Magick: Subjective, or Objective.
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@Nudor said
"Of course we can use a dictionary to define a term and if there is general acceptance that then may be the definition. But not on this FORUM."
I find this distinction bizarre.
This forum is a specialty classroom of a college. Practically our first rule for enrolled students is: Use a dictionary! Look things up! That's the starting point of being able to understand what you are reading, and being able to communicate what you want to say.
So, I would say instead: On this forum ESPECIALLY we can use a dictionary to define a term and to find and employ the generally accepted meaning of the word. (The exception, of course, would be words that have acquired technical special meanings less likely to be found in a dictionary, e.g., Qabalistic technical terms like "understanding.")
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Again, let clarify my distinction. I did not mean to imply that we CAN'T use a dictionary, or that there won't be partial agreement. However, it seems like if you did present a dictionary's definition there would still be members who would refute or debate those definitions, in essence, it would be impossible to get everyone to agree that whatever dictionary was used to define a term is THE definition. Now if suddenly everyone were to agree, then my experience would be wrong. And in this case, desirable.
Also, let's distinguish between traditional definitions and each individuals experiences (which I believe is the case here). As was said in another post on What Is Magick?, for the sake of the thread, it would be more interesting to read each individuals definition, rather than Crowley's classic definition. If that is the case, why are we trying to bring this back to a traditional definition? Especially, since magick often results in redefining of perception/experience/reality/definition. These may no longer apply. Thus, as we both agree, it is a bit silly to define magick as either subjective or objective. Regardless of whether we accept a dictionary definition or not.
On the classroom comment, I didn't see that pretext anywhere on the forum. Not that I disagree with it, but it accounts for the confusion AUM18 pointed out. How many members of this forum are enrolled students of the COT? Perhaps these rules can be posted so we can all be on the same page.
Here's another example. Get a dictionary. Okay. My Webster's defines objective as "pertaining to material objects rather than mental concepts" and "something that one works towards, a goal, a purpose." It defines subjective as "taking place within, relating to or preceding from an individual's emotions or mind." These are a bit different than the definitions used by Rif Raf (so we at least have to use the SAME dictionary if this is going to work) but to recap my view. Magick is both. It certainly precedes from the mind (and unless a second witness is present to observe material change is stays there) but certainly is SOMETHING THAT ONE WORKS TOWARDS, A GOAL and A PURPOSE (thus it is objective as well) by definition.
Jim, I never disagreed in application, as above it does work, but when the replies come in, on this forum (which is public, not just a classroom for the COT) disagreeing with both my view but my definitions (derived from said dictionary) I doesn't seem like my comment about distinction on this forum is that bizarre.
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@Nudor said
"On the classroom comment, I didn't see that pretext anywhere on the forum. Not that I disagree with it, but it accounts for the confusion AUM18 pointed out. How many members of this forum are enrolled students of the COT? Perhaps these rules can be posted so we can all be on the same page."
Only a small percentage are enrolled students. But that misses the point: This forum IS a classroom of College of Thelema. Non-enrollees wander in, and that's cool - that's the way my Wednesday night classes went for decades. It's not a matter of posting rules (which is really somewhere around 169th priority on my To Do list), it's that every now and then I'll speak up and make a point that this forum IS an 'extension classroom' of C.O.T.
"this forum (which is public, not just a classroom for the COT)"
This forum is privately owned property that (by design) exists where most of the world can see it, and where nobody gets to post without our consent. Note that... most, not all. Some people, due to extremely bad behavior, can't even view the forum on any browser anymore. Others could read the public areas but be denied access to post by having accounts blocked. - That is, it's a storefront. Like a restaurant, we reserve the right to serve anyone at our discretion, but that discretion is nearly always exercised by allowing it.
So, you are right that this is 'public' if you mean that it exists within public view. (On the other hand, most of what College of Thelema does exists within the public view.) You are wrong if you mean it is "public access" in the sense of a freeway (or the way most people think of the Internet, as uniformly unowned). We rent ownership of the name and we pay for the space, so it's private property under private control - but for the public benefit.
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Yes, this is the college's forum, in other words, a part of C.O.T. And I thank you for creating it and allowing it to be open to the public to view and post on invitation. That is where my words my have mislead. The forum is OPEN TO THE PUBLIC is what I should have written. No "ownership" issues were ever meant to be construed. So, complete concurrence here with what you just posted.
Are your Wednesday night classes closed then or would you ever consider "opening" a class again in such a manner?
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@Nudor said
"Are your Wednesday night classes closed then or would you ever consider "opening" a class again in such a manner?"
I haven't given them for sevearl years - time availability changed - but they were always open to anyone at all to drop in.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Nudor said
"The thread is not "what is the definition of subjective or objective." The thread is "Is Magick subjective or objective.""The thing is, you can't answer the second question until you answer the first."
I'm surprised no-one has quoted Crowley himself on the subject:
"In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them."
Liber O, vel Manus et Sagittae.
I am also mindful of an AC argument that I can't source at the moment, that cashing a cheque at the bank is a magickal act. My first imprsssion when I read this was that it was a typical reaction of someone trying to reconcile a continuing belief in macic[k] with the ever more certain scientific world and that it is obvious that conjuring a spirit and cashing a cheque are acts of different orders.
However, having read arguments such as John R Searle's in the sober and unmagical "The Construction of Social Reality" (1995), I appreciate what was possibly Crowley's point. The value of money "exists" only as a result of a social agreement, and we have recently seen how fragile are agreements on the value of things like "a debt owed to me, which I will sell to you".
So: Magic[k] is as "objective" as banking; no more, no less. That's my subjective impression anyway. I can forget that money is not real and use it very effectively to "cause change [no pun intended] to occur" for weeks at a time.
Sephiroth, Spirits, Gods, etc ditto.
And no, Google, I do not want you to find me banks in Crawley
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@RifRaf said
"Any ideas?"
Yes.
Of Equilibrium, Book 4, p. 184:
Any idea that is thus in itself positive and negative, active and passive, male and female, is fit to exist above the Abyss; any idea not so equilibriated is below the Abyss, contains in itself an unmitigated duality or falsehood, and is to that extent qliphotic and dangerous. Even an idea like "truth" is unsafe unless it is realized that all Truth is in one sense falsehood. For all Truth is relative and if it be supposed absolute, will mislead.
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When I read this thread I find myself looking at Magick from the perspective of the search for Objectivity.
The "grand mystery" being Objectivity and whether a thing exists free of the mind.
An answer, which cannot be questioned until reaching some higher state of conciousness, a 'super Samadhi.'
As invariably, to percieve is to subject to ones subjectivity ; to view objectively requires not to view, to step aside and absolve to one-self ; a lack of attachment, viewing-while-not-viewing, a perspective-that-is-not-perspective.
To step outside the bounds of reality, which is inheriently subjective, as ones perspective hinges on the thought "I am," while attempting to objectively state "That is." The unfolding of the objective from the subjective.
Elaborating on my earlier statement, that "magick is both subjective and objective"...
I formulate an idea, or accept the idea, that there exists a Holy Guardian Angle. I then postulate that this HGA exists outside of my self. Essentially taking something subjective and pushing it outside of my self in order to posses it of objective reality. In other words, though the idea of its existance comes from my mind, I assign it no qualities (the name being a place holder, easily x or y, higher self, lower self, other self, the cup from which I drink my coffee...). It is an unkown variable, invariably defined over time through my subjective experieince of it. A slow drawing of the idea from outside my self, back in (the Knowledge and Conversation thereof).Anyway, enough rambling for now. Getting carried away, having not been able to post
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Rifraf - if you really believed there is no objective “reality” you wouldn’t be asking others for their opinion. So your question presumes a belief in objective reality and others.
I am guessing that what you meant is that your belief in the non-existence of objective reality is a method for interrogating the grandiose claims of other magicians you encounter, the validity or lack thereof, and that is somehow related to your question on the objectivity and subjectivity of magic.
I think skepticism and scientific method should be applied to assessing magick. I do not believe in miracles and unnatural events - I believe everything in the universe is governed by laws and its only a question of time before we understand them.
*
"The common Mystic affects to despise Science as "illusion": this is the most fatal of all errors. For the instruments with which he works are all of this very order of "illusory things". We know that lenses distort images; but for all that, we can acquire information about distant objects which proves correct when the lens is constructed according to certain "illusory" principles and not by arbitrary caprice." *Knowledge, Little Essays Toward Truth, p. 63
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@RifRaf said
"When one comes into contact with a Christian "
Would this be an objective Christian or a subjective Christian of your own imagining?
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@RifRaf said
"Are we that dense we need to nit-pick things like this?
If you come across some other person (and this person is obviously not you)who is a Christian, they are their own person, not of you, detached from you, Objective. A 3 year old can recognize the difference."
Well there you go. According to AC, magickal stuff is as objective as that. There's a funny quote, I think in Magick Without Tears, where he says:
I have seen people turn fish-belly pale in the face, and come near fainting outright, when it has dawned upon them suddenly that magick is a real thing!
Me, I'm not so sure (I'm more sure of the mystical side of things), but there's the canonical late AC for you.
There would seem to be a contradiction between that and the bit at the beginning of Liber O; but then again, maybe there's no contradiction, and with time and experience he simply plumped for the objective side. It does seem to be heavily stressed in his later writing, and the balanced agnosticism of Liber O seems to be forgotten.
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@gurugeorge said
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@RifRaf said
"Are we that dense we need to nit-pick things like this?If you come across some other person (and this person is obviously not you)who is a Christian, they are their own person, not of you, detached from you, Objective. A 3 year old can recognize the difference."
Well there you go. According to AC, magical stuff is as objective as that. There's a funny quote, I think in Magick Without Tears, where he says:
I have seen people turn fish-belly pale in the face, and come near fainting outright, when it has dawned upon them suddenly that magick is a real thing!
Me, I'm not so sure (I'm more sure of the mystical side of things), but there's the canonical late AC for you.
There would seem to be a contradiction between that and the bit at the beginning of Liber O; but then again, maybe there's no contradiction, and with time and experience he simply plumped for the objective side. It does seem to be heavily stressed in his later writing, and the balanced agnosticism of Liber O seems to be forgotten."
Because somethign is 'real' doesnt mean its objective. A pain is subjective but its real. Its quite simple and Im amazed that you ahve such a hard time understanding the difference between subjective and objective.
IAO131
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Take Chris' reply:
Nothing is objective.
Is that an objective or subjective statement?
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@RifRaf said
" I still firmly believe that everything is subjective, although I have had various experiences to show otherwise. For one instance, I did an evocation of an Earth Kerubic from the Enochian tablets. I got my vision, the magick "worked", etc. Exactly 4 minutes (I know the exact time from my journal) after giving an Adoration, but not yet closing, my girlfriend comes running out of our room saying that she seen a "half-panda bear, half human creature" in her "mind" and then heard her name repeated over and over from a female voice. This is exactly how I seen the Kerubic (except half of his body was buried in sand in my vision), and heard it. So how is that explained subjectively? I some how influenced her mind to take in whatever it was that happened while I was performing my ritual?"
I would consider telepathy to be a more likely or “simpler” explanation than that your girlfriend perceived the same objective entity as you did.
I was going to mention “Occam’s Razor”, then I realised that William of Ockham, as a devout 14th century Christian, would probably have considered the objective Kerub to be a simpler explanation that that one human could see into another’s mind. That’s how objective explanations about subjectivity v objectivity are
You seem to me to be conflating two questions; (1) is the Kerub an objective entity separate from my mind? And (2) is its “half-panda, half-human” nature one of its objective attributes? Are you assuming a ‘yes’ to question 2 in order to cite that as evidence for a ‘yes’ to question 1? That seems to me to be getting things backwards.
A rainbow is a real entity (light is really being refracted through raindrops) but dependent on various people’s colour vision, it presents itself in different ways. “Two stripes, one yellow, one blue, both sickly” is as valid a description (by a person who would conventionally be called “partly colour-blind”) as is the conventional ROYGBIV. Objective existence and subjective perception are two different things.
(Or perhaps objective existence, the way the entity wants to present itself and the way it is perceived are three different things, but let's not get too complicated.)
An experience of mine has some loose parallels with your situation, except that the thing I saw was undeniably “objective”. It possibly carried a “force” beyond the normal, since the organisation involved in the event did have its esoteric aspects, which tended to filter into everything it did; but this was a piece of its exoteric ceremonial (a funeral).
I was present at the event; my then girlfriend was not, and knew nothing of the traditions of the body involved; but nonetheless she “saw” it in her mind, in what she called a “half-waking dream”.
Now I think you’d agree most of us have idealised visions of ceremonies that are meaningful to us; they take place in temples of the mind rather than shabby rooms with hangings obscuring the tasteless wallpaper; the officers glide about in smooth choreography, never stumble over their words and tweed trouser cuffs don’t show below the hems of their robes.
In this case, we had to modify one part of the ceremony because of a perceived fire risk; but what my girlfriend saw was the unmodified or idealised event. I therefore unhesitatingly labelled it “telepathy” rather than “clairvoyance”.
Why is telepathy not an acceptable explanation in your case?OP
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@Oliver P said
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I would consider telepathy to be a more likely or “simpler” explanation than that your girlfriend perceived the same objective entity as you did."In accordance with the known facts about the physical world, your explanation would require more assumptions. I.e. that telepathy is possible, the mental forms are objective, they can be transferred person to person, etc.
"I was going to mention “Occam’s Razor”, then I realised that William of Ockham, as a devout 14th century Christian, would probably have considered the objective Kerub to be a simpler explanation that that one human could see into another’s mind. That’s how objective explanations about subjectivity v objectivity are
"Using an ad hominem to refute occam's razor... never seen that one before.
IAO131
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Chris says nothing is objective, which is a subjective statement, so I am consistent. Not necessarily correct, but consistent.
In L.V.X.,
chrys333 -
@Chris Hanlon said
"Chris says nothing is objective, which is a subjective statement, so I am consistent. Not necessarily correct, but consistent.
In L.V.X.,
chrys333"Reminds me of the old self-refutation: "All general statements are false."
IAO131
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@Aum418 said
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@gurugeorge said
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@RifRaf said
"Are we that dense we need to nit-pick things like this?If you come across some other person (and this person is obviously not you)who is a Christian, they are their own person, not of you, detached from you, Objective. A 3 year old can recognize the difference."
Well there you go. According to AC, magical stuff is as objective as that. There's a funny quote, I think in Magick Without Tears, where he says:
I have seen people turn fish-belly pale in the face, and come near fainting outright, when it has dawned upon them suddenly that magick is a real thing!
Me, I'm not so sure (I'm more sure of the mystical side of things), but there's the canonical late AC for you.
There would seem to be a contradiction between that and the bit at the beginning of Liber O; but then again, maybe there's no contradiction, and with time and experience he simply plumped for the objective side. It does seem to be heavily stressed in his later writing, and the balanced agnosticism of Liber O seems to be forgotten."
Because somethign is 'real' doesnt mean its objective. A pain is subjective but its real. Its quite simple and Im amazed that you ahve such a hard time understanding the difference between subjective and objective.
IAO131"
I'm not sure I agree with that hard and fast a distinction between "real" and "objective". The real part of pain is the objective part (C-fibre stimulation or whatever it is, plus the resultant brainstorm), the "ouchiness" of pain, the subjective aspect, isn't real, it only *seems *to be real (same as there *seems *to be a self).
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As with any Duality, there is a "Transcendental Reality" that is simultaneously "Both" and "Neither", that is 2=0 or classically, +1-1=0, or better still as i prefer, -X+X = 0
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Everything a man perceives is to a certain extent subjective, either as an individual or as a phenomenon within the confines of human experience; from a quantum perspective phenomenon requires an observer to exist within the confines of "Time-Space".
Your question therefore relates to the nature of "Time-Space" itself.
I maintain there is that which transcends "Time-Space".I hope I have clarified my position with this answer.