Last resort magic?
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@Angel of Death said
"Oh, more flattery.
How nice of you to be curious about me getting ripped to shreads in the abyss. Really, now don't bother your brain wondering about what is going on in my world and how strong my convictions are, I'm a distraction from your GreatWork, Brother."I'm endlessly amazed at how you take everything written on these forum posts to be specifically about and exclusively in relation to you. I could care less if you personally get ripped to shreds crossing the abyss. I'm curious if those concrete views would survive the battering, in you or anyone else with such strong convictions. A thought experiment. Nothing more.
@Angel of Death said
"And as always,
Don't take my word on it,
Or anything else.
You have to find your own answers."Obviously. But this is a discussion forum. Where we discuss ideas and, through that process, if we're lucky, we might find some of our own answers.
@Angel of Death said
"Your subtle way of speaking with a forked tounge leaves me wanting more. My direct, forceful tounge lashing leave no one guessing what my intention is. I couldn't care less what station you think I have or have not achieved, it has no relevance in my life, and IMO your response to me is ot. I'm just trying to contribute to Rockys topic."
Rocky's topic was regarding the use of magic regularly, as a matter of course, rather than just as a last resort. My comment that brought on this back-and-forth was questioning the idea of regularly doing financial-gain rituals, without need, just to keep one in practice for that day when money is actually needed. Takamba's reply introduced the idea of "magickal hygene" rituals rather than actual focused rituals as a regular practice which seemed perfectly sensible and definitely on-topic to me. You hijacked that thought with your "thought had never crossed my mind"/"almost speechless" sideways insult of my own relation with the powers-that-be and focused the entire discussion on you and your superior relation with your own personal powers-that-be. If you're interested in keeping things OT, start with your own house. (Is that a direct enough tongue for you?)
@Angel of Death said
"Your comment about a fish and a bike is absurd and doesn't even make methophoical sence. A fish would never desire to ride a bike. All things in my life, even things some would say are unnecessary or unneeded are aspects of Nuit, so if my limited perception thought a million dollars was necessary, then it is necessary to me at that instant. My desires and my ability to fulfill those desires are what drives my actions. Yet my desires are often fueled by my limited mental ability, governed by my endocrine system. "
I guess the Parable of the Ibis, the Humming-Bird, and Uraeus Serpent just goes right over your head as well because a humming-bird would never desire to drip poison from its fangs?
@Angel of Death said
"It's ok with me that you see the world differently then me, just don't expect me to lay down and take your subtle slips of the tounge. I'm not that type of girl."
Then don't take everything I say on every forum post whether in response to something you wrote or otherwise as a personal attack against you. It's not. The subtle slips of the tongue on this one were started by you in response to something I wrote to Takamba. If you can't take it, don't deal it.
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You specifically said that
I'd be curious to see if you have the same convictions as you cross the abyss.That is pretty personal. If you were having a thought excesize in ambiguity on humans in general, then you might do well to change your wording so that the person you are responding to does not think you are specifically referring to her.
It was from that initial challenge, which set the tone of your post being an attack, or rather, not supporting me but attempting to undermine me.
Also everyone of my posts has related directly to the topic, except for this one, and the one I spouted back at your personal attack of me, which was off topic completely.
I also think, regarding Av's post that the most important part is " always unto me". But if you think it's your will then that's your POV.
"You hijacked that thought with your "thought had never crossed my mind"/"almost speechless" sideways insult of my own relation with the powers-that-be and focused the entire discussion on you and your superior relation with your own personal powers-that-be."
I did not intend my comment to be an insult. Truly. That type of think is alien to me, it never would have crossed my mind on it's own. But, when you said it, with your. Personal conviction, Meaning that you do believe that......I was amazed. I can't even begin to fathom what existence could be like holding on to that belief. I am always amazed when I grok anothers point of view, or realize that most people don't think at all like I do. I shared my surprise publicly because I do believe that the concept of a higher power that is cruel, is old aeon patriarchal bondage that needs to be personally evaluated by each person who still grasps that chain. That's my opinion.
I also would like to say that in your opinion I attempted to "focused the entire discussion on you and your superior relation with your own personal powers-that-be."
I did no such thing, I wrote two post directly in response to Rockys topic. I shared my first post, and then when things were getting derailed I attempted to bring it back to topic by sharing a second on topic post. I did not insinuate anything about my relationship with my universe and frankly I think that sentence of yours is revealing more about your attitudes then my experience. I shared my personal experiences and left the intrepation to others to draw conclusions from.
Listen, I am in the midst of turmoil in my life right now, lots of people in my circle in ICU, my moms house is flooded, I have a psycho stalker, DSS is preventing me from getting real work, my dog was hit by a car, ect ect ect.....I am literally stressed to the max. That does not excuse me from anything, but I am human and when you start a post to me about me getting ripped to shreads,......
Well I'm going to get defensive because the world around me is like a game of dodge ball. I'm in the game, and you are either trying to knock me out or helping me stay in the game. The gentlemen on this board whom I've had the pleasure of chatting with for five years now are kind enough to not knock me out when I might say something stupid or unkind, which I'm sure I have, as all humans do.I don't want to fight you, But I guess you could say I'm a wild child, I will not lay down and. Be quiet and take any sort of negative bs. Ever. I will fight, and scream, and raise holy hell if anyone ever tries to hurt me, and your very first sentence definately set the tone for you wanting to hurt me, personally, as well as your insulting remark about my personality and Binha.
I truly don't want to engage with you, Brother, at all about this. I certainly don't want the boards permeant posts littered with stupid crap, I wanted to talk about the topic and try to generate conversation about that.
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Rocky,
Honestly, I've never heard the "last resort" idea. I've heard a lot about making sure you really want what you ask for and making sure it lines up with your True Will, but not the "last resort" bit. Just knowing me, that's something I'd have to learn the hard way anyway.
You're not exactly a newbie, and that sounds more like newbie advice. You know, trying to obtain something through magical means can really jack with your head if something more central to yourself (True Will) is unconsciously running counter to it. It can be like asking for a "lesson" instead.
From a theory standpoint, it kind of makes sense to me that trying practical means first would be beneficial. It helps clarify the problem, clarify the actual blocks, clarify the actual desire, and impress upon your magical unconscious (spirit, whatever...) through concrete action that something is your serious intent - through the practical application of ALL of one's powers.
But only as a "last resort"? Ehhh... That seems like a form of extreme caution to me too. Truth is... I do tend to be extremely cautious because I've done a lot of stuff in the past that jacked with my head. But I don't think I'd warn people of such things specifically with the "last resort" advice.
I'd tell the joke where the guy wished to be "surrounded by *****," and the genie turned him into a tampon.
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@Angel of Death said
"I truly don't want to engage with you, Brother, at all about this. I certainly don't want the boards permeant posts littered with stupid crap, I wanted to talk about the topic and try to generate conversation about that."
Copy that.
Over and out. -
@Legis said
"I'd tell the joke where the guy wished to be "surrounded by *****," and the genie turned him into a tampon."
Reminds me:
Q. What did one tampon say to the other tampon?
A. Nothing...they're both stuck up bitches.
This is a very interesting topic. First of all, the topic doesn't seem to pay heed to confirmation bias. I'll fire off a few POVs that I think every magician has spent time with, when they consider "results" magick:
1.) The "results" have superseded the normal odds of something taking place. This could be considered more "miraculous" or more "coincidental," depending on the POV one wishes to take.
The magician is the Lord of Illusion. The strongest magician is the one that can see both POVs simultaneously (i.e. Silence).
2.) The "results" magick idea presupposes that there is "outside" and "inside" phenomena. Again, this sets up the dyad. The "2" in 2=0. But, of course, the separateness is actually just another form of Nuit. Or the Magician is just a different form or attitude of the Fool and vice versa. The Point (Hadit) is only the bird's eye view of (and separated from) the Wave (Nuit).
*In the sphere I am everywhere the centre, as she, the circumference, is nowhere found.
Yet she shall be known and I never. *
-- Hadit
and:
*With the God and the Adorer I am nothing: they do not see me. They are as upon the earth; I am Heaven, and there is no other God than me, and my lord Hadit. *
-- Nuit
This can be further explained with the overall symbology and relations of 0 and 1.
In practical terms, the magician learns economy of energy. This extends to all "actions" in all planes. The True Will is theoretically effortless, as it is the natural orbit for any one Star. One POV would be that the practice of magick is used to remove "obstacles" in the way of this Path. However, the opposite is true as well, is there anything that is truly an obstacle, if it is in the Path?
Yes and no. Depending on the POV.
The magician can see both and realize both are untrue, when they are isolated into the false dyad. All that is left is Will.
3.) The True Will in Assiah is very relatable to the Inverted Palace:
*41.He leads us into the Inverted Palace.
42.There is the Heart of Blood, a pyramid reaching its apex down beyond the Wrong of the Beginning. *This Palace can be considered as starting in the Infinity of Atziluth and ending at the "point of action" in Assiah.
4.) As far as magick not being used in Assiah is laughable. We sneeze and it's magick. Are we talking about works in the Astral? Back to confirmation bias, and the magician uses models that can never wholly discount skepticism. And thank god for that! Imagine if everything in the imagination materialized without effort!
Again, the magician is the Lord of Illusion. As equally as he can control his belief that he worked something onto the material plane in the astral, he should be able to employ disbelief in that particular POV. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. The confirmation bias and "truth" of that individual is only their Self and Its relation with the Other; that is, if they choose to see the separation. But, we're all here, aren't we? I guess we did choose the separation, no?
Now, results in Assiah? Yes. I've used ceremonial magic to gain wealth and success against tremendous odds (a high paying income according to standards here, although, is it ever enough?
). I've used magick (using methods in the astral) to get hella girls -- I've slept with beautiful girls half my age (I assure you they just turned 18 ).And I loved it. The moth is always attracted to the flame, and everything is lawful.
In any event, the odds that were surpassed still baffle me, but I can still tear the results apart with skepticism. Beware the belief of any bullshit, as anyone halfway trained in magick can make a truth out of a turd. The Qabalah can always be stretched. Value in regard to the True Will is the only useful gain. And even that is subject to the POV! I will say that for me, momentum has replaced effort, and Adjustment of the inside happens just as quick as Adjustment of the outside:
If I don't "like" it, I change my "like" on the inside -- or, if it's easier to change the surroundings (the outside), I do that...this flow and momentum to me is synonymous with the True Will. If that is securing a new job with magical voracity or calming my desires down to live within my means, they are up the unique Will, and the one who can "listen and act" in accordance with their "orbit" has the least discomfort.
Also, looking up to the heavens is just as useful as looking into the depths of hell. They all lead to the same place eventually.
As far as "saving" magick for spiritual reasons, Do what thou wilt. However, the real momentum and magick is already in line with your True Will, is it not? Anything else is a false morality and absolute restriction. There is never a hard and fast rule regarding right, wrong, proper ways, improper ways, etc. These are all ridiculous when not considered in context and are intrinsically linked to POVs...
Control the POV and you control the reality. It's that simple. Same goes for the individual AND the collective. Just look at the media...
One more thing, one would hope that one sets their reality up to be beautiful and harmonious, whatever that means to that particular person. You can spin around all day long effecting one magick trick after another, or you can be completely Silent, allowing the world to spin around you without using any effort; however, at the end of your turn, Saturn will get you, regardless of how "important" you deemed any action or inaction.
Just my two cents. ENJOY WHILE IT LASTS.
Very interesting topic! Thank you!
Love to All! Have a wonderful Jupiter Day!
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@Frater 639 said
"Love to All! Have a wonderful Jupiter Day!
"
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@Takamba said
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@kasper81 said
" Last week I needed a banana. I took some money to the supermarket, collected a banana, took a banana to the till, paid for it and SHAZAM!! Result. I acquired a banana."What if you didn't have the money for a banana? Would you just convince yourself that it wasn't your Will to complete your recipe?"
Yessssss, this this this. I feel like a whole lot of this 'a real magician doesn't need to use magic for material things' is a really classist attitude. This may be true for Mr Petit-Bourgeois magician who lives quite comfortably and never has cause for such magic. But, lets remember, most magical traditions centered around generating wealth, etc., are not created by bored suburban teens with no greater sense of their Truer Will, it's created by ex-slaves, farmhands and artisans. A spell for a big meal might seem superfluous to someone like Kasper, it's very seductive for someone like me...
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"If I don't "like" it, I change my "like" on the inside -- or, if it's easier to change the surroundings (the outside), I do that...this flow and momentum to me is synonymous with the True Will. If that is securing a new job with magical voracity or calming my desires down to live within my means, they are up the unique Will, and the one who can "listen and act" in accordance with their "orbit" has the least discomfort."
This attitude also, even - I do not mean to denigrate you, Frater, you're a good man, but I must bring it up
I mean, I was always taught that this was one of the highest alchemical secrets - this, if you don't like your situation, change yourself so you do like it... This is kind of... I mean, as I said before, this is alright for comfortable-living Mr Petit-Bourgeois Magician, but for magicians who live in poverty, or Magicians who face racism, etc, this seems ridiculous advice. I could not picture Clarence 13x, upon attaining to some powerful sphere, suddenly bending his knees and saying, 'thank Allah for you, White Officer, I'm so glad you're out here brutalizing my brothers' - or whatever. Or, even that I may some day attain to some great degree in the A.'.A.'. I do not imagine I shall ever be happy having to forgo meals or having my heat cut, or that I may celebrate my disability which leaves me bedridden and say to everyone 'oh you really must try it...' - I mean... All I'm saying is: when we consider this kind of attitude in terms of Oppression, you know? It seems to fall apart? It seems to presuppose that the magician benefits from the structures put in place by Colonizer Capitalism. It seems to me that for someone who suffers from those structures, the most powerful magician is the one who doesn't like her oppressive surroundings, who rises up and changes those structures, etcAh, I am being harsh on your comments, of course. I do not think that you nearly suggest that if the oppressed want to do magic they should be happy with their oppression. I'm just saying: a part of the discourse which is missed by a lot of these discussions, I think, is that there are people doing magic who aren't wealthy, white or able-bodied!
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"If you do desperately need food in the wonderfully advanced civilized UK, there are plenty of charities that will provide. www.trusselltrust.org/ma. There's also a section in any ASDA with cheap food that is near it's eat-by date. This isn't Africa we don't let people starve and the powers that be will do all they can to prevent Communism."
This kind of snobbish, willful classism is the kind of thing I'm talking about I think is common in magical discourse
and yes, I know, comrade, Crowley was a bourgeois who lived off his inheritance, I am not particularly interested in what he had to say about peasant magic & as many people would say, Thelema is not 'Crowley-ism'! -
Anyway, my GOD, Kasper, there are thelemites in Africa. Thelema isn't 'first world white boy only magic'
(and, nice job saying Africans aren't civilised - real nice, pal) -
"(1) Kasper says that Crowley wanted to take the folk-lore out of magic and embed the Hermetic principles with Vedanta and scepticism so it becomes a modern science and philosophy and so Kasper therefore is "classist" and "snobbish". I'm sorry but you're conclusions are incorrect. "
Well, no. Crowley had some classist attitudes, a lot of high magicians of that time did, they were the borugeoisie and by and large supported sexist & racist western imperialism. They were a lot better than a lot of people in England at that time! Crowley especially, I think, when you get past a lot of his awful attitudes, he was at least a 'progressive' - but these harmful attitudes were still there, and one of those attitudes was that condescending approach towards peasant magic. What is classist is when you say that thelema has no place for working class magic, that thelema's raison d'etre was to get rid of working class magic - your attitude is borderline exterminationist. And: I'm not saying 'Kasper is a classist', I'm saying your classist attitudes are common in this type of discourse over magic. (However, when someone working class asks you to challenge your views on the working class, and your response is telling them they're being illogical, you might well be a classist, fratrer)
"(2) Kasper claims and provides precise examples of there being mundane and practical means in the West for alleviating starvation and desperation and he thinks that discussions about "last resort magic" are silly. Ergo, again Kasper is being "classist" and "snobbish""
This is exactly what I mean. As someone who clearly isn't starving, telling someone who is that my concerns aren't really real, if I was in any real danger surely this society would look after me, blah blah - which is basically saying, 'shut up and quit complaining, be grateful for what you have' etc - this is pure classism.
"the African states are not on parr with the West in their social provision."
Yeah, uh... And this is basically descending into scientific racism. The poor oppressed third world, huh? The poor Africans who can't even rule themselves, right? 'Better bring back the Empires' - I mean, this is a horrible attitude, come on.
"However yes if I thought Rocky was only addressing African and Third World Thelemites on this forum then he should've stated so in the OP."
I mean, I'm not even suggesting he is. He may not be. But I'm trying to say: why is that discourse shut off from this discussion? Why do we have to explicitly mention these narratives from the get-go for them to be valid to bring up? More than this: I, as a poor magician, bring up how magic of this kind means something very different to me than it might to you, and you shut me down immediately by saying it's unnecessary, that I'm lucky to be part of a civilized first world country (Ireland is third world, btw - go look it up), and that I'm not logical - and with the tone of, 'don't talk about the magic you find useful, it's distracting/not thelemic.' Whatever... If an African magician did come into this thread, I don't think they'd find their narrative very well received.
"that done, to try and follow their inclinations which I'm guessing would be to try and GET OUT of the nightmare rogue-state which they inhabit!!"
Is this your position, though? Like, this is your reaction to me saying - magicians who face oppression may find so-and-so to be true for them... You say: magicians who are oppressed should try and get out of their oppression first. Christ, what is magic for, if not for that? You are really quite literally saying: magic is only for the white bourgeoisie. That's horrible essentialism.
"By the way Laura , y'know fopr someone whose ,"classist" and "snobbish" I have a weird way of showing it. That's why I make threads like this viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13139&start=0 in which I try to get across that uneducated folk are sometimes no different to "high adepts" as far as initiation goes."
[clutches heart] Oh! Oh! How mistaken I was! All is forgiven! I did not know that you made a thread saying Garbage Men don't know what the A.'.A.'. is. Clearly you value the working class enough to assume we haven't even heard of thelema, nevermind that we could ourselves be thelemites. When we're not eating from the tomorrow's date section in Asda, of course. And of course we could never become High Adepts.
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To reply to your OP briefly, Rocky, and since we're on classism, I have this thought: perhaps a lot of magicians denigrate magic in Assiah because they have no need for magic in Assiah. Maybe rather than denigrating that magic, they are actually denigrating the people that need it...
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93,
"To reply to your OP briefly, Rocky, and since we're on classism, I have this thought: perhaps a lot of magicians denigrate magic in Assiah because they have no need for magic in Assiah. Maybe rather than denigrating that magic, they are actually denigrating the people that need it..."
Firstly, I agree with all you have said, I myself come from a working class family. I have just enough money to live on. I don't often practice magick for change in assiah because I have enough to be happy and cope and can still practice spiritual work. However, if I was in need so much, like you say, starving I would probably cast then.
Before finding Thelema and the Golden Dawn I was involved in witchcraft with a few friends and so my first mystical exposure was to sympathetic magic, I love it, I class it as real get your hands dirty magick, (notice the k) rather than ceremonial of building up a temple, having specific things present, calling down a hierarchy to do your work for you.
The reason I don't practice it often is simply, as you say, I don't need to practice it often. I certainly could if money was significant to me and I needed it to be happy, but I just don't.....that's something growing up in a working class environment can teach you- that money does not mean happiness and it gives you the ability to know how to save and how to spend just enough and how to save just enough- something which Crowley even admits he didn't know how to do in the early chapters of confessions.
I don't see the point in patronising certain practices which people wish undertake, it is their life, it is their will let them do what they want. I may be mistaken, but I remember reading Regardie undertook some work involving the angels of Jupiter in order to obtain some wealth in his later years, or so that he could retire something like that- sadly I cannot remember where I read it.
Cerremonial magick can be used and has been used to accomplish the same things which 'peasant magick' (do you mean sympathetic magick?) can accomplish. Yes, changing things in assiah is certainly not a spiritual practice, in the sense that you are just gaining material things, but it is not the only practice which the majority of people employ.
I have a wiccan friend who practices 'peasant magick' and he is well off, he also practices the LBRP, the middle pillar and pranayama. He meditates for an hour daily, just because he practices peasant magick it doesn't make him any less of a magician than anyone else.
93, 93/93.
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"I don't need to practice it often [...] that's something growing up in a working class environment can teach you-"
So true! Honestly, I'm not personally at the stage of 'doing' magic yet, but if I was I can't imagine doing so for change in Assiah very much... Maybe it'll be different when I get there, but yeah - maybe some of the 'Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism' type stuff, even those times when I am starving I'd probably never think to do anything magical about it. Really is that stiff-upper-lip type working poor attitude... I think maybe even a harmful attitude - back to what Rocky says about the car radiator, and all. (Though, that being said, I could use it a lot for health, and do hope to)
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The spirtual practices never were intended to make money or find a job or love its a clear bullshit by witch-craft magicans breed.
Laura, i have high need for a good food compared to my society standarts too. But with age stomach need for delicious food dissolves, similar as many other things. After all you live in UK even the inability you get is much much bigger than mine. I beleve you can really afford few times a month something really tasty. For now read books you like do rituals sometimes and get that many spritual snags will try to oppress you by intelectual, psycholocical, ego bassed violence.
And kasper wash you head first because its sooo messed up.
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@Laura Marx said
"
"If I don't "like" it, I change my "like" on the inside -- or, if it's easier to change the surroundings (the outside), I do that...this flow and momentum to me is synonymous with the True Will. If that is securing a new job with magical voracity or calming my desires down to live within my means, they are up the unique Will, and the one who can "listen and act" in accordance with their "orbit" has the least discomfort."This attitude also, even - I do not mean to denigrate you, Frater, you're a good man, but I must bring it up
I mean, I was always taught that this was one of the highest alchemical secrets - this, if you don't like your situation, change yourself so you do like it... This is kind of... I mean, as I said before, this is alright for comfortable-living Mr Petit-Bourgeois Magician, but for magicians who live in poverty, or Magicians who face racism, etc, this seems ridiculous advice."I was trying to come up with a way to respond to this that would question the premise but wouldn't push too many emotional buttons. Concurrently, I've been working my way through In The Continuum and ran across an editorial by Soror Meral that says very eloquently exactly what I wanted to:
"Many students write to me of their sufferings. Let me remark on this from a Thelemic point of view. We all of us have made our own phenomena. We, as stars, weave some dance or veil of illusions so that we may gain experience and in the end wend our way back to Nuit, "from whom we came and to whom we go," as Crowley puts it in his commentary on LIBER AL.
If you have chosen a veil of suffering for this life, then it was for a reason and was willed by your True Self, the Star within you for some purpose. It is obvious from the way in which many of you write, that the first thing you wanted to learn was something better than the environment from which you came or in which you now exist. This environment must have been chosen by you for some karmic reason. Perhaps it was chosen in order to refine your soul and enhance the sense of yearning for a spiritual life.
- In The Continuum, Vol. III, No. 9, Spring 1986"
Whether you're hungry and ill in bed, or hating your job and feeling trapped, or sitting on a pile of gold and bored out of your mind, the highest alchemical secret you mentioned remains the same. It's up to you as the alchemist to figure out how to correctly apply it.
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@Vadox said
"The spirtual practices never were intended to make money or find a job or love its a clear bullshit by witch-craft magicans breed."
We always find new ways to make use of the universe. If I invent a new musical instrument, who cares whether I intended it to be used only for certain styles of music?
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
If it's someone's will to use a spell to find a job, then so be it.
It may or may not be a superstition, or misguided, or a learning experience. Or it may be the exact right action. Depends on the person and circumstance.
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@kasper81 said
"What a bunch of mystical crap that was. Honourable, but mystical. Karma? Past lives? Are you real?"
Here's the deal, kasper. I hear you. Honestly, I do. When I was your age, my mind worked in very much the same way that yours seems to. In a lot of ways, it still does. I don't take any "mystical crap" on faith. I don't "believe" anything. I test every assumption. But that means also testing all of the assumptions that seem obvious and comfortable and axiomatic.
In the intervening decade or so I have experimented a lot on my mind. I have pushed myself to the limits of endurance, I've tested the boundaries of social acceptance, I've chemically altered it and nutritionally deprived it. I've lived the life of a prince and I've spent some time on the street. I took the advice of Robert Anton Wilson (which is captured in my signature from "Through the Looking-Glass") and I have pushed myself to believe, truly believe, in a wide range of "mystical crap" for definite periods of time for the purposes of learning from the experience.
These were all experiments, designed to break down my comfortable, scientifically testable conceptions of consensus-reality in order to get at a better understanding of actual reality. In doing so, I have come to a very solid and very wide-ranging understanding of the term "karma" that in no way resembles the dime-store mystical guidebook feel-good definition that you seem to want to denigrate. Similar with "past lives". Those terms are loaded, I know, but if you want to accuse Laura of creating straw men, best be sure you're not doing the same.
My conclusions (as they exist thus far in my research) don't exactly line up with Meral's which is why I didn't quote the rest of her editorial. But, as far as the two paragraphs I did quote, they do fit within my larger conception of the universe (as it exists thus far in my research). Perhaps someday I will have an epiphany and understand how the rest of her editorial reflects actual reality in a way that was previously hidden from me. Perhaps I will forever be of my current mindset that she gave more credence to "mystical crap" than was due. For now, I'm agnostic on the matter.
As to your final question, "Are you real?": I don't have an answer to that one yet either. The twenty-something version of myself, on the verge of falling down the easy slope into concrete Objectivism probably did. The current version of myself is having a much harder time getting what I'm now aware of to fit within any consensus-accepted definition of "real". I've been able to expand my understanding of "real" to hold what it needs to but I'm pretty sure that definition is not the one you're using here.
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Going way back to the original OP question.
A friend of mine (sadly these days we meet less then once a year) said:
"A poor Magickian is a poor Magickian".
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune can sometimes force us to perform last resort Magick. The Adept will obtain some kind of alleviation of the problem through applying Magick to the issue. However their may be underlying issues which have caused the problem to manifest. If this is so, the last resort Magick should serve only to provide a breathing space allowing the Adept to consider the broader context of the issue.
There are some things that last resort Magick is completely useless for: The HGA ordeal and especially the Oath of the Abyss for example.
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@kasper81 said
"Just a reminder that this forum is about Thelema and True Will."
That's part of it. An important part. But you keep missing or denying or resisting the other part.
This forum is foremost about magick, mysticism, expanded consciousness, spiritual growth, deepening one's intimate connection to spiritual realities. Thelema is the method.
Again: Our first name is Temple. Our last name is Thelema. The first name is the particular purpose. The last name is the means.
You keep ignoring the first name and getting stuck on the last name.
PS - This site quite intentionally was not spun off of www.thelema.org (which we own and maintain), but was intentionally created with the name of a God. Think about that....