, you wrote:

I'm new to this list and have been lurking for about a week, this string
caught my interest so I'll reply.

>Robin wrote,
>
>>According to one definition, magick is "change in
>>conformity with Will". This covers not only such
>>as psychokinesis (sp?), but also the way my
>>fingers are moving right now, to type this in.
>>Which makes sense, when you think about it: this
>>is precisely the mind/body problem: how come my
>>willing it so makes my fingers move?

This is a pretty standard definition of magick, it is easy to say and easy
to misinterpret. It is also common to dis-associate Will, from Crowley's
definition of "True Will," the True Will is basically your niche in the
universe, whether it is dictated by a higher power or social construct is
unimportant. You must know yourself without being blinded by the Ego's
(social/religious/moralistic) influence. "A man who is doing his True Will
has the inertia of the Universe to assist him," one interpretation of this
is that a persons whole mind has actualized a goal and will not doubt their
actions on any conscious or subconscious level.
One view of magick is that it does not employ the use of higher
powers at all, but relys on the minds concept of archetypes. In order to
make a change the magician realizes what character traits need to be in
control before a psychological change can occur. You would for example
invoke Dionysus if you wanted to have one hell of a party. Ideally this
ritual would lead you to learn more about the Dionysian side of your Ego.
Your True will would already include the want for the traits needed to make
the party a success, but your Ego/social construction limits these, like a
religious institution. By realizing that one aspect of your True Will is to
party at such-and-such a time you have the full force of your mind and body.

I'm leaving out a lot, this is not a magick based list. I hope I can make my
point and save bandwidth. I would enjoy any questions and comments

>Did I misread the article Wade posted? What does the psychosphere have to
>do with psycho/telekinesis?
>
>What is gained by placing physical actions (such as typing) and
>psycho/telekinesis (uh, does that really happen...) in the same pot and
>calling it 'magick'?

Crowley did this to demistify magick. He realized that it had/has negative
connotations throughout the Christian world (duh). He also uses common
place examples, like typing, to correlate direct vs. indirect means. People
don't usually think about how/why we move and cause change. No one doubts
that change should ideally have its benefits, so what does it matter if you
write a love letter to a stranger, or you change your outlook in order to
attract that person to a side of yourself that you would not normally
reveal. For Crowley and many others magick is not psycho/telekinesis.

>And on a totally philosophical tack, to what extent is there a true
>distinction between mind and body? Why do accept this dualism
>unquestioningly?

I try to maintain an agnostic view of the universe. My view is
similar to a Taoist outlook, there may/may not be some unifying form of
life, a base consciousness through which all life is somehow connected. I
am not so quick to accept an outlook, which provides that there is a soul
that moves on in some form. But I think it is possible to conceive of what
Nietzsche called the "pimordial One" and this essence inhabits all life in
some form. I don't currently belive in a purpose to this, but isn't cool to
boggle the mind thinking of how all things can be connected to one point,
which we can not conceive of due to language and logic? Well that's what I
do for fun, I don't really care whether the mind is separate from the body,
but you can play around with ideas of a collective consciousness more than
you can with death as an absolute end.