How can we solve the problem of learning magic from different cultures that may seem absurd from the perspective of the original culture

[sk666]

Pre explanation: My English is not very good, and there may be some strange content in this article. Please let me know if there is any.
As someone who grew up in the Chinese magic system, when I read some American books on Chinese magic, I furrow my brow.
It often confuses different cultures from various regions, resulting in an extremely erroneous understanding of the original system. Something appeared in a completely inappropriate place.
I was wondering, is this question common? Do some of the books I read about African Americans, Nordic systems, and Jewish systems also have this issue? It's just that as an outsider, I can't tell
What do you think should be paid attention to when it comes to cross-cultural magic learning?

 

[lamdaposter]

I think that its generally a good idea to stick to books from your own culture / language until you are advanced enough to understand those from other cultures / languages with the proper level of discernment. As a new practitioner, I stick to English and Russian language sources, as those are my two native languages / cultures, and I would not be willing to risk some ritual backfiring because I do not understand its foundations properly enough to shield myself from whatever entity it is I am contacting.

Maybe more experienced users can chime in, but I personally would be very risk averse until I am 100% confident that I am doing the right thing at the right time in the right context that it was meant to be done.

 

[KjEno186]

It would be interesting to know which American/Western books make erroneous assumptions about Chinese magic.

Modern Western thinking is often quite literalist and reductive, taking concepts and stories at face value and then distilling the concepts gathered from various sources into something meaningful. That leads to a lot of error, but sometimes good things come out of experimentation.

During the 19th Century, Western magick experienced a revival by attempting to combine Rennaisance magick with Egyptian and other Eastern sources as understood at the time. Many claims were made without clear knowledge. For example, Eliphas Levi claimed that the Tarot was the book of Hermes Trismegistus, but scholarship dates the Tarot deck to medieval Europe. Later groups would attempt to assign more associations to the Tarot deck such as Qabala, planetary magick, Hinduism, and practically anything else they could imagine. It would not surprise me at all if American/Western occultists have made incorrect associations with Chinese magick.

I do not think that it matters as much to individual practicioners since occult beliefs vary so widely. People borrow what they find useful and search for meaning in all cultures.

 

[Morell]

Pre explanation: My English is not very good, and there may be some strange content in this article. Please let me know if there is any.
As someone who grew up in the Chinese magic system, when I read some American books on Chinese magic, I furrow my brow.
It often confuses different cultures from various regions, resulting in an extremely erroneous understanding of the original system. Something appeared in a completely inappropriate place.
I was wondering, is this question common? Do some of the books I read about African Americans, Nordic systems, and Jewish systems also have this issue? It's just that as an outsider, I can't tell
What do you think should be paid attention to when it comes to cross-cultural magic learning?

Good observation.
It is probably quite normal effect to misunderstand occult knowledge from other culture. Culture is more than just art style or customs, it is also different understanding and way of thinking, Language too, honestly. In my opinion learning occult from other culture the way that the other culture understands it is very difficult and perhaps even waste of time for many as it demands rewiring your brain, learning to think very different than you are used to...

When you learn from others you do not change, you enrich your own knowledge by adding to it. That might be where the problem lays, but also it could explain why this might really not be a way to go - to seek real understanding of occult of other culture through lenses of that culture. Hope I make some sense.

 

[Viktor]

It often confuses different cultures from various regions, resulting in an extremely erroneous understanding of the original system. Something appeared in a completely inappropriate place.

Good thing about that is that you're able to spot the mistake and can throw away errors.
Bad thing is that one error can make whole book worthless because you can't tell if other parts are correct.

So if I'm you I'd use the book only as an incomplete reference that may give answers which you can't find in books written by somebody from your culture.

So if there are Chinese books written about same thing I'd stick to them instead and use western books to fill the holes if needed, and in same verifying anything suspicious of a mistake.

edit:
Another thing you can do is to collect only books of well known occult writers such as Joseph H. Peterson.

 

[sk666]

It would be interesting to know which American/Western books make erroneous assumptions about Chinese magic.

Modern Western thinking is often quite literalist and reductive, taking concepts and stories at face value and then distilling the concepts gathered from various sources into something meaningful. That leads to a lot of error, but sometimes good things come out of experimentation.

During the 19th Century, Western magick experienced a revival by attempting to combine Rennaisance magick with Egyptian and other Eastern sources as understood at the time. Many claims were made without clear knowledge. For example, Eliphas Levi claimed that the Tarot was the book of Hermes Trismegistus, but scholarship dates the Tarot deck to medieval Europe. Later groups would attempt to assign more associations to the Tarot deck such as Qabala, planetary magick, Hinduism, and practically anything else they could imagine. It would not surprise me at all if American/Western occultists have made incorrect associations with Chinese magick.

I do not think that it matters as much to individual practicioners since occult beliefs vary so widely. People borrow what they find useful and search for meaning in all cultures.

The following is the translation I achieved using AI.
If you want to know, I can briefly explain.
For example, a book explaining Chinese fox magic mixes the fox spirit beliefs from the Northeast with the 'Great Manifestation of Divine Might' (Da Xian Wei Ling) system which is only found in the South.
And it clearly learned from a fabricated magical tradition (possibly deceived or something else).
Firstly, the Southern 'Great Manifestation of Divine Might' systems lean more towards 'master ancestor worship', venerating and inviting deceased spiritual ancestors to act. For example, Liuren Zushi, Shaolin Zushi, White Crane Immortal Master, etc.
Furthermore, due to historical reasons, they might be arranged on a cloth scroll, but this arrangement has its own internal logic corresponding to the earthly imperial court and the heavenly court.
Yet, he came up with one that is completely incorrect and doesn't conform to basic logic.
He either encountered a fraud, or it's a classic case of modern fabrication from Hong Kong or Taiwan (and a poorly fabricated one at that).
Moreover, he typically applied Western demon-summoning magic logic to understand Chinese magic.
For instance, if the fox spirit doesn't come, recite one spell, if it still doesn't come, recite another – but we would never do that.
And he also classically used phrases like 'in the name of' applied to Zhang Daoling...
For god's sake, we directly transform ourselves into the deity, we don't do it like that

 

[Faria]

Im sure there's a lot of Jewish people who don't agree with the bulk of what's written about Kabbalah even by rabbinical authorities. Experts in Icelandic lore probably grumble when they read books about Icelandic lore written by other experts. There's not much of a peer review system for esoteric literature, aside from making sure that what gets published matches the existing (and potentially wrong) lines of thought. While not much of a solution, it makes sense to regard anything written as a collection of ideas and opinions from the author, rather than as a monument to the truth of a subject.

Post automatically merged: Aug 8, 2025

When I was younger, my mentor was a Native American man whose medicine craft was more like Hoodoo mixed with sweat lodge ceremonies and obscure mineral lore. I've not found much like it in ethnographic works, definitely far afield from a yrhing in books about Native American spirituality. But he was the real deal, even if he was weird. So again, the book lore are just collected thoughts and the real traditions of magic are those people actually use in their lives.

 

[AbammonTheGreat]

Pre explanation: My English is not very good, and there may be some strange content in this article. Please let me know if there is any.
As someone who grew up in the Chinese magic system, when I read some American books on Chinese magic, I furrow my brow.
It often confuses different cultures from various regions, resulting in an extremely erroneous understanding of the original system. Something appeared in a completely inappropriate place.
I was wondering, is this question common? Do some of the books I read about African Americans, Nordic systems, and Jewish systems also have this issue? It's just that as an outsider, I can't tell
What do you think should be paid attention to when it comes to cross-cultural magic learning?

So im a Southern Californian that was raised Catholic who practices Jewish, Muslim, and Egyptian magic. My approach to being able to understand and faithfully adopt practices outside of this lifetimes culture is historical and cultural context as well as asking the cultures themselves. I look to academia to help me frame the culture historically and anthropologically and then to the people themselves for the practical application. I dont read books on Kabbalah from new agers or magicians I look to the source itself. I dont read Llewellyn Press's Djinn Magick written for occultists but instead consult the literature of the Muslims who wrote about it. In order to faithfully practice this I have had to teach myself Hebrew and Arabic but its not as daunting as one would expect if its relevant to your practice (we are magicians after all tons of spirits deal with learning languages). Now obviously I am not a medieval muslim in Andalusia living next to a school of Jewish Kabbalists. My world is incredibly different, and I do not agree with things these people from other cultures say sometimes. For example while I agree with Abulafias stance against philosophy/theosophy and so learn Kabbalah from his works I do not agree with his stance on Judaism being the only path to mystic ascent.

You can faithfully adopt other cultural practices and come to your own reasoning if you go to the source. Don't use tertiary sources to learn Chinese magic, especially since there are plenty of actual Chinese people who teach Chinese magic online. If you look to scholarship for historical context and then look to the people themselves while learning their language you can find what works for you. Obviously being from a different culture you're going to syncretize or adopt things into your framework but we are occultists/magicians. Not a reconstruction religion.

 

[Sabbatius]

There is one factor to the Taoist Magic systems than, say, the Nordic Systems- and that factor is that there is a long lineage of continuing practice for over two Millenia. The Nordic Systems have been long dead and are only fragmented modern interpretations of literal stones and archaeological finds. The Afro-Caribbean traditions are relatively four to six centuries old and extremely syncretic to multiple sources, pulling from Africa, Christianity, Indigenous Tribal practices and a pinch of European Ancestral worship.

The other relevant factor which completes Taoist magical practice is that it has a written history, in volumes, whereas virtually everything else mentioned is extremely limited due to passing its teachings by oral traditions. What little is written is questionable at best, mostly for financial gain and culturally victimized for profit. Just visit New Orleans' Bourbon Street for example.

 

[aesh_mezareph]

Perhaps you need a metaparadigm that can unify esoteric concepts. Remember that all rivers flow into the sea.

 

[xitlatli]

Be open minded and learn about their culture?? You never know, maybe you’ve always agreed with their culture you just didn’t know it.
If not respect other people’s believes. There’s usually at least one aspect or more that makes someone unconditionally love something, like a religion, just respect that, respect the person and the choice they made. No religion is wrong in my opinion. Just believe in a higher power that you, nor anyone else could ever comprehend

 

[Morell]

Be open minded and learn about their culture?? You never know, maybe you’ve always agreed with their culture you just didn’t know it.
If not respect other people’s believes. There’s usually at least one aspect or more that makes someone unconditionally love something, like a religion, just respect that, respect the person and the choice they made. No religion is wrong in my opinion. Just believe in a higher power that you, nor anyone else could ever comprehend

Though you are right about learning about their culture, the way of thinking might be very hard to learn, even impossible in some cases.

For example number and definition of elements. Western society in general understands four elements and one extra, sometimes used, sometimes not, these two systems are so common here that no one has mental problem with it. In the east they have extended this system, having element of metal and element of wood. Not sure if they don't have even more. To our mind this feels like their thing, might not even offend, but to our minds and subconscious this doesn't work. Making it work is what is the problem here. Making your head to think that metal or wood is basic element of creation of our reality.

 

[HoldAll]

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Post automatically merged: Aug 24, 2025

I the problem is that anthropogists still like to think of the Western civilations being the norm and that therefore every other one is 'foreign' and 'exotic' (although 'exoticism' itself has long become a dirty word among scholars). As a result, Chinese culture is seen as diverging from the norm with its difficult language and 'funny writing', and as modern scholarship uses almost exclusively the Western point of view, it's as good as inevitable that even Chinese scholars would nilly-willy have to adopt the same starting point for their research - see all the medical papers where Chinese physicians often seem to apologize for their use of alternative healing methods like TCM, again being forced to label it as somehow 'exotic'. The motto of Western scholars still seems to be "Everybody's ethnic except us!"

 

[8Lou1]

i think the confusion creates room for new interpretations and currents. just like with food when cultures meet, new dishes are invented.
i think the man with the name kong fuzi/confucius is 'god's ' biggest joke. a wise man with a name that is the originator of the word 'confusion'..

if a person meets such confusion it is wise not to study to many outward texts, but to let it flow wrom within outward so meaning can be found in the new 'dish'. a new taste of meaning, umami if one wills to call it that.

here in europe such a moment in time is remembered as the renaissance, a beautiful creative time with lots of wise people and, art and inventions.

and of course there is a lot to giggle about words/symbols that mean something totally different in an other language then ours.

i for myself seem to have a silly ride with a chinese friend who thinks i stole his family cornsoup recipe. meeting other cultures is strange. smile!

 

[Sabbatius]

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Post automatically merged: Aug 24, 2025

I the problem is that anthropogists still like to think of the Western civilations being the norm and that therefore every other one is 'foreign' and 'exotic' (although 'exoticism' itself has long become a dirty word among scholars).

Before Franz Boas began his anthropological studies, the works of Edward Tylor and Lewis Morgan dominated the cultural study of culturalism.
Basically, Tylor and Morgan would judge cultures by how advanced a society was in comparison to the British. Tylor expanded this to the United States as well. Amusing to say that the Inuit culture was deemed impossibly basic due to their lack of irrigation and farming. Boas is the one to credit for major advancements toward modern anthropology.

Are there still some issues? Definitely! But considering where modern anthropology was originally, I would say we have some decent work to enjoy and work with.