From: Tagi@cup.portal.com (Thyagi Morgoth NagaSiva)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: My answers (was Re: ... Definitions of "evil")
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 92 09:27:01 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

9212.29 e.v.


Ladislas wrote:

"Evil" (as well as "goodness") is a sociological concept that cannot exist
without an action or intention within a specific time frame.  Hence, objects
or any non-living matter cannot be "evil".


Response:

Here you admit that evil is a concept created by society or its conditioning.


Ladislas:

Act or intention:

"Evil" as an act or intention is that which goes against the welfare (or 
alleged welfare) of a protagonist or protagonists.  As such, "evil" is always
relative to the parties involved.


Response:

Here you admit that evil's meaning is relative to the speaker.


Ladislas:

Specific time frame:

An act or intention that goes against the welfare of a party is relative to
the time frame in which the ill effects occur in that such effects can bring
about improvements to the party's well-being at a later time.  The best
example that comes to mind is from a play I read in highschool: "_Enemy_Of_
The_People_".


Response:

Also see writings by Chuang Tse where events keep happening and the town
folk keep judging it as a 'good' or 'ill' while the taoist sage simply
shrugs and says 'perhaps so'.


Ladislas:

I was asked by someone on this forum "how does this subject relate to magick?".
To answer that question:  concepts such as "good" and "evil" are often what
drives people to act a certain way, bring about certain changes.  Combine
the drive of a concept with a strong emotion and you end up with a very strong
purpose.  For ordinary people (those wielding little power), such
a purpose can make them accomplish great altruistic deeds or horrible 
atrocities (again, in a different time frame, the end results can change).


Response:

Agreed.  Here what you are addressing has less to do with 'evil' as a concept,
however, and more to do with ethics and goals for the expression of those
ethics through magical means.  The nature of 'altruism' and 'egotism' are
another aspect of this topic which could take up quite a bit of time.

Again, these issues are only tangental to the subject of magick inasfar as
they apply to ALL acts (intentional or no).  Their discussion here seems to
be drawing no flames (aside from my KaOtic spew to start it all off), so
I'll happily join in with you and discuss until I get bored. :>


Ladislas:

What happens when a mage who holds real power decides upon a purpose with
such a drive?  


Response:


I challenge all the implications of your questions.  Below please find all
the implications which I can locate.  If you can support them, I'd be happy
to hear your explanation as to why you accept them as true. 

The question above seems to imply that:

a) 'Real power' is something which a mage may hold.

b) Mages do the deciding about their purposes.


Ladislas:

The 'what-ifs' implied by this question are far too numerous
to include here but, basically, the real question becomes:

How does a mage deal with the responsibility that comes with power?


Response:

This question implies:

a) A mage 'deals' with anything.

b) A mage may acquire power.

c) Responsibility comes with power.


Ladislas:

To answer my questions 2 and 3, I've never read anywhere that Jesus labelled
acts as "good" or "evil".  His basic message was "if you want to thrive in a
society, you must be sociable".  The reason I put him in the picture is not
because he's a 'good dude'.  It's because of the many unerving details of his
life (as described in the gospels) that abound with similarities to parts of
the magister and events in the apprenticeship of the Adept.


Response:

Writing isn't truth.  When we get into 'what Jesus did', then this becomes
a historical issue with little application to magick aside from that which
comes as a byproduct of religion.  We apparently disagree with regard to
the 'basic message' of the Jesus myth.  Yup, I don't think it can ever
be proven that a 'Jesus' ever existed.  Again, I don't think that such
things ought to be debated here in alt.magick.  There's enough of that
going on in alt.atheism, alt.satanism, talk.religion.misc, and
talk.religion.newage.

I WOULD like to hear what details of the Jesus myth correspond with the
magister and adepti formulae.  Since Jesus was probably a composite of
many mystery-cult protagonists (Osiris, for example), it is not surprising
that he would retain such symbolic associations.  I'd like to discuss
these if you're game.  Perhaps a different thread is necessary, however.
Then I'd love to examine Buddha's life and Muhammed's and others, if you've
the time.


Ladislas:

As for "lumping" Crowley into this discussion, the "Do what thou wilt is
the whole of the law" phrase implies a rupture with accepted soc. concepts
in favor of a self-defined attitude towards responsibility.


Response:

Does it?  I don't think that there is a 'One True Interpretation' of that
phrase.  Even Crowley claimed that all interpretations of that phrase were
true, if only the interpreter be 'illumined'.  All false if not.  Go figure.
Start another thread called 'Do what thou wilt... interpretations'.  Again,
this comes under 'ethics of magick' rather than any more direct discussion
about magick and its nature.


Thyagi
Newsgroups: alt.magick