Magick is legit

[Kasdeja]

Originally Posted by Elystan

Go on then tell me I give up.

Don't give up, sweetie... you're holding your ground just fine. You know I'm on your side, and am the reason you started this thread, so just keep doing what you're doing. I believe in you, even if they don't.

[Elystan]

Originally Posted by Kasdeja

Don't give up, sweetie... you're holding your ground just fine. You know I'm on your side, and am the reason you started this thread, so just keep doing what you're doing. I believe in you, even if they don't.

lol no I meant I give up trying to guess what her religion is

[Grausamkeit]

Originally Posted by Kasdeja

Don't give up, sweetie... you're holding your ground just fine. You know I'm on your side, and am the reason you started this thread, so just keep doing what you're doing. I believe in you, even if they don't.

As well as anyone on the forum who espouses racist beliefs, right? You're totes behind all of that bigotry and prejudice.

[Kasdeja]

Originally Posted by Elystan

lol no I meant I give up trying to guess what her religion is

Heh... my bad. But my other post still stands.

[Versus]

Anyone else play Magic: The Gathering in middle school?

[MissCheyenne]

^ I still have my Magic: The Gathering cards in a shoebox underneath my bedside table. I still have two fully playable decks made up as well. I am so fucking cool it hurts.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Elystan

Take a look at some of the incantations in the lesser key of solomon. The magician begins with a prayer or supplication to god, and then in the ritual itself he invokes the names of god to command the spirit in question.

But then that's solomonic invocation magic rather than Qabala, which is something else.

You know that book was a scam, right? Claimed to be written by Solomon, but at best its 17th century? Its the equivalent of books today claiming to be THE Necronomicon.

Except when you actually look at the people who were a part of the hermetic tradition you see that cabala and ceremonial magic were inseparable from their theories of alchemy and astrology.

Kabbalah is a mystic Jewish practice, not "magic", even by your own definition. They hold some things are sacred. Saying a letter has sacred power is just as magical as someone saying the written Word is sacred. Things holy to God are awesome!

But it's not even the same thing. A court summoner or an otherwise wealthy occultist did entirely different things socially and intellectually to the local wise folk who would be handing out remedies or divining for lost sheep. For a start, the former tradition has been preserved.

Folk tradition survives. Medicine back then was full of quackery so even if the local healer was handing out sheep's bladder to cure your humors, court doctors were pumping water into people's bowels or bleeding them. People here still believe in fairies and ghosts and crossing your socks to avoid the old hag. Its superstition though and they'd probably claw your eyes out if you accuse them of practicing magic. In the meantime, you're holding relatively new books as evidence that magic has been practiced throughout the ages or just being stupid and wanting to believe so badly that each court had a guy summoning devils to do the king's bidding that you don't want to admit how insanely boring alchemy is.

Dostoevsky gets really old by about the fifth book

You just get worse.

[Grausamkeit]

Originally Posted by Versus

Anyone else play Magic: The Gathering in middle school?

Yeah, that shit was boring.

[Saya]

I had the cards but mostly I just thought they were pretty, I've never played.

[Solumina]

Saya I think you would really like the game, it strikes me as being your cup of tea. I used to play back in middle school and then started again a few years ago but I've since sold all of my cards as my friends who played left the area and I really didn't feel comfortable at any of the games played in the community (mostly in the back of comic shops with at least half of the players being the stereotypical basement dwellers).

[Elystan]

Originally Posted by Saya

You know that book was a scam, right? Claimed to be written by Solomon, but at best its 17th century? Its the equivalent of books today claiming to be THE Necronomicon.

!3th actually, but it's still a good example. The rituals described take on a similar structure to those recorded in the greek magical papyri, even if the cultural references are more appropriate to the era.

Originally Posted by Saya

Kabbalah is a mystic Jewish practice, not "magic", even by your own definition. They hold some things are sacred. Saying a letter has sacred power is just as magical as someone saying the written Word is sacred. Things holy to God are awesome!

Kabbalah is, but it found its way into the work of Christian theologists as Cabala and Qabala for the Hermetists.

Originally Posted by Saya

Folk tradition survives. Medicine back then was full of quackery so even if the local healer was handing out sheep's bladder to cure your humors, court doctors were pumping water into people's bowels or bleeding them. People here still believe in fairies and ghosts and crossing your socks to avoid the old hag. Its superstition though and they'd probably claw your eyes out if you accuse them of practicing magic.

Hardly. There's evidence in the form of written records of court cases to show that there was a thriving practice in divination and unbewitching during the middle ages (and no I'm not talking about the witch trials) and even much later, but the last time such a case made it to court was near the beginning of the twentieth century, and involved a woman in her 80's. The industrial revolution put paid to most of rural superstition and television and compulsory education did the rest. You still get people with odd superstitious beliefs but not whole communities of them in which offering magical services is a viable way of making a livelihood.

Originally Posted by Saya

In the meantime, you're holding relatively new books as evidence that magic has been practiced throughout the ages or just being stupid and wanting to believe so badly that each court had a guy summoning devils to do the king's bidding that you don't want to admit how insanely boring alchemy is.

What's relatively new? I've been concentrating on the medieval, renaissance and early modern periods to refute the idea that modern forms of magic have just been plucked out of a pre-christian past. Wherein do you see a discontinuity?

Chaos magic as described in the 70s drew on the work of Austin spare in the 20s, a member of the same organisation as Crowley belonged to before announcing Thelema early in that century, an organisation whose existence was only made possible by the fact that there were already practising invokers, qabalist, hermetists and theurgists who had their own sets of influences, so on and so on. You can't really say it was invented 40 years ago when it relies on referencing a body of work which was created over centuries and finds influence from milennia past.

Originally Posted by Saya

You just get worse.

No but seriously, Alyosha is Myshkin mark II. They're both literary devices rather than lifelike characters. Do you or do you not agree? I thought this was a fairly uncontroversial piece of analysis.

[Elystan]

Originally Posted by Elystan

!3th actually.

My bad, 17th, I seem to remember reading somewhere that some of the content can be traced back as far as the 13th. Oh here we go:

"Several versions of the Key of Solomon exist, in various translations, and with minor or significant differences. The archetype was likely a Latin or Italian text dating to the 14th or 15th century."

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Elystan

Kabbalah is, but it found its way into the work of Christian theologists as Cabala and Qabala for the Hermetists.

In the late 18th and 19th century, like I said that's when bored people REALLY got into the idea of the occult. It died down in the early 20th century but was revived as neopaganism.

Hardly. There's evidence in the form of written records of court cases to show that there was a thriving practice in divination and unbewitching during the middle ages (and no I'm not talking about the witch trials) and even much later, but the last time such a case made it to court was near the beginning of the twentieth century, and involved a woman in her 80's. The industrial revolution put paid to most of rural superstition and television and compulsory education did the rest. You still get people with odd superstitious beliefs but not whole communities of them in which offering magical services is a viable way of making a livelihood.

What's relatively new? I've been concentrating on the medieval, renaissance and early modern periods to refute the idea that modern forms of magic have just been plucked out of a pre-christian past. Wherein do you see a discontinuity?

The hermetic traditions you're talking about were mostly modern. In the middle ages, the only kind of "magic" allowed was what was called natural magic. This was the kind of magic that you didn't create on your own or get help with, like astrology, herbalism or alchemy, you're just exploiting what is natural. This is why old texts don't refer to what they do as "ceremonial magic" or "magic", but as "experiments", it was the early early days of scientific thinking, and science even went on to vindicate some forms of this, like St. John's Wort is actually helpful for depression and rue actually does induce abortion.

Other kinds of "magic" were inherently demonic by Christians' view, save maybe Dee's angel magic but that isn't magic to you since he was just asking them nicely to talk to him rather than demanding it, and its not like that became popular or standard. Christians believed that the spirits pagans called on were actually demons, if you've read Paradise Lost they say that when cast to hell demons would disguise themselves as gods to trick humans, and when you look at pagan texts that have spells for healing on the same page as spells for murder and rrape, its probably not Christians just being mean about it.

Chaos magic as described in the 70s drew on the work of Austin spare in the 20s, a member of the same organisation as Crowley belonged to before announcing Thelema early in that century, an organisation whose existence was only made possible by the fact that there were already practising invokers, qabalist, hermetists and theurgists who had their own sets of influences, so on and so on. You can't really say it was invented 40 years ago when it relies on referencing a body of work which was created over centuries and finds influence from milennia past.

Again, you're relying on modern text and claiming its old, when we know for a fact it isn't.

No but seriously, Alyosha is Myshkin mark II. They're both literary devices rather than lifelike characters. Do you or do you not agree? I thought this was a fairly uncontroversial piece of analysis.

He is, but its still a insanely important piece of literature and I would argue one of the greatest novels ever written. I spent a semester learning about the impact of The Grand Inquisitor alone.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Elystan

My bad, 17th, I seem to remember reading somewhere that some of the content can be traced back as far as the 13th. Oh here we go:

"Several versions of the Key of Solomon exist, in various translations, and with minor or significant differences. The archetype was likely a Latin or Italian text dating to the 14th or 15th century."

That's the proper Key Of Solomon they're talking about, not the Lesser Key. Also there is no evidence that it was used or accepted, and very few old copies exist, a lot of grimoires may have actually been written by clergymen, natural magic being legitimately allowed often and demonic magic being, well, demonized, its likely they were held to be evidence that witches were in fact among us. I hope no one sees crop circles as evidence that aliens did exist hundreds of years from now, or evidence that it was widely believed.

[Elystan]

Originally Posted by Saya

In the late 18th and 19th century, like I said that's when bored people REALLY got into the idea of the occult. It died down in the early 20th century but was revived as neopaganism.

In the case of Hermetic Qabala, yes you only see it getting formalised as such with the Golden dawn, but Christian Cabala is centuries older and even found its way into jesuit teachings during the renaissance. Again I refer to Pico Della Mirandola, a 15th century Christian Hermetic Cabalist.

Originally Posted by Saya

The hermetic traditions you're talking about were mostly modern. In the middle ages, the only kind of "magic" allowed was what was called natural magic. This was the kind of magic that you didn't create on your own or get help with, like astrology, herbalism or alchemy, you're just exploiting what is natural.

There were different laws against magic during the middle ages, including this distinction between 'good' natural magic and 'bad' astral/celestial/whathaveyou magic, and that limited what authors could get away with publishing but nevertheless there were grimoires that made it out there. Like everything else that was written though, this all took off and gained a hermetic element during the renaissance, and while authors like Ficino did their best not to make a scene, Agrippa managed to get away with a lot (I said this a few posts back but w/e). Some periods in the history of the church were less strict than others though, and you could be almost as heretical as you liked under a humanist pope.

Originally Posted by Saya

This is why old texts don't refer to what they do as "ceremonial magic" or "magic", but as "experiments", it was the early early days of scientific thinking, and science even went on to vindicate some forms of this, like St. John's Wort is actually helpful for depression and rue actually does induce abortion.

But then again, there are scientific documents of the 16th century with 'natural magic' in the title still being circulated in the 17th. Gradually a lot of what magic used to be became absorbed into science, but there were other things that weren't.

Originally Posted by Saya

Other kinds of "magic" were inherently demonic by Christians' view, save maybe Dee's angel magic but that isn't magic to you since he was just asking them nicely to talk to him rather than demanding it, and its not like that became popular or standard. Christians believed that the spirits pagans called on were actually demons, if you've read Paradise Lost they say that when cast to hell demons would disguise themselves as gods to trick humans, and when you look at pagan texts that have spells for healing on the same page as spells for murder and rrape, its probably not Christians just being mean about it.

Yes the practice of magic was condemned by the church. Doesn't mean they didn't happen. Also, Dee himself wasn't the summoner, he had a medium with which to communicate with the angels.

Originally Posted by Saya

Again, you're relying on modern text and claiming its old, when we know for a fact it isn't.

What piece of text am I claiming is older than it is? Pretty sure I acknowledge that liber null and psychonaut was written in 1987?

[Elystan]

Originally Posted by Saya

That's the proper Key Of Solomon they're talking about, not the Lesser Key. Also there is no evidence that it was used or accepted, and very few old copies exist, a lot of grimoires may have actually been written by clergymen, natural magic being legitimately allowed often and demonic magic being, well, demonized, its likely they were held to be evidence that witches were in fact among us. I hope no one sees crop circles as evidence that aliens did exist hundreds of years from now, or evidence that it was widely believed.

I was thinking solomonic mgic in general, of which the keys of solomon are of course the most famous texts, but for a 13th century example take for example the sworn book of honorious. Being the dark ages before then I don't think there's much evidence of that particular tradition.

The subject is quite murky because of the potential bias of any written record, but are you asserting that the whole of european occultism was merely an invention of its detractors?

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Elystan

In the case of Hermetic Qabala, yes you only see it getting formalised as such with the Golden dawn, but Christian Cabala is centuries older and even found its way into jesuit teachings during the renaissance. Again I refer to Pico Della Mirandola, a 15th century Christian Hermetic Cabalist.

Pico was hermetic in that it supported his belief that all religions are universal and essentially the same. He was also a critic of magic, particularly astrology. He was interested in "high magic" to protect oneself against demons and temptations and to make oneself a better Christian, but its also kind of a colonialist view to view him as a magician and he was very much in line with medieval views on magic (natural magic is okay, spirit summoning is the work of the devil).

There were different laws against magic during the middle ages, including this distinction between 'good' natural magic and 'bad' astral/celestial/whathaveyou magic, and that limited what authors could get away with publishing but nevertheless there were grimoires that made it out there. Like everything else that was written though, this all took off and gained a hermetic element during the renaissance, and while authors like Ficino did their best not to make a scene, Agrippa managed to get away with a lot (I said this a few posts back but w/e). Some periods in the history of the church were less strict than others though, and you could be almost as heretical as you liked under a humanist pope.

Didn't happen much. It wasn't until after the Thirty Year's War that you could technically have freedom of religion at all, and even then it wasn't any guarantee (Protestants too persecuted "witches"). Just before Agrippa you could get killed for translating the Bible from Latin. And again, Agrippa was mostly into astrology and alchemy, and allegedly stopped believing in it altogether. Aside from astrology and alchemy, again he kept in line with the "natural magic" bit, thinking certain numbers or letters had power, like magic squares.

But then again, there are scientific documents of the 16th century with 'natural magic' in the title still being circulated in the 17th. Gradually a lot of what magic used to be became absorbed into science, but there were other things that weren't.

During the Enlightenment people did dabble and experiment, but it was more normal to scoff at the idea of magic. Kabbalah fell out of favour at this time as backwards and superstitious, for example, and magic was viewed as irrational.

Yes the practice of magic was condemned by the church. Doesn't mean they didn't happen. Also, Dee himself wasn't the summoner, he had a medium with which to communicate with the angels.

Prove it?

What piece of text am I claiming is older than it is? Pretty sure I acknowledge that liber null and psychonaut was written in 1987?

The Lesser Key Of Solomon, sir, which you admitted wasn't very old, and both keys are still scams, as Solomon could not have written it. The author had to know it was a lie, didn't he?

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Elystan

I was thinking solomonic mgic in general, of which the keys of solomon are of course the most famous texts, but for a 13th century example take for example the sworn book of honorious. Being the dark ages before then I don't think there's much evidence of that particular tradition.

The subject is quite murky because of the potential bias of any written record, but are you asserting that the whole of european occultism was merely an invention of its detractors?

A lot of it was! Key Of Solomon again alleges it was found and translated by archaeologists, and we know that was a fraud. The Honorious book is also a fraud book, claimed to have been written by Honorius of Thebes but no copy exists pre 1629.

One thing I will say is that people have been duped by the "its old and pre christian, I swear!" for a long time, eh?

[Elystan]

Originally Posted by Saya

Pico was hermetic in that it supported his belief that all religions are universal and essentially the same. He was also a critic of magic, particularly astrology. He was interested in "high magic" to protect oneself against demons and temptations and to make oneself a better Christian, but its also kind of a colonialist view to view him as a magician and he was very much in line with medieval views on magic (natural magic is okay, spirit summoning is the work of the devil).

Nevertheless he stands as an example of combined interest in hermetism and cabala long prior to the Golden Dawn. I could name other such figures fwho lived in the four hundred year interim, Kircher being one of them.

Originally Posted by Saya

Didn't happen much. It wasn't until after the Thirty Year's War that you could technically have freedom of religion at all, and even then it wasn't any guarantee (Protestants too persecuted "witches"). Just before Agrippa you could get killed for translating the Bible from Latin. And again, Agrippa was mostly into astrology and alchemy, and allegedly stopped believing in it altogether. Aside from astrology and alchemy, again he kept in line with the "natural magic" bit, thinking certain numbers or letters had power, like magic squares.

Most histories of magic will tell you that Agrippa differed from his contemporaries by openly promoting the practice of working with spirits. He took care to rationalise this as being consistent with Christian morality and metaphysics, because even in the period of relative intellectual freedom during which he lived to do otherwise would have been unthinkable.

Originally Posted by Saya

During the Enlightenment people did dabble and experiment, but it was more normal to scoff at the idea of magic. Kabbalah fell out of favour at this time as backwards and superstitious, for example, and magic was viewed as irrational.

Increasingly so yes, but interest in the subject persisted among a very small minority; it is called the "occult" for a reason.

Originally Posted by Saya

Prove it?

What, like show you a video? There's evidence that there were instructions for working with spirits floating round, there would almost certainly be people interested and motivated enough to give them a try.

Originally Posted by Saya

The Lesser Key Of Solomon, sir, which you admitted wasn't very old, and both keys are still scams, as Solomon could not have written it. The author had to know it was a lie, didn't he?

Well, solomonic magic had been extant for centuries before the lesser key was written, but you're right that at some point someone must have decided that he'd sell more copies if he pretended it was authored by solomon. Nevertheless, intonations which appear to partially be corruptions of dead languages were a feature which the rituals described share with magical practices in other cultures and it would seem fair to suppose oral traditions for working with spirits were part of earlier medieval culture.

[Elystan]

Originally Posted by Saya

A lot of it was! Key Of Solomon again alleges it was found and translated by archaeologists, and we know that was a fraud. The Honorious book is also a fraud book, claimed to have been written by Honorius of Thebes but no copy exists pre 1629.

One thing I will say is that people have been duped by the "its old and pre christian, I swear!" for a long time, eh?

There's a copy in the British museum dated to the 14th century, and plenty of others from before 1629.

So you're acknowledging that magic as a discipline is not some new fad in society conjured up from nowhere as it were in the last 100 years? If so we might be able to move on from the history lessons, but I <3 history.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Elystan

Nevertheless he stands as an example of combined interest in hermetism and cabala long prior to the Golden Dawn. I could name other such figures fwho lived in the four hundred year interim, Kircher being one of them.

Again, Hermeticism was the belief that all religions are universal, its not necessary to be hermetic and practice magic, especially when the dominant forms of that you don't consider to be magic at all, alchemy and astrology, and it didn't become even a little bit significant until after the Reformation. And those today who practice it are only a few thousand in number.

Most histories of magic will tell you that Agrippa differed from his contemporaries by openly promoting the practice of working with spirits. He took care to rationalise this as being consistent with Christian morality and metaphysics, because even in the period of relative intellectual freedom during which he lived to do otherwise would have been unthinkable.

Most histories? Like, people writing spell books who want your money?

There are three books on magic that we can say were written by him. They deal with angel summoning and natural magic. The others that people say are written by him are often fraudulent and didn't appear until well after his death.

Increasingly so yes, but interest in the subject persisted among a very small minority; it is called the "occult" for a reason.

So its so small and so full of fraudulent claims (leading to the 1725 Witchcraft Act stating that to claim magical powers and receive money for it amounts to fraud) that to reclaim that history is pretty damn silly, isn't it?

What, like show you a video? There's evidence that there were instructions for working with spirits floating round, there would almost certainly be people interested and motivated enough to give them a try.

There are these things called academic sources. They sometimes come in the form of peer reviewed journals, for example.

Well, solomonic magic had been extant for centuries before the lesser key was written, but you're right that at some point someone must have decided that he'd sell more copies if he pretended it was authored by solomon. Nevertheless, intonations which appear to partially be corruptions of dead languages were a feature which the rituals described share with magical practices in other cultures and it would seem fair to suppose oral traditions for working with spirits were part of earlier medieval culture.

Citation needed! Solomon as a magician was a exegetical claim, meaning that in medieval times where everyone believed in magic and saw it everywhere, if you read the Bible a certain way it seems like he was a magician. But it wasn't always the standard interpretation, so solomonic magic doesn't exactly have a long proud history.

So the common aristocrat who thinks Solomon was a magician might be interested in "oh hey, this book was written by King Solomon outlining his spells! Want to buy it?" just like everyone else who thought they heard the devil on their roof or thought that woman down the street cursed their livestock might believe anything you tell them. Doesn't mean the aristocrat might have used it, but might have put it next to the other "relics" in his collection.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Elystan

There's a copy in the British museum dated to the 14th century, and plenty of others from before 1629.

So you're acknowledging that magic as a discipline is not some new fad in society conjured up from nowhere as it were in the last 100 years? If so we might be able to move on from the history lessons, but I <3 history.

The sole manuscript that seemed to have belonged to Dee? No other copy existed. Where did he get it from?

Magic in the way you're talking about is a fad. I can still buy slap bracelets, but they were a fad in the nineties. It never gained popularity until the Spiritualist movement and it died down again until a revival in more recent times. Because now and again people pop up in history claiming to have powers or have a really old book (teehee) doesn't mean there was a tradition.

[Elystan]

Oh hey it turns out I am tired of the history thing after all. Also blah blah blah Freemasons Rosicrucians blah blah

Book on folk magic:

Cunning folk: popular magic in english history

Book on the witch trials:

Eros and evil; the sexual psychopathology of witchraft

Book on the Renaissance hermetists:

Giordano Bruno and the hermetic tradition

The latter is particularly interesting. These were all found in a university library, nobody was trying to sell me any spells.

Can we move on to discussing the merits of Crowleys writing and the Jungian perspective and the psychedelic revolution now?

[Elystan]

Originally Posted by Saya

The sole manuscript that seemed to have belonged to Dee? No other copy existed. Where did he get it from?

Will comment on this because it's an open goal;

http://www.esotericarchives.com/juratus/juratus.htm

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Elystan

Oh hey it turns out I am tired of the history thing after all. Also blah blah blah Freemasons Rosicrucians blah blah

Book on folk magic:

Cunning folk: popular magic in english history

Book on the witch trials:

Eros and evil; the sexual psychopathology of witchraft

Book on the Renaissance hermetists:

Giordano Bruno and the hermetic tradition

The latter is particularly interesting. These were all found in a university library, nobody was trying to sell me any spells.

Can we move on to discussing the merits of Crowleys writing and the Jungian perspective and the psychedelic revolution now?

My university library has tons of quack books. Sometimes I'm surprised they carry it at all, but they do. Because its in a library doesn't mean its a valid academic source. I've read a lot of books on the subject, and a lot of people claim things that they cannot prove.

I don't really want to discuss something that doesn't have any merit. All I've been doing is saying there isn't the history you like to claim there is.