I posted this on my forum.

[Magus Habilus]

What is it we seek when we take upon ourselves the paths of majick?is it revenge?getting back at an unhearing god?power?love?fullfillment of some lust?why do we do these things in the dark of night,dagger in hand.what do we seek in the Void?

Can you answer this question in honesty to yourself?if so you are capable of treading still darker paths.look into the mirror,into the darkness of your own soul,can you embrace what you see?

If not,forsake majick and run to church like a good little drone,you're not wanted or needed in the shadows.


I embrace a monster each time I do this.
can you love yourself?

Perfect love,but love under law as the elder said?
Become Meta Therion,the great beast.

[Naomi]

Good question - an answer, i think - I was looking for an answer from some space out there. Literally I felt cut off from some greater design and needed to be netted back in from my initial drop into the sea of samsara...

From there it became a quest for power, discipline and, well, love....

[m1thr0s]

freedom, really, is my own most recurrent motivation...just an idea of freedom some would say...but when I examine who is saying such stuff I find them altogether entrenched in some morbid fascination with restriction, so I'm moving out with my *idea* of perfect freedom so long as the facts would seem to support the possibility.

I don't much try to pile anything too specific upon it...that's pretty much enough of an impossible task for any one incarnation I think.

m1

[Nalyd Khezr Bey]

I seek nothing.

[m1thr0s]

I seek nothing.really? good luck defining it...

m1

[Kuroyagi]

Good view there Nalyd. I also seek nothing cause that does not preclude that one still finds "something" on the way (which one does).

But there were many detours and other tributary paths, and there still are but also were esp. when starting with magic; yet this makes me think that even the question of when did I start is not simple. an ex post(from now) explanation of "when it was that I started magic" could be "with my first breath", so basically with nothing. :p

I also have many projects on the side though...;) [right now Im in a lucky position that I have tried out most classical things like love wealth etc/and still do..or looked at whats behind them. In the case of Love Im a natural so I didnt have to do a lot but be myself in the case of riches it was much more difficult and I was only satisfied when having had several tastings of both- poor/rich (this is still under way, though its already getting routine)...right now a lil side project I want to make is a research into "fame" which I havent had or had loathed for reasons of paradigm or religion (Taoism)...I bring lots of natural talents therein already so Im confident...it isnt that important though- since I have other more interesting research, too- but lets see...] )...yet at the end- if I had to choose one- I have come to the conclusion thats its really "nothing", too.

[Naomi]

I believe "nothing" is very akin to the concept of Void from Japanese literature, specifically The Book of Five Rings. It's not the tao, really, rather some part of that imperceptable existing force that envelops everything, everywhere and is as incomprehensible as the fullness or emptiness of Tao. In a way I think it is the emptiness of Tao set apart from all else.

Of course you had no trouble with love, Kuroyagi, look at your romantic attitude. :D

[Kuroyagi]

In a way I think it is the emptiness of Tao set apart from all else.

I think thats a very Indian view (as in the sub continent)...there are very many references to whats called Tao in China in Indian scriptures I think...

Maybe when we in the West say "nothing" its like the Tao, too- just a chiffre with many connotations (like e.g. "whatever" or "dont mind me" or "supreme absolute" or "self" or even "all is one")...it reminds me of a passage in Crowley's Book of Lies: For there is no Thou upon That Path: thou hast become The Way. consider: "thou/tao" interesting word-play...

p.s. hope you dont have the notion of me as some sort of gigolo or something- which would be untrue- I just meant that I seem to have less trouble with the whole love/relationship-thing than others- it even may be that I'm less romantic and don't make so many compromises, who knows..?

[Naomi]

That is the second most funny thing I have heard all day K...

some sort of gigolo...rofl

[Kuroyagi]

What was the funniest I wonder?

[m1thr0s]

this just all sounds like a head-trip to me.

the whole evolution of knowledge is built upon individuals seeking something and either finding what they were after or else finding something else...

seeking nothing is disingenuous and cannot really be accomplished...it's just an attitude...a complaint...a pretense of superiority as near as I can tell...

still, if you find it, I'll be happy to revise my views... I always feel like it's a good thing to have a few people scouring all possible contingencies, including none...

m1

[Naomi]

I can't explain it right now, maybe m1thr0s can, go ask him...

::dodge::

[Naomi]

Ok that's spooky....lol

maybe it's nothing, omg :(

[Kuroyagi]

If one likes to think of it as a philosophical stance thats ok I guess but to me its also a state and I dont even mind if its called an attidude of superiority (why should one) it still enables me to do all the research I want...yet this attidude helps me to circumnavigate certain pitfalls.

If one would understand the full implication of literary methapor it would be much easier with this Tao-thing in my experience...cause those things/artistic innuendos mean more things at the same time and yet also each one of them, concretely at the same time, and maybe that "Tao"-thing is a metaphor that means/could mean all things at all the time...this is not all-logical but for me it is just very very practical...yet still my research to that I alluded like love or whatever: Life itself- is completely serious, yet that nothing-attitude could also provide me with a safety anchor at times...amongst very many other things...but that may be talking at cross purposes since saying "seeking nothing" in its most literal context (as m1 has taken it I think) reeks very much of inefficient laziness and inertia, of "having given up"- or non-caring aloofness. At least I didnt mean it in this way exclusively (but also to some very minor part)...dunno how Nalyd meant it though...

[m1thr0s]

I guess my understanding of the Tao is that you don't find it by *seeking* it...there is no *it* per se, yet we refer to an *it* due to the limitations of our own minds...and that's the whole problem. The Tao is not a thing to be sought, yet makes its presence known in the pursuit of other things...

Though I tire of the term Satanism, this philosophy is distinguished by its focusing upon the pragmatic in so many ways...and this is legitimate because this is something human beings can actually do... So I have no problem with being *object oriented* since that's how the brain itself works and if there are problems associated to this then we make adjustments...we come to know our limitations and compensate for them. But so long as we live under duress on any level there are very real things we will be seeking as a natural consequence of being trapped within those constraints.

To pretend otherwise is either childish or cowardly or both I think...

m1

[Naomi]

I actually at one point came to the conclusion that I don't even exist and I tend to believe this even now - though, most....much of the time, I am just scrutinizing my surroundings so carefully that I become lost in it, and then the delusion begins. Then maya has me. and I think I am....but I'm not....

oh...yeah...

that's as close to defining it as I've come.

Why do you tire of the term Satanism, m1thr0s?

[m1thr0s]

Why do you tire of the term Satanism, m1thr0s?because it's dumb and self-defeating...and because I get sick of the so-called shock-value, which never interested me to begin with personally...

It's a term of inconvenience, pending a more accurate term in my view.

edit: if you strip it of all it Xian connotations it's not so bad, though I still feel Sat-Tanism is probably more accurate.

m1

[Kuroyagi]

Yes Im basically with that m1- its not only about seeking it but having it already, maybe...but somehow theres always also a surplus- thats also how the mind works, its not all pragmatism and object orientation though this is completely practical and the way to go surely, but that additional "what if (not)" factor is a useful thing too- be it only seen as a philosophical stance -which it isnt in my view cause thats too reducing...maybe meaningless to discuss it, its true..

[Naomi]

Satanism is dumb and self-defeating? I can't go along with that, I have found a great amount of power to augment my life with Satanism so I will continue to support it wherever I see it. I won't back down from my assertion of being a Satanist either, except, of course, when it suits me as a successful Satanist to pretend otherwise...Satanists are crafty, I like them. I like the people who rally around the banner of Satanism. It's cool, a cool scene that accepts others for their idiosyncracies and rejects bullshit as best it can. If life is food then Satanism is a spice. I can't let go of it yet, maybe you can...but it's gotten me a long ways and keeps asserting truths where no other philosophy or religion can, so I kind of like it.

I say Satanism is elegant and elevating, but that's just me...

[MythMath]

The reference was to the term, not the concept...

[Naomi]

haha, oh right...durrr

Ok well then....I disagree....I think it sounds cool. Ngian Shadowist was pretty sweet though, I gotta admit....

[m1thr0s]

oh yeah...it does sound cool...it just interprets poorly...

but I'm mainly reacting to the reaction the name incites in others, which I don't really feel I need as a precursor to every conversation...

some quite like it...I find it tedious and redundant...

m1

[Naomi]

ok, i agree that sounds good

[Nalyd Khezr Bey]

I didn't think my three word post would cause such a little stir. Whatever. Perhaps this quote from Crowley's Moonchild will make clear what I tried to say as simply as possible."And what is your secret?"
"To have assimilated all things so perfectly that there is no longer any possibility of struggle. To have destroyed the idea of duality. To have achieved Love and Will so that there is no longer any object to Love, or any aim for Will. To have killed desire at the root; to be one with everything and with Nothing."Incidentally Simon Iff's answer there is his desription of the Taoist approach as opposed to the Magickal for those of you who have already made that connection.

Whether or not it is possible in a lifetime makes no difference. It is the seeking of such a goal that drives me personally. m1thr0s, you stated you seek freedom. That is just another word, for me, that means the same thing... good luck defining it.;)

[m1thr0s]

freedom can at least be defined relative to something and that's good enough for me, but I do agree that seeking in itself is a fairly self-contained motivation.

m1