From: Tagi@cup.portal.com (Tagi Mordred Nagashiva)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: alt.magick support group
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 08:23:47 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
  <1992Sep29.112637.13343@ncsu.edu> <BvCCEn.3H8@acsu.buffalo.edu>

9209.29 e.v.


The header on this thread is 'alt.magick support group'.  It was started
by Josh, if I remember correctly, or at least by someone who wanted to know
if support groups were the solution to the anxiety about flaming 
(meant sarcastically I'm sure).


Peggy (the correct) writes [my comments in brackets]:

This has nothing to do with magick.  [Are you sure?]
This has nothing to do with magick.  [Nothing?]
This has nothing to do with magick.  [And you're gonna tell us what magick is?]
This has nothing to do with magick.  [This sounds pretty definite to me.]
This has nothing to do with magick.  [Don't you think it is dangerous to be...
This has nothing to do with magick.  [...so definite about things?]
This has nothing to do with magick.  [So now you are the arbiter?]
This has nothing to do with magick.  [I think I'd like to short-circuit...]
This has nothing to do with magick.  [...such rude activities.]

[Especially since I like Elizabeth so much.  Perhaps this can be an example
to all you 'champions of the flamed' (or squelched).]

I'm sure you can find a more appropriate group for this.


Response:

Peggy, I find that it IS applicable to magick.  If you don't, please put
it in your kill-file or simply ignore it.  I'll do my best to show you how
it is related to the subject.  I request that you treat such 'tangents'
as this with more restraint in the future.  Thanks.



originally, Elizabeth writes:

>I understand some of the suspicion and annoyance with support groups.  However
,
>I've personally benifitted from a 12-step program as have several fine people 
>I know.  It helps, in my experience, just to know that other people have some
>similar experiences.  And the 12-step programs seek to overcome dependence on
>externals and to help each person establish a sense of personal responsibility
>(also in my experience... groups vary widely).  


Response:

12-step programs are like magical group training programs.  The participants
support one another through very intense emotional difficulties while each
of them struggles with particular attachments.  One might say that Buddhism
is a giant 12-step (without the 'God' part - then again, many rebel groups
are now beginning which omit the 'God' part altogether).


Elizabeth:

>I get annoyed by self-help books because I think they suggest that there are
>quick fixes.  Living and growing are a process, a lifelong one at that.  And
>it sure helps me to have people give me a hand or a shoulder on ocassion.
>It also helps me to retreat way far into myself.  See, the only person who can
>deal with my "problems" is me.  The 12-step programs don't suggest otherwise.
>And I think the world would be a better place if more people took a really
>good look at themselves... love for others, unselfish and mature love, starts
>with love for self as a foundation.  And (once again in my experience) love
>for self is hard to come by in our society.


Response:

While I don't agree that things annoy us but that we become annoyed ABOUT
them, I agree that self-help books make it sound as if a recipe will work
for everyone given half a chance.  

'Looking at ourselves' is the very HEART of magick.  'Know thyself o Mage'
is one of the most oft-heard exhortations of initiation (or some variant
on this phrase).  

Loving ourselves is, to me, the second step in magick (hmmmmmm 12-step magick?)
and it is indeed difficult to find people in magical practice who have a
real appeciation for this.  How many do you know that not ONLY value
pleasure but value themselves enough to balance enjoyment with discipline?
How many do you know that put an emphasis on self-determination, self-
knowledge and the authority of each individual to know what is best for
them?  I've met too many supposed 'Mages' who were more interested in
recruiting than in empowering.  Elizabeth's words here are dead on with
respect to magick.


Elizabeth:
 
>I also think that every family is dysfunctional to some extent.  No parent is
>perfect.  I'm sure all (or most) parents do the best they can and truly love
>their children.  And 12-step programs aren't about blaming parents (or anyone
>else) for how we feel.  But it's important (IMO) to recognize the pain we've
>felt as children.  Society teaches most of us that our "negative" feelings
>aren't legitimate, that we have to keep them in "control."  I think it's
>important for us to experience the full range of our feelings.  (We have
>control insofaras we can choose whether to act on them and how to act on them.


Response:

Dysfunctionality applies to alt.magick, to our personal family, and to ANY
social group (magical or religious included).  No leader (priestess, minister,
grand poobah, etc.) is incabable of error (note that I think they ARE
perfect in their way ;>).  

In fact, if the 12-step is full-on I think it would involve learning that
how we feel cannot be blamed on objects either.  That blaming is a
thing which hurts all of us.  Our emotions are SACRED.  Goddess gives them
to us to teach us compassion.  All our feelings, as Elizabeth says, are
important, and in some magicks we are trained to experience each of these
emotions DEEPLY.

Control is a big issue in this newsgroup, both with regard to posting
and with regard to magical rites/ceremonies.  Some mages want to make sure
that they always have 'control' (by knowing all about what they are doing,
for example).  Very often in our culture demons/daemons are EMOTIONS and
many a mage wants to 'purge' or 'control' these daemons so that she will
not have to experience pain (and therefore LIFE).

I think I've shown how Elizabeth's post applies not only to magick, but
to all of life.  I hope that people will be more careful about what they
attempt to squelch in this newsgroup.  A LOT of it is important to the
subject.  Ignoring what you don't like is a more effective policy, I think,
than making judgements about interest for others.


Thyagi (the justifier)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
"So we'll go to the top of the toppest blue space,
The Official Katroo Birthday Sounding-Off Place!
Come on!  Open your mouth and sound off at the sky!
Shout loud at the top of your voice, 'I AM I!
ME!
I am I!
And I may not know why
But I know that I like it.
_Three cheers_!  I AM I!'"


Theodor Geisel   (Dr. Seuss)