From: Kai Mactane Area: MagickNet To: Joseph Max 22 Sep 94 01:48:38 Subject: Re: sigils UpdReq -=> Yglr'th Joseph Max zrlq Kai Mactane z'qwan "Re: sigils"? -=> F'dzeh nyq'rhg: KM> I should start by pointing out that I have no KM> disagreement with anything Joseph Max says here , but I personally KM> use other (though similar) methods, and thought you might want a KM> different view. This matches with Max's last paragraph. JM> ...which says the most important thing is to use a system that works JM> for _you_. Kai's is well-thought out and logical and likely works for JM> him very well. This just goes to show that there are _many_ variations JM> on the themem here and no _one_ way is absolutely right for everyone. Thanks, my system _has_ worked very nicely so far. For me. :) JM> Thanks, I'm flattered. I thought I might have been overdoing it. I didn't even consider ASCII. :) KM> Michael Kraig. It's a very good introduction to ceremonial magick, and KM> strongly promotes the value of individual thought (as opposed to rote KM> repetition) in magick. JM> Good point, though I use the above mentioned books more as reference JM> books than for following blindly by rote. While we have our disagreements from time to time, I would never accuse you of working blindly by rote, Joseph! :) JM> Especially the Golden Dawn! I JM> once made a Lotus Wand following the GD fomula precisely and performed JM> the entire consecration ceremony over it -- it took ALL NIGHT! You JM> should see my diary entry afterwards: JM> "Cnscratd....Lot.. Wand.. JM> . JM> . JM> . Cute. I've had one or two entries like that, myself, but no all-night rituals to show for 'em. :) I'm not *that* much of a ceremonialist. JM> Coming up JM> with the statement of desire is by far the most important part. It must JM> be short, unambiguous and to the point, and contain no "negatives" - JM> ie. "I wish to be healthy" instead of "I wish to not get sick". It occurred to me yesterday that this problem is largely moot for me, since I don't use "statements" of desire; I just use single words. The thing is negated or affirmed, as it were, by the moon's phase. KM> I have also found negatives to be a good way to mess things KM> up. I have come up with what *may* be a way around it: the universal KM> "NOT" ring. You know, like in the "Ghostbusters" logo.... JM> Hmmm, very interesting -- I see no reason why it wouldn't work JM> symbolically, and it does reflect the "changing current of the new JM> Aeon" and all that, which I like... If *that's* an example of the CCotNA, maybe it's not the semantically-hollow buzz-jargon I thought it was. (Sorry, but I don't recall finding any descriptions of it that made any sense before, just "The times, they are a-changin'" sort of stuff. To which I reply "No shit, Sherlock, so what else is news?" and wonder why they need an overblown term like that to describe simple change. If it refers to the modern _style_ of updating, I can see some difference there, though the term still seems a bit overblown to me.) JM> I'm a wee bit wary about JM> introducing _any_ negatives into sigilization, but it sounds like it's JM> worth doing some experimentation with. Do let us all know if you try it JM> and how it works out. If I try it, will do, but there's not much call for anything like that in my life right now. JM> You can also create seperate sigils like that, then _combine_ them JM> into a single sigil. Examples using methods more like the one you use JM> can be seen in _The Golden Dawn_'s chapter on planetary sigils. I think I've seen that and rejected it on purely personal-aesthetic grounds. But I'll check again. JM> B'ndwidth> Nice term :) JM> I tend to add little circles, crosses, arrowheads, etc. at terminal JM> lines to give mine a "gothic" look, but not for any other reason but JM> that it makes it look more "magickal" to me. Total artifice, but JM> artifice is important in these things. If I _had_ more terminal points, I would definitely do the same! As it is, I was taught to put a circle at the beginning and a straight crossbar at the end. I promptly curved the crossbar for more "effect," and later got into things like curving the connecting lines, partly for the same reason. (Also for the use you saw in my example: more flexibility in letter-choice.) I wouldn't mind seeing your sigils some time; I think I'd like them more than the usual Spare sigils I've seen. KM> Interesting side note for you, Joseph: the last time I charged a KM> talisman, by the time I got through all the chanting and vibrating and KM> stuff, I felt almost as if I *had* orgasmed, though without anything KM> even approaching ejaculation. JM> I have had this happen to me on occasion as well. Gnosis is gnosis, JM> after all... That it is. :) KM> Another note from an experiment with that type of working about KM> four years ago: my girlfriend and I were trying to figure out where to KM> put the sigil, and finally we figured that place either of us was most KM> likely to be looking when we came was at the other one. So we painted KM> them on each others' foreheads. :) JM> You may have noticed form a subsequent message on this thread that I JM> recommended taping the sigils to each others foreheads! We used the JM> "on the ceiling" trick so we could both focus on a single talisman. I don't think I've seen that; it may have gotten lost somewhere. JM> an "effort" to forget the desire; that's as oxymoronic as telling JM> someone to "Try to relax -- go'on, you're not TRYING HARD ENOUGH TO JM> RELAX...!" KM> Since I generally work to produce talismans, rather than sigils, KM> I hang onto them. They "magnetize" the appropriate thing into my life, KM> and *then* I burn it ritually. JM> Variations on a theme once again. Rule of Practical Magick #1: JM> If it works, DO IT! Well, yeah. :) JM> ... "I wave my hands a lot, trying to convince him I'm a powerful JM> mage." Oh, you like? Got it from some friends, it's a quote from a D&D game. (Now, I *hate* D&D, but I'll admit you can get some _great_ taglines out of it!) --Kai MacTane. ... Come on, in a 1st level dungeon? It has to be a gas spore. ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.10 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718 From: JOSEPH MAX Area: MagickNet To: KAI MACTANE 18 Sep 94 09:19:00 Subject: RE: SIGILS UpdReq -=> Quoting Kai Mactane to Joseph Max <=- -> Quoting Joseph Max to Rainlake <- Ra> ... many would disagree that the conscious mind's help short- Ra> circuits magick. That hasn't been my experience, or that of most Ra> successful magickmakers I know. JM> Would you go so far as to say that being consciously _obsessed_ with JM> deriving results from a magickal working is not a hinderance? In my KM> IME, it's an all-or-nothing proposition: you can either do a KM> ritual that, at least for an instant, completely abolishes the con- KM> scious mind (including any lust for results that it may bear), -=or=- KM> you can do one that intensifies the lust for results to the point KM> where it COMPLETELY dominates the consciousness, to the point where KM> you can't even experience the lust, because there isn't enough of your KM> consciousness left over to record the experience. (I am of the KM> opinion that the difference between these two states may well be KM> solely semantic. :) Either way, dropping the consciousness to 0% KM> of your "current self-hood" or raising it and its lust to 100% of KM> same, seems to work (though it's d*mn hard for most people to work the KM> second way without sputtering out at around 95% of total lust, thus KM> crashing the spell). Very true. I pretty much agree with the above assesment, especially the part about the difference being pretty much semantic. In my experience one must be emotionally overwhelmed during a ritual working for the "conscious mind over-the-top" style to work. The operant idea here is this: the keys to effective Magick are the altered states of consciousness. I will declare flat-out that if one does not attain an altered state of consciousness in a magick working it will amount to very little as far as "to cause change to occur in accordance with the will." It really matters not _how_ one goes about attaining it, though some will argue that the method chosen should in _some_ way be "appropriate" to the desired effect. Casting curses with sex magick is probably not a great idea, for example... There are two modes of attaining the gnostic state required to work effects magick, to whit: Inhibitory Mode Excitatory Mode --------------- --------------- Magical Trance Emotional Arousal Concentration ie. fear, anger, lust, horror. 'Death posture' Sexual excitation Sleeplessness Pain, Torture Fasting Flagellation Exhaustion Dancing, Drumming Chanting Gazing 'Right way of walking' Hypnotic or Stimulant or trance inducing drugs disinhibitory drugs, Oxygen deprivation Mild hallucinogens Forced hyperventilation Sensory deprivation Sensory overload (from _Liber Null_ by Peter J. Carroll) As can be seen from this chart, the excitatory mode can be more problematic. Emotional arousal is the obverse form to meditation, in effect. Theortically, any emotional state can be used, but in practice the gentler emotions of love or grief are difficult to raise to the required level and sustain. The violent emotions of hate, anger and terror are far easier to evoke, but dangling oneself out of a tenth-floor window to cast a spell is to be generally discouraged . JM> Are you saying that by someone can simply learn the "correct" JM> incantations and light the "correct" color of candles and chant the JM> words in the "correct" order and derive magickal results? Is conscious, JM> deliberate action all there is to it? I think not... KM> I don't see how you yielded this from Rainlake's statement, which KM> was disagreement that the conscious mind short-circuits magick. Well, I was just taking the arguement to the extreme to point out the fallacy of the statement. Basic Socratic method. JM> If your assessment is absolutely correct, then method actors should be JM> the most powerful sorcerers in the universe! KM> Actually, they *do* make deep-level changes in their psyches on KM> a regular basis, which is pretty heavy stuff. The fact that tese KM> changes are temporary (at least when done right) doesn't diminish KM> their force or the impressiveness of the feat (indeed, in a way, it KM> makes the feat a bit *more* impressive!). Actually, I would agree to the point that ritual magick could be thought of as magickally effective method acting -- IF the requisite altered state of consciousness is attained in the process. ... Got a mind like a steel trap, rusty and illegal in 19 states ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718 From: JOSEPH MAX Area: MagickNet To: RAINLAKE 19 Sep 94 08:57:00 Subject: Re: YOUR POST UpdReq -=> Quoting Rainlake to Joseph Max <=- Ra> Thanks for replying in depth. You do seem to have misunderstood a Ra> good deal of what I said... I apologise for misunderstanding. It often happens in this particular style of communication. Ra> ... and if you've gotten the impression somehow Ra> that I'm "confused" about the difference between magick and religion (I Ra> didn't say or imply they're the same--more when I can get back into Ra> your prior post and supply context)... Please do! I looked back over what mail packets I still had saved and I'm afraid your original message has already been sacrificed to Yog H'Drv-Space. As best I can recall it was less of a blanket statement and more of your using the term "religious" or "religion" in reference to people's different conceptions of magick, which is why I pointed out that the two are not necessarily interrelated. Ra> ... or that I think all one has to do Ra> to make magick is say the right words/make the right moves (which is Ra> NOwhere close to what I wrote in my post to you), you definitely Ra> haven't been reading my posts elsewhere on PODS and on VampNet. Forgive my use of Socratic methods of debate. The idea I was trying to illuminate was that if conscious action was all that was required for working magick, then right words/right moves WOULD be all there was to it. So I was illustrating what would be the result if one took that concept to the extreme. I never said that _you_ took it to that extreme, I was providing a hypothetical example of extrapolating the concept to the point of the ridiculous. Ra> But you do make some interesting points, and I'd like to reply. Ra> Problem is, I'm seriously ill, and simply can't edit and reply to all Ra> of such a lengthy post (they do tend to run that way in this echo, Ra> don't they!) in one evening. So you're likely to get it in chunks, Ra> over several days. It'd be helpful if you'd let me reply to all of it Ra> before you write back. Then I shall drop this thread right here to allow you time to get back to me. Please accept my sincere wishes for a speedy recovery from your illness. I await your further replies. - J:.M:.555 ... "42? 7 and a half million years and all you can come up with is 42?!" ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718