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Here is the video of last night's Ritual Night Talk on magical metaphysics. The donation link is here.
This is probably Part One of a longer conversation about how the metaphysics of magick work and how our models of consciousness necessarily relate to that process. If we start with the assumption that magick works - since we know it does - we can take a look at some of the ideas that are out there and see which ones qualify as possible explanations for our observations. It allows us to narrow down ideas from both quantum physics and consciousness research in order to build an accurate model of how what we do interacts with the world.
Enjoy!
15 comments:
In my experience, nothing will drive a materialist skeptic into a rage faster than a discussion on metaphysics.
Interesting stuff. As a hypothetical, how do you think the way magick is practiced would change if it were ever scientifically confirmed? How would society react?
I had a couple other questions. In mastering the mystical heptarchy, you mention that a powerful and skilled magician could make a probability shift of 100 to 1. Also, that enochian kings and princes could also make shifts of at least 100. Do you have a general estimate of the magical shifts of elemental kings and planetary/zodiacal angels? Also, do you have any general test to see how great a shift you can accomplish? Lottery tickets results against statistical probability, maybe.
I remember reading a quote from the chaos protocols by gordon white, something along the lines that tossing a coin and getting heads was 0.000042%, so a decent magician targets each coin flip individually, where the probability is 50%. Needing to do a full evocation before each coin flip would be a pain, it might be interesting to make a talisman that increases the chance of a coin landing on heads any time one is flipped by the person holding it. You could even do 1,000 flips with the talisman and 1,000 flips without it, and see if there's a significant difference. If you wanted to, you could even incorporate double blind methodology by giving the talisman to someone unaware, getting them to do both the talismatic flipping and the control flips, and get an impartial unaware person to record the results. Or multiple people to do flipping, but 1,000 flips might be overkill. Heads around 50% of the time would be average, what would count as a significant statistical deviation for the talisman flips? An extra 5%?
I also had a question about a magical name/motto. What's the purpose, or intended effect? Is it better to have a single name, or a full motto? And do you need to do a ritual to announce it? I think I remember modern magick having something like that.
Some people think it would be especially cool if magick were scientifically confirm, and other people have worries about it. I actually think that not a lot would change.
The whole reason that Randi and his crew got so worked up about "flim-flam" is that tons of people already believe in psychic powers, astrology, spirits, and so forth. Compared to that magick is just a little weirder. It would mean that we would have a solid understanding of what magick does and doesn't, which might deter people from making up fantastic claims about "Satanic rituals" and the like. So that would be positive. But I also think if it was clear up front how hard it is to learn and the amount of practice it takes to get good, there might be even less interest in it than there is now.
Lottery ticket results are exactly how I measure this stuff. As a rule of thumb, your more powerful spirits can add a shift of about 80-100 to your magical strength as long as you conjure them right and they get along with you. You get less of an effect if you have to bind or force them to work, which is why I never do that in my own operations. If I conjure a spirit and it's being resistant to doing what I want I find another spirit that's more willing. I also keep that thought in my mind - since most powerful spirits can read thoughts - so the spirit knows all it needs to do to get out of working with me is to be resistant.
Lottery results are better than a coin flip for several reasons. First of all, the amount of work that goes into making sure the results are random is quite extensive. With coin flips you can't really be sure - it's possible to flip a coin in such a way that you influence the results and the coin could be weighted in such a way that it lands on one side more than the other. Also, there's no real upside to success. With lottery numbers, you actually can win money if you get enough numbers correct. Also, the idea of winning the jackpot has the same kind of inspirational effect as casting any other practical spell for something you really want.
Magical mottos are entirely personal and there isn't a lot of guidance in the tradition about it. Kraig basically made up his instructions, and I don't know how necessary or relevant they. Basically you want to go with something that you really resonate with, whether it's one word or many. You don't need to do any special ritual for it, but you can if you want.
As far as the purpose goes, some magicians find that cultivating a full "magical persona" associated with the motto is useful - for bypassing bad conditioning or whatever. I never really got the point of that. I have a motto, but for me it's more like a "vision statement" for my magical work. I expect nothing would really change about my work if I stopped using it. I just like it.
For reference - how this worked in the original Golden Dawn is that the initiate would come up with a new motto each time they took an initiation, and in effect the initiation would become the ritual "announcing" it. Outside of that lodge structure, I don't think it's clear how effective that process is in terms of individual magical work.
Yeah, the benefits of meditation are well known, but some people still knuckle down and claim that it's nonsense. I think Randi was one of those people, actually.
People know how difficult meditation can be, but people are still drawn to it. I think similar things would be true for magick. Besides, breakthroughs in science haven't created more effective forms of meditation (to my knowledge, at least). It's probably up to us to determine what is and isn't effective, but a unified theory would probably help.
So for testing probability shifts using lottery tickets, you charge a spirit to make a lottery ticket successful, and if it is, check the probability of that draw occurring, and then that's the probability shift you achieved? That's pretty interesting. There are a lot of different lottery draws with varying probability, so it's a good testing method.
I understand that with elections timing you'll want to avoid casting on the void of course moon, and avoid a negative dignity. But is it particularly important to get a positive dignity? That narrows down the possible timing of quick casting.
In fact, how much of a negative effect on a probability shift would a negative aspect have? Compared to void of course moon, neutral aspects and positive aspects. I know a general estimate is all that's possible, but a vague rule of thumb would be nice, especially when odds are close.
Wait, I had a look at the list of powers. Which one would work best for winning lottery tickets? The closest I can figure is the sun for acquiring wealth, because none of the others don't seem to be for luck.
I swear I've heard of gambling spells, though. Something to do with mercury. Thoughts?
Experimentally I found that Jupiter seemed to work the best for me compared to Sun and also Mercury. Another magician online posted about the same thing and he claimed to have better luck with Mercury. Here's the rationale for each of those planets.
Sun: Power of Acquiring Wealth. Lottery winnings are wealth.
Jupiter: Political and Other Ascendancy. In our modern society, "ascendancy" is strongly tied to wealth. Rich people have the highest status, and lottery winnings make you rich.
Mercury: Less obvious from the 777 powers, but traditionally Mercury rules games of chance. The lottery is a game of chance.
The differences in my results and the other magician's results might have something to do with our respective astrological charts, but it's not obvious what the difference would be. I have Mercury in rulership and Jupiter in detriment in mine, so if the relationship was straightforward planetary dignity I would expect Mercury to work better for me. But that isn't how my results turned out.
Maybe it has to do with HOW you actually play the lottery. Mercury would be games of chance, but also a gambling strategy, i.e. counting cards at poker for instance. Jupiter would be personal morals and ethics, while the Sun would be ego, in short.
So if you play based on a strategy, by calculating probabilities based on previous numbers that came out, then maybe Mercury spells would work better. If you play thinking what you'd do if you'd win, invest, save, etc, then Jupiter would probably work better. If you just ollay to win, maybe even add personal numbers (date of birth, special numbers to you, etc), the the Sun would probably work better.
I haven't tested this idea extensively, so it's just a wacky idea of mine so far :)
I'll try a bunch of evocations over time using each. The overall records will point out what's more effective for me.
I finished reading Mystical Heptarchy, how do you create the Sigillum Dei Aemeth? I know you can carve it by hand, but I'm not very steady at drawing so engraving might be a little shoddy.
How do you get a hold of a mold with the sigil on it, to cast wax in? I've never worked with wax before, and my first round of Google searches isn't turning up much info on how to create or use molds.
@Alex: I think that probably is unlikely for two reasons. First, there is no strategy for a lottery. I happen to know this because my wife worked as a computer operator many years ago for the Minnesota state lottery board and the number of checks they go through to make sure there are no patterns in the numbers is ridiculous.
Also, I did experiment with divining for numbers and then playing the numbers I got versus casting for random sets of numbers on a quick-pick. There was no difference in the results, including Jupiter winning out over Mercury and the Sun.
@HalcAre: It doesn't have to be wax to work. I did a presentation on Heptarchial Evocation at the National OTO Convention using a Sigillum created by printing out the top image, gluing that to an 8-inch wooded disk from Michael's craft store, and then drawing the AGLA and the cross on the bottom in black sharpie. It worked fine. So that's one approach.
Another approach that I've heard of but haven't tried myself for making a wax one is to create a blank wax disk and print out the image on paper. Then you put the paper on top of the disk and use a pin to create dotted lines in the wax following all the lines on the paper image. Then to finish it, take the paper off and connect all the dots on the wax.
The wax one that I actually use was made by making a mold of the image and then casting the wax. But that's a lot more work than the "dotted line" method if you only need to make one.
I had an idea. In tarot cards, the path of Jupiter is the wheel of fortune. Fortuna is a goddess that specifically relates to luck. Could do a Jupiter evocation, using the orphic hymn to Fortuna, to attune the ritual to ascendancy through luck.
@Scott yea it's just that I had to throw it out there for some reason.
Oh, and I have to thank you for >>>>>>> (the link you added to the right of he page) !!! I just saw it. Thank you!!!
Now, on a more serious note, I think that many factors have to be considered for winning the lottery even with magical means. First of all the natal 5th house would have to be observed: its cusp and thus its ruler, any placements inside it, the location of its ruler and its dignity and aspects, the aspects any planet located in the fifth house is involved in, as well as its dignity. The same thing would be done for the natal 2nd house. And last but not least, any transits through those houses at the time when you buy the ticket and cast the spell.
As for you having good results with Jupiter, it goes to show your skills and abilities, since you're saying your Jupiter is not that well placed. It can balance out its debility if its located in its triplicity, terms (and decan if possible), but I'm sure you're aware of that. And it can also receive great help from its dispositor if the latter is strong.
So far I've experimented with transits through my 5th. My NN is there, but so far I'm seeing that doesn't help because it represents potential, so I'd have to really work to exploit that potential. And I get more numbers and closer to scoring more numbers when I get a Venus transit through my 5th, even though Venus is ill dignified in Aries.
@HalcAre: It sounds like that would at least be worth experimenting with.
@Alex: I've had the link there for awhile, at least a couple of months. Hopefully it's generating some traffic for you. :)
Back when I last ran a big set of lottery tests was many years ago, before I really got very far into zodiacal magick. So unfortunately I didn't do much tracking at the time of the relevant astrological conditions. It's very interesting hearing about your findings in that regard, since I expect the underlying astrology is probably relevant.
@HalcAre go for it. Then again, you could follow Nick Farrell who's Pagan AF and call in both Jupiter spirits and the goddess Fortuna in the same ritual (because why not throw a spiritual party while you're at it? :D). But seriously, give it a try.
@Scott. Yes I have found it more and more that for any kind of spell done in the magician's behalf, their natal house concerning that intent has to have good natal placements and transits in order to bring a major success. And since winning the lottery is almost miracle-like even with magick, I think his applies even more. What makes it harder is that not one, but two or more houses are involved in this case: 2, 5, even 11 and 12 (unknown) I think.
PS:
@Scott I kept seeing views coming from your blog, but I initially thought it was you hahaha, which made me feel honored! Nevertheless, I feel honored! Some 90% of my small traffic is coming from here, so thank you again!!!
(And sorry if I wrote Nick's name before, but he's a meanie! The knows why :D)
@Alex, I do read your blog and some of those were probably me. I use the sidebar on Augoeides as sort of low-budget RSS reader, and usually click on the sidebar links to read the articles when I see them. Since it's public other folks can do the same thing, and I hope that they are. You cover and post good material.
You can mention Nick here if you want. Long ago I defeated his "watcher of the dawn" blog when it tried to move in on my turf - on two separate occasions! As such, he doesn't vex me at all. Sometimes he even writes good magical articles. ;)
LOL!
Thank you!
(My blog turned more serious for some time even though I'm still using my casual style. I hope I can keep the momentum going by coming up with more interesting topics.)
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