Does anyone else think a lot of magick has been co-opted by the white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy?

[momomo]

... or is it just me?

 

[Mannimarco]

... or is it just me?

It's just you.
Reality is literally the opposite, lots of magick has been co-opted by far left marxists.

 

[Digiquo]

I see a lot more leftist and sometimes even outright communist or anti-fascist groups that masquerade as being about the occult but really only care about politics and magic comes second.
I'm sure there are some neonazi and similar right wing groups that pretend to care about magic, but I usually see them resort more to inane conspiracy theories and how our government covers it all up. Most consider themselves Christian in some form, so I doubt they look upon people who claim they can perform magic favorably.

 

[Kepler]

The downfall of Jordan Peterson illustrates well what happens when white supremist capitalist patriarchy tries artifice to co-opt the occult to prevent progress away from hierarchies and Aristotelian concepts.

It's not like spirits can't tell a quack from a squawk.

 

[josuequiros777]

Well, the most religious of each political extreme put their religion over any other belief, including magick, but there's a good portion of each as well which study and practice magick of all flavours.

Also there are those who are with a foot in and another out, which come from a very religious background but are curious about magick and the occult (or viceversa maybe) but likely not the majority. Even if certain religious practice are magickal, their devotees would never admit that, unless it isn't taboo or an active part of worship.

Now I know lefties tend towards secularism and atheism but it isn't unlikely that conservatives also are like this, and even when ideologies look very different on paper, the behavior of extremists is very similar no matter their reasons for acting like this, their ideology or faith, they are mostly dangerous in some form or a have very unworked unconscious mind.

And of course, Politics is a form of Magick. It puts people under a spell, the idea that they have to give their power away to someone who can't use it effectively to fix what needs to be fixed, the idea that you can delegate your responsabilities to someone else. Even mages and witches have fallen under it.

 

[Kepler]

It's funny that the op and title didn't mention left and right political distinction associated with the behavior but it's how the post was mostly taken and answered with defensive avoidance fallacies to boot.

OP has picked up on an undercurrent.

 

[HoldAll]

We've had these incidents in the Forum Library where somebody posted links to two collections with more than 1,500 books in total, everything from alchemy to zen. Everyone was grateful until somebody spotted some racist and white-supremacist tracts among them. We asked the member to remove them and that was that. When I was still posting books and went hunting for book caches, I noticed that most conspiracy-nut collections often featured right-wing extremist and anti-semitic stuff as well, for example the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or Hitler's Mein Kampf. Did those collectors read all that crap out of academic interest or were they right-wing extremists? No idea. Then there was this guy who posted some Joy of Satan pamphlets which also contained neonazi stuff. As far as I remember, we took most them down, they were nothing but pop Satanist propaganda anyway.

It should be borne in mind that different countries handle the right to freedom of speech differently and that the US model is by no means universal. Disseminating neonazi propaganda, displaying nazi insignia, tattoos or the Hitler salute in public, denying the Holocaust, etc. can get you to prison in some EU countries for historical reasons; rare debates there revolve around the modalities of the statutes' application, freedom of speech never comes into it. These countries have been 'anti-fascist' since 1945, not always consistently so right after the war but formally nevertheless, so these JoS guys should better be careful where they show their swastika tats on their European holidays or they'll be arrested within minutes.

As for 'capitalist'… I see it as the prevalent state of affairs, not as a definite movement with a clearcut ideology. From what I've gathered from friends who had escaped from former Eastern Bloc countries, the Communist Parties there thought that occultism benefitted capitalism because it prevented workers from developing class awareness and rising up against their oppressors, and consequently banned every expression of it. I think they were mistaken, from what I gather from Forum discussions, many members are highly political, just not always in the way those post-war Communist Parties naively expected.

Scholars in the academic world, on the other hand, are woke to the extreme and appear to like nothing better than calling each other some kind of '-ist' or another and accusing each other of various '-isms' once they start argueing (I'm reading mostly scholarly books right now in the hope of finding more reliable information than in purely esoteric tomes); I frequently even have to look up some those '-isms' to understand what they're bickering about.

'Patriarchy': Many witches call themselves feminists, and I don't think I've ever read a modern male occult author pining for the old days where women knew their place (plenty of such authors in the past though!). In line with old-school Communist theory and second-wave feminists like

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, I guess you could call all occult books specifically directed at women and distracting them from their fight against the patriarchy 'fascist' (or some other kind of '-ist'); seen from this black-and-white perspective, all of occultism is a tool of the patriarchy to subjugate women. Fortunately, those days of top-down feminism are long past, and you have to decide for yourself if the contents of a book violates your personal value code.

I guess you could call even this reply 'paternalistic'. I can't help it, I'm a guy, and in the same way many writers probably 'serve the capitalist patriarchy' without even noticing; I don't think they're doing it on purpose though.

 

[Digiquo]

Truthfully, I don't think OP's post was a good faith attempt to initiate intelligent discussion, but since it's going that direction anyways thanks to the quality of this forum's members, I'll chime in further.

And of course, Politics is a form of Magick. It puts people under a spell, the idea that they have to give their power away to someone who can't use it effectively to fix what needs to be fixed, the idea that you can delegate your responsabilities to someone else. Even mages and witches have fallen under it.

As for 'capitalist'… I see it as the prevalent state of affairs, not as a definite movement with a clearcut ideology. From what I've gathered from friends who had escaped from former Eastern Bloc countries, the Communist Parties there thought that occultism benefitted capitalism because it prevented workers from developing class awareness and rising up against their oppressors, and consequently banned every expression of it. I think they were mistaken, from what I gather from Forum discussions, many members are highly political, just not always in the way those post-war Communist Parties naively expected.

Scholars in the academic world, on the other hand, are woke to the extreme and appear to like nothing better than calling each other some kind of '-ist' or another and accusing each other of various '-isms' once they start argueing (I'm reading mostly scholarly books right now in the hope of finding more reliable information than in purely esoteric tomes); I frequently even have to look up some those '-isms' to understand what they're bickering about.

'Patriarchy': Many witches call themselves feminists, and I don't think I've ever read a modern male occult author pining for the old days where women knew their place (plenty of such authors in the past though!). In line with old-school Communist theory and second-wave feminists like

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

, I guess you could call all occult books specifically directed at women and distracting them from their fight against the patriarchy 'fascist' (or some other kind of '-ist'); seen from this black-and-white perspective, all of occultism is a tool of the patriarchy to subjugate women. Fortunately, those days of top-down feminism are long past, and you have to decide for yourself if the contents of a book violates your personal value code.

I guess you could call even this reply 'paternalistic'. I can't help it, I'm a guy, and in the same way many writers probably 'serve the capitalist patriarchy' without even noticing; I don't think they're doing it on purpose though.

These lines of thought, specifically how occultism distracts from class consciousness and can be directly compared to the power wielded by politicians echoes many of the conclusions James Frazer brings forth about the very earliest history of magic and magicians in his book 'The Golden Bough.'
At least according to his research (bearing in mind this this book was published almost if not 100 years ago), most indigenous tribes existed in a state of pseudo-democracy/oligarchy of the elders where all tasks were performed by all members of the tribe. Nobody specialized in any particular task. It was the advent of the belief in magic and the subsequent delegation of magical tasks to a single skilled magician that caused magicians to become the very first specialized role within a society where one was not expected to perform other tasks. By simple virtue of the power magicians were expected to wield, this made them a natural focal point for the survival of the tribe, and naturally this granted them significant influence in tribe affairs, and eventually would graduate them to chiefs and kings, thereby transmuting magical power into political power, and changing the dominant governmental structure across the early globe from a loose democracy into pure despotism and monarchy.

My personal thoughts: magic has fallen to the wayside in lieu of science as a means of explaining the functions of the world, and political agents are no longer expected to know anything about anything except how to manage money and talk eloquently. The inclusion of a magical perspective in either realm, science or politics, is in fact liable to have oneself ousted from either arena completely, with some exceptions.
But, the principle of the delegation of tasks to individuals who we percieve to wield some manner of power and influence over realms the average person cannot comprehend still holds true to this day, and granting that person greater influence by a vote of democracy (at least initially) over things outside their realm of expertise is unlikely to ever change. There will always be individuals better at some tasks then others and it would be folly to recognize those differences in skill and allow them to go untapped. We can say all day we don't want to give the guy who kicks a soccer ball really good any measure of additional political influence then he might enjoy by happenstance, but what about somebody who's really good at politics? The natural response is to say that because he's really good at politics, he should be permitted to become a politician and specialize in it, and in doing so we've fallen for the trappings of despotism again, hiding it behind a vote. To remain truly despot free, the man who's good at politics can't be permitted any excessive political influence, nor can the guy that's really good at kicking a soccer ball around be permitted to play it for a living. You enforce a whole new form of tyranny by attempting to circumvent this natural tendency to anoint a leader of the people, whether they be a magician or not.

Post automatically merged: Wednesday at 5:11 PM

I guess as an addendum and conclusion to my previous thought and a more direct response to the OP; magic hasn't been "co-opted" by any particular group who stands as the status quo, but magic and specialized magicians were in fact the catalysts that enabled the consolidation of power within a single individual across nearly every ancient culture across the entire globe. Magic and magicians were the origin of kings and all the pitfalls that entails. The re-democraticization of magic by individuals, after magic gave way to religion, is really more a swinging of the pendulum back towards its origins where all peoples were amateur magicians, and the pendulum will swing the other way yet again once the people realize yet again it's far more efficient for one person to be very good at magic than for everybody to be mediocre at it for the public good. Maybe even within our lifetime we'll see a new Magician King or President elected somewhere that isn't a backwaters hellhole.

 

[Accipeveldare]

If you mean that magick has been turned into a "witchy" commodity for "witchtok" people where you can buy a "money spell candle" that doesnt even work for 20 dollars because most people would rather make excuses than do the work? Then yes, it is capitalism ridden. People try so hard to turn the occult into a shopping list because they cant fathom that even those people who know magick didnt get anything they have easily and see it as a shortcut for selfish desires.

 

[AbammonTheGreat]

This has always been magic. Read an ancient or classical tome you see spirits, planets, and deities listed as "great patriarchs". Acquiring property, money, slaves, and women litters the most primeval sources we have. Invocations and prayers to deities, demons, and angels frequently request coming into station, power, kingship, authority. Then lets not forget the 1200 years of the grimoiric tradition that were developed under the auspices of the greatest institutional patriarchy the world has ever seen, the Catholic Church. This is called retro-casting. I can't tell if OP is trolling or ignorant because I think its ridiculously hard to find a tome that doesn't appeal to the magician through promises of wealth, kingship/authority, and the accumulation of women. There's maybe a period of 50 years starting in the 70's where occultists began writing about "feminist magic" but that's a drop in the pan compared to the thousands of years of magic aimed at wealth accumulation, dominator hierarchies, and patriarchal pursuits.

As pointed out earlier in the thread most of the modern occult cottage industry is progressive-left and the academics studying our tradition are as well. If anything, given the history of magic and the occult, it was co-opted by libertines and progressives starting with Crowley.

If you mean that magick has been turned into a "witchy" commodity for "witchtok" people where you can buy a "money spell candle" that doesnt even work for 20 dollars because most people would rather make excuses than do the work? Then yes, it is capitalism ridden. People try so hard to turn the occult into a shopping list because they cant fathom that even those people who know magick didnt get anything they have easily and see it as a shortcut for selfish desires.

Then we move into the very obvious consumerism and materialism that is part and parcel of magic. The original hermeticists were dis-established egyptian priests that had to commodify their expertise on religion, philosophy, and ritual magic in order to survive when Rome shut down the egyptian temples. The tradition has always resembled an ayahuasca shaman or yoga retreat where monied students would travel to Egypt to pay out of work priests to "initiate" or teach them. Then you go into how the spells work and you have to acquire a list of ingredients that can number upwards of 28 different ingredients in order to craft an item for a spell to work?

There is nothing new here, it is the tradition.

 

[Accipeveldare]

This has always been magic. Read an ancient or classical tome you see spirits, planets, and deities listed as "great patriarchs". Acquiring property, money, slaves, and women litters the most primeval sources we have. Invocations and prayers to deities, demons, and angels frequently request coming into station, power, kingship, authority. Then lets not forget the 1200 years of the grimoiric tradition that were developed under the auspices of the greatest institutional patriarchy the world has ever seen, the Catholic Church. This is called retro-casting. I can't tell if OP is trolling or ignorant because I think its ridiculously hard to find a tome that doesn't appeal to the magician through promises of wealth, kingship/authority, and the accumulation of women. There's maybe a period of 50 years starting in the 70's where occultists began writing about "feminist magic" but that's a drop in the pan compared to the thousands of years of magic aimed at wealth accumulation, dominator hierarchies, and patriarchal pursuits.

As pointed out earlier in the thread most of the modern occult cottage industry is progressive-left and the academics studying our tradition are as well. If anything, given the history of magic and the occult, it was co-opted by libertines and progressives starting with Crowley.



Then we move into the very obvious consumerism and materialism that is part and parcel of magic. The original hermeticists were dis-established egyptian priests that had to commodify their expertise on religion, philosophy, and ritual magic in order to survive when Rome shut down the egyptian temples. The tradition has always resembled an ayahuasca shaman or yoga retreat where monied students would travel to Egypt to pay out of work priests to "initiate" or teach them. Then you go into how the spells work and you have to acquire a list of ingredients that can number upwards of 28 different ingredients in order to craft an item for a spell to work?

There is nothing new here, it is the tradition.

Eh, you are correct mostly. However, magick to me is more about self mastery, wisdom, living to the fullest, etc. So to say that magick is ONLY about selfish desires is a little bit strange. You are correct that MOST people who get into it do it for selfish reasons.

I like that you mention Crowley as an example. I do agree, he did almost all of his work due to ego and not actual self mastery. However, i would like to add that even if not, he did create a great system to attain such mastery. I also very much liked his stance on not believing a word he says until you've tried it. (Along with other people) I most certainly would not have liked him had i met him crossing the street, but I respect his work.

I could not tell you whether self mastery and attainment were the original motives behind magick, but i can tell you with absolute certainty that magick is a great tool for such things when done right.

Edit: I would like to add that i may have also proven your point, actually. While attainment and self mastery are ideally the best motives for the use of magick, they are still selfish motives due to them serving oneself. So apologies.

 

[AbammonTheGreat]

Eh, you are correct mostly. However, magick to me is more about self mastery, wisdom, living to the fullest, etc. So to say that magick is ONLY about selfish desires is a little bit strange. You are correct that MOST people who get into it do it for selfish reasons.

I like that you mention Crowley as an example. I do agree, he did almost all of his work due to ego and not actual self mastery. However, i would like to add that even if not, he did create a great system to attain such mastery. I also very much liked his stance on not believing a word he says until you've tried it. (Along with other people) I most certainly would not have liked him had i met him crossing the street, but I respect his work.

I could not tell you whether self mastery and attainment were the original motives behind magick, but i can tell you with absolute certainty that magick is a great tool for such things when done right.

Edit: I would like to add that i may have also proven your point, actually. While attainment and self mastery are ideally the best motives for the use of magick, they are still selfish motives due to them serving oneself. So apologies.

Yeah I think thats the general mode of progression is towards there. First one conjures a hundred dollars, realizes it works, learn about themselves, and then hits a point "well if i can conjure a girlfriend i can probably conjure some humility?"

 

[Accipeveldare]

Yeah I think thats the general mode of progression is towards there. First one conjures a hundred dollars, realizes it works, learn about themselves, and then hits a point "well if i can conjure a girlfriend i can probably conjure some humility?"

Love that. Yeah, ill admit, even those practitioners that strive for attainment and humility and such usually started out for reasons a lot lower. I can surely say i did. I mostly just wanted to be different at first, then i realized that "different" and "same" are an illusion after i went farther.