From: cranmer@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Keeping Silence, and Science
Date: 6 Jan 93 21:01:43 EST
Organization: The Ohio State University, Department of Physics

Hello,

Well, what started out as knee-jerk reactions (on all sides, admittedly)
is proving quite interesting.

drake+@cs.cmu.edu (Drake) writes....

>>cranmer@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu writes:
>>I think we may have different ideas of what the Sphinx is.
>
>Obviously.

Hmm.  The 'powers of the Sphinx' are commonly a part of some kind of
oath taken by a magician.  There are personal oaths, and there are
oaths 'administered' by exterior agents.  In the present case, nobody
is forcing anybody else to 'keep silence' about anything.  Why rebel
with such vehemence against something that each person decides for
themselves?  Kill your own Sphinx, if you want, but the concept is
still useful for others.

>>How is magic in sorry shape?
>
>It has not advanced beyond the stage of using leeches to cure disease,
>comparitively speaking.  If any of the other fields of endeavor humanity
>is engaged were treated like most people treat magic, then we would
>still be in the stone age.

We're getting into the question:  "Is Magic a Science?"  There was a
lengthy discussion about this maybe a year ago.  Thyagi offered a very
cogent set of axioms and theorems (maybe we could see the latest version,
Thyagi??) attempting to prove that magic is indeed a science, but with
a definition of Science that is more in tune with how it was defined
a few hundred (thousand?) years ago, than it is now.

In my mind, the jury's still out.  Sure, there are 'effects' that can
be produced, but is that all magic is?  I like to think of magic as an
Art, but many people would like to stick art under the aegis of Science
(especially Tagi's definition thereof).  The sheer beauty of (some) ritual
is one of the subjective, but important, aspects, that I would not label
as science.

>>Sorry, but I think this business is so subjective, that what works for
>>you has no guarantee that it will work for me.
>
>What works to cure one schizophrenic has no guarantee that it will work to
>cure another schizophrenic, either.  Yet the field of psychology does not
>labour under the "well, let's just talk about theory and ignore case
>studies" idea that you propose.

I'm no expert on either psychology or magic, but at the present, there are
many schools of thought in both fields that have very *fundamental* conflicts.
How am I to choose which ones will produce these reproducible results?

>No, magic is not a 'hard' science.  It has more relation to psychology
>than to physics.  But that is NO REASON to dismiss the work of other
>people as "of no concern."

Okay, "no concern" was a bit far.  But one should certainly judge where
the 'case studies' are coming from - a prolific author who backs up his/her
ideas, or someone offering a few dozen lines of borderline-unintelligible
stuff on the net.

>>That's why the "generalities" interest me more than whether you
>>accurately divined the future, or achieved gnosis, in a specific case.
>
>They both interest me.

Okay again, but, as Peggy said, these types of results are very personal
matters.  'Keeping silence' seems a natural thing to do for many people,
whether with their loved ones or on the net.

>>Look, if someone is looking to others for justification about their OWN
>>Great Work (or whatever you call it), then IMHO they are trodding down 
>>the wrong path to begin with.  
>
>I have no idea what you mean by this.

Just that there are many things that are best worked out by each person
individually.  Asking for help on the net, whether one gets responses or
not, just aint gonna help, in some matters.

Bottom line:  alt.magick isn't moderated.  If people start to post their
personal experiences, (and many do - I recall a 'vision' of a journey to
the edge of the Abyss, by Jason Pascussi, I believe, that was very moving)
I'll read them with interest.  But I still doubt their effectiveness for
helping others achieve similar (or even identical) goals.

Steve Cranmer
From: Marshall.Hoegfeldt@f31.n282.z1.tdkt.kksys.com (Marshall Hoegfeldt)
Sender: FredGate@tdkt.kksys.com