Goetic "Demons"
-
i agree sophia, I agree..
mysticism. a wonderful concept
-
I'm not exactly sure how a Goetic spirit is all that different than some human being I might bump into at the local store.
Of course the obvious that humans have a solid, autonomous, corporeal existence that persists over a duration of time, where as spirits are appear are more ephemeral and depend upon on the psychology of the magician.
However, if you cut down to the actual sensory input we receive from another person, its just sound vibrations, light patters, various chemical oders and pheromones, etc. We never encounter a person, as a whole, but rather we abstract the notion of a person, from the various disjointed sense data we do encounter. By intuitive leaps, guided by our learned associations (learned a great deal by trial and error) we build a complex semantic network. The raw data (syntactic information) "come to life" when our brain interpret and infuse them with semantics. Not just people but all things, are not things at all, any an every changing array of sensory inputs which is mostly changes in electrical potentials in the nerve endings.
One result of the semantic system is language, that is symbolic thought. We can use symbols that represent clusters of sensory data, and even symbols that represent other symbols in different contexts.
Lets not get too deep here.
What I am saying is that just as we never encounter anther human being, but yet we project a sense of person-hood upon the ephemeral sensory data that are presented to us by direct and indirect contact with that person. So too, in a ritual can we train our minds to project a sense af person-hood onto events that occur in the ritual space. The Ephemeral fluctuations of incense smoke take on not only the appearance of a spirit but also a personality.
The way parameters of that personality depend upon the mind of the magician, as well as the source material used to prime himself for the ritual, and the elements of the ritual itself.
Even though the spirit is a great deal a construction and projection of the magicians mind, it also relies on elements that are either random or not directly under the magicians control, thus unlike talking to an imaginary friend, who rarely takes on a life of his own, A spirit has a degree of freedom to act.
Since the spirit is so closely linked to the magicians Psychology, these autonomous actions the spirit takes, have a feedback programming effect on the magicians mind. By commanding the spirit to obey, it trains the mind not to stray too far from the WILL of the magician, in the area that spirit represents.
Thus calling upon a spirit concerned with drunkenness, like a satyr, each time the Satyr makes an excuse to drink, or finds a loophole from ones command, one can then chastise the spirit, and gain control over alcoholic spirits, rather that allowing them to take control over your life.
-
I find it important to add that the above fully and with more specific detail describes spirits and the process of evocation, without need to summon supernatural entities, mystical gobbledy-gook, or strange new worlds, that must be accepted on faith.
There is nothing that I wrote that is not subject to validation by science. Cognitive science and neural biology, being 2 hard sciences, and Psychology, anthropology, and sociology, being 3 soft sciences which can validate these claims.
Science will never discover a mind that chooses to incarnate itself by astrological data, because its absurd and not just wrong, but competely backwards to speak of such hokey tripe, when we should make an endever to reform magick as a hard science, not to defamate it further by wallowing in the muck of supernaturalist hogwash.
-
@Froclown said
"I find it important to add that the above fully and with more specific detail describes spirits and the process of evocation, without need to summon supernatural entities, mystical gobbledy-gook, or strange new worlds, that must be accepted on faith."
Magick can be psychoanalysis and vice versa; however Magick is not psychoanalysis, and psychoanalysis is not Magick. Each has its own symbol/jargon set, and each has its own "rituals". Not everyone responds to either system in the same way. You say "we should make an endever to reform magick as a hard science" - this is already what science is. If all Magick is for you is "psychoanalysis with gobbeltygook" then go find some therapy more suited to you (or NLP or something).
You list sociology as one of the sciences that can validate your claims. A sociologist would recognize that the "gobbeltygook" is an important aspect to social bonding, especially when that jargon and ritual connects an individual to a rich history of mystery, wonder, and taboo (Rosicrucians, Templars, Sol Invictus, Pythagoreans, etc).
"Science will never discover a mind that chooses to incarnate itself by astrological data, because its absurd and not just wrong, but competely backwards to speak of such hokey tripe"
No, science will never discover this particular mind, because science and astrology do not overlap completely in their fundamental premises - they are different belief systems and not wholly compatible.
Science is based on faith too and has premises you take for granted. For example demonstrability of a certain result from a certain experiment assumes that the participants (whether they are scientists or atoms) are honest. Whats the guarantee that the universe just isn't performing sleight of hand when under the microscope (as with The Matrix for example)? On a more practical level the honesty of the scientists themselves is often circumspect, esp. given all of the financial pressures in both private sector and academic R&D.
-
Its psychology with a purpose. That purpose is the complete transformation of the human race, its biology, psychology, society, culture, and its total relation to the rest of the universe.
Magick includes the revelation of all supernatural and mysticism as tools of control, and the total liberation from those tools.
Magick means abolishment of every form of higher authority, be that Man or GOD. The replacement with total self rule, with information that is not polluted by superstition, and flat out lies.
Magick is the total scientific understanding of ones physical and mental nature, and the keys and tools to use that knowledge towards the Great work, which is the before mentioned total transformation of mankind.
-
froclown:
Very well spoken, my thoughts exactly, in theory of Goetic and Angelic Evocation.It's the result, not the science, but the science need be explained.. Then It's definitely the way you described it.
Let me ask you, what was a good Goetic evocation you performed?
tell me about it, let me know what happened -
"
There is nothing that I wrote that is not subject to validation by science.
"Science requires observation.
Observation intrinsically changes a situation.
You can go on all you want about what occurs in the brain as the result of various stimuli. But what occurs when you are no longer observing?
Edit:
To clarify a bit : An electron only behaves as an electron when observed as an electron. -
Well the first thing to note here is that quantum mechanics only applies to quantum scale events.
Second, observation does not change anything, only making a measurement, because it order to make a measurement you have to have the thing measured interact physically with a device.
Electrons always act like electrons, no matter if they are measured or not.
Before they are measured, we can not know what they are doing, after they are measured, all we know is what changes occurred in the measuring device. We can only speculate using inductive logic, as to what the electron did that caused those changes in the measuring devise.
Quantum events have strange effects an measuring devices, that are unlike the effects of things we normally encounter, they are unlike the sort of events and phenomena that our brains have evolved to deal with. So we use the tools and categories of thought that our brains are equipped with to try to understand what sort of entity an electron is, based on the changes we observe in measuring devices.
The problem is that the entity we construct to describe those effects on devices, (the electron), is so unusual that it produces effects that our day to day life based brains can only describe using 2 classes of entity. Waves and particles. The electron can not be given full entity status by the brain because it is not equipped to classify wave properties and particle properties to a single entity.
But if you must bring up Quantum mechanics, then a spirit is a diverse collection of events, that the mind condenses into a single entity and projects personality upon. The spirit is a wave of disperse phenomena condensed into a particular being (in the mind) via observations in a medium which acts as a measuring device.
Thus Quantum mechanics supports by hypothesis.
The human being is a fleshy medium which presents the mind with various phenomena that the brain automatically represents as coming from a particular being (the mans personality, spirit our soul).
If the mind sees spirits in mechanisms of flesh, why not also see them is other things. weather patterns, rivers, smoke and mirrors?
-
Actually, I choose an electron because it does not have that many attributes involved in its description.
I could have easily said,
A human behaves only like a human when observed as a human.Going back to the electron....
You can say that, when observed, an electron is a negative particle.
Sure, it is useful in talking about an electron. But the statement never tells you anything about what the electron actually is. Science can only tell you what an "electron" is most like to do in given circumstances, not what or why it does what it does.
Also, how do you know an electron acts like an electron when you are not observing it?
Another example:
Me and you could go out to eat dinner. Sitting at the table, I eat my meal with a fork and knife.
Yet, when I am at home, by myself I will eat with just my bare hands. How would you know that by observation?The heart of that matter is, you are getting tied up in the language. The mystical gobbbledy-gook is just as pertinent as your scientific balderdash.
-
Actually what I am saying is bordering on the Copenhagen interpretation. That is a thing has no existence except when it is observed.
Or rather, there is no thing at all, only patterns of phenomena' which our minds link together, under a logically constructed "entity", which we label with a name to discern one entity from another.
I border on that but deviate slightly, in that I am not saying nothing exists other than mental phenomena. I am saying that the cause of those mental phenomena do exist in some way, but the entities we encounter are constructed models. They are structurally analogous changes in the brain, that represent, but are not the actual events that cause those changes.
Thus, we inhabit personal worlds of sensory data, but everyone is in his one subjective world of constructed symbols. The REAL world contains all subjective worlds and the actual substance which is the cause of the mental phenomena. Including the physical brain which which changes in response to physical interactions and is the source of all metal phenomena and the whose subjective world.
Where we draw the lines and create entities is a matter of personal choice to a degree. Retraining the brain, changes the way we group phenomena into entities.
A river is always new water and made of countless drops, but we call it one river. A human being is countless many different events in out perception, but we say it is one man.
Why then should we not discern a string of synchronicity as having a common source, and developing a language to communicate with said entity. Say a pendulumn or lending our own inner voice to it?
I am not so much saying spirits are real, as that normal phenomena is not as real as it seems. Thus Spirits and human beings are closer to the same order of phenomena.
-
Thanks for all the golden material (to this observer) in this thread, especially Froclown!
I think an important thing to point out here that either I or you missed is that a phenomenon's authentic value by observation will be determined by how far into the fabric of the reality of the entity/coagulate-of-information observing it, rather than defining it all in connection to something (holistic/?)objective.
-
Alright, I agree with most of what you are saying. It just seems we are drawing a different conclusion. Though I do not like the Copenhagen interpretation - I prefer to think things are not 'manifested' when unobserved (as in, lacking 'physical' substance).
The problem ( I think) is not to get tied up in the idea that they "exist on another plane of reality." That is just something to help you, as magick is allegorical in nature. You are taking something that is a subjective mental phenomenon and objectifying it in order to bring about the ability to observe and interact.
So, whether world W exists or not is redundant. For the sake of ritual R, you put yourself in the mental state of world W existing, where in is contained entity E that is separate and distinct from you. That established, ritual R then allows you to objectify entity E and place them in the triangle so that you can subject it to observation.
By saying, during ritual R such an such activity occurs in the brain, to me, is no different than saying during ritual R entity E is evoked from world W.
In the end, even the changes in your brain are nothing more than mental phenomenon.
-
Like with all magick ritual, the mind in mixed with external phenomena, 5=6.
But the whole reason behind my version in that in allows for scientific study as Goetic evokations, via PET scans, EEG scans, MRI, etc.
Also the information we get from correlating neurological data with the ritual can provide an understanding of how the Sigil relates to the result, and thereby provide a method by which more effective sigils can be created.
It can also show what sort of gestures, cognitive processes, and other such ritual elements are most effective, including drugs which may enhance the effects, specific to the spirit evoked.
-
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Some people prefer to use "seers" during the evocation, while others prefer to do the seeing themselves. The former provides the opporunity for independent verification via description and answers to specific questions. (Unless the seer has the goetia by heart.) The fact that seers can be used throws a kink in some of what has been said.
It might also be important to remember:
Scientist operate in a process of peer review, under which results must be independently verified many times. This process is what gives the results of modern science credence. Scientist who lie don't get far. (Unless they work for a lobbyist
)The study of quantum mechanics involves independent verification of quantifiable data. It has no real bearing on anything else.
Love is the law, love under will.
-
@jlpugh said
"
Some people prefer to use "seers" during the evocation, while others prefer to do the seeing themselves. The former provides the opporunity for independent verification via description and answers to specific questions. (Unless the seer has the goetia by heart.) The fact that seers can be used throws a kink in some of what has been said.
"That was not something I was aware of.
As for PET , EEG, MRIs etcetera : I do not see that really assisting in anyway. I could be wrong, not going to know until it is done.
Though I would be interested in seeing how this works out :
@froclown said
"
Also the information we get from correlating neurological data with the ritual can provide an understanding of how the Sigil relates to the result
" -
93,
Froclown wrote:
"But the whole reason behind my version in that in allows for scientific study as Goetic evokations, via PET scans, EEG scans, MRI, etc.
Also the information we get from correlating neurological data with the ritual can provide an understanding of how the Sigil relates to the result, and thereby provide a method by which more effective sigils can be created. "
I cannot imagine how this could be worked in practice. Magick requires concentration, not the distraction of an array of sensors on the outside of one's head.
Also, if data could be gathered in this way, it would only show information related to the actions and psychological responses of the magician. You might believe this would offer a reasonably complete picture of what was happening in the ceremony, but I can't follow you in that. There are subtle effects and synchronicities arising from any good ritual (assuming a ritual was a good one with the aforementioned headgear or PET scanner or whatever involved), and none of those would be measured.
Assuming such things are even measurable.
93 93/93
EM -
@jlpugh said
"Scientist operate in a process of peer review, under which results must be independently verified many times. This process is what gives the results of modern science credence. Scientist who lie don't get far. (Unless they work for a lobbyist
)"Modern science's credence is limited to a segment of society willing to accept its fundamental premises (which is not--for better or worse--100%). This includes the notion that independent verification of results is somehow meaningful. Ever see a great stage magician? The audience's limited perspective skews their perception of causality. The same can be said of science, religion, and mysticism and their perception of causality in the universe. Science tries to get closer to the stage and crane its neck for a better view, mysticism tries to mimic its observations, and religion runs out to the street to tell everyone they know about the show. Magick relies on all three (learn, practice, demonstrate).
-
synchronicity would seem to be a case of Cognitive dissonance, which is a subject for cognitive neuroscience.
subtle effects, would be changes in attention, cognitive style, affect, perceptual priority, syntactic processing, semantic valuations, etc.
Which are also the subject of nueroscience.
Any correlations between Neurological changes and actual changes in environmental factors, ambient temperature, electrical charge, radiation, etc. Is a task for physicists, changes in heart rate, breathing, metabolism, etc the task of biologists.
Certainly a team of these can be employed.
As far as large arrays go, technology has advanced to the point that a simple shower cap like array, could record the EEG data, and other data can be recorded with simple devices and read on a larger one. Arrays of heat and light sensors in the room can add environmental data.
If for example one can cause the room to fill with a blue light, bright enough to read the ritual by, then the video should pick it up.
And it would be wise to do a blind test so that the magician does not know which if any sensors are present, and a double blind would be to not let the scientist know what the ritual is meant to do.
If the equipment in particularly bulky just make it part of the ritual, as if the robe and wand are not bulky and cumbersome, from time to time.
I think a silly hat may be less distracting that Abramelin oil burning bright upon ones brow and dripping into the eyes.The feedback info would directly benefit brain-computer protocol developments
-
The Mechanics of the Facial Reflection-Distortion Technique
R. Eugene Laughlin
The visual effects associated with this evocative magick (or scrying) technique take advantage of a little eye physiology and the mechanics of perception. First, we learn to stare for extended periods without blinking. This causes classic eye-strain, which means that the muscles of the eye are overworked, just as any muscle in your body can be overworked.
The most critical muscles of interest here are the tiny ciliary muscles that control lens accommodation. When these muscles become strained it becomes increasingly difficult to focus the eye and attain a sharp visual image. For dark mirror scrying, sharp vision of the mirror surface prevents the desired visual effects from happening, or will end ongoing visual effects if attained at some point during a working. So we intentionally strain the ciliary muscles to make sharp focus less likely.
Another eye-specific operative is more difficult to explain: rhodopsin, or visual purple. I won't attempt a full explanation here. The short version is that rhodopsin is involved in transducing the very few photons that hit the retina under very low-light levels. In other words, the rhodopsin system is designed to make the most of the very little visual information we get in very dim light by amplifying the signal sent into our perceptual machinery. Because we're doing dark mirror work in an extremely dim environment, we're exploiting the rhodopsin system for all it's worth.
Perception tends to be experienced internally as a smooth and continuous representation of the environment, but in reality the neural structures involved in perception receive input in small samples or snapshots, with real gaps of a couple of milliseconds in the information coming in from the environment. It doesn't seem like an efficient system at first flush, until you realize that the most important function of perception is to detect changes in the environment. For that function, it's easier to compare snapshot to snapshot than it is to monitor a continuous stream.
So what we experience as a perception of the environment is really an internal reconstruction based on the samples we get and what's "most likely to be there" given the most recent samples and our general history of experience. In other words, rather than always having a faithful representation of the environment, perception tends to be a probabilistic affair. This is one of the reasons we are prone to various perceptual illusions. Previous experience and the quality of current sensory input interact to produce the most likely precept.
Now we can combine these factors (along with the hand-held candles) into an explanation of how dark mirror scrying works on a mundane level. First we use a mirror that gives us a dim, non-distinct reflection, and we strain the eye muscles to prevent sharp focus, which degrades the visual image further. Then we make the environment extremely dim, so that the dim and degraded image that hits the eye will be maximally amplified by the rhodopsin system. So what's actually reaching our perceptual machinery at this point is a strong signal of a much distorted image in the general shape of a face, probably scarcely recognizable as our own face.
Remember that we said that perception works by filling in the real gaps in the actual sensory information coming in with probabilistic representations based on past experience, and that the system is tuned specifically to detect changes. The hand-held candles provide a constantly changing image, because no matter how we try, we cannot hold our hands perfectly still. Our head will be weaving around a bit too, adding to a continually shifting image.
All of the pieces are in place now. We have a highly degraded but also highly amplified signal coming into our perceptual machinery; the image is constantly undergoing subtle changes in form, causing the perceptual mechanisms to work overtime to update the representation it builds.
The most common report under these conditions is something of a monster-like face, though the reasons for this are not perfectly. What is clear is that the perceptual machinery is doing the best it can with what's its getting. Once the image begins to morph, it becomes a matter of preparation, skill, and will to use the resulting image as a functional magical tool, but that is beyond the scope of a mechanical discussion.