Always Wondering
Thanks AW I've put it on my list!
Your welcome. Great topic. I'm learning lots also.
AW
Thanks AW I've put it on my list!
http://www.amazon.com/Low-Magick-Your-Head-Just/dp/0738719242
You might want check out Lon Milo DuQuette's book on low magick. I found it very fun and helpful.
AW
I partly agree. But the question remains, why does a person have to go through all this preparation and training in the first place? If simple methods are effective, why go to all the hassle of learning elaborate and complex magical systems?Seems to me that the difference is the level of preparation/education/training the magician goes thru before dabbling in stuff we really know very little about. That perhaps the ceremonial magician is more "protected" by all the years of work prior to attempting some of the workings that might be carried out.
Well, i believe that's first, not last! I mean, how else does one develop interest in altered states of mind etc.?If all else fails there's still sex and drugs.
True.Well, i believe that's first, not last! I mean, how else does one develop interest in altered states of mind etc.?
"Wow, look at all those trippy colours dude".
is a valid one...they call a childs' thinking "magical thinking", after all. I've heard it said that in Ireland, the educated, and Christian, cannot see the "gentry"...but the local people who are less 'refined' can. Such "folks" would be much more likely to use 'folk magic.'The trouble is that we modern humans are elaborate and complex beings. The sophistication of our minds means that the simple techniques employed by our ancestors might not work for us today. In many ways it's like asking a grown up adult to accept the reality of Santa. Unless you have the ability to revert back to a child-like mental state, or are a very superstitious (almost the same thing really), then it's going to be hard to get simple techniques to work. The developed mind of most modern humans will automatically start raising objections and nullify the whole thing.
I remember Joeseph Campbell, in his interviews with Bill Moyers, making the point about language, that there had to be different words for everything, depending on if it belonged to the elite classes or the poor.
Ehem... but those would still label the same object or idea, if you see what i mean; those would be just two differently conditioned labels for inherently identical matter;
i am somehow getting the feeling its the same with magic...
I mean, a pot is still a vessel with certain use - even if you call it a vase or something else.
(You can choose to not name it too.)
So basically, the difference would be in people naming the pot - not in the pot itself (if we follow that logic, not that i would know. )
yes, yes, yes... but pot's usage wouldn't change if you confused what its called and got all the wrong associations!Ah, but if you called it a "chamber pot" instead of a "sauce pot," you would have a whole different set of associations,
Oh, at my late granmother's (and almost everyone's grandmother at this part of the world) house too!And yes, my relatives in Canada still used those back in the '50s when they had no indoor plumbing . . .