Do you view yourself as a continuation? A revival? Or a new thing all together?

[Nagaram]

Within the currents of magical practice, there is a long history of traditions, societies, and lineages coming and going. Each either building on their predecessors, diverging from them, or founding a whole new tradition sometimes inspired sometimes novel.

I think the modern practitioner is fairly uninterested in limiting themselves completely to a single path of practice, but I'm curious how you feel about your practice. Do you see yourself as part of a long history? Are you rebelling against the hegemony of the religious and scientific worlds we have now? Do you work within the context of those worlds?

Tell me about your philosophy of self. Where are you in this story?

 

[Beyond Everything]

I think the modern practitioner is fairly uninterested in limiting themselves completely to a single path of practice, but I'm curious how you feel about your practice. Do you see yourself as part of a long history?

No, because history doesn't furnish us -outside of fables- with effective ways of transformation. Which is why there have been so few liberated humans. The most effective things are those discovered/developed by one's self. No one is handing the keys to the kingdom out, improbably assuming they even have them.

Are you rebelling against the hegemony of the religious and scientific worlds we have now? Do you work within the context of those worlds?

I consider myself anti-religious, because among other things religious energies are very limiting to a person's development- whatever short-term results in the inner and outer worlds they may bring. Typically, you see someone get some material result or get some sort of bliss and they never take a moment and question such things. It would be somewhat akin to taking a herbal concoction that ameliorates depression but ruins one's liver.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

I'm curious how you feel about your practice. Do you see yourself as part of a long history? Are you rebelling against the hegemony of the religious and scientific worlds we have now? Do you work within the context of those worlds?

I feel that, as a materialist magician, I am rare, if not one of a kind. AFAIK the only other person who tried to reconcile magic and science without doing a disservice to either was Peter Carroll. And I am emphatically not including quantum woo specialists like Deepak Chopra, or anybody else whose 'explanation' boils down to 'and then a miracle occurs'.

As for religion, only a fool would claim to prove or disprove God. Instead, it turns out that I found an explanation of God. I'm not claiming Absolute Truth of course. That would be silly.