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With the girls is generally less about toplessness and more about bad corset decisions.Haha, the same probably goes for the girls? I have no idea. I am just guessing.
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With the girls is generally less about toplessness and more about bad corset decisions.Haha, the same probably goes for the girls? I have no idea. I am just guessing.
Well said and I agree.It's a funny thing, I'm still religious, and a believer, and I don't believe in magic even a little bit. Still, I try to be respectful of the delusions of others as long as they're respectful of mine.
As a 26 year old Engineer working for Xerox, myself and three friends were backpacking in the Catskills Mountains when we came upon a very large clearing, more like a meadow, where more than ten older (I would guess the women were in their sixties) women were nude and dancing in what we gaithered was an attempt to cure one of their company from cancer. Once we figured out what was going on we didn’t spy on them and instead took a long circuitous route around the clearing. Never seen anything like that again.As long as there's sex, drugs and skyclad dancing round midnight bonfires, I can live without the religious and spiritual bit.
Sorry that it's taken me more than a month to type up some reactions to reading I've been doing on the occult--some other projects, and summertime languor, got in the way. In any case, here's the first installment:
Michael D. Bailey, Magic: The Basics (London: Routledge, 2018).
As its title implies, this is a brief introduction to the subject, part of ‘the basics’ series published by Routledge. Its author, Michael Bailey, is a historian who specializes in Early Modern European magic who has written studies of the Malleus Maleficarum and of the idea of superstition, as well as an earlier textbook on magic in European history, which I’ve read and liked. Though this book is not a history—its chapters (except the last) are thematic rather than chronological—its outlook is more historical than, say, psychological, anthropological, or sociological, albeit Bailey draws on work in all those fields. Unsurprisingly, he also pays a good deal of attention to Early Modern European ideas about magic and witch-hunting. As Bailey notes, though, there has been a vast amount of scholarship written on the latter topic, so it is not simply a case of an author emphasizing his own specialty.
After a short introduction that notes the ubiquity of magic, the book offers six chapters (see below for titles). It concludes with a glossary, which includes some terms not actually used in the text, like ‘Enochian magic,’ a short guide to further reading, and an index. A real bibliography might have been more useful, but on the plus side the volume has chapter endnotes that give its sources. Since the work surveys a lot of terrain, though not in great depth (the text runs only to 160 pages), I won’t try to summarize all Bailey’s points. Some of them will be pretty familiar to anyone who has read much on the subject, which is not surprising in an introduction. Instead, I’ll highlight a few of his remarks that I found interesting or debatable.
Chapter 1: The Meanings of Magic
Magic as a cultural category is defined largely by its relation to two others, religion and science—the latter defined not narrowly as modern science but more broadly as ‘theories about the functioning of the natural world.’ So an attempt to deal with the spiritual or divine may be either religious or magical, and an attempt to control or manipulate the world may be scientific or magical. This seems valid for European civilizations, at least, but I wonder if it applies as well for other cultures? From what little I know, it seems that much of what gets discussed as ‘magic’ for Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt (for example) is actually the purview of priests or similar religious officials. As Bailey makes clear, monotheistic religions and especially Christianity have been most insistent in dividing religion and magic (and declaring magic evil), while modern science (i.e. from the 18th century onward) has likewise rejected magic more thoroughly than similar bodies of knowledge elsewhere or in earlier times.
Bailey’s initial chapter also includes a useful brief survey of “Universalizing Attempts in Anthropology and Sociology” that deal with magic as category. This has good capsule accounts of some key writings on the subject, including those of Frazer, Mauss, Durkheim, Malinowski, and Evans-Pritchard. Bailey notes that some scholars reject ‘magic’ as a term of analysis altogether, because it is inchoate and may be misleading in many contexts, but rejects this view largely on practical grounds. As an interesting final point in this chapter, he argues that a degree of incoherence or conceptual slipperiness is built into magic as a phenomenon, even when one studies it in a single, distinct culture and situation: magic is by its nature ill-defined. As he puts it, “Secrecy, uncertainty, and mysterious changeability are important hallmarks of magic around the world.” A corollary of this that he develops later in the work is that magic that lacks this quality—that is too well-defined, too understandable—is likely to be absorbed into the categories or religion or science for its culture.
Chapter 2: Magical Acts
This was the weakest chapter, in my opinion. It surveys briefly the uses to which magic has been put, types of magic and practitioners, the use of materials (including texts) in magic, and the sources that have been posited in different cultures for magical power. Bailey’s discussion is sound (as far as I can tell) and interesting enough, but since his remit is the entire world throughout history, it is hard to come up with much in the way of generalizations that are not pretty commonsensical. So, for example, the section on practitioners notes that some types of magic may be done by anybody (like throwing salt over one’s shoulder to avert bad luck), while other types are more elaborate requiring involved rituals and specialist knowledge. Professional magicians may be part of an educated elite or less learned ‘cunning people.’ Though in some societies (or for some types of magic) education and resources are all that it necessary, in other cases magicians have some innate (and often inborn) special characteristic, like being born ‘in the caul’ or being descended from another magician. And so on.
Chapter 3: Magic Contested and Condemned
The third chapter stresses well a point that it too easy to overlook. Rather than modern cultures being incredulous about magic while premodern ones believed in it, in any given society there will be a range of credulity about different magical phenomena. Thinkers may cast scorn on much that passes as magical in their civilization while accepting some other magical phenomena as real. This chapter also notes that most cultures have seen magic as morally ambiguous and created legal penalties only for maleficent magic. Christian Europe is something of an exception here—though there were Christian intellectuals who defended some sorts of magical practice—and Bailey concludes the chapter with a brief resume of the Early Modern witch-hunts.
Chapter 4: Magical Identities
Bailey’s fourth chapter economically unites a variety of topics (magicians as ‘outsiders, the ‘social strain gauge’ approach to magic, the gender of magical practitioners, etc.) through a discussion of what people have been labeled or self-identified as magicians. The book notes that in some African and Asian societies, evil magicians (‘witches’) are considered capable of doing their harm completely involuntarily—indeed, they may not even be aware that they are ‘witches.’ I found this interesting since European ideas about magic normally treat it as volitional, with maybe a few exceptions like the evil eye.
Chapter 5: The Reality of Magic
The fifth chapter begins with some straightforward ways in which magic can ‘work’: some magic draws on what we would think of as real properties of plants or minerals, some may involve the use of hallucinogens which could lead participants to perceive things, and some relies on deliberate trickery. A more interesting question that Bailey pursues is why people might ascribe some harms or outcomes to maleficent magic, instead of to natural causes or bad luck; a key factor seems to be the presence of unusual levels of stress, or threats that cannot be met by normal means. Drawing on a study of ritual magicians in late 20th-century England, Bailey also suggests that the practice of magic itself may ‘train’ people to see it in operation around them, accepting cause and effect relationships that other would not. An important part of this is viewing magic’s outcomes as possibly indirect instead of direct. Also, these ritual magicians accept that particular magical procedures may fail as well as succeed, “experiencing magical rites that fail critically reinforces the magicians’ conviction that they are engaging in a serious activity that operates in an objective and not merely and imagined way.”
This chapter also briefly discusses psychological studies of magical thinking and superstition. Bailey notes work which suggests that people are more likely to engage in this if they are in fields or situations where the outcomes are unusually random (like gambling, or some sports) and that therefore greater control over the environment may have produced a decline in belief in magic. He is skeptical (rightly in my view) about the latter idea, though, noting that surveys from the early 20th century onward have not shown any straightforward drop in belief in magic, and that European elites rejected magic considerably before modern technology rendered life more predictable. He puts more credence in work which tends to show that people in modern Western societies may act as though they believe in magical phenomena or processes while explicitly proclaiming they do not, what he calls ‘dual-process thinking.’
Chapter 6: Magic in the Modern World
Bailey’s final chapter is largely concerned with the ‘disenchantment of the world’ that Weber identified as characteristic of modernity. He provides a useful brief account of occult traditions in the modern West which of course show that magic did not entirely disappear, but he does not really engage with scholarship that argues that occultism may have been influential in the creation of modernity. The chapter also deals with reactions to ‘disenchantment’ beyond the West, exploring both acceptance and resistance to it. Here I was surprised to learn that some non-European societies welcomed the idea of disenchantment as they thought it would end the depredations of witches, only to be disappointed when it failed to do so.
It is; I wish Bailey had discussed it in more depth, but of course this is a short introduction. His example comes from psychological experiments where people are given lottery tickets and then provided with incentives to exchange them for other tickets. On rational/probabilistic grounds they should agree to do this, but many people will not. Bailey notes that some explain this by saying they would feel worse if they gave a way a winning ticket, which is a recognized psychological principle (regret avoidance), but that some other findings indicate that people are acting as though they thought exchanging tickets would lower their chance of winning.Your summery is much appreciated and enjoyed. Dual-process thinking, in particular, seems very interesting.
It is; I wish Bailey had discussed it in more depth, but of course this is a short introduction. His example comes from psychological experiments where people are given lottery tickets and then provided with incentives to exchange them for other tickets. On rational/probabilistic grounds they should agree to do this, but many people will not. Bailey notes that some explain this by saying they would feel worse if they gave a way a winning ticket, which is a recognized psychological principle (regret avoidance), but that some other findings indicate that people are acting as though they thought exchanging tickets would lower their chance of winning.
I know that, personally, I don't believe in the occult, but I can have a strong sense that the universe is perverse. So, for example, if I may sometimes take an umbrella with me on iffy days not to prepare for rain but as a prophylactic against it. I don't really think my preparedness has any effect on the weather, but I act as though I did.
I hope you like Mask of the Sorcerer--Schweitzer deserves to be better known, IMO.Well, I can definitely agree that the universe tends towards perversity. What will you read next? I have a few books that might fit this thread and if I get around to actually finishing one of them I'll post my thought. As an aside, I bought The Mask of the Sorcerer on your recommendation. It's staring at me as I type this and I'll read it sometime soon, hopefully.
He notes that the actual content of the magic, the supernatural powers it invokes, and the status of the performer can vary widely, while remaining essentially the same activity. (As an aside, I hope every chapter in the book does not begin with wrestling with the definition of magic.)…an activity consisting of symbolic gestures (e.g. the burning of a substitute figurine), usually accompanied by recitations, performed by an expert (relying on transmitted knowledge) with the goal of effecting an immediate change and transformation of the object of the activity (e.g. the cure of an ill person or the removal of an agent of evil from a house.
Rivals or enemies may only have existed in the patient’s mind; in other words, such incantations are treating a mild form of paranoia. Moreover, they were probably not composed for someone who actually faced intrigues at court. It is more likely they were used by ordinary individuals in the Mesopotamian bureaucracy who imagined they had rivals.
I once tried discussing the book on that other place, it didn’t go too well.Passport to Magonia hasn't been mentioned yet. (does it fit?)
Passport to Magonia hasn't been mentioned yet. (does it fit?)
You know, that's me, I've my own faith (Christian, Disciples of Christ), but beyond that, I've no belief in anything supernatural. No ghosts, psychic powers, etc. Mind you I love the idea of them, I was very interested in studying psychic phenomena as a kid, and I'm willing at least to be convinced but I need evidence to believe in anything like that. A lot of evidence.(raises hand) oh, I'm very interested in the occult. I've done a ton of studying of different magical traditions, the tarot, etc.
But I'm not a believer...
I correspond occasionally with Joshua Cutchon, even have plugged his death and the afterlife opus at least once on here.There is a theory that UFO people love and hate that says Aliens are Fey creatures. Aliens are doing the same things that the Fey creatures have been doing for ages. They appear as they want (either by illusion or change). They don't seem to operate by normal physical laws (as fey do not). They come from other realms (which may or may not be other stars... or those other stars are their anchors). They have been in places of energy, under ground, under ocean, or in certain spots in the air. Many travel by glowing bubbles, but others have seen them as flying trains, flying carriages drawn by something with wings. (Here is one set of reports from a century or two ago). Then before certain kinds of UFO Experiences began to be reported, starting a week later, we have Aleister Crowley and "The Amalantrah Workings", he believed that they were contacted by a preternatural entity named Lam. When you see Lam, you see why UFO folks love and hate this.
You should google 'Brother Richard'; he's one of the more interesting Catholic monks who writes and is an expert on the Fey in Ireland.You know, that's me, I've my own faith (Christian, Disciples of Christ), but beyond that, I've no belief in anything supernatural. No ghosts, psychic powers, etc. Mind you I love the idea of them, I was very interested in studying psychic phenomena as a kid, and I'm willing at least to be convinced but I need evidence to believe in anything like that. A lot of evidence.
Despite being told houses I've gamed in were haunted--and people claiming to see things, I never have.
I feel kind of the same. I don't believe it but I'm not extremely sceptical of it either.I’m not a believer or a skeptic, it’s a subject that’s frankly too hard to discuss in this modern era without evoking anger and actual violence from a range of sources.
I feel kind of the same. I don't believe it but I'm not extremely sceptical of it either.I’m not a believer or a skeptic, it’s a subject that’s frankly too hard to discuss in this modern era without evoking anger and actual violence from a range of sources.
I found some of Colin Wilson's books (including The Mammoth Encyclopedia of the Unexplained) on the Internet Archive. I've heard of Rudolf Steiner as the man who founded Anthroposophy. BTW, Anthroposophy loves Kaspar Hauser and the story of Hauser being the crown prince of Baden. The Anthroposophic idea is/was that Kaspar Hauser was supposed to be a Christ figure/redeemer and his imprisonment was part of a Masonic conspiracy to prevent that.I'd say so. Sounds similar to the fun compilation of wackiness that is The Morning of the Magicians, also written by French men, interestingly enough. For the 60s and 70s occult classics I prefer to find the paperbacks with their psychedelic covers, if they can be had at a reasonable price.
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I don't remotely believe in any of this stuff, whether it is UFOs or the many varations on the occult, but I find it fun to read about, partcularly if it is well written, which I find is more of a rarity.
I already mentioned him here but imo Gary Lachman is the best modern pop writer on the subject with enough prose style, facility at summarizing the rambling systems of thought of others, some level of rigor and a lack of overt evangelizing. Plus a frankness about people's actual behaviour, hypocrises and other flaws.
Lachman was a good friend of Colin Wilson, who was also a clear writer on the subject although he was a fair bit more credulous than Lachman, not as rigorous and wrote so much that he can tend to ramble and repeat himself in later books. Still, he remains one of the best writers I've found on the subject.
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Lachman recently wrote good books on Silver Age mystics in Russia and the occult and the far right in the US I really enjoyed. His book on the occult and the 60s counterculture is a classic.
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He's also written good, readable biographies on a number of well known occult thinkers. His biographies work both as an introduction to their often less-than-concise ideas while also not holding back on the juicy, amusing and/or horrifying and bizarre personal details.
I've read his books on Jung and the occult, Crowley, Swedenborg, Ouspensky and Steiner.
His book on Colin Wilson is not as concise and skeptical as his other books, inevitable when discussing a personal friend and mentor I would guess. I intend to continue reading more of these, including his biography of Blavatsky which I have but have only dipped into for some amusing stories.
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Conspiracy theory is firmly rooted in Roman-era anti-Semitism. It's an unavoidable fact, if you look into the subject.From what I've read, occultists seem to overlap with conspiracy theorists a lot.
There is a theory that UFO people love and hate that says Aliens are Fey creatures.
The trouble with such ‘theories’ is that too many people have been through too many traumatic experiences without wanting, desiring or expecting them. While this is an argument to pursue, bear in mind that a goodly percentage of experiencers really don’t want those experiences. So if these things are product of an imagination, it isn’t one necessarily shared nor individually created or made up through language or dreams.I have seen some pretty convincing arguments that UFO legends are the modern day versions of faerie lore. Not that UFO aliens (or faeries) are real, but that the same human impulses that drove the creation of fairy stories (and similar tales around the world) just sort of morphed into another form at one point.
Left Brain works, especially with Hermeticism. The point is the degree of understanding/ harmony with the ideas and the forces. You need to believe the correspondences. You need to understand the interplay/ relationships and build those mind maps in your head. It needs to be a full working knowledge. That takes time and effort, something most people do not invest enough of.I worked a couple of rituals. One worked, one didn't. I remain unconvinced, but of course I didn't go far enough into it.
I've read about Hermeticism and witchcraft and know most of the basic correspondences, though I doubt that gives me anything. I sort of wonder if I'm just too left-brained for that stuff to work for me.
I feel kind of the same. I don't believe it but I'm not extremely sceptical of it either.
I'm working on a novel and planning another one in my head. It'll involve some of this stuff as more central to the plot (the one I'm working on it has it
I found some of Colin Wilson's books (including The Mammoth Encyclopedia of the Unexplained) on the Internet Archive. I've heard of Rudolf Steiner as the man who founded Anthroposophy. BTW, Anthroposophy loves Kaspar Hauser and the story of Hauser being the crown prince of Baden. The Anthroposophic idea is/was that Kaspar Hauser was supposed to be a Christ figure/redeemer and his imprisonment was part of a Masonic conspiracy to prevent that.
From what I've read, occultists seem to overlap with conspiracy theorists a lot.
Was he that Dad that thought turning into an Owlbear when you had friends over was a laugh riot?My father is a druid, no joke.
The term you are looking for is Ultraterrestrials.John Keel, who wrote The Mothman Prophecies, did end up believing that UFOs, Mothman, Bigfoot and even the Men in Black were entities that had been around for thousands of years and liked to play games with humanity.
yeah, I’ve also used the term extradimensional.The term you are looking for is Ultraterrestrials.