Magickal Assumptions

[Frater SI]

I was reading a pretty good interview with Aaron Leitch on his book "Secrets of the Magickal Grimoires: The Classical Texts of Magick Deciphered"

when he makes this statement

However- I must also warn students- especially those who come from such Western initiatory traditions- to leave their assumptions behind when they come to Enochian or Solomonic magick. Again, remember that these systems represent the "Old Magick", and it doesn't work upon the philosophies of Golden Dawn or Wiccan ceremony! Now, folks who come at the grimoires from systems like Santeria, Hoodoo and other shamanic/folk traditions (even the real fam-trad Witches) have little problem grokking the Solomonic methods. But, Western aspirants often bring the wrong basic assumptions into the magick. (I once had a Hermetic practitioner tell me that Santerian workers were "crazy" because they don't start their work with an LBRP! That kind of attitude will only keep the grimoires closed to you! As they say "Let he who hath eyes see!

I am not descrediting western ceremonial training I think its essential, but in my own experience I have to agree with his opinion? We often place to much emphasis on technique and we possibly close ourself off.. Just some thoughts

SI

[Naomi]

I don't know about all of this, I mean, isn't Western tradition the same godamn thing as Enochian and Solomonic?

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Anyways I don't give a fuck about the Goetia or Enochian angels so I really don't have much business prying into this affair.

[m1thr0s]

I am not descrediting western ceremonial training I think its essential, but in my own experience I have to agree with his opinion? We often place to much emphasis on technique and we possibly close ourself off.. Just some thoughtsThat's true of a lot of things I think. It's a little spooky just how easily people fall into stereotypes and then use those same stereotypes as a gauge by which everything else should be measured. I am reminded of a story accounted to me once by a Hindu friend of mine complaining about an unpleasant encounter with a couple of Mormon missionaries. They knock on his door and introduce themselves and go into their usual schmooze, part of which routinely inquires as to whether or not you do or don't believe in God...then in Jesus...all attempting to warm people up to admitting discontent with their current affiliations etc.

He wasn't buying into it and so they switched gears...the usual drill for those who know the game...and at one point one of them says "Well, now that you've tried hamburger, wouldn't you like to try some steak?"

Probably works great on discontented Presbyterians or something but for a Hindu it's right up there with the dumbest things you could possible let fly out of your moronic mouth... So he loses it and begins reaming them about his religion being over 5000 years old and them just barely out of diapers etc etc and the whole thing was just a very unpleasant experience for all concerned.

It should be obvious but people really aren't all that smart as a rule...smart at some things maybe but not at things like tolerance or being able to look at things from other people's points of view...

m1thr0s

[Naomi]

oh my god, lol

[Frater SI]

You make some good points m1 I think it all comes down to maturity. I always draw parrelels in the practice of magick with my years of study in music theory. I studied classical and jazz guitar for a good few years, and often I would wonder why the hell am I practicing this shit over and over. And I would be obsessive about technique needless to say i knew plenty of theory but when it came down to playing sure I could impress with tricks and good technique but as a musician I wasnt saying much. You get to a point where you arent thinking about the theory you just are a vessel for ideas and I think that some people never grow out of that paradigm they always use the book they never grow or innovate?

Just to tag onto this message there was a saying " Everyone can learn to type really fast , but not everyone can write a good book"

[Radiant Star]

Could it be that the reason for doing the LBRP is incorporated into the learning of the other traditions and is not explicit in a way that you could make an obvious link between them?

[m1thr0s]

Well I think the whole point though Radiant Star is that if you insist on approaching things this way you have unavoidably modified the original ritual. It would be something akin to asserting that you should always begin every magickal ritual by first pronouncing the american "pledge of allegiance". Maybe this even makes sense to a few people somehow, but you would have unavoidably rubber-stamped the foregoing ritual in a way never intended by its authors...

Don't they have a whole branch of science committed to this principle now in anthropology or ethnoarchaeology or something? I know it was widely discussed and dealt with as a critical problem starting back maybe 20 years ago or something... You can't really "observe" a culture properly standing there in a white lab coat taking notes and passing out m&m's...

m1thr0s

[MatthewK]

This reminds me of a debate I recently was drawn into when someone aspiring to work from the Simon Nec said that the LBRP is all-powerful and will "work against" its forces because, to paraphrase, 'God rules this universe and all entities must submit to Him, using Hebrew names of God will be effective because he is all-powerful and therefore using Tetragrammaton would make working the Simon Nec easy.'

Of course I had to remind him that almost all gods as well as the bottom dwellers (demons, leeches, whatever) of the Simon Nec find their origins in Mesopotamia - particularly Assyria, Babylon and Sumer. Commanding primal and much more ancient forces in the name of a rather young god opens you up to all kinds of interesting but ultimately dangerous problems. Not the least of which is the bemused reaction you'll get sometimes from these forces when bringing Christian symbology to ritual with them: "Wait, what - ? The Jewish kid? Dude, I was forgotten by most 2,000 years before anyone even wrote about him." You may attribute this quote to Gilma ;)

Anyway, the opposition also repeatedly insisted upon equating Simon's system of Gatewalking with pathworking and Sephirah but placed them into the realm of the qlippoth "because they're (the Gates) of a dark nature." Obviously someone who's never read about how Marduk blinded Tiamat when he was beating the $hit out of her - or been blinded by Utu, bwahahaha. He'd made up his mind 100% about what the system had to offer, what it was based on and how to work with it - without even lifting a finger to work with the book yet - based on Jewish, Hebrew and American ideas that arose centuries after the names invoked in the system.

Applying limitations seems to be a trap I see people falling into around me all the time and I just don't understand it. It's foolish to accept any and every thing you read as canon or definitive because each system has its quirks, its own unique aspects. That's what makes it "a system". One system may have direct correspondences with another but that does not make them the same - Mars is Mars, Ares is Ares, Nergal is Nergal, and no matter which way you slice it a system deeply rooted in the culture(s) from which it arose is going to have many particulars.

[m1thr0s]

arguments from *authority* that can offer no possibility of falsifiability are logical fallacies...there is no middle ground on this...to assert (like some pompous ass know-it-all) that God is this or God is that, works this way or works that, when no God can be brought to the table or even rationally defined is simply delusional bullshit...end of story...

Occultists would do better to at least acquaint themselves with the basics of logical thinking before attempting to impose their foregone conclusions on the world as if they were established proofs...it isn't that hard...there's all kinds of help available on this.

So I think your debator was essentially an idiot MathewK...too bad...such a waste of time and the internet in particular seems to be so damn overrun with these sorts...we can and do accomplish a higher grade of conversations right here, virtually all the time.

I believe there is truth to your observations regarding things at their points of origin. In part I think this is so because *names* assigned to powerful existential phenomena (as we may assume gods very often are) are almost never chosen ignorantly...we might actually be found more guilty of this today than would any of our ancestors. Understanding the language a name evolves from as well as the culture and its history goes a long way towards righting this sort of problem, so it isn't hopeless or anything.

I have a personal saying that *revisionism is the bane of syncretism* which is just a way of reminding myself of a certain checks-and-balances we need to adhere to in the creation of syncretic models of any kind...assuming we want to retain some kind of historical continuity in our creations...linking past-present and future etc...

It's a little tricky because we are capable of intuiting more than we are generally capable of establishing logically and occultists do want to retain that skill and push the envelope as far as they can push it. But we cross the line from creation into defamation when we try to insist that our interpretations in the present are exactly the same as they were in antiquity. This is almost never truly the case and in many cases couldn't possible be further from it.

It's a balance that has to be maintained through devoted study and a willingness to scrutinize our own assumptions on a dime. Lose these and we lose our natural *rights* to play around with echoes of the ancients...

m1thr0s

[MatthewK]

Indeed, I agree and couldn't be more enthused with the similarity between our lines of thought on this matter. I think at core the basis of occultism throughout history has been to create change beyond superficialities in daily life and "beyond" (almost certainly an idea demonstrated by the statement that we're capable of intuiting more than we are capable of establishing logically), and it's 7AM so I can't really follow up on this except to say that if revisionism is the bane of syncretism, then it follows intuitively that assumption is the bane of occultism ;) For who among us can assume what lies hidden, sight unseen?

[Octarine Prince]

Could it be that the reason for doing the LBRP is incorporated into the learning of the other traditions and is not explicit in a way that you could make an obvious link between them?


Exactly. I have been doing some reading on those religions in the last few days, and I instantly noticed this.

They live a life of banishing unwelcome energies and inviting welcome energies, in addition to the specifics of the rituals.

[m1thr0s]

...if revisionism is the bane of syncretism, then it follows intuitively that assumption is the bane of occultismyes, it does. paradoxically, assumptions are both bane and bounty...the key is mastering your assumptions...recognizing them for what they are and being willing to both explore and distrust them at the same time. If we cannot do this reasonably simple thing then we are no better than the religionists, for whom *blind faith* is the universal solvent, resolving every question and justifying all manner of ignorant actions...

Pythagoras admonishes *Know Thyself* as the beginning of Wisdom ...yet even this contains an assumption...you can spot it, right? That the intention to know thyself is somehow adequate to the task of achieving it. That the *self* even can be *known*...Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it can, sometimes it cannot. These are the things we need to know and why some things might tend to work out better than others etc...

m1thr0s