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CountFosco posted:Do you think that all reports people offer of negative things coming from engaging with occult practices are made up? I keep wondering about that Christopher Lee quote that black magic is dangerous for your soul, I wonder what he meant.
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May 15, 2018 11:22
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CountFosco posted:Do you think that all reports people offer of negative things coming from engaging with occult practices are made up? No. The Peruvian tradition actually specializes in healing people possessed by bad spirits, which are mostly dead people who resent dying (but can also be 'outsiders', who may be demonic in origin but could also be the inverse of the 'ascended masters', people who have practiced dark sorcery in several lives, ending up as something inhuman) and cling onto the energy centres of the living via shared energy imbalances, as well as people injured by energy projections by dark sorcerors. I believe in both good and bad juju - and I think people who don't believe in the workings of the occult are hosed if it happens to them, because they usually can't get well via conventional medicine.
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May 15, 2018 12:07
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ThePopeOfFun posted:Thanks for sharing, Tias. It's a complicated question for a number of reasons. One, "magic" in modern languages is a vague term and is mostly invoked in a pejorative sense, or a reversal thereof; "magic" is the negative term opposed to "religion" or "science." It doesn't really have a definition of its own, it just reflects an incorrect notion of causality, whether based on a spiritual or physical understanding of the world. The assumption is more or less monotheistic in the case of an opposition to religion, but also in a secondary way when it comes to science. There is one true understanding of the world, and anything that deviates therefrom is some variety of error. Hence the bias that indigenous peoples do "magic" as opposed to proper "religion." That basically colonial juxtaposition is, of course, maintained rather than challenged in the fascination with indigenous rituals in the West; the only difference is that the inherent value judgment is reversed rather than discarded. In the ancient world, it gets more complicated in that the context is polytheistic, and there isn't a single standard of truth. There are a couple of words that are usually translated as "magic" or "sorcery" in ancient Greek. In the New Testament, one finds mageia and pharmakeia. Originally, mageia was more or less a value neutral term; it meant simply "what the Persian magi do." Like a number of other wordss connected with Persia, it took on a strongly negative context in the wake of the invasions of Greece, becoming instead "some ignoble bullshit that foreigners do with the gods." The notion will later be applied to the Egyptian priesthood, in light of the Greco-Roman contempt for Egyptian ritual practice. While there was some fascination with the antiquity of Egypt, such as we find in Plato, there was also a wider sense of disgust; the worship of animals was thought to be absurd, just plain stupid. This had an odd effect though - while no one wanted to deny that the Egyptian priests could work powerful miracles, it must be because of some secret power, because certainly those bird-headed things weren't answering prayers. After Alexander's conquest and into the Roman era, the Egyptian priests played this to their advantage; it was a matter of "yes, we have secret magic powers that you can't get by praying; would you like to buy some?" And thus they accrued a fair amount of money and influence playing off of the negative stereotypes associated with them. Anyway, the last century BC and those following see a fair number of "magical" texts produced, ritual handbooks for use by freelance priests not attached to a temple. Needless to say, the difference between these guys and hucksters is very much in the eye of the beholder. They resemble earlier Egyptian ritual manuals in form, but are often now written in Greek, suggesting that they're designed to impress a foreign crowd (we know that ritual tourism to Egypt was definitely a thing during the period). They are also highly syncretic, borrowing divinities and motifs from across the ancient near east and Greece - interestingly, pseudo-Hebrew is one of the features of these texts, suggesting that even amongst pagans there was a notion that the Jewish god was particularly powerful. While the rituals are complex and vary in their approach, they seem to share the assumption that efficacy is found in speaking hidden names of the gods, demons or angels. When you call on a god by his or her secret names, he or she becomes present and neat things happen. This is of course an old near eastern belief, reflected in the commandment that one is not to take the Lord's name in vain. You're not supposed to pronounce the tetragrammaton except on special occasions, because god gets annoyed when you call him up willy-nilly; the same goes for the "magical" texts, which are often concerned with ways to protect yourself from the gods you call up. Divine beings hate being forced to do things and might get cross with someone who tries. While everyone was agreed that there were a good number of magical con men out there, there was no reason in principle that "magical" rituals shouldn't work, one could still oppose it because it was a lousy way to deal with the gods; kicking spirits around and forcing them to do things for you was dangerous and ethically unseemly. And it is as such that Jesus gets depicted in pagan and Jewish anti-Christian texts, as just one more unsavory guy who did miracles by abusing the tetragrammaton. At least in the early centuries of Christianity, this understanding of ritual power is maintained. Origen, in particular, states that anyone can cast out demons in the name of Jesus. You don't have to be a Christian, you don't have to be a good person, the operative agent is the name, not one's belief. Nor does he deny that one can work miracles by invoking pagan gods - the problem is that these are, in fact, demons and you don't really want to mess with them. Not that the spread of Christianity stops the trade in "magic" - one finds that texts continue to be produced, with comparatively less mention of pagan gods (which is by no means absent) and more angel names put in their place. Even this is suspicious though, because it betrays a lack of piety, or a disrespect for the church hierarchy - the church will want you to go to your bishop, not that odd-smelling fellow who runs a back-alley sacred name clinic. The other Greek word that one finds in the NT is pharmakeia and related terms; it's exclusive to Revelation and one instance in Paul. It's a similarly complicated term, so forgive me if I leave off with this for the moment.
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May 15, 2018 14:11
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Tias posted:No. The Peruvian tradition actually specializes in healing people possessed by bad spirits, which are mostly dead people who resent dying (but can also be 'outsiders', who may be demonic in origin but could also be the inverse of the 'ascended masters', people who have practiced dark sorcery in several lives, ending up as something inhuman) and cling onto the energy centres of the living via shared energy imbalances, as well as people injured by energy projections by dark sorcerors. Wow. I think it was in a Father Brown story, where Chesterton commented that even superstition is better than extreme rationalism, because a superstitious person at least sees the world as a battlefield for forces of good and evil beyond their full understanding. And from that description, boy, the battle is raging. I think it was Chesterton, anyway. Might have been Lewis.
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May 15, 2018 14:17
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Numerical Anxiety posted:interestingly, pseudo-Hebrew is one of the features of these texts, suggesting that even amongst pagans there was a notion that the Jewish god was particularly powerful. This carries over into modern hermetic 'sorcery'. My ex-girlfriend is a hermeticist and I went through a lot of OTO books, which largely focus on the kabbalah and beseeching "Adonai", a form of the judeo-christian God.
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May 15, 2018 17:45
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Senju Kannon posted:i don't even do divination and i think that's a dumb take. like, are you talking about people claiming to be possessed by demons after doing ouijia board poo poo? cause like... yeah i do think those accounts are mostly "made up." i think maybe the individuals involved believe it's real but no i do not think doing those things "invites' demons You're conflating divination with all occult practices. Divination is a subset of the larger occult sphere. I mean, you know what the word theurgy means, right? You've read Iamblichus, right? You understand that the films of Kenneth Anger, to set aside as one example, were not meant as "divination" but as a spiritual, ritual working, right? There's divination and then there's evocation and invocation. There are people who want to get in contact with immaterial beings not just to learn, but to exert their will.
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May 15, 2018 19:28
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CountFosco posted:You're conflating divination with all occult practices. Divination is a subset of the larger occult sphere. I mean, you know what the word theurgy means, right? You've read Iamblichus, right? You understand that the films of Kenneth Anger, to set aside as one example, were not meant as "divination" but as a spiritual, ritual working, right? There's divination and then there's evocation and invocation. There are people who want to get in contact with immaterial beings not just to learn, but to exert their will. still mad i told you i know more about gender than you, huh
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May 15, 2018 19:45
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I just got through listening to a podcast interview with Fr. David Subu and Daniel Silver about Doxacon, D&D, and the Satanic Panic, and how that affected modern (American) Christian attitudes about genre fiction. At one point Fr. David pointed out that if anything, the panic around D&D was probably the best thing that ever happened to it. A bunch of kids heard "Playing D&D will turn you into Satan-worshiping occultists!" and thought, "Cool!" EDIT: link EDIT: Removed something I thought I'd edited out. Keromaru5 fucked around with this message at 19:58 on May 15, 2018 |
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May 15, 2018 19:52
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I know more about oceanography than all of you, so nyah
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May 15, 2018 19:52
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Pellisworth posted:I know more about oceanography than all of you, so nyah actually i think you'll find i've been on a boat and went to a beach once, therefore my opinions on the effects of climate change on the ocean have just as much weight as yours
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May 15, 2018 20:00
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Tias posted:Perhaps the reason practicioners refuse is that we have tried a million times, and every time people claim to engage in informed critique, they switch and engage in airing their fear and hatred of things they don't understand? At least you're up front and aired yours in the start of the sentence so I know what I'm dealing with. yes there is no possible way forums poster Lutha Mahtin was being sarcastic or hyperbolic. if you genuinely want to debate this i am totally up for it though Senju Kannon posted:yeah this only really plays in a western context where occultism and mysticism are seen as superstition (mostly because most western religions disavow divination and occultism, so the practices that do occur, like tarot, are quasi-religious practices at best). yes i do know that ideas about fate, luck, predictions, etc. vary between cultures. also yes, i approach this issue from a specific angle due to where i grew up and the life experiences I've had. that said i don't see "divination" systems of prediction as evil or superstition. i just see them as making claims that can't be backed up Lutha Mahtin fucked around with this message at 20:27 on May 15, 2018 |
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May 15, 2018 20:11
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Lutha Mahtin posted:yes there is no possible way forums poster Lutha Mahtin was being sarcastic or hyperbolic. if you genuinely want to debate this i am totally up for it though HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 20:23 on May 15, 2018 |
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May 15, 2018 20:17
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im not mad at her. i edited in the post of hers I'm referring to, which imo is a reasonable and basic thing to keep in mind on this topic
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May 15, 2018 20:22
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Lutha Mahtin posted:yes there is no possible way forums poster Lutha Mahtin was being sarcastic or hyperbolic. if you genuinely want to debate this i am totally up for it though that’s just how religion be
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May 15, 2018 20:52
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Senju Kannon posted:still mad i told you i know more about gender than you, huh Do you think that we're in some sort of competition? You're acting like "who knows the most, wins." People aren't more valuable than other people because they have more knowledge. The only value we can accrue is the value we accrue from our works + faith. These are the inner treasures which cannot be stolen by the barbarians that St. Augustine spoke of, not facts and figures which we wield in order to exert our own will upon the lives of others.
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May 15, 2018 22:49
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CountFosco posted:Do you think that we're in some sort of competition? You're acting like "who knows the most, wins." People aren't more valuable than other people because they have more knowledge. The only value we can accrue is the value we accrue from our works + faith. These are the inner treasures which cannot be stolen by the barbarians that St. Augustine spoke of, not facts and figures which we wield in order to exert our own will upon the lives of others. alright i'm just gonna speak plain and stop tryin to put on airs or whatever i said, in no uncertain terms, that i am a woman. any surgery or any medication i have had is more akin to a cis woman getting breast reconstruction post-breast cancer surgery than a cis woman getting breast implants, and while i think comparing it to prosthetic limbs reduces the complexities of amputees living in an able bodied dominated world, it isn't necessarily coming from a wrong perspective medically speaking. your response was to ask me if i had been born in another time if this would be true for me. i interpreted this as an attack taken from some papal playbooks, alleging that "transgenderism" as the more progressive proponents call it, is a result of a post-modern gender theory that alienates men and women from their biology and that it is in this environment that transgender people come forth. this is an ahistorical perspective that fails to understand the history of transgender activism and transgender medical science and has all the scholastic value of a wet noodle. it's the same line of thinking that denies standard medical practices for transgender health has any value while citing outdated, biased studies in order to "prove" their own argument. i'll admit, my response was a bit snarky, but for one thing i was going through withdrawals after running out of my antidepressants and for another i did not think you were asking me that in good faith. still, i tried to give a somewhat unabridged (albeit still abridged since trans people generally are more reserved about discussing gender with cis people, mostly because we have studied it more than the average person on the street and anything other than "i've known i was a girl since i was two years" gets dismissed as "not really trans" by some gatekeepers) explanation for why the existence of these terms and the availability of transitional medicine did not, in fact, create in me the dissatisfaction with being seen as a man and seeing a man in the mirror, but rather helped me understand the problem and understand how to fix it. kinda like how people in the past had autism, it's just until recently people thought their children were stolen by changelings. the medical construction of the homosexual in the 19th century didn't CREATE gay men, it merely helped individuals and society understand the phenomenon of men forming romantic and sexual relationships solely with men. i then added "i know more about this than you" because i was kinda annoyed that you seemed to think you had a "gotcha" for someone who's both trans and has studied gender stuff academically. as though you had some kind of unique take that i had never heard or experienced before. maybe i'm just sensitive! but, you know, i kinda have the right to be guys! admittedly the only people who've given me poo poo for being trans were all online, but that's because people in the eye ar el only see me as a woman and so that's where i get creeped on by urgent care doctors who rub my shoulders in the middle of an examination. anyway your whole "i can't believe you haven't read x y z UGH" clearly came off as you being passive aggressive at best and aggressive aggressive at worst so like... yeah you sound like you're still mad about that. and now, i'm not psychic, but i have dealt with a lot of men who are mad online and it kinda seems like in this post you're trying to avoid the subject because i called it but didn't react in the way you wanted me to. maybe that's me playing 12th dimensional chess since poo poo like that ain't as clear via text as i might like to think it is
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May 15, 2018 23:51
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Wonderful! Thanks for taking the time to write this. Is there any reading you’d recommend towards the subject? It’s amazing to me Egypt maintains some of its mystical allure thousands of years later. Sounds like they’ve been cashing in on that since day 1. Also interesting is how angel names replaced demons.
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May 16, 2018 00:19
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Well, all I can say is that exposure to postmodern gender theory definitely alienated me from my own biology. This is my lived experience. That, and capitalism.
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May 16, 2018 00:24
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you really need to take care of yourself. i say this as someone who is trying but still doesn't take good enough care of themselves
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May 16, 2018 01:16
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ThePopeOfFun posted:Wonderful! Thanks for taking the time to write this. Is there any reading you’d recommend towards the subject? It has been more than a decade and a half since I worked on this stuff and I haven't kept up with the literature since, but here are some things I recall being useful: Betz, Hans Dieter. 1992. The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells. Frankfurter, David. 1997. "Ritual Expertise in Roman Egypt and the Problem of the Category 'Magician.'" In Kippenburg, Hans G., and Peter Schafer, eds. 1997. Envisioning Magic: A Princeton Symposium and Seminar. Princeton ———. 1998. Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and Resistance. Graf, Fritz. 1997. Magic in the Ancient World. Janowitz, Naomi. 2001. Magic in the Roman World: Pagans, Jews and Christians. Meyer, Marvin W. and Smith, Richard. 1994. Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power. The Betz and the Meyer are collections of primary texts - this stuff is extremely opaque if you try to dive right in; I would recommend looking at some of the secondary literature first, if only to get some context for what one sees in the sources. If you're interested in non-Egyptian pagan ritual (which is a little later historically), there are also the Chaldean Oracles, Iamblichus' De Mysteriis, and the host of literature on theurgy more generally. And Origen has some very interesting things to say on the subject in On First Principles. Also Morton Smith's Jesus the Magician, if you want to look at an intentionally over the top polemic that is valuable as provocation, though probably not as the last word on anything.
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May 16, 2018 01:17
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Lutha Mahtin posted:you really need to take care of yourself. i say this as someone who is trying but still doesn't take good enough care of themselves i run out of my meds ONCE and suddenly i’m not taking care of myself
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May 16, 2018 01:43
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Numerical Anxiety posted:They are also highly syncretic, borrowing divinities and motifs from across the ancient near east and Greece - interestingly, pseudo-Hebrew is one of the features of these texts, suggesting that even amongst pagans there was a notion that the Jewish god was particularly powerful. Wasn't part of that because of ties with Egypt? I think it was Manetho who said that Moses was an Egyptian priest and magician who led rebels out of Egypt.
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May 16, 2018 01:49
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Senju Kannon posted:i run out of my meds ONCE and suddenly i’m not taking care of myself im trying to be suportive. i have some chronic health concerns and it sucks i know but imo its good to kick the poo poo out of whatever disease it is u have
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May 16, 2018 02:00
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I've been playing Pillars of Eternity the last few days. If anyone's unfamiliar with the story, the premise of PoE's world is that a pantheon of gods exists; these gods are known to appear to mortals, grant boons, and control the fates of deceased souls. But over the course of the first game, the player character learns a secret: [major PoE 1 spoilers and minor PoE 2 spoilers ahead], the gods were artificially created by a prior advanced civilization, and they keep their origin a secret from mortals. The second game explores the unfolding consequences of such a revelation. The games make me think of this: whatever reality you find yourself in, whether there are summonable giant fire-shooting lions or not, you will always be confronted with dilemmas that will challenge you to contemplate the ultimate meaning and how you will respond to it. And when the player character is asked why they do anything, knowing what they know, the PC may respond that they choose to hold onto love, universally and unconditionally, which is also how one may respond to any situation or reality, including this one.
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May 16, 2018 02:10
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Lutha Mahtin posted:im trying to be suportive. i have some chronic health concerns and it sucks i know but imo its good to kick the poo poo out of whatever disease it is u have could a depressed person make THIS??? 
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May 16, 2018 02:24
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Epicurius posted:Wasn't part of that because of ties with Egypt? I think it was Manetho who said that Moses was an Egyptian priest and magician who led rebels out of Egypt. Manetho's account is not so much rebels as it is "lepers, criminals, the unclean and all the other poo poo people we didn't want anyway left with Moses. For this, we thank him." It's not so much a reflection of anything going back to Exodus as it was a response to more recent tensions between the communities. The Persian Empire employed Jewish mercenaries in garrisoning Egypt after it was conquered, and a comparatively immense number of Jews settled in Alexandria when the Greeks came. There, they didn't quite enjoy the full status of Greeks, but were better off than the native Egyptians, which for the Ptolemies was a plus - the subalterns tended to vent their anger at the proximate group rather than the upper class proper. The Jewish communities were in the situation of being associated with two waves of conquerors, but weren't themselves as protected as the Persians or Greeks. Manetho and the similar Egyptian rewritings of Exodus are a product of that social tension. The pseudo-Hebrew is something else, I suspect. By the time that the Egyptian ritual manuals are produced, the Jewish community in Egypt is mostly speaking Greek rather than Hebrew. There was probably some liturgical use of Hebrew still, but the average guy probably understood it about as well as your average Catholic did the Latin mass before Vatican II. Maybe because of proximity the syncretic magicians decided to imitate the holy language? The text is nonsense, but it has a lot of words ending with -el, -im and -ot, so it's clearly trying to imitate the sound of Hebrew. That would be my guess anyway, I don't know if anyone has put forth any compelling hypothesis.
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May 16, 2018 02:25
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Senju Kannon posted:could a depressed person make THIS??? Right hand pointed upwards, left hand pointed downwards, clearly the subconscious influence of Eliphas Levi's interpretation of "as above, so below." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baphomet#/media/File:Baphomet.png Coincidence?
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May 16, 2018 02:45
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ThePopeOfFun posted:Wonderful! Thanks for taking the time to write this. Is there any reading you’d recommend towards the subject? For a work of Fiction which I feel conjures the sense of magic in the ancient world quite well, check out Gene Wolfe's Soldier of Arete books.
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May 16, 2018 02:48
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CountFosco posted:Right hand pointed upwards, left hand pointed downwards, clearly the subconscious influence of Eliphas Levi's interpretation of "as above, so below." I fear that, with that one, you rather let the mask drop.
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May 16, 2018 03:05
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Senju Kannon posted:could a depressed person make THIS??? its not even about depression necessarily, but on that point i know a lot of people who have mental illness and i know it can be a bitch of a thing. any health issue a person has to manage long-term (or even medium-term) can be an extra special pain in the rear end, or demoralizing, or frustrating, or bring up all kinds of wacky guilt and other things that can be "not helpful" in getting one's poo poo in a pile. i guess i just want to tell anyone in this thread who is dealing potentially with such things to be cool (when/if you can) and put on your  sunglasses to tell the illness "hey, BACK OFF *yosemite sam bumper sticker*"
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May 16, 2018 03:25
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Numerical Anxiety posted:I fear that, with that one, you rather let the mask drop. I'm not sure I understand you. To be clear, I was being facetious in that last post, I do not actually believe that that little illustration signifies crypto-occultism. For one thing, the hand gestures are all off.
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May 16, 2018 03:34
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Senju Kannon posted:could a depressed person make THIS??? Frankly, the entire discography of the Cure read in light of Robert Smith's personal happiness as evidenced through interviews suggests that only a depressed person can make some things.
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May 16, 2018 04:40
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you all are sandbagging my good parks and recreation reference and it makes me feel angry
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May 16, 2018 04:44
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oh was it an aubrey joke
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May 16, 2018 05:07
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Caufman posted:I've been playing Pillars of Eternity the last few days. If anyone's unfamiliar with the story, the premise of PoE's world is that a pantheon of gods exists; these gods are known to appear to mortals, grant boons, and control the fates of deceased souls. But over the course of the first game, the player character learns a secret: [major PoE 1 spoilers and minor PoE 2 spoilers ahead], the gods were artificially created by a prior advanced civilization, and they keep their origin a secret from mortals. The second game explores the unfolding consequences of such a revelation. meanwhile i've been reading altered carbon and being slightly annoyed that there really shouldn't be a reason the church wouldn't let someones memories get spun up for a murder trial
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May 16, 2018 05:18
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StashAugustine posted:meanwhile i've been reading altered carbon and being slightly annoyed that there really shouldn't be a reason the church wouldn't let someones memories get spun up for a murder trial Clergies love cover-ups. (Not the genuine ones, of course)
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May 16, 2018 05:51
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From the funny headlines thread:Samuringa posted:
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May 16, 2018 09:52
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pidan posted:From the funny headlines thread: I dunno, the second Satan is hotter to me.
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May 16, 2018 19:01
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Caufman posted:Clergies love cover-ups. I mean its not the clergy that's exploiting the apparently limitless supply of devoutly Catholic sex workers
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May 16, 2018 19:46
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Mr Enderby posted:I dunno, the second Satan is hotter to me.
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May 16, 2018 20:05
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