Apperance is Everything

[deviadah]

This is kind of like a spontaneous off-shoot on the thread: Ego and Dark Arts Practitioners (http://forums.abrahadabra.com/showthread.php?t=2471)

But more so a direct response to the following m1thr0s (http://forums.abrahadabra.com/member.php?u=20) quote of above mentioned thread:

What is possible is to redirect the ego. To aim it at something more powerful, more universal in its long-range implications. It is a well known fact that common car thieves think of themselves as master car thieves...people who think of themselves as master poets very rarely become common car thieves... - source (http://forums.abrahadabra.com/showpost.php?p=31472&postcount=5)

What about re-directing your apperance?

What we wear and how we style ourselves is an internal thought formed into something material... i.e. lots of occultists dress in black because they think they are dark (many do at least).

To burn the ego, and to mutate the ego, have been discussed before, but what about burning ones apperance...

Perhaps a simple step, but stop dressing like a car thief and start dressing like a poet!

:cool:

[MythMath]

Reminds me of the punchline to a dumb joke where a man is
asked why he's wearing a tuxedo after hearing from his
doctor that he's been diagnosed with erectile dysfunction:

"If I gotta be impotent, I'm gonna dress impotent" :rolleyes:

[Talkingfox]

What we wear and how we style ourselves is an internal thought formed into something material... i.e. lots of occultists dress in black because they think they are dark (many do at least).



My closet looks like a black hole...only because stains don't show ( a big deal if one paints or spends time putting up cherries) and I don't have to think about anything matching :laugh:

[Carbon Class Six]

Well I don't make drastic changes in how I dress or act but I often make drastic changes in how I keep my hair. Keeps me fresh and excited about change :)

[Kuroyagi]

An interesting topic.
And my first question-before I'll just write whatever I fancy- would be: how ought a poet dress, then (in your view)? (a car thief at least has to consider certain "dictates" of practicality since he doesnt want to be caught.)

Appearance is maybe a word with too many negative connotations (superficialities!), but I would say that strict form* is indispensable to good Art. Look at todays art: noone knows whats art anymore for the reason that "anything" could be art in this barbarian modern paradigm- things like philosophical statements or white canvases or everyday objects and disgusting offal even could be art now.

*Chinese T’ang poetry has one of the strictest forms of verse I know. Even someone who is able to produce a piece without any significant meaning but who only is able to succeed in keeping the form (the metrum, word order, "number of syllables", connotations etc.) is already a good craftsman. Now look at ppl. like Li Bai: even in translation he was able to transport an intricate and sublime meaning, even though he adhered to those strict forms, still! And this gives art another layer, a higher level of beauty.

[Kuroyagi]

German philosophers have dealt at lenght with the differentation of Being and Seeming(ly) being= appearance, so if you really want to find out more about this then I would suggest to read the idealists and the moderns of that school, there is also a book called "Die Geschichte des Scheins" in German [the history of appearance] you may be interested in; its by one Norbert Bolz.

[Kuroyagi]

I think some Gordon Gecko-like broker who never dresses in black in his whole life is about a 1000 times "darker"- fiendish and nasty than any ridiculous metal-goth teen who happens to be interested in "occultism".

Apart from all that it is both true that ones thoughts reflect on ones (physical) appearance as well as the fact that the social paradigm dictates certain norms of dress- thats an intrinsic part of magic(k) which is completely self-evident to me- is that what you want to know about?

If that’s the case then I would say that an important thing to consider is NOT ones own correspondences (ones connotations and thoughts) about a look alone but also the social implications of it- try and find out what’s more accepted with the "hoi polloi" and what not. Yet again in this barbarous age the richest ppl (like e.g. Steve Jobs or Bill Gates- the dotcom guys etc.) do not have the trad. dress code anymore and everything tends to fall apart, and thats why as a magickian one also has to partly come up with other strategies, while still learning the olde rules (politicians for example still have the dress code); we ARE living in an age of relative unconsciousness of ourselves- that’s all we can really say and know...

[deviadah]

I agree regarding Gecko!

And my first question-before I'll just write whatever I fancy- would be: how ought a poet dress?

In my opinion: as blank as is possible (doesn't mean in white though)!

Just in such a way that s/he is almost invisible... so that the ideas of the poet is all that shines forth!

A blank page!

:cool:

[Wolfman]

I once knew a guy who was so obsessed with physically becoming Klingon he seriously set out to find a plastic surgeon who would do some forehead implants for him.

I guess if a person is determined enough...anything is possible.


Wolfman

[Kuroyagi]

I agree regarding Gecko!



In my opinion: as blank as is possible (doesn't mean in white though)!

Just in such a way that s/he is almost invisible... so that the ideas of the poet is all that shines forth!

A blank page!

:cool:Your idea reminds me of Balzac who -when writing- used to don a plain monk's cloth and "cloistered" himself in his rooms for hours. Yet poets (or singers bards minstrels) have traditionally been clothed in "peacocks" or rainbow clothes like the Fool, too.

Maybe your idea is even better on a higher level of abstraction as in: "the ability to blend in", yet of being conscious that one does it; this quantum of hightened self consciousness is what gives the magickian his depth and mystery (X-factor).

For me it is also important to differentiate between what is seen as costume and what is "accepted" as normal dress. Historic costume may fit one well but unfortunately (!) one stands out in embroidered waistcoats, breeches and long silk stockings nowadays. Under the category of costume also fall those Klingon and Vampire fashions and a large part of the Goths, although one must say that they also influence "common" dress for sure and x-inspire it.

Another last thought: look at how men of supreme "power" like the Pope sometimes tend to dress esp. plain (e.g. white) whereas their surrounding followers are decked out in the most ornate of clothes (the cardinals)...this is another form of intentionally standing out (viz. of relative supremacy).