How many people here do actual magic? How do you do it?

[Kesh]

Never mind. I didn't realize tauton_ikhnos had made a post up there which said what I was going to, only better.

Personally, the only things I've done personally could easily be coincidence.

I tend to do things instinctively. Seemingly, I have a bit of ability to influence electrical items... 'willing' a stubborn car engine to start, boosting a flickering lamp to normal working order, etc.

The other is probability. I seem to have a knack for predicting outcomes of some things. If any of you have watched The Price is Right, you may have seen a card game that, essentially, asks the contestant to guess whether the next card turned up will have a higher or lower value than the current one.

When I was a kid, my grandfather noticed I was pretty good at that. So, he got out a deck of cards, and we played for real. I usually managed between 10 and 20 cards in a row before getting it wrong, with one time going well over half the deck. Of course, that's well within the realm of circumstance. On the other hand, I've been told that I'm extremely accurate with tarot readings. And this was from someone who had been practicing tarot for years, on my first reading ever and subsequent ones.

Aside from that, I can only point to 'sensing' when something was about to fall, or predicting what a person was thinking about. Occasionally, I seem to be capable of 'pushing'. (A cookie if you get the reference. Box of cookies if you know both sources for that term, the original and its derivative. )

So, yeah. Nothing substantial.

 

[Ylis]

Ylis, thank you. Skeptical or not, I think you just gave me a really good plot hook for a d20 Modern game!

Erm....you're welcome...I think? Let me know how the game goes You've made me curious, lol....

 

[jester47]

I think magic exists. But I think very few people understand it to effectively manipulate it. I think at its very basic level, it is simply a relationship between action, event, and willpower. It works IMO off of very subtle cause and effect, so subtle that it appears coincidental. The "caster" if you will carries out an action that has a certain will behind it not related to the imediate agents of that action. Through being viewed by others, or simple physical coincidence, this action causes a chain of events to occur that eventually leads to a desired result. In short magic is the manipulation of coincidence. Hence unprovable and generally an inexact science without awesome amounts of recording equipment and mathematical processing power. It seems that it would be related to chaos theory in some way. So, in a way I figure if you could somehow understand the chain, you could pull off what appear to be immediate effects. But this would require vast intelligence of precognition of events on a level of clarity as yet undocumented. I think dieties operate off of this manipulation of coincidence. Thus if you believe in only one, it probably won't like you messing with its stuff, and pantheons may have the same problem, or not. But they are probably far better at this manipulation than we are and thus we have the invention of prayer...

But everyone knows that only ninjas have REAL ULTIMATE POWER!

Just my opinion, been wrong before.

Aaron.

 

[TracerBullet42]

I'll say what I said before: If it can be understood and explained, it's not magic.

Magic can only be belived in, not proven.

This statement makes me think of The Invisible Boy from Mystery Men...

"I can turn invisible, but only if no one is looking. If anyone looks, I become visible again."

But I guess in the end, he really could turn invisible...

We could all learn a lot from Mystery Men.

 

[BryonD]

I'll say what I said before: If it can be understood and explained, it's not magic.

Magic can only be belived in, not proven.

True.

But it is notable that proclaimed supernatural activies have an amazing tendency to fail to even be demonstrated (much less proven) when put up to objective standards.

 

[isidorus]

MerakSpielman
The problem is, if something is provable and repeatable, it's not magic, it's science.

My view on the matter is this: Science can only describe half of reality. I beleive there is a portion of reality that does not follow predictable, experimentable patterns, or follow a logical string of cause and effect. If you think about it, if such phenomina existed, science would be totally unable to either prove or disprove its existence, because the fundamental theory of science is that all phenomina follow universal laws and, if the circumstances are the same, can be observed repeatedly.

magic, then, is not something that can be in some way "harnessed" or "controlled" for the good of mankind, like science can. Science is based on observable fact, and magic is based of of intuition and perception. It changes from individual to individual, and within individuals it behaves differently at different times.

My perspective on the matter is the items, smells, visualizations, etc... used in RL magical practice do not have, in themselves, any real magical power. The power comes from the individual, from their will and from their belief. The reason people use, say, a rose burning in coals to try to get over a lost love is because in their mind the rose symbolizes love and burning it symbolizes letting it go. It helps them focus their will on the result they desire. If there were somebody to whom roses did not symbolize love, and they wanted to get over a lost love and found the same spell on the Internet, it would be less effective because their personal perspective of the items used had no symbolic significance. In short, the same "material components" have different uses and meanings to different people based on their individual perceptions of the items in question.

My Wicca teacher once told me that if I couldn't go out into the desert alone and with no props and conduct a full ritual, call upon the spirits, and work a spell using only my own will and visualizations, then she hadn't done her job properly. All that stuff is nice, but has no inherent power other than that which you give it.

Now, to me, the difference between this sort of RL magic and D&D magic is the fact that D&D magic functions almost as a science. Memorize formulae. Collect the appropriate ingredients. Use the gestures. BAM! Magic happens. If you do expactly the same thing tomorrow, it will happen again exactly the same way. If you don't have the exact components, the spell won't work. The spell will work if you have the right components even if you have no idea what the objects have to do with the spell. In D&D magic can function effectively as technology becuase of the precise, scientific nature of it.

MerakSpielman,

I am stunned, you gave a way better explanantion then I ever could.

Ylis I agree. I was attempting to provide the common "basics" of doing magick. Most people don't get to the "non prop" stage. I just got to it about 3 years ago, and I've been practicing for well over 10. Most people seem to lose interest in it by then Everyone's goal should be to be able to eventually do magick without the foci, but the foci make things easier in the beginning. By drawing a bit of energy from foci, you are able to better "program" your own energy to work the way you want it to. With practice, you can do without the foci. Here I thought I was alone on the "no foci" sentiment (I usually get griped at or told "you're doing it wrong" by all those that have read one book and think they know it all...it gets tiresome...).

I have been a practicing Wiccn for almost 9 years now. It took me almost 7 years to come to the point of doing magick or ritual without props. I agree foci makes it much easier in the beginning to and I use always do it that way. I still use props at times, but they are no longer the crutch that they were. I now can conduct a ritual or magick without props or tools, but I have a few friends that have never got passed that stage. The doing it all wrong comments I have run in way to much in my community usuallythe new ones, that is why I have always been solitary. I practice by the seat of my pants style, if works I use it.

I liked to apply a non-componet style of magic to my game, that is much like what I practice. Where it all comes from within.

 

[AFGNCAAP]

In a way, it seems that a key aspect of magic/magik/magick is the conceptualization of an idea, event, or outcome (within normal bounds), and the focus of will on that particular conceptualization in order to increase its probability (in whatever way it might manifest itself down the line--that is, the desired effect may come about, but how the effect is achieved can vary).

Y'know, for some reason this thread got me thinking about one view of magic from literature--specifically from Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea works. Essentially, in order to have power over something, one must know the item's name (true name, to be specific) in order for the magic to work.

In a way, naming/labelling people, places, things, events, etc.--in essence, basically making something a noun (grammatically), if you will--is a means to gain power over that item. It distills all of the item's properties, traits, quirks, features, and other notable/defining elements all into a single word or phrase. Basically, it transforms something from being "unknown" to "known," and IMHO, it seems that we human beings have a horrible time trying to deal with anything that is "unknown." The unknown escapes understanding, control, expectation, conceptualization--in a way, the unknown emphasizes/magnifies our own limits and weaknesses when compared against it (since there's nothing really there to compare against--it could be literally anything). However, the known is much more ensuring/empowering--it enables us to regard it and act accordingly to it, since we generally have an idea (if not specific knowledge) of what it is, what it can & can't do, and how we compare to it.

So, if you will, it seems that RL magic, from one perspective, is a means of transforming the unknown into the known--in a way, essentially naming/labelling something that remains unnamed (typically in the form of something that is yet to be).

Didn't mean to sound too weird--bit of my old English grad student line-of-thinking coming back form the dead. Tends to make me think of stuff in terms of writing a paper about it.

 

[pensiv]

Aleister Crowley, probably the most famous and influential individual related to this subject wrote at the beginning of his book Liber O vel Manus et Sagittae

In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth, and the Paths, of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes and many other things which may or may not exist.
It is immaterial whether they exist or not. By doing certain things, certain results follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophical validity to any of them.

There's a statement in Buddhism that everything is illusion, and there are exercises in various Buddhist traditions (I specifically am familiar with Tibetan) that involve the creation of a physical object, person, etc. merely with one's mind. The aim of such exercises is not to be a badass and create something out of nothing, but to illustrate that what we perceive in any sense is likely to not be real. The next step is to live life anyway with that knowledge, much like Conan mentions on "Queen of the Black Coast."

That is real magic.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

Mostly I take two cups of imagination, a sprinkle of dreams, and a dash of wonder, mix it up with wishes, and then feed it to my unicorn, who then craps a rainbow of magick.

Shame on you! You've been reading Silver RavenWolf again, haven't you?

This certainly is an interesting discussion, especially from my position as a Thelemite. As the Wiccans said, Magick (and yes, that is the proper spelling- Crowley used it for a number of reasons, both to differentiate Magick from stage tricks and legerdemaine, and to "divinize" it, as this spelling posesses a different, more sacred Qabalistic meaning) is a spiritual practice with the intent to cause change in conformity with will, not to shoot fireballs out of one's arse.

However, it is my belief that those who define Magick as not being a consistent practice with consistent results are incorrect... to quote Sir J.G. Frazier, author of The Golden Bough:

"Wherever sympathetic magic occurs in its pure unadulterated form, it is assumed that in nature one event follows another necessarily and invariably without the intervention of any spiritual or personal agency."

In other words, when you act, results occur. This is what is, in Indian and Buddhist philosophy, known as Karma.

"Thus its fundamental conception is identical with that of modern science; underlying the whole system is a faith, implicit but real and firm, in the order and uniformity of nature."

Pick up a pencil, hold it off to your side, and let go of it. Did it hang in the air? Probably not. Magick works the same way- it just deals in the psychological, rather than the material.

"The magician does not doubt that the same causes will always produce the same effects, that the performance of the proper ceremony accompanied by the appropriate spell, will inevitably be attended by the desired results, unless, indeed, his incantations should chance to be thwarted and foiled by the more potent charms of another sorcerer. He supplicates no higher power: he sues the favour of no fickle and wayward being: he abases himself before no awful deity. Yet his power, great as he believes it to be, is by no means arbitrary and unlimited. He can wield it only so long as he strictly conforms to the rules of his art, or to what may be called the laws of nature as conceived by him."

The magician, however, just knows laws of nature that are different from the ones commonly understood by objective science. To the magician, the subjective realm isn't some meaningless epiphenomenal phantasm- it is just as real as the objective realm.

"To neglect these rules, to break these laws in the smallest particular is to incur failure, and may even expose the unskilful practitioner himself to the utmost peril."

Magick is neither easy or safe.

One of the best examples of how magick works was given in the introduction to Crowley's Magick in Theory and Practice, which can be read on the web at http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/aba/ :

"It is my Will to inform the World of certain facts within my knowledge. I therefore take "magickal weapons", pen, ink, and paper; I write "incantations"---these sentences---in the "magickal language" ie, that which is understood by the people I wish to instruct; I call forth "spirits", such as printers, publishers, booksellers and so forth and constrain them to convey my message to those people. The composition and distribution of this book is thus an act of Magick by which I cause Changes to take place in conformity with my Will."

Hopefully that clears the air a bit. Read the introduction to MiTaP for more.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

True.

But it is notable that proclaimed supernatural activies have an amazing tendency to fail to even be demonstrated (much less proven) when put up to objective standards.

Why would you expect something subjective to be proven or demonstrated by objective standards? As Crowley put it, Magick has no objective reality or philosophical validity... just by doing certain things, certain other things occur. That's all.