[Help] I'm a White/Christian Magic Newbie

[MorganBlack]

Shit, man, this is all I got from looking at this stuff, mostly out of casual curiosity.

There are no contemporary historical references to Jesus or Christianity until decades after the supposed events. Paul, who was a mystic, is our earliest source for all of it. He never refers to a historical, human Jesus of Nazareth. For Paul, Christ was a spiritual, celestial figure revealed through visions and Merkabah-style mysticism. Paul took the hardened revolutionaries - the Zealots/Sicarii - who were militant nationalists fighting a literal war against Rome, the political rebels of 1st-century Jude , and transformed their narrative into a universal, Hellenized mystery religion. He stripped away the militant Jewish nationalism of figures like Judas the Galilean. That's it. The cool mystical weirdness was just stuff was just part of the Hellenized Greco-Roman world.

I liked Pagels way back when, but most modern scholars - like Michael Williams or Karen Kin - now agree that "Gnosticism" didn't exist as a formal, unified religion. (Been a while , I think there were groups around. ) But mostly it was a category error created by later Church Fathers to group their enemies together. What we call Gnosticism was really just Hellenized Jews and Christians applying Platonic philosophy to their mystical experiences. It was just the intellectual atmosphere of the time. Great stuff, tho, but is also baked-into Catholicism. It's all weird and very complex to unpack , with many factions.

 

[pruner_tipster]

Shit, man, this is all I got from looking at this stuff, mostly out of casual curiosity.

There are no contemporary historical references to Jesus or Christianity until decades after the supposed events. Paul, who was a mystic, is our earliest source for all of it. He never refers to a historical, human Jesus of Nazareth. For Paul, Christ was a spiritual, celestial figure revealed through visions and Merkabah-style mysticism. Paul took the hardened revolutionaries - the Zealots/Sicarii - who were militant nationalists fighting a literal war against Rome, the political rebels of 1st-century Jude , and transformed their narrative into a universal, Hellenized mystery religion. He stripped away the militant Jewish nationalism of figures like Judas the Galilean. That's it. The cool mystical weirdness was just stuff was just part of the Hellenized Greco-Roman world.

I liked Pagels way back when, but most modern scholars - like Michael Williams or Karen Kin - now agree that "Gnosticism" didn't exist as a formal, unified religion. (Been a while , I think there were groups around. ) But mostly it was a category error created by later Church Fathers to group their enemies together. What we call Gnosticism was really just Hellenized Jews and Christians applying Platonic philosophy to their mystical experiences. It was just the intellectual atmosphere of the time. Great stuff, tho, but is also baked-into Catholicism. It's all weird and very complex to unpack , with many factions.

Oh this is all casual curiosity for me. And fun because the actual answers are likely lost (or kept secret by those who know em). That said, yes Gnosticism wasnt a religion and it was a polemical device used to brand anyone an outsider. The Gnostic Informant is an occasionally entertaining YouTube channel on it. I dont think unpacking all this is even possible but just my $0.02

 

[Johny111]

The only guru is within

That is the biggest misconception of all time.

 

[pruner_tipster]

That is the biggest misconception of all time.

That’s the biggest misconception?? Of all time???

 

[therootbeersprite]

Why do you read superficially and react to something that hasn’t even been said? I only pointed out the possibility of one version of the name 'Jesus' in Hebrew. What does that have to do with the fact that Jews do not believe in Jesus? Instead of philosophizing in vain, it would be better if you wrote how the name Jesus would be written in Hebrew letters. Just because Jews do not believe in something doesn’t mean that concept cannot be written in Hebrew script. For years I have been engaged in speculating about writing and marking various phenomena in Hebrew script, and now you are asking me to stop, because...?

I'm asking you to stop because it is insulting. Why are you specifically using Hebrew here? There are countless other ways to invoke Jesus in languages and scripts from literally all over the entire planet. Why are you choosing to use the language of an often globally persecuted people who do not acknowledge the divinity of Jesus to specifically invoke the divinity of Jesus? There are a few possible answers here:

1) You didn't know better. Oops. It happens. Take the L with grace, apologize, learn, grow, and don't do it again.

2) You don't actually care about Jews one way or another. It doesn't matter what these living people actually think or say, and you think it's totally fine to use aspects of a closed religious and cultural practice in ways that are completely divorced from the actualities of those religious and cultural practices, or even bastardize them. Context is irrelevant. Even though there are other options, and readily available resources to learn about those options (I personally highly recommend, Fred Getting's "Dictionary of Occult, Hermetic, and Alchemical Sigils"), you demand the right to take this specific script, without also taking the responsibility of caretaking the associated language, cluture, or religion. This is arrogant, it is selfish, and it is rude.

3) You actively get a kick out of forcing the language of a people who don't believe in the divinity of Jesus into serving your workings involving the divinity Jesus. If so, then you are a thief, you know it, and you revel in it. At best you enjoy the irony. At worst, you enjoy the debasement. Nothing that anyone could possibly say would matter in this situation. It's the actions of an asshole.

So, are you an asshole, are you arrogant, or were you just genuinely uninformed?

And I'm not even asking you to stop your years-long engagement with Hebrew Script. (I think my opinion on that is pretty obviously stated in Option Two above, but I can't stop you, and I won't try...) What I am SPECIFICALLY pushing back against is using Hebrew to invoke Jesus in a Christian based ritual.

 

[Johny111]

I'm asking you to stop because it is insulting. Why are you specifically using Hebrew here? There are countless other ways to invoke Jesus in languages and scripts from literally all over the entire planet. Why are you choosing to use the language of an often globally persecuted people who do not acknowledge the divinity of Jesus to specifically invoke the divinity of Jesus? There are a few possible answers here:

1) You didn't know better. Oops. It happens. Take the L with grace, apologize, learn, grow, and don't do it again.

2) You don't actually care about Jews one way or another. It doesn't matter what these living people actually think or say, and you think it's totally fine to use aspects of a closed religious and cultural practice in ways that are completely divorced from the actualities of those religious and cultural practices, or even bastardize them. Context is irrelevant. Even though there are other options, and readily available resources to learn about those options (I personally highly recommend, Fred Getting's "Dictionary of Occult, Hermetic, and Alchemical Sigils"), you demand the right to take this specific script, without also taking the responsibility of caretaking the associated language, cluture, or religion. This is arrogant, it is selfish, and it is rude.

3) You actively get a kick out of forcing the language of a people who don't believe in the divinity of Jesus into serving your workings involving the divinity Jesus. If so, then you are a thief, you know it, and you revel in it. At best you enjoy the irony. At worst, you enjoy the debasement. Nothing that anyone could possibly say would matter in this situation. It's the actions of an asshole.

So, are you an asshole, are you arrogant, or were you just genuinely uninformed?

And I'm not even asking you to stop your years-long engagement with Hebrew Script. (I think my opinion on that is pretty obviously stated in Option Two above, but I can't stop you, and I won't try...) What I am SPECIFICALLY pushing back against is using Hebrew to invoke Jesus in a Christian based ritual.

Do you know why I recommend using Hebrew in the invocation of Jesus? From my perspective, it’s all part of the Jewish spiritual egregore, so it is natural that everything that belongs to that egregore is channeled with the help of the Hebrew language and letters. Even things that Jews have rejected, and which exist in negativity, such as elements from Kabbalistic demonology (or Jesus), are also phenomena that are communicated through the Hebrew linguistic-symbolic toolkit. Magic is a practical matter and doesn’t depend so much on what someone believes. Besides, there’s an entire branch of the Left-Hand Path that deals with “Qliphotic Kabbalah,” using elements from the Jewish spiritual tradition to summon dark forces. Do you think that is less 'offensive' than writing and invoking the name of a person called Jesus in Hebrew, whom some people believe is God? Simply, you can't fight against it. It's better to learn to tolerate those things. Why do you put yourself into that equation that concerns God and those who do it?

Post automatically merged: Today at 12:03 PM

That’s the biggest misconception?? Of all time???

Of course, this 'inner teacher' is an extremely rare phenomenon and can apply to some exceptional individuals. In the vast majority of cases, there is no 'inner teacher'; all inputs and triggers come from the outside. The mystery is not within us but outside of us. What you call the 'inner teacher' could theoretically apply to the true nature of our mind when all parasitic astral-mental implants are removed from it.

 

[MorganBlack]

therootbeersprite, is right. But it needs some context.

Historically, modern magicians maintained a level of ritual and mythological hygiene by keeping traditions separate, a certain distance between personal revelation and institutional boundaries. Well, unless you're Joseph Smith or Crowley, or St. Paul. They did did not come from culturally sensitive times. Now we live in a global interconnected world, so it's just good manners.

As magicians and mystics we sort of ride along in the sidecar of religious theology and use it for our own purposes. We utilize the structures of established faiths for our own purposes without necessarily being bound by their dogma. In Vodou there is a saying "Power is power." Whether we view these forces through through a psychological lens as neutral "egregores," or as a literalist lens that what they are 100% what the stories say they are, or in a more animist sense that "something" has agreed to respond to these names, the result remains the same, they work to ritualize our intent.

Magicans understood that you don’t use Muslim or Hindu prayers to summon Enochian angels, nor replace a traditional Hindu mantra with an invocation with the Native American Ghost dance. This separation is practical and respectful, and lets the magician to tap into a specific "current" while maintaining a broader social and relational respect for the cultures that preserved these powers.

Within one’s private practice and speculation these boundaries will naturally blur. My own conception of the cosmos is a "layered" universe, utilizing Catholic, Jewish, and PGM (Greek Magical Papyri) frameworks depending on which level of reality I'm addressing. While I used to keep them strictly separate , over time they eventually slotted together into a cohesive whole on their own though revelatory visions and teaching from my main tutelary spirt who specializes in magic.

But even though I hold a deeply personal conception of the divine based on how these forces "feel" in ritual, I feel no urge to formally articulate it into a new Gnostic or Neopagan religion, nor do I feel the need to recruit for one.

Anglophone magical culture is highly Protestant-encoded. It carries a deep-seated "Main Character" energy that prioritizes the individual’s direct revelation above all else. While you do you there has been a shift after several generations of Theosophy and Neopaganism. The focus moved from being a magician with a private, syncretic practice to an obsession with founding new religions.

Now everyone wants to be the High Priest or High Priestess of their own official fan club, and social media following. The goal has shifted from personal mastery to developing an online following and get a book deal. This has led to generations of practitioners pushing their UPG not just as a personal insight, but as "really-real" historical truth. Just, no.

I have my own heterodox takes on Catholicism - and the Church is actually surprisingly flexible regarding private revelation - but there are limits. Everyone should totally rock their personal gnosis; having all the grand visions and personal sorcery . I do feel that is entire point of all this. The problem only arises when that personal gnosis is leverage, often with shoddy scholarship, to rewrite history or demand broad social and civilization-level validation, which will include people whoa re still in more orthodox understanding, causing pointless drama and conflict.

There' s real difference between having a private conversation with a spirit , awesome visions and revelations, and demanding that an entire tradition change to accommodate you, because you're so special as Jesus, or The Morrigan, told you do. . We can enjoy the grand vision of our personal bullshit without needing to sell to everyone as real-real "facts".

We have come to call "magic" - as a formal "thing" separate from the dominant culture's religion - has usually been collection of weird underground subculture that venn over the dominant one. Historically these groups were on the fringe not necessarily because they were being persecuted (and the overstatement of history here to that is also an effort to feed the Main Character sense of being special) , but because they were weird to most people.

Magicans are weird. And dangerous. (Well, I am. Maybe you are not ). Magic , and I support this, is idiosyncratic and experimental ,and doesn't need to be a mass-market religion to be valid, or totally vampirize the myths and stories we draw from. Trying to turn it into an "official" religious institution often kills the very spark that makes it work, I feel. Something the neopagans have learned.

 

[Johny111]

You people are nitpicking too much. You completely overlook the historical context of what this is about. The formula YHShVH (יהשוה), formed by inserting the letter Shin (ש) into the Tetragram YHWH (יהוה), represents one of the most characteristic theological–kabbalistic constructions of the Christian Renaissance. Its meaning is explicitly Christological: the addition of Shin—symbol of fire, spirit, and Logos—transforms the ineffable divine Name into the Name of the Incarnation, that is, of Christ.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494) was undoubtedly the first major thinker to introduce Kabbalah into the Christian philosophical and theological horizon. In his theses and treatises, Pico maintains that the truth of Christian revelation can be demonstrated through kabbalistic methods such as gematria, notarikon, and permutations of divine names. He places particular emphasis on the name of Jesus (Yeshua / Yehoshua) and on the idea that Christ can be “read” from the Hebrew language of revelation itself. However, Pico does not employ the formula YHShVH in an explicit or formalized manner. His contribution is primarily conceptual and programmatic: he opens the door, but does not construct the final edifice.

That edifice is erected by Johannes Reuchlin (1455–1522), who may rightly be regarded as the central figure of Christian Kabbalah. In his works De Verbo Mirifico (1494) and, above all, De Arte Cabalistica (1517), Reuchlin is the first to present clearly and consistently the thesis that by inserting the letter Shin into the Tetragram one obtains the Name of Jesus, that is, the Name of God incarnate. In Reuchlin’s thought, YHShVH is not merely a symbolic conceit but a theological and theurgic formula: it expresses the unity of the transcendent God and the Logos who descends into the world. Shin becomes the sign of Christ’s role in the cosmic order—as mediator, central axis, and “fire” that unites heaven and earth.

It may therefore be concluded that Pico della Mirandola is the initiator of the Christian kabbalistic idea, whereas Johannes Reuchlin is its first true systematizer. The formula YHShVH in its full meaning—such as it would later be adopted by Agrippa, Postel, Fludd, and the wider Western esoteric tradition—derives precisely from Reuchlin’s work at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It stands as a paradigmatic example of how Kabbalah, within a Christian context, was reshaped into an instrument of Christological theology.

So, before anyone throws a stone at me for an unforgivable sin, let them first stone the individuals I mentioned here.

 

[MorganBlack]

You people are nitpicking too much.

Oh, shit! I should probably add here, on as personal mythic-magical level, I actually am sympathetic to the Christian Cabala, and what you're doing, Johny111. At a certain level we all have to "make shit our own." I was not trying police your own practice.

I was just suggesting we just need to acknowledge a little up front that "Magic" (as a stand-alone, Make-Your-Own-Adventure book, if there ever was one) has a pretty sketch history of appropriating Jewish mysticism, theology, and magic to make up dubious super-secret decoder ring "initiated teachings" and other "esoterically really-real" kitsch like "Runic Kabbalah." Not a good look.

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[Johny111]

MorganBlack and therootbeersprite
Honestly, just between us, I am not a Christian Kabbalist at all, and even less a Christian, and least of all a Kabbalist. I am simply defending everyone’s right to do whatever they want at their own expense, as long as what they do does not directly harm others (by this, I do not mean someone’s feelings about 'cultural appropriation'). Writing the name Jesus in Hebrew letters and invoking that name in a Kabbalistic manner is perfectly legitimate. Why would that be wrong if someone achieved ecstasy in that way? But, for the sake of a friendly atmosphere on the forum, I PROMISE that I will no longer recommend this to anyone here. Are we OK now?

 

[pruner_tipster]

[nevermind]