OccultForum.org

Do we care?

Most people seem to accept that Magic refers to the tricks performers on stage use to amaze an audience, whereas Magick refers to what we are trying to accomplish here.

Don't care if I get what's someone saying. If not, I will ask.

^ this

Crowley is the one who established this distinction, and he had his reasons for doing so.

It's only relatively recent that the occult and human society at large has grown to such an extent that either of these words went from referring to very specific traditions to meaning "occult power" in general. Kind of like "Shaman," which was originally a made up English word used to describe a bunch of tribal Russian spirit workers, and now it's used to describe a whole bunch of different things -- even when specific cultures have specific words for what they practice.

Linguistically, I don't mind this. It's useful to have words to describe fields and words to describe specific things -- like "medicine" and the distinction between "prescription" and "acupuncture." Culturally, I have practiced Magic, Magick, and I also have specific cultural words for the specific arts that I primarily work with.

At the end of the day, EternalReturn pretty much summed up most people's feelings. In Crowley's day, nobody knew the difference between a tradition of occult work that was thousands of years old and the common stage trickster. Suffice to say, I think Crowley would be pleased that this generation generally knows the difference quite well, even if we do have fiction (and sometimes ridiculous fiction) to thank for it.



~:Shin:~

I understand the general concept behind the distinction and honestly it helps me when Googling/(*insertsearchenginehere*ing here)for actual information not just slight of hand tricks.

Currently, I use magic for Low Magic and magick when I speak of High or Ceremonial Magick.

This is may change in the future.

I stick to the original word first, "magic." It meant the real thing before it came to mean stage illusions, and it seems silly to change the spelling just because Crowley wanted the word to fit his formulas. The "k" on the end also comes off as rather pompous to me, personally, and given my feelings on the GD and Thelema (and their offshoots), the traditions where this spelling is most common, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth,

I don't really mind to be honest. I think it can make the distinction easier when googling but other than that it doesn't really have much of an impact.