From: Chen Area: Night Side To: Vitriol 24 Aug 92 23:59:00 Subject: Re: Politics and society UpdReq Bien sur, mon cher...and three points to you:" Blackened Voodoo" is a Big Easy home brew and them darn Texans objected to the word,"Voodoo" in the title (Not, I might add, unlike U.S. Games which objected to the word as used in the title:"New Orleans Voodoo Tarot". HA! Bet THEY'RE crying in their "Blackened Voodoo Lager" now!!!). Anyway, the brew-ha-ha apparently provided some welcome free publicity. Last I heard, The beer is currently available in Texas... Speaking of Creole Voodoo... do you suppose y'all out there could solicit Shango to be kind towards The N.O. Voodoo Tarot which is currently hanging precariously under glass in the funky galery down the street as Andrew approaches menacingly...? V> Maybe our V> resident artiste-magickianess-bartendrix knows the story? Hey! Don't forget:"Grand Pubaette" ! LOVE/WILL CHEN 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Gene Clayton Area: Night Side To: Gerald Del Campo 23 Aug 92 07:11:56 Subject: Re: Wiccans vs. Ceremonialists UpdReq GDC> Why Charles, you are starting to sound like a Chaos kinda guy ;) GDC> So you don't believe in the magical properties of inanimate objects? Interesting connection you make.... but then it depends fully on just HOW inanimate the object. 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Lewis Cypher Area: Night Side To: Jonathan Corwin 23 Aug 92 08:52:48 Subject: RE: A question for discussio UpdReq I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you I think your posts have been inspired, and some of the best writing of its kind. I have enjoyed them emesely, especially your Theoretica series, and am avidly reading them to my friends. I am looking forward to more in the future. 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Lewis Cypher Area: Night Side To: Jonathan Corwin 23 Aug 92 18:58:40 Subject: Myth Free Magic System UpdReq From: Jonathan Corwin To : Lewis Cypher #176 >But right now, I'm concerned with developing the mythos-free techniques and it'll be a bit before I get it to a level of effectiveness in ritual. So, check out my message to Josh Norton (a few msg.'s before this) if you're curious. You may wind up thinking of something I missed, or not... whatever. LC> I have been reading your interchange with Josh, avidly. Contact with higher being, whatever that 'being' is, is a myth free technology, in essence. The myth base is only the launching platform for our consciousness rocket. Once you attain orbit, it matters little what method you used to get there. You could have teleported, rocketed, or been shot out of a cannon. The reality is that now an object is behaving like a celestial body. End of that metaphore. Another metaphore I will use to lay a bit of groundwork for what I am going to say, is painting. There are many schools of painting, many ways to daub paint on a canvas. As the artist practices and practices, the techniques become so automatic, that the mind conceives, and the hand does the work-it becomes automatic, thus freeing the mind for pure creation. I think the 'myth free' system that you are looking for already exists-it is any myth system practiced untill it is so automatic it is not thought about anymore-it stops being a limit, and turns into a tool. The true myth free system is universal, common to all magicians, and always used to attain skill in The Art and power to transcend. It is called "PRACTICE." The one thing that is very rare among the magicians of my aquaintance is practice. Nobody wants to work. Nobody wants to do the same ritual, the same way, over and over, untill the body and the conscious mind do it automaticly. This is why there is so much controversy over which method of magic is better-everyone wants to find the technique that works without practice. Thus we have Wiccans who can't do any magic, but cover it by saying they are 'eclectic.' We have 'Satanists' who think that when they get blasted on PCP and listen to a Slayer album, then go out afterwards and break a few windows, that they are summoning satan within and going to get rich quick. We also find many many other types of 'magicians,' some of whom even publish books, who read all the magic echoes, and never step into a temple more than once or twice a year, figuring that knowing alot ABOUT magic is the same as knowing HOW TO DO magic. (continued...) 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Lewis Cypher Area: Night Side To: Jonathan Corwin 23 Aug 92 19:00:54 Subject: Practice UpdReq Practice any symbol system enough, and it becomes a myth free system. I practice magic for atleast 5 hours a week. Sometimes I do ritual every 7 hours, around the clock, for a week at a time. During these marathon sessions, I reach this invigorating 'place' where I don't want to stop, it is an end in itself. There is so much power, and I become the being I always wanted to be. The talismans pile up, the notes of my interrogations of the Celestial Intelligences fill notebooks, I go out into the streets to get more candles, oils, and other consumables and I can see the pattern of the world, the interlocking motion, the mesh, THE ALL. And I know, that if I could only do this all the time, that soon I would reach this 'something' that lays in front of me, I can almost taste it, I know I want it, but I can't describe it in words. Its the goal of all magic, its the purpose for all this work and discipline. Its the point where it all is mine, and all of mine is it. Its.... I think what you are searching for, is practice. A symbol system that is so interesting, that using it drives you on to more and more practice. 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Amazon Lil Area: Night Side To: Wind-Walker 24 Aug 92 09:15:10 Subject: A question for discussio UpdReq W> try viewing time as being both here/now & there/then W> with both points being the same point The theory of simultinaity....It's all going on NOW. the human brain merely sees it in a linear form. Once you are above the Abbys and out of the AinSophAur....anything goes! Hail Eris! Lil 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Amazon Lil Area: Night Side To: Star*fire 24 Aug 92 09:19:34 Subject: Re: A question for discussio UpdReq Eris: The Greek Goddess of Chaos, sister to Aries, God of War. She is the personification of Chaos....one of her stories(and the most famous) is the Golden Apple of Discord, (ie, her followers are called Discordians,) Eris was not invited to a wedding, and this pisses her off most greiviously. She decided to come anyway, and raise some hell. The Goddesses Hera, Aphrodite and Athena were in a group partying when Eris tosses her pretty Golden Apple between them and shouted Kalisti! Which means "to the prettiest One"...the Goddesses dived for the apple,and began fighting.....well the story goes on to the Judgment of Paris, the Trojan War and all that.....so the moral of the story is invite Chaos into your life, otherwise it will come, and with an attitude! Lil 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Amazon Lil Area: Night Side To: Gerald Del Campo 24 Aug 92 09:27:04 Subject: Re: Third nipple UpdReq Get serious! I only have three! Well I guess they could tag-team....So many to do, and so little time! Lil 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Josh Norton Area: Night Side To: Jonathan Corwin 23 Aug 92 14:21:08 Subject: A question for discussio UpdReq JC> Mythologizing is *one* function of the symbol set. The >symbol set, however,does not necessarily derive (entirely, >anyway) from mythos. A large portion of it is derived from >real life and masked in mythos. > One example, on the purely physical level, should give you some idea: >take the circle. The circle can have two meanings: >closure and continuance. The mythological form "magick >circle" reflects the former, the myth of the serpent biting >. . . . > These two items point to the *possibility* of symbolic >use without mythos, but not symbolic use without emotion. >But it's going to be hard going for a while. You sure put a lot of work into that answer, for which thanks. Let me add a few comments au contraire. (These comments don't necessarily follow each other -- I'm not trying to build a consistent argument against your position, just putting down some random thoughts.) Your example of the circle is rather apropos, though perhaps in a way you didn't intend. If we accept the Hermetic principle that "that which is below is as that which is above, and that which is above is as that which is below", then any statement about the "origin" of a symbol set becomes problematic. That is to say, since corresponding events and patterns exist at all levels, one can easily pick ANY level arbitrarily and assign it as the "origin" of other levels, and derive therefrom a reasonably consistent magickal philosophy. Another person can just as validly pick another level and do the same thing -- even if their set of origins and derivations is directly contrary to yours. Other people can do the same with yet other "origins". Comparison of such diverse systems on theoretical grounds inevitably devolves into circular, chicken-and-egg type arguments, simply because there is in fact no justification for giving any particular point in the "field" of possibilities a preferential place over any other point. In this particular case, you are suggesting a possible neuro-physiological origin for magickal symbols. But someone -- not me -- could as readily argue that the neurological components are as they are because "inner" plane events, exerting pressure on the material world over time, caused our nervous systems to conform to them. In other words, that "real life" conforms to the mythos, not the other way around. > As to the more subjective side, the mandalic mesh of associations we buil >on the physical function, it depends. If we both agree that the purpose of >the mythicons is to induce a particular emotivational state (a directed mood >than it might well be possible to strip out the mythic >aspects in the course of developing an "intuitional >physics" . > These two items point to the *possibility* of symbolic >use without mythos, but not symbolic use without emotion. >But it's going to be hard going for a while. I'm not sure that I can agree with you about this, though certainly most people would. I guess it would depend on what you classify as "emotional". What I think of as my own emotional nature is usually rather placid -- one might say "lethargic" -- and takes a great deal of stimulus before it can be stirred out of its normal state. It is rarely a factor in my own magickal activities. There have been lots of complaints about this from people with whom I've done group rituals, who say the ritual wasn't fully effective because of my lack of feeling. And yet, my own sort of magick has been quite effective, as is shown by the magickal records I've published. So either "emotion" as most people seem to define it isn't necessary to effective magick, or "emotion" means something quite different in a magickal context than most people think. * SLMR 2.1a * "All systems are true" = "no system is true" 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718