From: grimoire@byron.u.washington.edu (John Greer)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Is Magick worth the effort??
Date: 19 Aug 92 22:53:10 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

In article <16rdguINN1c5@conquest.ksu.ksu.edu> lyn@conquest.ksu.ksu.edu (Myself) writes:
>grimoire@byron.u.washington.edu (John Greer) writes:
>
>>ba@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (B.A. Davis-Howe) writes:
>
>>>this.  If there is anyone out there who started studying any form of magic
>>>before experiencing any sort of phenomena, please tell us about it.  I would
>
>>Um.  Well.  (An uncertain hand rises.)
>>My own involvement with magic began in a way I don't normally admit to.  As

                  (reminiscences of a Tolkien fan deleted)

>>Now the curious thing is that I don't remember ever having anything
>>remotely resembling a "psychic" or "magical" experience before I got
>>started with the work...or for that matter for some years thereafter.  To
>>a great extent, what I was doing was motivated by what Tom Sawyer would
>>call "faith": "believin' what you know ain't so".  I wanted magic to be
>>real so much that I was able to overlook the fact that I didn't think it
>>was.            
>
>>It's been suggested to me that my lack of belief is the reason why I didn't
>>experience any phenomena until I'd been working at this for a good couple
>>of years.  It's also been suggested to me that it simply took me that long
>>to pull the wool over my own eyes.  As I'm not particularly invested in
>>either the presence or absence of "objective" (whatever that means) effects
>>to magical work, I prefer to leave the whole point as moot.
>
>>Anyway, that's my experience.  A totally unscientific sampling of 
>>conversations I've had with other magicians leads me to think that it
>>may be far from unique.  Comments?
>
>Well, about 4-5(?) months back we had a big discussion on whether science and 
>magick were compatible/related/the same/whatever.... And one of the ideas that
>I related to the rest of the group was from Richard Back's _Illusions_. It 
>does not really matter that much whether there is such a thing as magick, or
>whether you can actually create a certain effect by power of will alone, 
>because if you Really Believe, it will become a part of your perceptions of
>the universe (whatever that is...), and, as such, it will cause you to do the
>things which are necessary to create the illusion or actuallity (whichever is
>appropriate) of that event occuring. In the end, it does not matter whether
>something is truly possible, because if you keep trying to make it happen, 
>it, or something indistinguishable from it (yo you), will happen, because you
>will cause it to happen. If this is confusing, or if anyone want's more of a
>discussion of it, please e-mail me.


Hmmm...well, like nearly everyone who survived the 70's, I've read Richard
Bach, and of course he's not the only person (then or now) who's been
proposing the "belief creates reality" theory.  Personally, though, I've
never thought much of it.

After all, since I don't believe it, it must not be true for me...;)

More seriously (and with apologies to the Lakota side of my ancestry), 
there's a truly ugly example of what happens when you try to apply this
kind of thinking to life here in the material world.  Ever hear of the
Ghost Dance?  In the 1880's (I think -- it's been a little while since
I read up on it) a prophet named Wowoka showed up among the Paiutes,     
proclaiming that a vast cataclysm sent by the Creator was going to
wipe out the Wasi'chu ("greedy ones" in Lakota -- i.e., the other side 
of my ancestry) and bring the buffalo back.  He'd had a vision of a
ceremony, the Ghost Dance, which would hurry this along; as an added
incentive, the spirits had promised him that anyone who wore the Ghost
Dance shirt would be invulnerable to Wasi'chu bullets.

Most of the tribes on the western Great Plains ended up joining in; their
backs were against the wall.  They believed with the intensity of
desperation.

...and they died, at Wounded Knee and elsewhere, by the hundreds and
thousands.  The shirts didn't stop bullets, the cataclysm didn't wipe
the whites off the face of the Plains, the buffalo still haven't come
back.

This is one example; there are plenty of others.  The recent "Hundredth
Monkey" monkey business is yet another, and I for one am grateful that
we didn't have to find that out the hard way.
 
The moral to this story, if there is one, is that magic, like any other
practical art, can benefit from the test of experience...and had better
be damn thoroughly tested before you trust your full weight to it.  As
I don't really feel that "doing stuff" in material terms is what this 
art is all about, I leave the point (as mentioned above) moot.

Of course, your experience may vary...

-- John Michael Greer
Newsgroups: alt.magick