Is this a pseudo-magickal era?

[Radiant Star]

Today, all kinds of books on magick are appearing in bookstores, in the open, no longer hidden away which suggests that the magickal practices are becoming a popular social phenomena. Discussion forums cater for all paths and practices and magickal terms are appearing more and more in every area of Western existence.

When did this start? Is there a defining movement, moment or occasion that marks this?

Where would the percentiles fall in your Bell Curve?

Which percentile are we in now?

When do you predict the peak?

When do you predict its fall off and why?

What will come next? A deepening and expanding to new forms of magick? Or a heightened interest in older forms of magick, maybe even spurred on by the finding of an as yet undiscovered tablet or tome? With the Da Vinci book and The Gospel of Judas, are we already in that percentile?

Is the current surge of interest and presumed actual participation in magickal practice enhanced by potential magickians who will not follow through and hence this is actually a pseudo-magickal era? Or is the availability of magickal books and forums likely to put magick firmly into the fabric of human existence, never again to become occult.

[Anibis]

I think that we are at the bare beginning of what Magick is becomming. As a species, we are just learning the ropes. In the next ten years even, I suspect that Magick will become more than any of us suspected. Like Genetics: we just finished mapping the Genome, wait till we begin to get really adept with the knowledge which has been generated...
-Ibisis

[m1thr0s]

Or is the availability of magickal books and forums likely to put magick firmly into the fabric of human existence, never again to become occultIt is possible that the term "occult" is simply due for an overhaul. There are certain things that will ALWAYS remain "hidden" knowledge simply because they can only really be accessed internally. The term has, up to this point, been largely used to mean "hidden" from the public eye and this has largely been a matter of sheer survival itself. But now we come hard into the "information age" and the first thing everybody wants to have access to is "secret" knowledge of all kinds...any kind really. There is no preventing this and it probably will create a sort of pseudo-magickal era, for awhile at least.

In the end I believe it all pans out to the advantage of those who are in greater control of themselves and their particular magick...these things are very strong and that strength can survive the light of day just as easily as it can survive the darkness. We may all just wind up gainfully self-employed for a change...now that really would be something to see...

m1thr0s

[fr.novumorganum]

Part of me thinks that the slow spreading of magickal consciousness and thinking is meant to serve as a counter-balance to the increased power and influence of the the fundementalists, evangelicals, and islamicists. Or maybe that's just me being hopeful, but in the past, the spread of occult knowledge amongst the elite (enlightenment) and the more general public (60's) has lead to progress.

I also tend to think that as a larger pool is exposed to this material, there will be more who can swim to the top of the wave. :rainbow:

[Kuroyagi]

This is a pseudo-magical era insofar as we are standing on the brink of a mythical (a magical) one: history is diminishing, humankind is becoming fragmented, archaic systems coexist with decadent ones, and todays ppl cannot "find any time" for anything, anymore: time is lost- "time without time" is eternal, is mythical time, and we are its heros and gods. (I cant think of an emoticon idiotic enugh to accompany this post, but theres the need for one...:rainbow: , maybe a Titanic one would be cool, one of the primal gods who will father the next generation of demigods who will be besung in ages past.

[Anibis]

Hmmm. Pseudo magic abounds, but I think it is symptomatic that this is a magickal era, albeit one in it's birthing stage (mind you, they're ALL Magickal Eras, just different magicks). We are in transition from an older sort of enchanted world into a newer one. The interest in magical books and literature (and dare I say, conjuring also: don't forget those guys (Blaine, Angel, etc...), they are our socially acceptable cousins, and they are POWERHOUSES in their own right) albeit much of which is of the purile sort, shows how much people are into this stuff. Also, as for the manifestations of real magick, and magick in turmoil it is all around us. Look at how companies use Logos, listen to the news, music the internet. It's a magick era, but it is currently a giant schizo free-for all, to boot. The enchantment is no-where near stable enough to reveal it's true potential depth...
-Ibisis

[m1thr0s]

I was in this video store the other day scanning all the "satanic" movie titles and of course, they were mostly crap. And it dawned on me how ingenious the media industry really can be sometimes...probably not consciously, but still. People are gradually getting weaned off of a whole range of stupid ideas about "evil" through these totally stupid movies that are basically just feeding their own stupidity right back at them until they finally get so bored with it they move on...

So maybe "pseudo-magick" has an important role to play along these same lines as well...

m1thr0s

[frater luciferi]

what are movies now days anyways? i saw a very very sad remake of "the wicker man" which had done away with all the magick and then it seemed a bit dry.

[feranaja]

For me, as with many others here, the real "magic" will always be about personal transformation and the evolution of humanity from the destructive force we are now to a benign, positive presence on the planet, and neither can proceed without the other. I think people are naturally drawn to dumbed-down magic because it holds the promise of personal empowerment and it re-enchants everyday life, wihhc has lost so much joy for many - but when the individual seeking an easy solution to life's challenges recognizes how much work and sacrifice is involved, they stay attached to the outer forms, and fall into various self-delusions, usually of some highly romanticized variety. All the outer stuff is worthless if you don't face the arduous innerwork, but for the most part this superficial obsession with "magic" is, imo anyway, innocuous enough. Of course there will be a commercial response to the interest. Those of us doing the work will just keep on doing it as people have done for as long as this race has been around.

I don't think I can really predict what comes next or when it will peak out. I like to think that any commericalized movement will 1) at least have SOME value, however it gets cheapened along the way, and 2) produce an interesting reaction, and not a scary one. What I mean by that is, for example, the self indulgent seventies (the Me Decade) coming out of the socially aware sixties - one extreme to another. movements in art history and music often follow this sort of pattern and I hope that doesn't happen in future with magical consciousness, but it would be nice to see the New Age commercializing followed by a sense of real spirituality - self transformation, environmental awareness, compassion for others. you know - the not so fun stuff, and let's face it, not exactly concepts that Dion, Crowley, or Gardner "made up" or even expressed partcularly well.

Did that sound harsh?.

I think what I'm saying is that the goals I am working for as an individual include ideas that have been best articulated by people like Jung (wholeness, authenticity) Thomas Berry ( global environmental healing) and various mystics of all religious outlook (compassion, self transendence, mastery of the ego)...its simply that the forms I use to achieve these ends (someday) are Western Esoteric stuf;, Hermetic Qabalah, Tarot/astrology study, ritual...and thats all hard work and doesnt land any of us in the lap of luxury, materially speaking...

Rays I remember my stepmother going ballistic because she found a Tarot deck and some Wiccan stuff in my room when I was visiting my parents. I rememebr one guy at the Peer Counseling center I volunteered with at university who used to leave the room when I entered because I was "inot that Satanic stuff". A lot of old memories came back while I was reply here - things sure have changed, haven't they? We were a dangerous bunch 20 years ago, now being New Age either makes you cool or sort of boringly marginal depending on who you're with. Damn - those days were kind of fun...

fera

[m1thr0s]

it's always a little tricky dealing with this whole "empowerment" issue because people into the craft or just into some powerful transformational discipline certainly do experience "miraculous" sorts of things from time to time. For some this is even kind of a constant, relative to the norm. Still others have become adept at causing the "miraculous" to happen at will while in another sense, just getting through life with your wits intact is no small feat in itself...many never do successfully accomplish it...

No matter how you slice it, we can hardly deny "empowerment"...we can hardly pretend that this is not an integrated part of our motivations as well. But those of us who have walked this path have learned to modify our sense of expectations...we are fed all kinds of crap about what to expect from magick et al. In a sense...all that stuff is possible and more but it's simply not the way they present it to us in the media.

To some extent it is these expectation levels that seem to distinguish the real from the pseudo i think...

m1thr0s