[Opinion] using video games and popular culture stuff in magic

[Morell]

Might be quite controversial topic for some, but worth considering. One of my thoughts on it is, that no matter how we might see it today, in the future generations it might be considered that we took our "mythology" quite seriously. It actually is a mythology of our time, our myths, no matter how we look at them.

So, for clear understanding, what I call modern mythology or modern myths, I mean things like LOTR universe, magical systems from games, or even the deities from pop culture and all that stuff.

I see a lot of value in modern mythology. Some people, like me, actually, do not relate to traditional systems and religions, like Christianity. But we do relate and sort of live modern myths. Just my personal example is that demons of Goethia or most angels are nothing but empty names with no meaning behind them, while I slightly shiver when thinking about Frostmourne, the sword of Arthas. When I was considering ritual knife, I got this idea that it could be excellent choice to use how I feel and think about his one... so I got a replica for cases I would need to get serious. Tried to do banishing ritual with it and damn! The space around me felt uncomfortably empty, The most empty I ever achieved.

I do not buy that there are objectively better or worse magic tools, there is simply stuff that works for you and that doesn't work for you and sometimes we find working stuff in places that might surprise and possibly scare or disgust others as it doesn't fit their faith. But that doesn't really matter, what others see, their perspective is theirs and only reflects what works or doesn't work for them.

Of course there are many who would be very vocal on working with modern myths but the more they speak, the less they do the work. Those mages wanna-be are not only among those who use modern myths, they are not-using more traditional systems just the same...

 

[OberonFromTheHills]

I believe that using pop culture helps in different levels that all together create the magick you need :

1. Creative visualisation : remember Dragon Ball creating spirit bombs? Watch the scene and try to picture yourself doing it. Put the more sensory elements you can.

2. The emotional trigger : say "expecto patronum" in your mind, imagine a deer figure running in the room erasing all the dementors in it.... See the deer glowing more and more. How do you feel?

3. Throw out you correspondance book and create yours : which character embody the air element to you? Imagine being this character, maybe he can fly/glade/invoke that element (like Ventus in Kingdom Hearts) What colors does he wear? How is his personnality?

 

[Zegaroth]

It makes sense to use what is emotionally charged for you to act as powerful symbols. That, and even fictional things hold archetypal forces and therefore relational powers in the psyche and likely the astral plane. Using Frostmourne for a banishing ritual is awesome! I often daydream about Khorne from Warhammer when I exercise or want to get more done at work. I could overtly make it a magical act... but invoking Khorne sounds possibly dangerous, lmao.

 

[Albintres]

The Buddha says we create the world with our minds. By extension the world is your mind and not mine and by extension extension each and every one of us unique minds has an equally unique universe. Long story short your universe is simply not mine however much you want it to be. Sure you have a lovely horse.
Use video games. Knock yourself out. I reference Blackadder and Red Dwarf and Laurel and Hardy in ways that make sense to me in the same way my manager was talking about Abbot and Costello.

Thing was I got what he was trying to put across when I ignored his crassness and went for the jugular archetype.

 

[Morell]

The Buddha says we create the world with our minds. By extension the world is your mind and not mine and by extension extension each and every one of us unique minds has an equally unique universe. Long story short your universe is simply not mine however much you want it to be. Sure you have a lovely horse.
Use video games. Knock yourself out. I reference Blackadder and Red Dwarf and Laurel and Hardy in ways that make sense to me in the same way my manager was talking about Abbot and Costello.

Thing was I got what he was trying to put across when I ignored his crassness and went for the jugular archetype.

How are you using Red Dwarf? That is some thing I really want to know.

 

[Albintres]

How are you using Red Dwarf? That is some thing I really want to know.

absolutely, there is an early episode where we are introduced to the Cat, and being vain, conceited and a little arrogant he is skipping down the ship's corridor armed with a small atomiser with which he is using to mark his territory the way cats do (our neighbours is especially good at firing his piss across the Hebe) with the smug utterance of 'this is mine, (squirt) this is mine (squirt) oh and this is mine (squirt). The whole visualisation is perfectly apt to threading the last knot on a cord in the nine knot spell, the rhyme ending something like I won't quote it all
knot of seven, the Stars of heaven,
By knot of eight, the hand of Fate,
By knot of nine, the thing is mine!

 

[Morell]

I'm Red Dwarf freak, so I'm really excited to hear that... though I would never use RD like this, I love your idea! It sounds really cool.

 

[r4zorenigma]

Sounds like an interesting concept.. and can be fun to get creative with. There may reside power in it for you, especially if it has a great influence on you.

 

[Tryp]

Would you include the whole Cthulhu Mythos in this category? Just curious, it's the kind of topic I'd like to catch up with some day.

I am aware that some people (and I don't mean just chaotes) developed a practice around them, and if I remember right, with anticosmic vibes, of course. But I used to be a bona fide Cthulhu nerd in my teens, playing the table RPG with my buddies and all, and the first time I read Kenneth Anger discussing Lovecraft I spent half of the time fascinated, the other half chuckling.

Would lovecraftian mythology be a good example or did it really jump the shark time ago?

 

[nunaphael]

Would you include the whole Cthulhu Mythos in this category? Just curious, it's the kind of topic I'd like to catch up with some day.

I am aware that some people (and I don't mean just chaotes) developed a practice around them, and if I remember right, with anticosmic vibes, of course. But I used to be a bona fide Cthulhu nerd in my teens, playing the table RPG with my buddies and all, and the first time I read Kenneth Anger discussing Lovecraft I spent half of the time fascinated, the other half chuckling.

Would lovecraftian mythology be a good example or did it really jump the shark time ago?

Are you sure you're not me? I don't remember writing that post, how odd...

I did basically the same thing as a teenager, I was really into the Lovecraftian mythos, played Call of Cthulhu, loved the sanity system and made it a house rule in all my other games as well, which were mostly World of Darkness (vampire: the masqurade, mage: the ascension, werewolf: the apocalypse, etc). I'd even extend this to that as well. Consider World of Darkness as a source for inspiration, right? In the "old" WoD setting (before the "new" WoD got printed) there was this trinity that the Garou dealt with called the Wyld, the Weaver, and the Wyrm. I remember being so inspired by that, I thought it might actually be real at the time and they were just pretending it was an RPG. The very idea of there being this elaborate spiritual/occult world right in front of us that we don't see because we're ordinarily not meant to see it. I loved that idea, and I still love that idea. I think it's what really anchors me in my practices to this day. The thought that, in a way, the world we live in really is kinda like that.

 

[Tryp]

Are you sure you're not me? I don't remember writing that post, how odd...

I did basically the same thing as a teenager, I was really into the Lovecraftian mythos, played Call of Cthulhu, loved the sanity system and made it a house rule in all my other games as well, which were mostly World of Darkness (vampire: the masqurade, mage: the ascension, werewolf: the apocalypse, etc). I'd even extend this to that as well. Consider World of Darkness as a source for inspiration, right? In the "old" WoD setting (before the "new" WoD got printed) there was this trinity that the Garou dealt with called the Wyld, the Weaver, and the Wyrm. I remember being so inspired by that, I thought it might actually be real at the time and they were just pretending it was an RPG. The very idea of there being this elaborate spiritual/occult world right in front of us that we don't see because we're ordinarily not meant to see it. I loved that idea, and I still love that idea. I think it's what really anchors me in my practices to this day. The thought that, in a way, the world we live in really is kinda like that.

I remember playing Vampire a bunch of times, Werewolf perhaps a bit, and Mage not at all... perhaps because my group started early, we were pretty much exploring all new publications (each of us ended up having two or three games each to host) and as the variety of offer in the market exploded we already were overbooked. And well, then life happens and game nights become rarer and rarer.

But see, that lore bit from WoD is a very good example for this thread. The Cthulhu mythos lore is maybe harder to integrate or draw inspiration from in magical practice, unless you're comfortable with the whole eldritch-beings-beyond-the-veil thing, which kinda leads you to this dark, hopeless proto-nihilistic cosmos which may be difficult to adopt in all seriousness, unless that happens to be your jam (it is not really mine).

There are some aspects of it, though, that may have had an influence on my way of thinking in magic, at least at the beginning, like...

A fascination for "banned, forbidden" tomes and a motivation to dig in obscure archives and libraries;
A tendency to think about divinity (at least the "celestial" kind) as essentially alien to us, related to cosmic depths and geological time;
The consideration that insanity may bring insight, and hide some transcendent and irreversible way of thinking,
and a certain belief that, in the grand scale of things, battles can be won but not the war, which perhaps I've come to question.

 

[axavein]

 

[Morell]

Might be of inspiration to someone.

I recently... well, not exactly recently... made video on working with characters from videogames, using Sephiroth as example. (sorry, I don't have transkript.)

Lovecraft mythos is having some fans among occultists. You can read multiple Necronomicon versions.

 

[duncanhillscoffeeco]

You're gonna wanna move on from pure chaos magick eventually. If you don't move on to an actual system, you're probably not doing very good chaos magick to begin with. And by the way, taking different elements from different traditions and mixing them together to make custom rituals, that's the RIGHT way to do chaos magick. Also stripping out what isn't necessary and simplifying rituals to their bare bones components is also good. But doing dumb s**t like banishing with justice league characters at the 4 directions or trying to invoke Optimus prime; that stuff is just childish. We all gotta grow up sometime.

 

[Morell]

But doing dumb s**t like banishing with justice league characters at the 4 directions or trying to invoke Optimus prime; that stuff is just childish. We all gotta grow up sometime.

Not quite. It depends on how much work are you willing to do. I still do banishing ritual with the names of the Valar, and just like with any other banishing ritual, you do get results after practicing it 10k times.

 

[duncanhillscoffeeco]

you do get results after practicing it 10k times.

Or you could just get instant results using traditional correspondences, but whatever lol

 

[Tryp]

You're gonna wanna move on from pure chaos magick eventually. If you don't move on to an actual system, you're probably not doing very good chaos magick to begin with. And by the way, taking different elements from different traditions and mixing them together to make custom rituals, that's the RIGHT way to do chaos magick. Also stripping out what isn't necessary and simplifying rituals to their bare bones components is also good. But doing dumb s**t like banishing with justice league characters at the 4 directions or trying to invoke Optimus prime; that stuff is just childish. We all gotta grow up sometime.

There is no "right" way to do chaos magick in regards to elements or paradigm. Just tools and protocol.
Anyways, let's not go offtopic here.

 

[Morell]

Or you could just get instant results using traditional correspondences, but whatever lol

You can take or make any ritual and make it work first time you do it, if you are highly experienced and skilled occultist.

 

[duncanhillscoffeeco]

I guess. Flip side of that is, a really good ritual followed through step by step with ancient correspondences, God names, and invocations, will work whether or not the person doing it has any experience or even believes in magick.

 

[Faria]

A fun story:

When I was 14, I performed my first spell, from "Anglo-Saxon Charms." It worked immediately, and the guy sitting in front of me saw it and mentioned that his friend had a genuine magical spell book. I was excited. The book turned out to be an elaborately-copied "Sacred Liturgy of Truth," a video game supplement from Ultima III. He had obviously put a lot of effort into it, so I wanted to meet him. He had his own house, beautiful girlfriend, sportscar, styled himself how he wanted, and didn't appear to be working too hard, so I saw him as an example of success. But how, I wondered, was this video game magic working for him? Oh no, he said, that was just for fun, but his real grimoire was something else. Ah, so much for fiction-originating magic, right? His real grimoire turned out to be The Necronomicon.