Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.


Thursday, December 15, 2011

Believers Say the Darndest Things 5: "You Aren't Doin' it Right!"

I’m currently involved in a relatively interesting thread on Lashtal.com about a “True Act of Magick” (read it here). On this thread, I’ve been arguing that the only “true act of magick” is bringing one’s activities in line with one’s true will. That is to say, “Magick” in the widest sense of “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in Conformity with Will” can be said to “work,” merely because all actions consist of “causing change.” Under this definition, the tricky part is not causing the change (which is usually incredibly easy) but knowing which changes to make in the first place.
As a corollary to the above, “magick” in the narrow sense (that is, ceremonies designed to cause coincidences to happen by some unspecified means) doesn’t work at all – or, at least, nobody in his right mind has any good reason to think that it does – and thus a “true act of magick” cannot consist of doing a ritual to attract money and then rejoicing once one finds a friend has decided to pay back a loan sooner than expected. In a case like this, absolutely nothing indicates that the ritual caused the so-called “result” and nobody – not even the practitioner – has any reason to suppose that his ritual did cause it.
This argument should be familiar to readers of this blog, but you can find some more information in the posts "Hey, It Works for Me!"and "A Wild Ghost Chase", among others.
Read on for a description of a religionist believer script that popped up in the thread.