Why is Modern Magic not supernatural?

[Slytherin]

Why does almost nobody practice supernatural magic, which supersedes the natural laws? Why do they perform pentagram based rituals that bring about the desired effect without violating the natural laws?

 

[Xingtian]

What are natural laws? If something is supernatural, by what mechanism does it interact with the natural?

 

[Robert Ramsay]

As far as I'm concerned, there is no such thing as the supernatural. All the incredible things that we experience are natural things that we don't understand yet, and the fact that we attribute them to the 'supernatural' shows a) how little we understand them and b) a lack of imagination.

I realise this may not be a popular viewpoint amongst magicians.

 

[Taudefindi]

Why does almost nobody practice supernatural magic, which supersedes the natural laws?

I think you're talkking about the type of magic we tend to see in works of fiction, like Dr.Strange, D&D, Merlin or Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.
the magic that is instant and flashy(for a lack of a better term).Like saying "fireball" and suddenly you have a fireball in your hands to throw at someone.

So far, I haven't seen this type of magic nor heard of people practicing it.Would love if I ever achieved something like that but it seems so "out there" that even the stars in the sky are more reachable by comparison.

As far as I'm concerned, there is no such thing as the supernatural.

I was ready to tell you "the supernatural does exist",

All the incredible things that we experience are natural things that we don't understand yet

but then you said that and I couldn't help but agree with.I imagine that many marvels we have nowadays would seem like magic for the ignorant people of ages ago.And if someone ever came from the future to show us an amazing technology and explained it to us, we would still consider that to be supernatural still due to our lack of understanding.

a) how little we understand them and b) a lack of imagination

I think the lack of imagination is the worst, because if they can't imagine then they can't try to think outside the box and all they'll do is stay inside the same lines traced by many others before them.

 

[Konsciencia]

Why does almost nobody practice supernatural magic, which supersedes the natural laws? Why do they perform pentagram based rituals that bring about the desired effect without violating the natural

Well.... almost everything you see in movies are Supernatural in Nature. I always say, anything is possible in this world.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Well.... almost everything you see in movies are Supernatural in Nature. I always say, anything is possible in this world.

"We were heinously lied to, by our album covers!"

In Anil Seth's book, "Being You" he points out that although all of us can imagine a 747 flying backwards, none of us will ever see one. Interestingly, he uses this argument against the 'Philosophical Zombie' (something that behaves exactly like a human but has no inner life) but I think it works here too. (And the p-zombie is one of the reasons I don't really trust philosophers)

 

[HoldAll]

Quite simply put: because nobody likes to bash his head against the walls of reality in vain for decades. People use magic to get ahead in life or for purely spiritual or mystical reasons but simply attempting to overcome natural laws out of curiosity usually proves to be too frustrating to keep it up in the long run. It's a very lonely pursuit without any outside encouragement and support with little realistic chance of success, and countless chases up blind alleys are practically guaranteed. You almost certainly will not get any outside validation, everybody will say that you're on a wild goose chase and write you off as a fool.

Mind you, the apparent futility of such a quest hasn't stopped alchemists from pursuing their goal, for example, who also endeavour to go against natural laws. Chaos magicians, on the other hand, tend to calculate probabilities (perhaps influenced by thinkers like Peter J. Carroll, a trained scientists) and discard any project with excessive odds stacked against them. A quest to supersede natural laws would be magic for magic's sake, and I don't think many practioners haven't the required excessive degree of curiosity in this respect.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Quite simply put: because nobody likes to bash his head against the walls of reality in vain for decades. People use magic to get ahead in life or for purely spiritual or mystical reasons but simply attempting to overcome natural laws out of curiosity usually proves to be too frustrating to keep it up in the long run. It's a very lonely pursuit without any outside encouragement and support with little realistic chance of success, and countless chases up blind alleys are practically guaranteed. You almost certainly will not get any outside validation, everybody will say that you're on a wild goose chase and write you off as a fool.

Mind you, the apparent futility of such a quest hasn't stopped alchemists from pursuing their goal, for example, who also endeavour to go against natural laws. Chaos magicians, on the other hand, tend to calculate probabilities (perhaps influenced by thinkers like Peter J. Carroll, a trained scientists) and discard any project with excessive odds stacked against them. A quest to supersede natural laws would be magic for magic's sake, and I don't think many practioners haven't the required excessive degree of curiosity in this respect.

Very well said. I took the other path, trying to discover how magic is a part of natural law, and that took me thirty years to come to any decent conclusions, so I can't imagine how long the 'supernatural' path might take!

 

[Taudefindi]

simply attempting to overcome natural laws out of curiosity usually proves to be too frustrating to keep it up in the long run

If someone makes that their raison d'être, then surely they will end up frustrated.If they take it as an interesting hobby or something to have fun with though, this will be more manageable.I think people tend to take everything so seriously that they forget that this kind of magic is the one that children think of, something that is wondrous and seems impossible but to a child it will always make sense to exist.

We see everything from an adult's perspective of only desiring results and forget that imagining and experimenting, having fun while doing it, are the reason why children still can see the magic in the world while most adults can only see the harshness of reality.

discard any project with excessive odds stacked against them

The bigger the gamble, the bigger the losses, but also the bigger the payout.I think this would boil down to how much one is willing to gamble on.

 

[Konsciencia]

To me, Magick is everywhere. Including nature. Even people who are not practicing Magick, they do Magick everyday without them realizing it.

 

[beardedeldridge]

The short answer is that it’s just astronomically easier to put your finger on the scale and apply a little pressure to get your dream job then it is to create wealth out of almost thin air. I think holdall gave a good explanation of it above and konsciencia made an important point as well.

Why don’t magicians just win the lottery? It’s not that influencing how some balls bounce and land is impossible, it’s just how many people are sitting there trying to will their numbers to come up? 300,000,000 people sitting there wishing/hoping/praying/doing magick with all their might that they can retire tomorrow after winning, is a lot of force/will to overcome. And there are probably plenty of other sources of influence being applied knowingly/unknowingly on that outcome. And even that isn’t breaking reality, as we think of it, it’s just attempting to influence an outcome that is just as likely as any other possible outcome.

Look around the occult community, there’s a whole lot of people who can’t even get the relatively “simple” outcomes they seek. So yeah don’t expect anybody to be causing lighting to shoot across the sky and hit a target anytime soon. It’s definitely possible but for a whole lot of reasons don’t go holding your breath waiting for it to happen.

-Eld

 

[Robert Ramsay]

To me, Magick is everywhere. Including nature. Even people who are not practicing Magick, they do Magick everyday without them realizing it.

I agree. But since their 'intent' is some random thing from their subconscious, what you mostly end up with is the number of your taxi cab matching the last few digits of your phone number. Unlikely, but not helpful.

 

[Amur]

Dao is everything and nothing it's both Infinity and 0. Both empty and full. Unity(1) is the path there.

 

[Anziel_Merkaba]

There are a few points I'd like to elaborate on that are tangential to points people have already made.

First, magic is highly dependent on individual will and understanding. People who are just starting out seem to often 'get lucky' with results because they don't have any preconceived notions about how magic works. They understand what they are doing and what they want to occur as a result of what they are doing, but they don't have the 'this can only be done this way because of this reason' really ingrained into their practice yet. So while they may have read some books and gained a superficial understanding of the concepts and practices they are working with, they haven't set in their ways the same way a lot of older more experienced practitioners have, and thus they still have flexibility.

Second, the division of natural and supernatural being just lack of understanding, where there is only natural law we understand, and natural law that we don't understand. There's an idea that I've pondered where if someone with no exposure to the mundane world was to be taught basic magical exercises without being taught about the limits of them, they could theoretically accomplish anything they can imagine since they aren't weighed down by the beliefs that things are hard or impossible. The problem is that the majority of people who start practicing magic are doing so primarily out of dissatisfaction, whether it be with themselves, their place in the world, or their social connections (or lack thereof). If someone is satisfied with themselves and their life they generally won't explore the esoteric arts outside of a few niche cases built upon curiosity and lack of restraint. This idea put into practice would be basically somewhat isolating a child from the world and teaching them magic, without exposing them to the rigors of life or the ideas that would limit them.

Third, magic has lost efficacy with the rise of materialism and atheism. People haven't seen magic, but do see a lot of things denying magic, which propagates the idea that magic isn't real in any form. Because people collectively stopped seriously believing in magic and spirituality in any meaningful capacity, anyone who does practice magic has to work against the collective will of humanity that denies their magic, thus lowering the upper limits of what a practitioner can do. Back before the magic 'died', when there was still wonder and mystery in the world, I believe magic was a lot easier to accomplish in terms of large scale workings and practices, because people still believed in it, or at least didn't disbelieve.

There are a lot of things that people could talk about on the subject of magic, the natural, and the perceived supernatural, but a lot of these ideas have already been explored and talked about by every generation of magic practitioners since the end of the witch hunts. We could talk more about it but frankly it is all fairly redundant in that there aren't really any new ideas or directions about it. So I would recommend focusing on what you can do instead of what other people can't do.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Third, magic has lost efficacy with the rise of materialism and atheism. People haven't seen magic, but do see a lot of things denying magic, which propagates the idea that magic isn't real in any form. Because people collectively stopped seriously believing in magic and spirituality in any meaningful capacity, anyone who does practice magic has to work against the collective will of humanity that denies their magic, thus lowering the upper limits of what a practitioner can do. Back before the magic 'died', when there was still wonder and mystery in the world, I believe magic was a lot easier to accomplish in terms of large scale workings and practices, because people still believed in it, or at least didn't disbelieve.

Magicians have always had to work in spite of humanity - that is why the most effective magical workings are performed alone, and why, if you need to work with other people, rituals and suchlike are required to make sure everyone is on the same page and working as a unit. If you tell anyone not involved, about the magical act before it is complete, you've then involved them too, and their contribution is likely to just be noise to your signal.

What I discovered in my research is that success is nurtured by increasing a) the number of possible results that count as a success and b) the amount of ignorance that you have about how that success might happen.

On the other side, high speed communication through the internet has thrown into sharp relief how credulous people can be, as "a lie can be halfway round the world before the truth has its boots on" as Terry Pratchett put it.

Large scale magic nowadays is less about imposing your belief system directly and more about manipulating peoples' existing belief systems to get them to do what you want, in spite of any facts that might get in your way.

So, I believe that magic is just as potent as it ever was, but the methods used to successfully apply it have changed. All the more effective if the people you are manipulating by magic don't believe in it.

 

[Xenophon]

Magicians have always had to work in spite of humanity - that is why the most effective magical workings are performed alone, and why, if you need to work with other people, rituals and suchlike are required to make sure everyone is on the same page and working as a unit. If you tell anyone not involved, about the magical act before it is complete, you've then involved them too, and their contribution is likely to just be noise to your signal.

What I discovered in my research is that success is nurtured by increasing a) the number of possible results that count as a success and b) the amount of ignorance that you have about how that success might happen.

On the other side, high speed communication through the internet has thrown into sharp relief how credulous people can be, as "a lie can be halfway round the world before the truth has its boots on" as Terry Pratchett put it.

Large scale magic nowadays is less about imposing your belief system directly and more about manipulating peoples' existing belief systems to get them to do what you want, in spite of any facts that might get in your way.

So, I believe that magic is just as potent as it ever was, but the methods used to successfully apply it have changed. All the more effective if the people you are manipulating by magic don't believe in it.

All interesting, but one question. You mention "increasing...the number of possible results that count as success." I'm not really clear as to what that means. If one wanted to be bitchy, he could ask, "You mean like redefining 'pass' as getting a score of 50, not 70 and calling the uptick in 'passing' grades' improvement.'" I tend to think that circumstances limit the number of results that can possibly count as success. As in Strawson's, "The 'Cat is on the mat' is true if and only if the cat is in fact on the mat." So could you give me a magick example? I'd buy your book, but it's hard getting stuff shipped to China.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

All interesting, but one question. You mention "increasing...the number of possible results that count as success." I'm not really clear as to what that means. If one wanted to be bitchy, he could ask, "You mean like redefining 'pass' as getting a score of 50, not 70 and calling the uptick in 'passing' grades' improvement.'" I tend to think that circumstances limit the number of results that can possibly count as success. As in Strawson's, "The 'Cat is on the mat' is true if and only if the cat is in fact on the mat." So could you give me a magick example? I'd buy your book, but it's hard getting stuff shipped to China.

An easy (and facile) example would be an intent stated as "I will sleep with someone called Dave" and then extending it to "I will sleep with someone called Dave or someone called Jane". Hey presto! As Woody Allen said "You've doubled your chances of a date on Saturday night".

So it's about making sure you don't restrict your possible range of successes by restricting the range of your stated intent.

Is the e-book version also difficult to get in China? I'm afraid my knowledge of day-to-day life in China is approximately zero :-/

 

[Xenophon]

An easy (and facile) example would be an intent stated as "I will sleep with someone called Dave" and then extending it to "I will sleep with someone called Dave or someone called Jane". Hey presto! As Woody Allen said "You've doubled your chances of a date on Saturday night".

So it's about making sure you don't restrict your possible range of successes by restricting the range of your stated intent.

Is the e-book version also difficult to get in China? I'm afraid my knowledge of day-to-day life in China is approximately zero :-/

Sorry---I just assumed it was Amazon. Send me a link for the ebook as message, if you would.

Anyway your point is don't limit range of intent? A lot of magick books stress being highly specific as to results. Some of that, though, is just CYA against collateral results. E.g., if you are seeking 100K, make sure you specify that you don't want your Aunt Emma whacked out for the coming inheritance.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Sorry---I just assumed it was Amazon. Send me a link for the ebook as message, if you would.

Done.

Anyway your point is don't limit range of intent? A lot of magick books stress being highly specific as to results. Some of that, though, is just CYA against collateral results. E.g., if you are seeking 100K, make sure you specify that you don't want your Aunt Emma whacked out for the coming inheritance.

Don't limit it unnecessarily, and I agree: it's a fine line between specifying your results and ending up with a 'monkey's paw' type result.

 

[Wolf]

Why does almost nobody practice supernatural magic, which supersedes the natural laws? Why do they perform pentagram based rituals that bring about the desired effect without violating the natural laws?

What?