Last resort magic?
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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....
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@kasper81 said
"What a bunch of mystical crap that was. Honourable, but mystical. Karma? Past lives? Are you real?"
Yes. Totally Kasper, the above almost got you a warning.
To be clear: The quote you disparage is from the founder of the College of Thelema and one of the founders of Temple of Thelema. That should at least give you some idea that the material cited is fundamental to what this forum exists to communicate.
That might be worth thinking about a bit, eh?
Wanna know what we're about? Read In the Continuum and Black Pearl. You don't have to agree - not at all! On the other hand, taking a persistently strident stand against nearly all fundamentals that C.O.T. and T.'.O.'.T.'. teaches does... tend to make your posts off-topic to the site by definition. Can you see that?
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Clean up completed. I regret that I had to cut some wonderful posts while removing the OT digression - but the marvelous posts were also OT. (And I cut several of mine as well. That's one of the risks of troll-feeding.)
A reminder: Other than minor, brief digressions, threads are expected to remain on the topic of the ORIGINAL post. If you want to change the subject, start a new thread. Everything (everything!) that I cut was because it was OT.
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@axismundi said
"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."
Good points, my friend.
In my experience I've found that Magick is best used for no reason whatsoever. There is a certain joy in participating in the tides of nature and partaking of the company of the Gods. But what of the material realm? We are all going to run into problems in our quest to complete the Great Work. I see it as our divine right as Magicians to impose order on Chaos, and when this Chaos manifests itself in the material realm it is our right to master it. The problem arises when we are not working in harmony with our True Will. If one is not in harmony with their Will no expenditure of Magical Force will resolve the issue. So the problems arise from within and can usually be resolved not by practicing Magick with the aim of accomplishing a particular goal, but with the aim of perfecting ourselves as Aspirants and Individuals.
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@Mephis said
"
@axismundi said
"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."
Good points, my friend.
In my experience I've found that Magick is best used for no reason whatsoever. There is a certain joy in participating in the tides of nature and partaking of the company of the Gods. But what of the material realm? We are all going to run into problems in our quest to complete the Great Work. I see it as our divine right as Magicians to impose order on Chaos, and when this Chaos manifests itself in the material realm it is our right to master it. The problem arises when we are not working in harmony with our True Will. If one is not in harmony with their Will no expenditure of Magical Force will resolve the issue. So the problems arise from within and can usually be resolved not by practicing Magick with the aim of accomplishing a particular goal, but with the aim of perfecting ourselves as Aspirants and Individuals."
Thank you you have struck to the heart of the issue.
It is true that any Magick that is not in accord with True Will or is not about aligning with True Will is at best a waste of energy. Yet I have to admit there have been times when the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune have lured me into doing such, well, I would say two times.
Not the best thing because although the eye of the hurricane is calm, the chaos that has been evoked around you is readily noticeable. With respect to the Yi King when 'PO' is drawn an interesting exercise is to counter- balance so that when the lines change to PO the material effect is 0. The joy of the dance.
I will think this over and return when I can articulate it better.
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How it works: If you purpose is to have money or to have money to fulfill your purpose, you do the ritual that connects you astraly with people, groups, that might help you get money. For example that becomes easier to convince someone to loan his money to you or you even may get proposals you would never expect from that person. Considering that we are multi-dimensional living beeing mechanics become clear.
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@Vadox said
"How it works: If you purpose is to have money or to have money to fulfill your purpose, you do the ritual that connects you astraly with people, groups, that might help you get money. For example that becomes easier to convince someone to loan his money to you or you even may get proposals you would never expect from that person. Considering that we are multi-dimensional living beeing mechanics become clear."
So, on this note, let me ask a question or series of questions that refer more to the practical side of the issue:
Say, for instance, there is a particular individual (definitely not me) who is absolutely at the end of their resources: broke, in debt, homeless, pretty much utterly down and out. All efforts at resolution/negotiation have failed. What would be a good Last Resort Magical Strategy for the resolution of said issues? Any particular Rituals or Planetary Energies I should get in touch with? This particular individual is pretty much dead in the water... The Cosmic S.O.S. either didn't reach the right people or was outright ignored due to some kind of karmic situation.
Usually this individual is too proud to admit defeat but at this point a little advice would be cool.
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Mephisto, that I wouldn't mess with. Let me tell you why and it's pretty simple. I'm the kind of guy that some might say is "too proud" to admit defeat. I don't think it's pride though for me, it's perspective. I'll concede to defeat in a game of chess or Axis & Allies or something where it is cut and dry, by life is full of nothing but opportunities. I've been homeless a few times, pretty much without a penny for a time as well, but I've never been resourceless. Now, on the other hand, if your friend is in his situation, not admitting "defeat," yet instead of seeing this as an opportunity but as a victimization, it's simply a matter of one's psychological character and for you - there's nothing you can do.
Burn all the candles you wish, petition Jupiter for fortune or Venus for income - but you can't fix the permanently broken.
And don't get me wrong - I didn't always get back up without a hand from a friend, and there was magick involved on my end and illogical results put me in possession of the house I have now, but all and all I credit my never say die attitude. Along with not putting the burden of blame on anyone else.
Something to think on.
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@Mephis said
"Say, for instance, there is a particular individual (definitely not me) who is absolutely at the end of their resources: broke, in debt, homeless, pretty much utterly down and out. All efforts at resolution/negotiation have failed. What would be a good Last Resort Magical Strategy for the resolution of said issues?"
I disagree with Takamba when he says "permanently broken".
Being at the end of resources and broke and in debt and homeless is the strategy. I might ask how the person got to this state because it sounds like they have been calcinated. This step dissolution breaks down the artificial structures that have bound the person in the past in order for them to separate the fine from the gross in the next step.
My advice is for the person to submit entirely their will to their environment. Friends, Family, Strangers, God, etc.
This is the story of how they succeeded in the future.