(November 28, 2017 at 3:32 pm)Khemikal Wrote:(November 28, 2017 at 12:17 am)Astreja Wrote: I've loved magic all my life, but to say I believe in it would be a bit of a stretch.
What I really would like to do, though, is discover a scientific basis and methodology for it and make it real.
The whole point of ceremonial magic, right there. Many experiments meant to refine the process in order to achieve the desired result. By the 1900's we'd gotten awfully creative with it.
Ever read Israel Regardie's "Golden Dawn"?
Something that struck me in their ritual structures was the attention to minute detail, and the use of pageantry, chemistry, and a strong utilization of "flashing" color schemes to create a real and palpable sense of altered perception in the ritual space.
Yes, I did at one point have that very book -- Mine was a large blue tome with gold lettering. I had a few of the rituals memorized as well. I was in my early 20s at that point.
The Abrahamic underpinnings of the Rosicrucian system, though, never sat well with me. As with other religious and quasi-religious practices, I couldn't get myself to believe that I was dealing with real beings on the other end of the line. (Subsequently spent some years exploring various types of Buddhism and then had an intense but short-lived fling with Norse polytheism before realizing I had been a de facto atheist the whole time due to inability to put faith in any of them.)
