tyaginator
2004-10-01 22:32:52 UTC
50041001 viii om
I received a request for help getting started doing magic.
the best advice in general I can offer is found at:
http://www.luckymojo.com/faqs/ref.lrnonln.9804
but supplemental URLs to check out would be:
http://www.darkwave.org.uk/~rick/amfaq.htm
and
http://www.luckymojo.com/faqs.html
and
http://www.luckymojo.com/altmagickfaq/
and
http://dmoz.org/Society/Religion_and_Spirituality/Esoteric_and_Occult/Magick
while sleight of hand (like palming coins) and stage
performances manipulating perception of an audience (as
practiced by such notables as Harry Blackstone Jr. or
Harry Houdini) are sometimes identified as magic, and
indeed as they even sometimes form part of activities
which are engaged by students of occult arts, I will
not be addressing these refined skills here. they may
be learned from others specializing in their deception.
there are hundreds of different *types* of magic from
as many different cultures and time periods. most of
those who presume to instruct the subject have little
exposure to more than 1 or 2 versions that they have
concluded was the best or most effective style or
tradition after reading some books or studying with
one or two teachers. often they will believe fantasies
that serve to support the authority of that which
they've learned.
most of those who start a study of magic do so in order
to enhance or somehow increase their power, their
ability to affect the world through means unavailable
to the average person. those with the greatest incentive
to use magic and learn it for THIS purpose are those
who, for one reason or another, feel a sense of their
own powerlessness in the world. this includes the young,
who are subject to the direction of parents or have yet
to explore the many social avenues available to them
based on their aptitudes and skills, and seek some kind
of advantage that will make things easier or enable
a better position than their peers. this includes women,
who use witchery to warp the world a little their way.
this includes folk, laborers sometimes quite impoverished,
with something to gain from a known pragmatic technology.
I don't think that prophecy, prognostication, psychicism
or superpowers attained as a byproduct of mysticism are
magic, the most outrageous of these I doubt exists at all.
tyaginator
I received a request for help getting started doing magic.
the best advice in general I can offer is found at:
http://www.luckymojo.com/faqs/ref.lrnonln.9804
but supplemental URLs to check out would be:
http://www.darkwave.org.uk/~rick/amfaq.htm
and
http://www.luckymojo.com/faqs.html
and
http://www.luckymojo.com/altmagickfaq/
and
http://dmoz.org/Society/Religion_and_Spirituality/Esoteric_and_Occult/Magick
while sleight of hand (like palming coins) and stage
performances manipulating perception of an audience (as
practiced by such notables as Harry Blackstone Jr. or
Harry Houdini) are sometimes identified as magic, and
indeed as they even sometimes form part of activities
which are engaged by students of occult arts, I will
not be addressing these refined skills here. they may
be learned from others specializing in their deception.
there are hundreds of different *types* of magic from
as many different cultures and time periods. most of
those who presume to instruct the subject have little
exposure to more than 1 or 2 versions that they have
concluded was the best or most effective style or
tradition after reading some books or studying with
one or two teachers. often they will believe fantasies
that serve to support the authority of that which
they've learned.
most of those who start a study of magic do so in order
to enhance or somehow increase their power, their
ability to affect the world through means unavailable
to the average person. those with the greatest incentive
to use magic and learn it for THIS purpose are those
who, for one reason or another, feel a sense of their
own powerlessness in the world. this includes the young,
who are subject to the direction of parents or have yet
to explore the many social avenues available to them
based on their aptitudes and skills, and seek some kind
of advantage that will make things easier or enable
a better position than their peers. this includes women,
who use witchery to warp the world a little their way.
this includes folk, laborers sometimes quite impoverished,
with something to gain from a known pragmatic technology.
I don't think that prophecy, prognostication, psychicism
or superpowers attained as a byproduct of mysticism are
magic, the most outrageous of these I doubt exists at all.
tyaginator