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Wider Life...How 'Temple' Experiences integrate into Meatspace

  
  

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Scrambled Password Bogus Email
17:32 / 19.01.06
This thread is inspired by some comments made over in the very excellent Conversation thread regarding the Temple as a section of Barbelith generally, what it is, isn't, what it's used for and how people feel about it.

In this thread, a poster has expressed the opinion that the Temple suffers, to its detriment, from a lack of analysis as to how the many varied practices and theories discussed herein relate to a wider world, to a life outside of ritual, divination, invocation, evocation, masturbation and any of the innumerable other practices which are employed under the perhaps misleading and inadequate umbrella term 'Magic'.

I feel this is a great shame, particularly since said poster cites this as the main reason for not engaging with or taking much (or any) interest in this entire section of the board.

So, in a spirit of redressing this imbalance - if, indeed, it is so - this thread is an open invitation to those of you who do post here to begin a dialogue as to exactly that - how this whole, easily dismissed and highly questionable gamut of experience and practice, actually interlocks with the world at large. Does it benefit you and your community? If so how? Engage you with the environment and culture you live in, or divorce you from it? Bring you face to face with yourself and your responsibilities or enable you to indulge endless avenues of escapist diversionary tactics? Challenge you to assess your position and keep up with the change, and if so in what way, or invite you to be self-satisfied and complete? Or both, or any combination of these?

It would be ideal, actually, if those who have specific questions regarding this broad remit could add to this list so that those of us who feel like engaging with such can do so.

This thread is not really here to invite questions about whether Magic is 'real' or not, though if it goes that way (again), then so be it. Rather, this is a thread in which the 'reality' or not of the experience is considered moot : not taken for granted, nor dismissed out of hand, but considered largely irrelevant to the topic at hand; which is : How the experiences, real or not, interlock with the business of living and the world at large.

I don't have time to speak from my own experience right now, but hopefully some of you do.
 
 
squib
18:22 / 19.01.06
great thread Money $hot...

i think that much of our perception of the world has been drawn down to the physical, such that it has become easier and easier to "not believe" in those abstractions that don't have factual legitimacy.

I know people who don't believe in intuition (or the subconscious, or the significance of dreams). That's their way of navigating the world.

I put way more emphasis in the abstract, the immaterial, the theoretical - and only more recently has any of it had any recognizeable face in the physical world.

I tend to look at the physical things around me in terms of their symbolic associations as much as their physical characteristics.

I see the ubiquitous symbol of the dollar sign as a snake and ladder. The symbol speaks a certain truth about the object that facts simply don't address. It affects the way I deal with money, for good or ill.

Think of your current radius of perception. Sounds, sights, smells, sensations, and taste.

everything else eminates from your mind.
all this abstraction, all this study, is a means of explaining why this moment looks the way it does.

personally, I take all this great imagery, symbolism, history and particularly, progressive narrative, and construct stories out of them. like this evil clown blog fiction

the stories are means of examining relationships, between larger social bodies as much as individuals.

how to integrate it into a wider life?
use it as a vehicle for manifestation.

I developed my own calendar, and even though no one else uses it, I find it helps keep my otherwise chaotic self more organised.

I developed it using disparate esoteric and calendrical systems.

the calendar is the perfect tool for planning projects across levels of scale. 1-day, 4-day, 7-day, 13-day, 20-day, 260-day, 1-year, 20-year, 400-year, 8000 year, projects can be pursued, well beyond the lifetime of a single person, city or civilisation.

so, in my humble opinion, that's rather useful.

-not jack
 
 
grant
20:49 / 19.01.06
For me, I think a lot of All This actually sort of slows me down in uncunt-land because I tend to process things as having significance or imparting information. Instead of dodging an apple hurtling toward my head, I'm likely to wonder if I'm getting some kind of message about fertility or knowledge and what the synchronistic import...WHACK!
 
 
squib
22:23 / 19.01.06
this too, grant, is true.

although, it's usually the "whack" that starts me searching for meaning/significance/serendipity, etc...

--not jack
 
 
Morgana
22:26 / 19.01.06
Scary, I don't really know how to answer this thread, though I would love to. But it seems I'm not really able to separate Magical Me and wider life anymore...

I mean, you can't really live the magic and then go back to everyday life. Because magic will become like everyday life. Or the other way around. Which, of course, doesn't mean running around with your wand drawn all day, chanting incantations. It also doesn't mean constantly trying to sort out things by magical means rather than doing them the ordinary way (although, yes, sometimes it does).

What I'm talking about is viewing the world through a magical or spiritual mindset. You can do that even without practicing at all (at least for a while); still it will influence your opinions and actions quite a lot. As every mindset does.

Does it benefit me? Definitely, because this path is all about self-responsibility. Which means I don't have to stare helplessly into the cold eyes of fate, but am able to help myself. I often wonder about people who seem to think there's nothing they can do about their situation, because "things are just as they are". Philosophy tells me that things are much more just like I'm perceiving them - and magic tells me things are just what I make them.

Does it benefit others? Well, I know some magical ways of kicking other people's asses, which are much more effective than the usual means. And I think it's very important to make people act responsible for themselves rather than doing everything for them, which might be a good excuse for them to stay passive.

Engage and divorce - well, both. Magical experience can make you relate with the world in a much deeper way than everyday-conciousness. But it can also separate in exactly the way the thread at Conversation shows: People who have magical experiences usually have big problems communicating them to people lacking such knowledge. Which is reason enough for me only to share the magic with people who share these experiences. Which results in leading something like a double life.

But then again, since I've accepted the magical part of my life thouroughly (which took me a long way, being a sceptic at heart), I've started to realise that there are in fact much more links to other people's "ordinary lifes" than I thought there were. At the moment I feel it's more or less a question of languages, so I'm sometimes trying to translate some of my magical experiences into ordinary-life-language. Which, of course, is very difficult and has to be cautionary done - and please don't ask me for examples, as I can't really think of any, right now.

Well, at least it seems I have been able to answer the thread, after all...
 
 
My Mom Thinks I'm Cool
22:46 / 19.01.06
Well, aside from the very important fact that these practices make my average day more pleasant and my life in general seem more meaningful - the most obvious result is that a lot of rituals have served as very introspective learning experiences for me, which have made me much less of an asshole, which has no doubt been a wonderful thing for the community of people who are forced to interact with me.

Even more indirectly - I think it's beneficial in a practical way that I, as a techie kind of guy with a lot of atheist friends, stand as (I hope) an example of someone who believes in this stuff and yet is perceived as not being a nutball or an idiot, which is what they almost certainly otherwise believe about religious/mystic/arcane people. So I serve to help keep my community more open-minded.

Finally (and more directly) - no one has ever asked me to do a spell for them (one of the ladies at work thought her computer was possessed by an evil spirit, but I guessed correctly that it might not hurt to check for spyware before performing an exorcism) - but unintentionally I have had beneficial results which affected other people, such as work with ancestor worship and on the other side of the country on the same night my family rediscovers said ancestor's heirloom thought long-lost, etc.

I definitely agree that it can be alienating, not only in a "how on earth do I describe this to a normal person" kind of way, but also in that invariably my works are done in private and occasionally require me to bow out of group activities. "Sorry I was late to karaoke, I suddenly had to pray." No one believes you when you say that.
 
 
kidninjah
23:44 / 19.01.06
Fascinating thread folks. Thanks for starting it off Money. I was going to write a long piece on how you starting this is very timely from my point of view, as I'm starting to find more magical ideas appeal to me and/or that I want to become more involved with this aspect of humanity.

I spot coincidences a lot, and ponder their meanings from time to time. The thought that there's "cosmic coincidence control centre" un-nerves me. I dislike the big brother point of view. It's reassuring reading other peoples' perspectives on this, so thanks all so far and I hope to read more interesting tales.

Morgana's suggestion that much of this is a question of language makes a lot of sense to me. Having grown up in a strongly western-science culture and persuing science through to a-level and computing through degree, I have a very "materialistic" attitude to much "magical" work, always seeking resolution of the discussion with my understanding of minds and psychologies. The more I do this, however the more I find the "magical" viewpoint and the "material" viewpoint can run in paralell.

- This from a pre-beginner in magic who thinks "too much".
 
 
Tuna Ghost takes rad lessons
06:45 / 20.01.06
How has "Temple" activities affected life in meat-space...

eh...information, really. I have a lot of different ways to process it now, which is always useful...a richer, deeper understanding of the worlds both outside and inside my head, I guess is my answer. Really, I learn as much about myself as anything else.
 
 
Unconditional Love
14:50 / 20.01.06
Dear analysis,

An analysis is a critical evaluation, usually made by breaking a subject (either material or intellectual) down into its constituent parts, then describing the parts and their relationship to the whole.

Plenty of people seem to get the breaking things down part, but not so many get the relating the analysis to the whole part.

IE. the word analysis gets used as a word to dissect and destroy , without integration on the part of the people doing the analysis, rather theyd have somebody go off and try to prove themselves to there destroyer, a very corrupt scientific method, we have pulled you apart now you go off and put yourself together again. Amounts more to intellectual bullying and psychological abuse.

Magick/spirtuality is not a corpse to be dissected nor is anything else.

Its not up to me to prove myself, just be (unbe) myself.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
15:13 / 20.01.06
A bit of intellectual bullying and psychological abuse never hurt anyone.

Great thread. Not sure when I'm going to get a chance to do it justice. Touched on the subject in the "what is the temple for?" conversation thread, but more to write about I think. Will return in a less busy moment.
 
 
Unconditional Love
15:19 / 20.01.06
After my knee jerk, kick them in the face (repeatedly) reaction.

I think analysis is a valid and useful form if it is employed to magical/spiritual life to greater improve your magical/spiritual life.

Frankly people that just want to break magical/spiritual life down and perhaps replace it with there own philosophical stance can go fuck themselves (another punch them in the face repeatedly) .

If for example somebody wants to improve my magical spiritual life through analysis thats great and i welcome all attempts to improve my magical spiritual life and then reintegrate my new improved spirituality back into me, with the go faster stripes.

( Though in all honesty part of me finds it very offensive to the point of violence, not directed at any person, but more towards the institutionalised arrogance of certain philosophys and there utter need to replace indigenous spiritualities and spiritual/magical view points with there own. Two big philosophical institutions especially come to mind in the west, those being christianity and materialism, partners in crime to my mind.)
 
 
Unconditional Love
15:30 / 20.01.06
Actually it hurts alot, and really. Atheist materialism is a direct attack on spiritual people, its a denial of there perception and way of living, just as christianity colonised and stripped people, athiest materialism is intent on doing the same thing, its a highly destructive force to spirtual cultures, it is both abusive and bullying and down right cunning in its methods.

Not to mention the damage done in its name to the environment of spiritual people, it has alot to fucking answer for, its shiny chrome cloak is no longer attractive.

Both the moral and ethical environment of many devolping countries is also damaged by exclusively atheist materialist view points, especially the introduction of western media.
 
 
Mordant Carnival
15:56 / 20.01.06
TBH I think I'm actually really bad at this at the moment. I used to be a lot more into gearing my whole practice to the external--from magic-aided job hunting, to self-improvment such that I'd be easier to be around, to group workings for global peace (maaaan).

That's changed quite dramatically in the past year. Now I'm almost entirely focused on the whole heathen-mysticism thing and I don't reckon I'm doing as much as I could to derive effects from that to benefit the wider community.

Partly this is because everything's a bit new still (read: I don't have the faintest clue what I'm doing). When you get into spirit-work as it relates to magical practice, there's the long process of actually getting to the place where one can reasonably ask Them Upstairs for help, developing a decent relationship with the powers you're dealing with. The bulk of my current practice is geared towards improving that relationship, gaining a deeper understanding of the mysteries each being represents: communion, I suppose. I'm not really in a position to actually ask for much yet except that communion.

So what I'm trying to do in terms of taking that into the wider world is to allow the Gods and spirits access into every area of my life. Reflect on what I've done during the day and on my plans for the future, and consider which powers are being celebrated in that activity. Slowly, everything becomes touched with the Divine.

(Except now I can't just go and clean the kitchen for half an hour as a grounding excercise because I'm thinking hmm, housewight, God/desses ect. Is nothing profane anymore?)
 
 
Quantum
17:29 / 20.01.06
Is nothing profane anymore?

You have got a television, right? I dare you to scry the divine nature of the Big Brother house in terms of the Aesir... George Galloway as, er, Baldur? Pricked by the mistletoe dart of the media? I can't see it myself (but then I don't have a telly).


Magic in the wider world, hrrm. I like to think I provide a service to my community by teaching Tarot and doing readings (and did I mention the shop?) but really I'm just serving people with the same delusion. Like a priest.

In My Mind, I provide people with what they used to get from Religion- meaning, a reminder of the important things that get obscured by day-to-day life, a better understanding of themselves. It's similar in function to counselling or psychoanalysis, and perhaps poetry or music or the arts, providing no tangible benefits except a sense of wellbeing.

Magic is such an integral part of my day-to-day living, and so fundamental to my understanding of the world, I can't compartmentalise it very easily. Ask a musician how they integrate their music into their normal life, see what they say- I suspect they'll say the same thing a magician will say, it's a fundamental part of it not something alongside it.
 
 
squib
17:32 / 20.01.06
typing words out on barbelith is not the tao.

--not jack
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
20:00 / 20.01.06
Ask a musician how they integrate their music into their normal life, see what they say- I suspect they'll say the same thing a magician will say, it's a fundamental part of it not something alongside it.

TBH, this is something I wished to point out to the original poster in the Convo thread...who posed this question in the first place. In the Comics forum, or Music forum or whichever forum, these sorts of questions would be considered...unusual at best : How does your experience of music, or film interlock with life in general? How does your experience of science and tific materialism integrate with the world in your kitchen, your fridge door, your morning toast? But then, it is a slightly different kettle of haddock, isn't it, this 'magic' malarkey...

I still don't really have time to answer my own set-up here properly at the moment, but keep 'em coming.
 
 
Mordant Carnival
20:51 / 20.01.06
It is a different receptacle of seafood. If I play you a CD you may not agree with me on many aspects of the experience; I may think that it is the best band EVAR, you may think it's an appalling racket. You may question my judgement, my taste and even my definition of music, but you're unlikely to question the fact that the round shiny thing is a CD, that it contains data which can be converted into audible noise and so on. At some point we come to a consensus on some aspects of the experience.

Magic is different because not only can I not play you my new CD, I can't even necessarily show you the cover art. Or even demonstrate that such a thing as a CD exists...
 
 
Quantum
21:27 / 20.01.06
Especially if I have never seen a CD player or a CD and think of it as kind of like a guitar. And I virulently believe that live guitar music is the only music and anything else is noise not music. And conceptualise your explanation of CDs in terms of guitarists jamming in the past projected into the future (now the present) which is not only ridiculous but pointless if you have a guitar, which I do right here, let's talk about guitars some more.

If you see what I mean.
 
 
grant
21:58 / 20.01.06
That's changed quite dramatically in the past year. Now I'm almost entirely focused on the whole heathen-mysticism thing and I don't reckon I'm doing as much as I could to derive effects from that to benefit the wider community.

Bullshit. You're a fucking inspiration, you are.
 
 
Dead Megatron
22:19 / 20.01.06
I agree, MC is inspirational, and so is Money $hot. They are my favorite Temple-posters...

This board has recently inspired me to pick up on I-Ching, and it has been yelding some interesting results so far.

And some advises I've got here made me change completely an idea for a new tattoo I was planing to do. Don't know yet if it was for the better, but I'm confident so...
 
 
Mordant Carnival
22:38 / 20.01.06
You're all fucked.

I dread to think what's going to happen to all you inspired people if I end up in the nuthouse on antipsychotics.
 
 
Dead Megatron
22:49 / 20.01.06
Have you ever read Fight Club? (the book, not the film). Just because you're commited, that doesn't mean we would not follow you, dear
 
 
Evil Scientist
22:54 / 20.01.06
Two big philosophical institutions especially come to mind in the west, those being christianity and materialism, partners in crime to my mind.

Suggesting that materialism somehow agrees with Christianity? Not as far as I am aware. Christianity is a spiritual path, and if, as you say later in your post:

Atheist materialism is a direct attack on spiritual people

Then materialism is unlikely to be sympathetic to one spiritual path over all the others.

I don't feel this to be an accurate statement. As with most things it depends on the person you're discussing your beliefs with. In my life currently I feel I could easily be placed under this general term. It doesn't mean that I am out to destroy spiritual beliefs.

However, I do believe that blind faith is a dangerous thing. Which is why I ask questions of those who follow a different path to me. It's not intended to be destructive, it's a way of understanding.

I will debate the potential non-existance of God with a Christian, as I debate the existence of magic here on Barbelith. I personally believe that if you can't justify your belief in something then the grounding of that belief is fragile.
 
 
Mordant Carnival
23:39 / 20.01.06
Atheist materialism is a direct attack on spiritual people

I think I'd need the expression 'Atheist materialism' explained to me a bit before I could do it justice. I will say, though, that I don't feel attacked in any way by atheism or by atheists. My partner is an atheist. He doesn't believe in God, or Gods, or magic, or divination--any of WIIWD here in the Temple.

Now, he could use this to make all kinds of difficulties for me, play all kinds of head-games. But he never does. Instead he's prepared to accept and support my spiritual, magical and divinatory practices simply because he sees that they are an important part of my life. Instead of demanding that I abandon my way of looking at the world, he's prepared to step back and give me space. In this way he acts as my earth-wire, my reality check. The fact that he's prepared to make so many allowances and adjustments is amazing and humbling.

In contrast, I've had self-proclaimed magicians, healers, and so forth in my life who've attacked me and my practice without mercy. I've been told I was lying, imagining things--one person actually told that I was suffering from schizophrenia and should start using heroin to control it, because if I talked to a medical professional about my experiences I'd be locked up.

I think I'll stick with the atheist if it's all the same to you guys.
 
 
Dead Megatron
23:46 / 20.01.06
Wow, taking heroin to self-medicate schizophrenia? Now, that's [inset sarcastic tone here] a sound advice... Later on, you can always get into crack to cure your heroin addiction...
 
 
Mordant Carnival
00:26 / 21.01.06
Well, quite. Fortunately I ignored that particular handy hint.
 
 
Unconditional Love
14:19 / 21.01.06
Could george bush invoke god and then go to war on iraq without the cooperation of scientific advancement in the production of better and better weapons?
 
 
Unconditional Love
14:36 / 21.01.06
You support each other in the social and political landscape of the west wether you like it or not, science directly and physically contributes to the percieved power of christian fundamentalism, through the implementation of scientific philosophies and theories that are used to create tools which are then used by christian fundamentalists. An abortion doctor gets shot by a christian fundamentalist, what philosophy produced the gun? and what the fundamentalist? Your mutual conflict is mutually supportive so that each philosophy may thrive by being in conflict with each other. A pretense based on conflict as a cover story, blind faith in other peoples programmes.

No shiny toys, no shiny angels.
Polluted air and insane words.
 
 
Mordant Carnival
14:46 / 21.01.06
Could you even post that last sentence without the benefit of the modern heathcare that prevented you from dying during infancy or childhood, not to mention the scientific development behind the technology that you are using right now?

THI, I actually like you as a poster but when you talk shite, you really talk shite. I don't even know where to start with that last post but I suppose I ought to try.

Could george bush invoke god and then go to war on iraq without the cooperation of scientific advancement in the production of better and better weapons?

What do you mean by "the co-operation of scientific advancement"? Scientific advancement doesn't mean "more and deadlier weapons." Scientific advancement means that we understand the physical world a bit better than we did before. Science doesn't make bombs. Science doesn't do anything--it only attempts to describe.

Now, scientific knowledge can obviously be applied to the creation of weapons, but that's not "scientific advancement," it's technological advancement. Research and development don't happen in a vacuum. R&D require space, equipment, and personnel with specific education and skills. In our society this means that research requires money, and that money is largely in the hands of the ruling ideology, who generally want either a) fat profits, b) a bigger and splodier arsenal, or c) both of the above.

Scientific advancement doesn't automatically lead to more sophisticated weapons technology--people have to come along, look at those new discoveries or theories, and choose to apply them to the development of weapons. People have to direct scientific advancement towards discoveries that may lead to advances in weapons technology.

Science didn't create the war in Iraq. Atheism didn't create the war in Iraq. You could certainly argue that materialism played a very great part in creating the war in Iraq and I'd be right with you, but atheism does not equal materialism. The comment you posted above just doesn't make any tiny bit of sense.
 
 
Unconditional Love
14:53 / 21.01.06
These two philosophies together in my opinion create forms of suffering, pain and misery in the world i live in, imo.

Each promises a form of salvation in its own way, neither of them can deliver.

More wars, more famine, more suffering.

If magic is will given form, then what these philosophies give form, is destruction.

dissection without reintegration, light that casts the deepest darkest shadow.
 
 
Unconditional Love
14:55 / 21.01.06
I speak emotionally mordant, no heartshop here, i speak from feeling.
 
 
Mordant Carnival
14:55 / 21.01.06
Lopt's tits, you've been at the nutmeg again haven't you.

what philosophy produced the gun?

Lust for power. Please explain what this hav to do with atheism or science.
 
 
Unconditional Love
14:58 / 21.01.06
I get the impression that especially in barbelith its not okay to speak from feeling, everything has to come from the mind, why is that?
 
 
Unconditional Love
15:01 / 21.01.06
Are feelings just too messy? must i intellectualise everything in this place? if so this place is already consumed by the monstroscity i am typing on.
 
 
Mordant Carnival
15:03 / 21.01.06
For bonus points, please explain:

a) When atheism has ever been a ruling ideology anywhere ever;
b) Why atheism must necessarily imply materialism;
c) Why science necessarily equals dissection without re-integration.

I get the impression that especially in barbelith its not okay to speak from feeling, everything has to come from the mind, why is that?

I am speaking from feeling, THI. I am speaking from feeling right now. You will note the increasing lack of coherence and decreasing degree of courtesy, both of which I will no doubt regret when I've calmed down and had a chance to think about the issue.
 
  

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