Newsgroups: alt.magick
From: shaman@cix.compulink.co.uk (Leo Smith)
Subject: Re: I don't Understand
Reply-To: shaman@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 20:58:00 +0000

>    Maybe this is a silly question, but why in all the lore on magick
>    and magick theory and magickal spells and rituals and other means
>    to invoke power that I look at, seem to always deal with some
>    religion and/or found in obscure literature written long ago.

Because 95% of books about 'magick' are sops to peoples wish
fulfillment drive, and their authors have discovered that the average
Mr (or Ms) Gullible is more likely to believe in 'Ancient Secrets'
than 'Modern Konowledge' - since the latter is scientific, and most
of the lower echelons of the occult are littered with people who
can't spell or do math, and so are desperately looking for an
alternative game - i.e. Magick - in which they stand some chance of
gaining some self esteem. Look at Wicca....and ask yourself what
function it REALLY serves to its practitioners.

>    When I started making my own views on the universe and creation I
>    always thought of magick and religion as seperate and different.

Funny: So did I. Later I realised there was a common root. The
mundane aspects are, however, different.

>    I thought of religion as a set of rules for the priest to gain
>    favor with a being of power and through that being the priest
>    gets power.

That sounds D & D ish to me. Real religion is about a spiritual quest
to place the individual in the approriate relationship with Power.
Never mind the beings, its work on the individual. Like everything
else in magick its easier to talk about than to do however, hence 99%
of religion, like 99% of magick, is people talking about Power and
Spirit, rather than getting on and cultivating any of their own....

>    Magick was the learning fo the laws of the universe
>    and working with them, around them and even to them. The persuit
>    of magick was an effort to mimick those beings of power the
>    priests worshiped. For a magician to call on a being of power was
>    to dominate or ask for asistence, not worship; a magick user
>    respected beings of power. Is there no way to understand magick
>    without the pretense on religion and obscure writtings? Is there
>    no way to learn magick `on th job' so to speak?

Of course there is. Same way as learning religion on the job.

Do the unexpected. Say Yes to NLP. Vote for Bush. Shock yourself
daily. Practice odd and peculiar mental games and develop a look of
mystery and meaningless ^H^H^H^H^H fullness...

:-)

Be aware and never think you got it right, watch what goes down and
just occasionally figure out why. Get in touch with your thoughts and
feelings: They can tell you many things, if you don't take the
'standard' interpretations.

Avoid politics except for fun, and shun power. You'll get it without
asking when you are ready for it - and you will live to wish you had
none.

..and if it all seems a completely dreary waste of timne - give it up
instantly.

There are more things to do in life than study magick: Only a very
few people are really interested or really have bothered to take it
to extremes - and I am not one of them! I have only explored it
insofar as it sheds light on some things I wanted to understand, not
as an end in itself.

Leo