I am not so sure magick do require and imagination, though most pepole have one. But perhaps an imagination can be of good help, and besides, is not the imagination magickal in and off itself?I agree with Jenfucius. Magick does require an imagination, but the imagination itself is not practicing magick. It is quite simple really.
Why your magick does not work
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Why your magick does not work
Original post: Venefica
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Why your magick does not work
Original post: Draginvry
[QUOTE=Kath_;373773]There is a great deal 'right' about taking one's Will and approaching the method with a 'just do it' attitude. Ultimately all methods and systems are designed to get the 'do it' done, and if that can be addressed with simple bull headed will & desire, great.[/QUOTE]
I agree. The advantage of the n00b is that she's willing to headbutt her way to success.
The advantage of the practiced magician is that he's willing to take time to study why his head hurts so much now that he's not a n00b...
[QUOTE=Kath_;373773]There is a great deal 'right' about taking one's Will and approaching the method with a 'just do it' attitude. Ultimately all methods and systems are designed to get the 'do it' done, and if that can be addressed with simple bull headed will & desire, great.[/QUOTE]
I agree. The advantage of the n00b is that she's willing to headbutt her way to success.
The advantage of the practiced magician is that he's willing to take time to study why his head hurts so much now that he's not a n00b...
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Why your magick does not work
Original post: Frater Alysyrose
*gets the aspirin...*
Hah, I completely agree with this.I agree. The advantage of the n00b is that she's willing to headbutt her way to success.
The advantage of the practiced magician is that he's willing to take time to study why his head hurts so much now that he's not a n00b...
*gets the aspirin...*
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awriterscorned
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Why your magick does not work
I think this is interesting, though I would disagree on one point. Sometimes people who haven't been training are successful with astral projection by accident. I'm 20 now, but when I was 14 and I started practicing I had one amazing experience and that was it. I'm not claiming I have the "power" of astral projection or anything but sometimes stuff does work and sometimes people's egos get inflated by it.
I was a bit like the people you describe back in the day, but now I've realized how hard it really is and I don't even know where to start...it's pretty mind-boggling.
I was a bit like the people you describe back in the day, but now I've realized how hard it really is and I don't even know where to start...it's pretty mind-boggling.
Why your magick does not work
It isn't hard at all... The whole reason you have trouble now would be because you've managed to convince yourself that it's difficult. 
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VenusSatanas
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Why your magick does not work
I agree, thats where most problems start. the mind can be a very powerful tool, and doubt can be crippling to a magician.
VenusSatanas Blog: http://www.spiritualsatanist.blogspot.com/
Theistic Satanism and Magick: http://www.spiritualsatanist.com/
~ I AM! I WILL! I CREATE! ~
Theistic Satanism and Magick: http://www.spiritualsatanist.com/
~ I AM! I WILL! I CREATE! ~
Why your magick does not work
Reminds me of an adage from somewhere..
"If you truly believe you can't do something, are you even going to try?"
"If you truly believe you can't do something, are you even going to try?"
Why your magick does not work
I believe practicing magic is not easy---if it were easy,everyone would be doing it.I also believe some abilities are inate,and others are developed.Either way,belief,willpower,research and practical application are largely responsible for success.I don't blame anyone with a natural or easy ability,but I believe true examples of this are rare.Much more common are quitters and liars.
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Articulatum
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Re: Why your magick does not work
Why is it the most hostile threads get the most posts? That is a troubling insight into human nature...In regards as to why MY magick does not work, I would like to provide a few challanges I have faced and the moderate solutions, in hope of helping others out.
1.) Belief: As has been pointed out on this thread belief in what you are doing is essential in order to focus the will. This means you must be able to move past your failure. I have, at many times in my practice failed to produce the result I was looking for, and this can be very discouraging. The best thing to do is analyze what you did and look for imperfections. But, in my experience, sometimes things do not work...or at least work in ways that are so oblique and subtle that you do not recognize them as success. So have faith and be patient...The Great Magnet works in mysterious ways. Sometimes failure is success, if you know what I mean.
2.)Look for a Teacher: Yes, bias will be introduced, but as an arrogant young magician I was hell-bent on doing it myself until I met a very good teacher. The most important lesson they taught me was that teachers are imperfect, but that does not negate the wisdom they DO hold. A good teacher will only share what he/she knows, not claim to be the be all, end all of knowledge. So, even if you are naturally gifted seek out those with more experience. They have much to teach you, if only humility.
3.)Practice, practice, practice: True success will not come easy, even to a natural adept. Natural adepts have the hardest time, as they must learn to control their power. They do not have the luxury of a limited power that they have refined; they have to refine the power that already works. And nothing is quicker to failure than an undisciplined natural adept...or more dangerous.
4.) Work out of love, not fear...or love of power: The dark aspects can be powerful, and everything has a time and place, but arrogancce and desire can lead you to scarry and dangerous places. I know this from experience. Things that are done cannot be undone, so make sure you have only the purest of intentions, for there are things out there with a power beyond your comprehension that would love nothing more than to ensnare you in a web of horror.
I hope this is helpful. In the words of one of my teachers "I only know more than you because I have made more mistakes. So let me show you mine so you do not hve to make them."
1.) Belief: As has been pointed out on this thread belief in what you are doing is essential in order to focus the will. This means you must be able to move past your failure. I have, at many times in my practice failed to produce the result I was looking for, and this can be very discouraging. The best thing to do is analyze what you did and look for imperfections. But, in my experience, sometimes things do not work...or at least work in ways that are so oblique and subtle that you do not recognize them as success. So have faith and be patient...The Great Magnet works in mysterious ways. Sometimes failure is success, if you know what I mean.
2.)Look for a Teacher: Yes, bias will be introduced, but as an arrogant young magician I was hell-bent on doing it myself until I met a very good teacher. The most important lesson they taught me was that teachers are imperfect, but that does not negate the wisdom they DO hold. A good teacher will only share what he/she knows, not claim to be the be all, end all of knowledge. So, even if you are naturally gifted seek out those with more experience. They have much to teach you, if only humility.
3.)Practice, practice, practice: True success will not come easy, even to a natural adept. Natural adepts have the hardest time, as they must learn to control their power. They do not have the luxury of a limited power that they have refined; they have to refine the power that already works. And nothing is quicker to failure than an undisciplined natural adept...or more dangerous.
4.) Work out of love, not fear...or love of power: The dark aspects can be powerful, and everything has a time and place, but arrogancce and desire can lead you to scarry and dangerous places. I know this from experience. Things that are done cannot be undone, so make sure you have only the purest of intentions, for there are things out there with a power beyond your comprehension that would love nothing more than to ensnare you in a web of horror.
I hope this is helpful. In the words of one of my teachers "I only know more than you because I have made more mistakes. So let me show you mine so you do not hve to make them."
Re: Why your magick does not work
Can't say I'm sure mine ever has conclusively. I'd give it the whole "faith" angle but that'd be a disingenuous load of BS to me personally. I've tried to practice for many years, but can never say I got really deep into it or was able to improve the fundamentals enough to be really good, so I can't say with any degree of certainty, but I'd hope it'd be something real and not something that thrives on ignorance, cognitive bias feedback loops (for example, I've performed very elaborate chaos magick sigil rituals and have used drugs in those as well at times with success frequently being unquantifiable and failure often overlooked or dismissed b/c of some random reason), and just superstition.
From a strictly scientific and logical standpoint, human consciousness is an abstraction of underlying biological processes that only appears to be magic or "supernatural" in the same sense that computers appear to work like magic despite the fact that there are "dumb" pieces of silicon underneath it all with some electricity. Most of whom society regards as the smartest people subscribe to some variation of this belief or at least to secular humanist principles with finding their "spirituality" in the process of discovery. When I was younger and read these forums and others and saw such posts like I make now, I tended to disregard it, to eschew its existence as mere ignorance and not to let it devalue the "truth" as I thought existed. But now, a little older and a lot wiser, I realize that such a concept could indeed be possible as much as I hope it is not. But I wouldn't let that aspect discourage people who read this as there is more to it.
Through my experiences with various states of consciousness that were drug-induced (including using salvia and cannabis in rituals), I have seemingly subscribed to that theory under said effects with an increasingly nihilistic outlook blossoming as my awareness that we were sensory automatons might be an inevitability as well as the fact that none of my hallucinations have appeared to be anything but a mental fancy, memory projected through a certain lens, or simply a case of confusion. I extrapolated this out to all sorts of experiences and given people are usually hardly aware of themselves, let alone how they perceive things, it seemed very likely that people who experience "God" or other things were simply victims of their own mental illness, as I've been in situations induced by drugs where the limits of the brain and the illusions it created were well-understood. Combined with modern psychological theory and praxis as well as societal history and what we know of folklore and religion as well as the simple fact that most people never question their reality or think critically, it became obvious to me. The supernatural was never needed to explain life as they simply add on layers to what already exists complicating it unnecessarily.
However, there remains a seed, even though it might be animalcule compared to its original form in me, that has planted doubt in my mind that this logical and scientific mindset is entirely the correct one. For one, what applies to that which humans create does not have to apply to humans themselves, or life in general. Computers appear like magic but human consciousness envisioned and created it. Secularists would argue evolution created consciousness in the sense that "created" is more to mean "was evolutionarily favored based on the environment," but issues of metaphysics remain extremely illusive and the possibilities are truly endless. How can we comprehend that which is our own mind within its established method of reasoning? Can a computer program understand itself? Truly understand? Let alone what lies outside of that system? Consciousness continues to elude scientists and classical Newtonian physics have given way to the weirder, less concrete fields of quantum theory we find ourselves swimming in now.
Also, in my various states of minds I have noticed that there seems to be a wall. Maybe it's my imagination, but perhaps the brain is the physical means of accomplishing higher-order phenomena. There seems to be that wall that cannot be easily broken without being slipped through in a very intricate process of self-realization or perhaps shattered through other means. I'd call that wall what many might call it in the Qabbalah, Netzach. Bifröst in Norse mythology, the World of the Mind. A world that is impossible to comprehend in and of itself because you cannot comprehend something using that very object. The mind can never comprehend the mind. I have tried and in varied states it is impossible to follow, makes no sense, will drive a person to madness and despair. A mangled mass of memories interconnected with thoughts and feelings. I think of it as a rotating dome of images projected upon our sense of thought and the veil through which we interpret it (which I see as a mist of colors) is our emotional state, our way of perceiving, a particular paradigm influenced by many things. This is the Rainbow Bride of Bifröst that crosses between the realm of Man (Malkuth) and the realm of the Gods. I think of it as Netzach/Hod Qabbalistically and the only way to pass through and achieve true self-realization is to comprehend oneself. I think one can bypass it at times but ultimately shattering it is a life-long (and more) endeavor. The fallacy of the mind is falling into that trying to analyze that mass of thoughts and feelings when instead we should be ignoring it. It is a distraction that leads to perdition. I think one can find support or in various religious and human archetypes for this conquering of the mind, the taming of this wild beast. Even the Bible mentions it was the Fruit of Knowledge that ultimately doomed mankind. Perhaps the tearing need to know what is true, what isn't, what is good, what is bad, etc. is in the way of our path to ascension. Acceptance of one's ignorance and lack of wisdom might be a key to realization.
Ultimately with so many competing theories and experiences, facts and paradigms, there can be a lot of distress. We are fed the line that as students of the occult we should first embrace a paradigm. Perhaps that is a problem in the long-run. When we embrace one idea but eschew others, we lose. But if we embrace all without true depth in each, we also lose. A balancing act and a state of duality and contradiction to the very end!
Some seek Power, go down that Path. Some seek Pleasure and go down that Path. Most either end up as casual practitioners slowly absorbed in the river of life or mad because of innumerable obstacles in their way. I think that ultimately what should be sought is Truth, no matter how bitter a pill it is to swallow because even if Ignorance is Bliss, Truth is Freedom.
Reflect. With Love.
~Fr. Xion
From a strictly scientific and logical standpoint, human consciousness is an abstraction of underlying biological processes that only appears to be magic or "supernatural" in the same sense that computers appear to work like magic despite the fact that there are "dumb" pieces of silicon underneath it all with some electricity. Most of whom society regards as the smartest people subscribe to some variation of this belief or at least to secular humanist principles with finding their "spirituality" in the process of discovery. When I was younger and read these forums and others and saw such posts like I make now, I tended to disregard it, to eschew its existence as mere ignorance and not to let it devalue the "truth" as I thought existed. But now, a little older and a lot wiser, I realize that such a concept could indeed be possible as much as I hope it is not. But I wouldn't let that aspect discourage people who read this as there is more to it.
Through my experiences with various states of consciousness that were drug-induced (including using salvia and cannabis in rituals), I have seemingly subscribed to that theory under said effects with an increasingly nihilistic outlook blossoming as my awareness that we were sensory automatons might be an inevitability as well as the fact that none of my hallucinations have appeared to be anything but a mental fancy, memory projected through a certain lens, or simply a case of confusion. I extrapolated this out to all sorts of experiences and given people are usually hardly aware of themselves, let alone how they perceive things, it seemed very likely that people who experience "God" or other things were simply victims of their own mental illness, as I've been in situations induced by drugs where the limits of the brain and the illusions it created were well-understood. Combined with modern psychological theory and praxis as well as societal history and what we know of folklore and religion as well as the simple fact that most people never question their reality or think critically, it became obvious to me. The supernatural was never needed to explain life as they simply add on layers to what already exists complicating it unnecessarily.
However, there remains a seed, even though it might be animalcule compared to its original form in me, that has planted doubt in my mind that this logical and scientific mindset is entirely the correct one. For one, what applies to that which humans create does not have to apply to humans themselves, or life in general. Computers appear like magic but human consciousness envisioned and created it. Secularists would argue evolution created consciousness in the sense that "created" is more to mean "was evolutionarily favored based on the environment," but issues of metaphysics remain extremely illusive and the possibilities are truly endless. How can we comprehend that which is our own mind within its established method of reasoning? Can a computer program understand itself? Truly understand? Let alone what lies outside of that system? Consciousness continues to elude scientists and classical Newtonian physics have given way to the weirder, less concrete fields of quantum theory we find ourselves swimming in now.
Also, in my various states of minds I have noticed that there seems to be a wall. Maybe it's my imagination, but perhaps the brain is the physical means of accomplishing higher-order phenomena. There seems to be that wall that cannot be easily broken without being slipped through in a very intricate process of self-realization or perhaps shattered through other means. I'd call that wall what many might call it in the Qabbalah, Netzach. Bifröst in Norse mythology, the World of the Mind. A world that is impossible to comprehend in and of itself because you cannot comprehend something using that very object. The mind can never comprehend the mind. I have tried and in varied states it is impossible to follow, makes no sense, will drive a person to madness and despair. A mangled mass of memories interconnected with thoughts and feelings. I think of it as a rotating dome of images projected upon our sense of thought and the veil through which we interpret it (which I see as a mist of colors) is our emotional state, our way of perceiving, a particular paradigm influenced by many things. This is the Rainbow Bride of Bifröst that crosses between the realm of Man (Malkuth) and the realm of the Gods. I think of it as Netzach/Hod Qabbalistically and the only way to pass through and achieve true self-realization is to comprehend oneself. I think one can bypass it at times but ultimately shattering it is a life-long (and more) endeavor. The fallacy of the mind is falling into that trying to analyze that mass of thoughts and feelings when instead we should be ignoring it. It is a distraction that leads to perdition. I think one can find support or in various religious and human archetypes for this conquering of the mind, the taming of this wild beast. Even the Bible mentions it was the Fruit of Knowledge that ultimately doomed mankind. Perhaps the tearing need to know what is true, what isn't, what is good, what is bad, etc. is in the way of our path to ascension. Acceptance of one's ignorance and lack of wisdom might be a key to realization.
Ultimately with so many competing theories and experiences, facts and paradigms, there can be a lot of distress. We are fed the line that as students of the occult we should first embrace a paradigm. Perhaps that is a problem in the long-run. When we embrace one idea but eschew others, we lose. But if we embrace all without true depth in each, we also lose. A balancing act and a state of duality and contradiction to the very end!
Some seek Power, go down that Path. Some seek Pleasure and go down that Path. Most either end up as casual practitioners slowly absorbed in the river of life or mad because of innumerable obstacles in their way. I think that ultimately what should be sought is Truth, no matter how bitter a pill it is to swallow because even if Ignorance is Bliss, Truth is Freedom.
Reflect. With Love.
~Fr. Xion