It's a scientific explanation of magic. I do not believe the supernatural to be a thing; only natural things that we do not yet understand. I realise that this is not a popular view among magicians. Magic depends on belief systems, so if your magic depends on the deep-seated belief that you are God, then go for it. I don't share your belief, but I can and will do nothing to stop you.
That isn't really an answer. Modern science's origins were in the desire to understand the nature of God through examining his creation. Magic depends on the understanding of the underlying physical laws of nature, the imposition of Will on matter is the reason belief systems appear to influence outcome, but that is a physical law. Placebo is majiq is Will, simply put.
This I agree with, that the placebo effect is actual magic. The kicker for me is that it uses the same physical mechanism as all other magic that 'causes change according to Will'.
This is where we have to differ. I am not a believer in the immortal soul, nor in dualism of any sort.
I am not opposing divinity; I am just stating that I consider it not to be supernatural, so there is no dichotomy, only nature, and whatever it was in the past, science is now the study of nature so as to attempt to explain it. I know that sounds strange, and I did mention that my views are not popular.
What did I say about dualism? Everything is made of divine essence balled up into itself. Matter is the appearance of separation between bits of divine stuff, which causes distinction.
It seems like in this sentence you're coming to that conclusion. I'm not sure how you can say you "attempt to explain God" and at the same time say you're a non-dualist who doesn't believe there is an internal divinity to each being. What God is in a non-dualistic viewpoint who isn't in all things?
I agree with everything except we... and because there is most definitely "we" are a piece of source, not the source itself as one whole, if that makes sense? So, you are correct on a technicality, but we are supposed to experience separation and individualization. Because the source invented everything and we are just discovering it... We need our individualization to discover the entirety of existence.
Love your concept. Yesss..I agree with everything except we... and because there is most definitely "we" are a piece of source, not the source itself as one whole, if that makes sense? So, you are correct on a technicality, but we are supposed to experience separation and individualization. Because the source invented everything and we are just discovering it... We need our individualization to discover the entirety of existence.
Good luck with that. Science is just as proud a dogma as any religion, but it inherently fails to measure up to the task it was created to do. Using Science to explain magic is like trying to effectively describe the flow of water in a creek, the different tastes of ecstasy you feel when looking at the moon or a sunrise, or the depths of pain you experience with grief, words fail to even measure up to the task of capturing the profound majesty of a tree, given you're present and alive enough to experience life in that depth. Those numb to reality love words and science, because they cannot see the meal past the menu. Science is a rigid and observation-based method of understanding that completely leaves out the "why" of things, favoring just the "How". Not to mention, scientists understanding of the universe is pathetic; they cannot effectively explain the source of creation (the "Big Bang" is nonsense, it implies everything came from nothing which is illogical), the top neuroscientists still don't effectively understand how much of the brain works, and science itself only partly understands the little bit of the cosmos that's actually made up of matter, which is about 5%. Science, in no way, addresses the very obvious phenomenon of Life itself, only the material functioning's of the shells that Life acts through, which explains the childish beliefs that we're nothing more than biological computers and that we cease to exist at death, anyone who's thought about the subject critically for more than ten minutes will see their own existence as a direct contradiction.
What about those who have no belief systems, such as Buddhists or Chaos Magicians? There is a realm outside of belief (which is based on words and concepts), a place beyond the limited static nature of language. Belief is not needed when you know truth directly and work with truth. Besides, isn't your definition of magic just "systematically getting luckier"...? I find that view as depressing as a black & white printout of a Van Gough painting.
Ok, fair enough. I guess the only real difference between us, then, is that I don't feel it nececessary to describe it as 'God' or 'divinity' since this usually implies the supernatural, which neither or us believe in
I would say that it's more accurate to say that 'scientists can be as dogmatic as any priest', since the essence of science is supposed to be doubt. You've got to remember that science represents not absolute truth, but our 'best guess' at any one moment. It's true that describing how the Sun's light is refracted through the atmosphere does not capture the majesty of a sunset, but it does help explain why sunsets look like that.
Belief is a tool to activate the mechanisms that make magic work. Chaos magicians have no one belief because they know belief is a tool, to be used like any other tool. Magicians also say "it works even if you don't believe in it" which is manipulating people's belief systems
Amen! This is also what I was talking about
I find this to be a contradiction. The essence of Science is to explain, to observe and create laws / theories based on these observations, which inevitably change and evolve with understanding. How can a practical scientist do any of his work if he doubts all the natural laws that he's written out?
This outlines very well the weakness and futility of science, as there are methods of experiencing absolute truth which have nothing to do with microscopes and mathematics. It is like an imaginary net thrown over reality, you can distinguish a netted fish based off the different parts of its anatomy, but the fish remains unaddressed as a phenomenon.
It's an informed view, there is a lengthy and documented history of academics / scientists backstabbing, sabotaging, shunning, and undermining one another. They worship a dead materialistic universe with a mechanical watchmaker God, because it fits their paradigm and understanding, and that makes them dead material people. I have my own fundamental grudges with the arrogance of academia, but I won't go too off-topic.
You talk as though Science is the only method for understanding the universe, which is a little infuriating. Our science now pales in comparison with what the ancients had. There is stone-masonry done in ancient Egypt which outperforms even our most advanced scientific marvels, there are pieces of stone that are flat to the molecular level, there is drilling and fitting so precise and in such strange places that we couldn't replicate it with our tools. My biggest qualm with Science is how inelastic and static it is, it builds its own cage to fester and die in, and isn't suited for the lively purist of magic, in my most humbliest-wumbliest of opinions.
You seem to be unable to grasp the concept of being able to know without thinking. Anything the mind tells you is a distortion of Truth, if it's in words, you can bet it isn't True. That is where Direct Experience comes in, when you set aside the Menu for the Meal.
You had classified all direct experiences and unification with God as madness, or as ego-inflation, which is what perpetuated this entire dialogue because I found the stance to be exceptionally tone-deaf with one of the most important pursuits of Magic. You left no room for the possibility of it being a possible, beneficial, or even worthwhile pursuit, but only as delusion.Amen! This is also what I was talking about
He doesn't doubt them all at once
What I mean by this is that you must always be willing to be persuaded by new evidence.Science is making a map. They know it's a map. You seem to be complaining that the map cannot be the territory. Which it cannot, of course, but this does not negate the uses a map has. Also, just because an experience cannot be talked about by the left brain (the one that can talk) it does not necessarily mean that experience is absolute truth, no matter how much it might seem to you. @Konsciencia knows themself to be God from direct experience.
It's true, scientists are people too. You could exchange 'scientists' for 'magicians' and the sentence would still be true. I think most of them would take issue with the word 'worship'. Interestingly, lots of scientists believe in God, and there are also plenty of people who claim not to believe in God but spend time cursing Him anyway
I am of the opinion that Science is the best tool we have for the job. Nothing is perfect. I can't really comment on ancient Egyptian stonemasonry.
I don't agree with this at all. Science grows and expands all the time. Some of the new ideas in New Scientist (for example) are as mad as some of the stuff I read here (well maybe
) and having new ideas and trying to find new ways of proving/disproving them is how science grows. I would not say that the path I chose is for every magician, by any means, but I stand by its validity.Ok, so what you seem to be saying here (correct me if I'm wrong) is that this Direct Experience comes in from outside and is unmediated by the mind. If so, I have to disagree. All experience gets mediated by the mind; our senses were not meant for contemplating existence - they were made to stop us getting eaten by leopards. It's true that the left brain has overtaken the right brain to the point where the left brain starts denying the right brain's existence (cf 'The Master and his Emissary' by Iain McGilchrist) but IMO it is an important part of a magician's training to overthrow their left brain and put it back in its place. It is the left brain that gets obsessed with the Menu.
Ok, I clearly didn't explain myself sufficiently. I was saying that it is the reaction to the discovery of successful magic that can trigger this ego-inflation. "I managed to find a parking space using magic therefore I am God"
I wouldn't be too proud in crediting this line of thinking to Science, almost all revolutionary thinkers in all fields - pretty much anyone with common sense throughout history- have this mindset. This is a "Well Done!" golden star sticker you're proudly wearing on your labcoat, and is the staple of any Seeker's pathology. The Buddhist casts off all preconceived ideas, beliefs, and habits to empty oneself to receive Truth ("new evidence").He doesn't doubt them all at once
The map is that of a materialistic, dead universe, pretty much any scientific author who claims otherwise gets put in the corner and is routinely ignored by mainstream academia. It doesn't matter how elaborate and fleshed out it becomes, it'll always be useless for any goals outside of comfort and technology (Science has become a tool and whore to the capitalistic agenda). Our newest modes of life are a clear result of living our lives according to this map, people are living in the greatest age of luxury and abundance we have in recorded history, but for the most part we have been degraded to undeveloped unconscious depressed brutes who are just consuming this planet more effectively to fill the gaping voids in our pointless godless existences. The attitude of Science has discredited all other forms of thought, mysticism gets written off as madness, spiritualism gets labeled as "wishful thinking" and psychic phenomena get contained in the box of "charlatanry". Meanwhile school children are taught strictly the scientific method and scientific way of viewing the world, where the greatest wonders are pretty burning balls in the sky and colorful gas nebula. There is no magic in the forest, no life, just trees and Darwin's predatory Evolution theory.
How convenient.
This is another problem I have with psychology and Science: the dead mechanical map completely disregards the observer and living being that you are. The mind mediates experiences external to you, but what mediates the mind? What is that thing inside you which interprets, sees, and controls the mind? What is your Will? If you simply say that your consciousness is a dead electrical anomaly of brain activity, we can stop this discussion here. There is a reason almost all magical traditions emphasize meditation, for it quiets the mind, separates you from your senses entirely, and leaves you open to extrasensory experiences and knowledge that your senses and mind constantly drown out. Of course, what I use and have direct experience of does not fit into your map, so you are justified to write it off as madness, just as I'm justified in throwing a teacup at your head, because morality is just a functioning of the right hemisphere of the brain and does not actually exist.
You have misread the OP's original post, then. The OP did not conduct a successful working and is enraptured with megalomania, the OP has had a mystical experience that does not fit within your scientific paradigm, therefore surely it can't be real. The arrogance of Science is just as destructive to new thought outside of it's perspective as old religions were back in the day of the Inquisitions and Witch Hunts.
You both are conflating things the scientifically minded do with the field of science, but you're both wrong about what science is. Science is the scientific method, which means: Repeatability. That's the thing that distinguishes scientific inquiry from casual exploration, a testable, repeatable hypothesis, so that if you do something a certain way, someone else can do the exact same thing and expect the same results. This is what makes majiq inherently un-scientific, because there isn't room for controls (in the sense of a "control" in an experiment) in magic. Too many variables that may effect the results. I can give you an exact ritual that worked for me, and it may work or not work for you, but in a scientific sense we can't explain it because there's just too many things that could have gone unaccounted for. By all means make a post going into detail about your practice, but I'm sure it doesn't qualify as following the scientific method.
If you can explain why you get the results you do by showing how they fit with your model, then that is also science. You have to be able to make predictions.
I hate to "Erm, ackshually" your erm ackshually, but Science, as a practice, existed before the Scientific Method was developed. If we're going to remove all art from the dialogue, we can just ask Google AI for a percise definition: "Science is a systematic way of acquiring knowledge and understanding the natural world through observation and experimentation. It involves developing testable explanations and predictions about the universe, relying on evidence and logical reasoning. Science is not just a body of knowledge, but also a process of inquiry and a set of methods used to explore and understand the world around us."
The brain is not the mind though. That isn't the view of winning scientists in the modern day, and I wouldn't see why it would be the view of anyone. Brain cells are not even unique to the brain, they're found in the stomach and heart, so even if brain cells were responsible for consciousness (not the mainstream view any longer), consciousness wouldn't be local to the head.
Your google AI answer kinda repeated me.
My above link sent me down the rabbit hole to link, which includes this choice quote:
Which I guess where I'm coming to here is that you're both right, there's also the empirical method, which is apparently coming back into vogue and none of us are as niche as we were ten years ago. Womp womp.
I broadly agree, but not from the nature of brain cells. I know it's cliched to use the latest technology as a metaphor for the Universe/consciousness/whatever, but I find it useful to think of the brain as a kind of hardware (although bearing no resemblance to our normal computers) and the mind as a kind of software (ditto)
