Belief in magic

[Astreja]

I think Penn and Teller would have no problem if you love a good illusion. But lets not confuse a stage act as being real. 

I think you can leave behind the woo words like "magic" and say our species ability to have imagination leads to newer technology. No need to call that natural curiosity "magic". 

We as a species didn't get from wondering about human flight to making it a reality by clinging to "magic'.

You can certainly update scientific method and methodology when new data and scientific ideas come about sure, but no need to use such an old word like "magic".

"Magic" is a stage act. Getting to the moon is science.

I assure you that I have the utmost respect for the scientific method.  There's just something about the idea of magic that has always resonated with me.

If I end up with cutting-edge technology instead of woo-woo, I'm actually okay with that.

---

It seems that you specifically want Magic Missile in your repertoire. Has someone been bothering you lately?

Maybe.

[The Grand Nudger]

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.

[vorlon13]

well, we can distinguish perhaps small 'm' magic from capital 'M' Magic.

The Magic example that springs to mind would be actually cutting the beautiful assistant in half and then putting him/her back together.

Small 'm' magic for me, as an example, is seeing a historical artifact and allowing it to transport me back to the era it was made/used and experience it at that level.

[Astreja]

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.)

[Crossless2.0]

. . . and then had an intense but short-lived fling with Norse polytheism

Do tell!

[The Grand Nudger]

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.

Big fucker, wasn't it.  Mine was black and gold.

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. 

Well, they peppered it heavily with egytian pomp and costume..that's gotta count for something.  I don't think that it would be strictly accurate to say that the rosicrucian system is explicitly abrahamic or that they believed that there was an actual being on the other end.  The notion seems to have been that all religion was an outgrowth of primal forces which could be drawn down - to use the terms that wiccans would adopt, as the "godhead" into oneself.  The ultimate goal of the progression from neoephyte to praetor was..as in buddhism...a quest for personal enlightenment or elevation to a higher plane of existence.  The rosicrucians simply didn't seem to think that sitting around cross-legged breathing intently was going to get them there.   More that the prevailing cultural paradigm was decidedly abrahamic and the point of ritual being to evoke a union between the divine and the mundane....the evocative nature of communal belief is a powerful tool.  This might also explain all the egyptian paraphernalia, as it was wildly popular at the time.  

Gotta get people into the mood...you know?  I guess their system was kindoff stuffy.  I mean, there's orgies...and ritual drug use......they could have rolled with that (as the OTO allegedly did).   Ah, missed opportunities.

 (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.)

I'm still in my running fling with -all- of the worlds mythologies and magical systems.  I often find myself thinking that "putting ones faith" in the gods of these narratives is completely missing the point of them..how about you?

[Astreja]

. . . and then had an intense but short-lived fling with Norse polytheism

Do tell!

I was actually a fairly serious student of Norse culture in the late '90s into the early '00s, and in fact that's when I assumed this username.  Learned how to read runes, read the Eddas, learned a bit of Old Norse and a bit of Icelandic (the closest living language to Old Norse).  Still interested from a cultural POV, as it's my maternal heritage, but I underwent a major and possibly irreversible paradigm shift when I realized that I could not (and, more importantly, would not) declare that the gods were real.

I'm still in my running fling with -all- of the worlds mythologies and magical systems.  I often find myself thinking that "putting ones faith" in the gods of these narratives is completely missing the point of them..how about you?

I still find the concept of gods useful from an archetypal POV, and some of them are just great characters in their own rights.  (Uncle Loki, I'm looking at *you*!)

[The Grand Nudger]

I still find the concept of gods useful from an archetypal POV, and some of them are just great characters in their own rights.  (Uncle Loki, I'm looking at *you*!)

I suspect that this might be all they were meant to be...and that were it not for the contamination of ignorant and dogmatic christerism people could appreciate these divine narratives as and for what they are.  The same current is lost -in- christerism -by- believers.  They don't realize...for example, that "cain" and "abel" are descriptors.....not proper nouns. This is completely lost in translation, as is much of the double entendre and cleverness of mythical structure in genesis and even as far along as the NT, and their parallels in pagan mythology.  Wotan did, after all, pluck out the offending eye.

I find that a person can easily keep the troth and build favor in hamingja without believing in any actual gods.

[KevinM1]

I still find the concept of gods useful from an archetypal POV, and some of them are just great characters in their own rights.  (Uncle Loki, I'm looking at *you*!)

I suspect that this might be all they were meant to be...and that were it not for the contamination of ignorant and dogmatic christerism people could appreciate these divine narratives as and for what they are.  The same current is lost -in- christerism -by- believers.  They don't realize...for example, that "cain" and "abel" are descriptors.....not proper nouns. This is completely lost in translation, as is much of the double entendre and cleverness of mythical structure in genesis and even as far along as the NT, and their parallels in pagan mythology.  Wotan did, after all, pluck out the offending eye.

I find that a person can easily keep the troth and build favor in hamingja without believing in any actual gods.

Can you expand on this? I'm woefully ignorant of most mythology (basically somewhat familiar with the Greek pantheon, and that's it).

[The Grand Nudger]

The two mean farmer and shepherd.  Respectively.  So, the story begins along the lines of -"There were two brothers, a farmer and a shepherd".  The narrative telegraphs this for the reader but it's made redundant in the retelling.  It's a narrative that expresses conflict between sedentary farmers and nomadic shepherds - right down to the manner of the shepherds death....as having been in the farmers fields.  We erected barbed wire fences to stop that shit in the american west.  The culture that told the story, however, had a strong preference for the shepherds way of life - their way of life. This is echoed and reenforced throughout the entirety of the OT and mimicked in the NT.  God was the kind of guy who ate the steak and left the potato on the plate. The farmers life..and civilized life in general..was something to be derided and avoided.  These were sinful places founded by the first murderer.  They ate pigs and built tall buildings that offended god.  They were always hoovering up the good lands god promised to his chosen rednecks and assorted drifters.