Classification

[Ci Celli Ddu]

How do we classify magical practices and techniques?
In Peter Carroll's Liber KKK we have five classical acts of magic (Evocation, Divination, Enchantment, Invocation, and Illumination) which are then crossed with "the five levels of magical activity", namely Sorcery, Shamanic Magic, Ritual Magic, Astral Magic and High Magic.

Is this a fairly comprehensive means of classification? Or is it full of gaping holes as far as your own practice is concerned? Here are Mr Carroll's own definitions (in brief) of these categories:

Evocation: This is work with entities that may be naturally occuring or manufactured.
Divination: Includes all those practices in which the magician attempts to extend perception by magical means.
Enchantment: Includes all those practices in which the magician attempts to impose will on reality.
Invocation: ...the deliberate attunement of consciousness and the unconscious with some archetypal or significant nexus of thought.
Illumination: ...deliberate self-modification by magic

Sorcery: Simple magic that depends on the occult connections which exist between physical phenomena
Shamanic Magic: This works on the level of trance, vision, imagination and dream.
Ritual Magic: The magician brings together the use of tools from the sorcery level with the subconscious powers liberated on the shamanic level and combines their use in a disciplined and controlled fashion.
Astral Magic: This magic is performed by visualization and altered states of consciousness, or gnosis, alone.
High Magic: ...is what occurs when there is no impediment to the direct magical effect of will, no barrier to direct clairvoyance and prescience, and no seperation between the magician and any form of rapport or consciousness he or she chooses to enter into.

Whatever may be the case, personally I find that this kind of categorisation could be quite useful in a world so full of varying paradigms as that of the Occult.

[m1thr0s]

I think maybe the idea of classifying these things is a good one but Carroll himself always reeks of superficiality to me personally. I think maybe the best way around that is to go the extra distance to incorporate historical and geographical variations in ones definitions. "sorcery" is simply not the same thing to everyone, nor "illumination", nor any of these terms really... It may perhaps extend the task into a full-fledged book but it would still amount to a much better classification system in the end.

I also notice that scrying, or tantric weaving is conspicuously missing from this lineup, unless it is supposed to be somehow intimated from a blend of several other categories. Since my own practice relies heavily upon this methodology I find it a little annoying that it would be omitted entirely...although I am sort of used to that by now. Alchemical Projection is also absent as are a few other categories of merit (Gazing for instance). Meditation itself is blatantly omitted. Chant as well. Contemplation. Dance. I suspect we could extend upon this list quite a bit before we were through.

Classification itself is a powerful tool though...any writer knows this as do most scientists, artists in their own ways and so on. One needs to be especially careful not to limit one's definitions too abruptly or the whole thing caves in...

m1thr0s

[Ci Celli Ddu]

Scrying as I understand it would fall into Divination, though I'm guessing that you would define it otherwise, and I'm not at all sure what Tantric Weaving and Gazing is exactly, but Alchemical Projection definately does not sit well with any of these categories. Using Carroll's model, Alchemical Projection would be Projection via Alchemy, which would as a result entail the existance of Projection via Sorcery, Shamanic Magic, Ritual Magic etc.
Alchemy seems to me to deserve to be a level of magic in itself, though I'd leave it to alchemists such as yourself to define what it is.

[m1thr0s]

Scrying as an extension of gazing would be this way but scrying as a form of energy manipulation itself is quite different. But I think you are right...Alchemy adds a new wrinkle to these classifications altogether. Since it incorporates both Internal and Physical dimensions it's pretty vast in and of itself.

But so is Meditation which seems conspicuously absent here. I think what you would wind up with is a broader Master Categories followed up with a much more strenuous body of sub-categories...assuming you set out to build something more universally useful from this.

m1thr0s

[Oblio]

Illumination: ...deliberate self-modification by magic


Perhaps this is meant to encompass meditation and inner alchemy. However, it's not a very good definition. If this is a classification of a type of magic, then it should not really invoke the word magic in its definition. Also, wouldn't this make invocation a type of illumination?

[m1thr0s]

yeah...he rather shows his ignorance of eastern metaphysics generally since "illumination" is not - and never has been - some kind of methodology. Illumination is not a "practise" the way his other classifications would be. It's not something that you *do*...it's something that may happen as a result of doing other things but is not an activity in itself...

The idea of doing something like this is good...it's just not very well organized...his thoughts aren't organized, which is sort of interesting in itself.

m1thr0s

[Oblio]

Well he is a Chaote :laugh:

[Ci Celli Ddu]

The full definition he gives is:
Illumination
Is deliberate self-modification by magic, and may include spells of enchantment cast at one-self to repair weaknesses or increase strengths, and divination and invocation performed for inspiration and direction.

So nothing really eastern there. It's an interesting model for classification, but I think the chief error here is that he's attempting to fit the world into a system rather than catagorize things as they are.

[m1thr0s]

whew...that's one all-encompassing description boy...
kind of like the weatherman who predicts a 95% chance of weather over the foreseeable future...

definitely not the more recognized meaning of this word.

m1thr0s

[fr.novumorganum]

I have to admit to really digging this definition of 'self-divinity' (http://skeptismo118.blogspot.com/2007/03/on-self-divinity.html)