Esozone Panel: Making Magic- Innovative Sorcery Techniques

[metaphorge]

(This needs massive grammar and spelling clean-up. Thanks to tyrsalvia for doing a big chunk of the transcription.)

moderator: Trevor Blake “At every turn in its thought, society will find us - waiting.” - Bureau of Surrealist Research. Vehemently not an occultist, Trevor Blake (aka Onan Canobite) sure spends a lot of time around them. A SubGenius member in good standing since 1982 and editor of OVO (home of Hakim Bey’s earliest writings), Blake gives voice to outsiders, continually pushing the artistic envelope and teaching you things you’d rather not know. His varied interests include transgressive art, gender dynamics and the alternative realities of the alleged “insane.“

panelists: Nick Pell A recent addition to the occult scene, Nick Pell has already inspired his share of controversy. In a few short years he has come out of obscurity to become the Editor-in-Chief of Key64.net, editor for Immanion Press, spokesmodel for the Magicians of Bowlbetterology, a rogue Director of Neurocam International- PDX a frequent guest on Occulterati and a mastermind behind the esoZone event. An eclectic and experimental practitioner, Pell has worked with Enochian, witchcraft, TOPY magick and Zos Kia Cultus. But who the hell is this guy and who does he think he is? Pell will welcome participants to esoZone, as well as perform with the Foolish People occult theatre troupe.

Lupa (lupabitch) Lupa possesses a prodigious knowledge of atavistic magic
and the mysterious “other people” that populate the myths of all lands- and her books Fang and Fur, Blood and Bone: A Primal Guide to Animal Magic and A Field Guide to Otherkin reflect that.

An eclectic and experimental practitioner (with a heavy emphasis on that word), she also maintains thegreenwolf and kinkmagic with her mate Taylor Ellwood, with whom she is currently at work on Kink Magic: Sex Magic Beyond Vanilla (November 2007).

Bill Whitcomb Bill Whitcomb was born a typical child of the 20th century until contracting Semiotic fever, an imaginary disease characterized by oneirodynia, mythopoetic swelling, and hermeneutic convulsions, resulting in chronic obsession with symbols and language. Some claim that after being bitten by a wide variety of non-radioactive creatures and exposure to extra-terrestrial solar rays, Whitcomb exhibited a seemingly complete lack of paranormal abilities, though there is little proof of this assertion. Whitcomb is best known for his books on magical symbolism and practices, The Magician’s Companion and The Magician’s Reflection, both published by Llewellyn Publications. Bill Whitcomb is believed to be living in the Pacific Northwest United States where he researches the practices of non-existent secret societies. He is currently at work on a book that will unite the mysteries of Neuro-Linguistic Programming with Raja yoga.

Wes Unruh Wes Unruh (or just “Wu”), the mastermind behind the Unquiet Mind and Philip K. Nixon sonic terrorism projects, has been lauded as the Brion Gysin of his time. His ground breaking book Metamagical Graffiti explores the cut-up method, modern mythology, and the creation of symbol systems. He is currently hard at work in the corporate magick salt mines of Troy, New York and was instrumental in the creation of esoZone and its network of agents.

Trevor: How does the study of magic benefit the common good? Sciences today have evolved from certain studies of magic.

Wes: Without magickal studies we would have no encryption today. Codes, cyphers turned into

Bill: Not sure if magic will turn into something as alchemy-> chemistry. Certainly has influenced art, literature, heavily influenced psychology.

Lupa: Magic(k) does not exist in a bubble. Magic study into mainstream in the past has jumped during enlightenment, age of reason. Constant transfer of information from psycholoy, memetics and occultism.

Nick: Potentially memetics will be where magic is headed, incorporates the disparate traits of magic into a cohesive system. memetics is very primitive now, analogy to early study of genetics and epidemiology. Technology is magic.

Trevor: Question for Wes from Metamagical Graffiti. We need to discard the persona long enough to let it not cloud perception. In what ways does magic better explain reality than other approaches.

Wes: Information theory, memetics pull from magical thought to explain reality.

Trevor: What is a "true self"?

Wes: Not just the identity that is projected, but is the whole of the self. Subconscious and unconscious aligned with conscious thoughts.

Trevor: What is the means to test the effectiveness of a home-made vs. store bought magical tool.

Lupa: Whatever works the best, what fulfills the need the tool was purchased for. Comfort of use and lack of distraction make it work. Personally she prefers homemade.

Bill: No intrinsic difference, important part is that the tool is meaningful. Work, dedication lead to meaning.

Nick: I like to make tools, and the energy and the time you put into it creates a link to the tool. Also, you can design something precisely to your own personal symbols. Book called Chaos & Sorcery asks you to create a set of runes with a lot of very specific rules around how to do it - these rules create psychic energy in the tool. Finding things has an element of fate.

Trevor: Quoting the Magician's Companion (Bill's book), what do you mean by "energy"?

Bill: A critical point is the relationship between information and energy - we don't really have a true understanding of what "information" is. If we truly understood what energy and information were, we would be able to move them back and forth more readily.

Trevor: What are the non-empirical reasons to believe in magick?

Bill: Quantum physics - what we believe may make a direct change in how the world works. Or, you could be sensitizing yourself to possibilities. If you're getting what you want out of it, what you think is actually going on is irrelevant.

Trevor: Some of you said there isn't a strong demarcation line between "magick" and "not-magick" - what is decidedly not-magick?

Nick: Basic bodily functions of any kind?

Lupa: Asked a friend if hair dying could be an act of magick, and friend suggested that it could be, depending on intent and ritual. Any action can become an act of magick, intent is the key.

Bill: I think about the root, "magia" which is knowing. You are changing the focus and content of consciousness - and that includes everything. Given that, it's not necessarily that meaningful, but pretty much everything is magick.

Wes: Anything that doesn't have intentionality is not-magick.

Lupa: You can have someone going through a traditional ritual of any sort, and if they're just reading the lines as rote and not really putting anything into it, then it's not-magick.

Nick: There is something to the idea that any willed act is a magickal act, but that can go a lot of very mundane places. That sorta cheapens the royal art, as it were. I don't know that there's a hard and fast line. There's a heretical Thelemite on cadmus' website that says that every willed act is a magickal act, and that piece is really worth reading.

Trevor: How does intent occur?

Lupa: It's about making the things happen that I want to happen. If I go into it with conscious intent, if I get what I want, that's success.

Trevor: Quote from The Basics of Divination, used divinatory tools can be purified and then re-used. What does it mean for a set of cards or tools to be "purified"?

Lupa: To purify something is to clear away the energy of whoever the person was who used it before. It's about breaking the link between the object and its previous owner so you can claim it as yours.

Trevor: What do you mean by energy?

Lupa: It's a more subtle energy than we have the technology to measure. There is some physical presence, but it's more about one's internal microcosm. It can be affected by our minds and actions, but it can also exist without us.

Trevor: What makes some things in salt water or incense smoke "purified" while other things in salt water or smoke are not purified?

Lupa: Do you mean why this works for some people and not others?

Trevor: I mean that there are some things intentionally put in salt water for purification, but then there are other things that just happen to be in salt water - like rocks in the ocean. Are these things also pure?

Lupa: It's really about natural elements. If I go to the beach and pick up a rock, that to me is already pure. There are no psychological ties that need to be purged. Other people might want to do a ritual even with something they found in the woods, but it's really about the concept of making the item yours.

Trevor: How can a person know that their magick has failed?

Nick: No results. The point is to get results. Otherwise, you're just playing D&D.

Lupa: I can see where Nick is coming from, but I also think that success and failure can also be an internal matter. Say you're going job hunting and you put out resumes and also do some spellwork. You get an interview for a job you really want, and then you don't get the job. This may not necessarily be failure - any experience you have on the way to an end result is still a part of the process of getting there. You can see this as a success because you got an interview at all, you got a chance to practice your interview skills and increases your confidence - which can help you land the next job.

Bill: It only stops when you decide you're done.

Wes: Sigil magick often involves consciously forgetting intent - but then the Universe comes around and kicks your ass.

Nick: It's an often overlooked skill - not thinking about it. Sleight of mind.

Trevor: How can a person who does believe in magick guard themselves against false positives? Suppose I use magick to make it rain at a specific time and place - how do I know this wasn't someone else's magick, or just the universe, or what?

Wes: It could have been your prescience that it was going to rain, so it gets muddled there.

Bill: I think the issue is to ignore the issue of causality. Getting into the mindset that you are controlling something as opposed to influencing something is going to lead you to delusion regardless of whether it worked or not. The important thing is that it rained, but it's kind of silly going around saying "I made it rain!" or "I didn't make it rain."

Lupa: I don't get to claim that I'm the cause of the end of the world.

Nick: But I want everyone to know that I did kill Jerry Garcia....

Trevor: Nick, in your review of Donald Tyson's Soulflight - you wrote that this was top notch and pedantic. How did you know it was top notch?

Nick: Mostly because it was pedantic.

Trevor: You encourage people to find reliable sources of information on tarot - what constitutes a reliable source?

Nick: Mostly someone who has done the work. If you spend enough time with the cards, you don't need a book, but a book can help you learn how to look. The Golden Dawn had people making their own cards back before you could just buy them, and that is a great experience. It's easy to tell when the work has been put in, and when it's been faked.

Trevor: Personal magickal story?

...silence...

Wes: The first time I tried salvia divinorum - I realized that reality is really layers and layers of dimensions. I was terrified. I was really pissed off that I didn't take a sigil with me to fire because it was that intense a space, and I don't think I want to try it again because it is that intense. Still, I got an understanding of dimensionality. There's also this element of shamanism, you have to let go of your persona long enough to realize you have one. Get out of your head long enough so that you can come back to it and yet still observe from outside.

Nick: ...and he emailed me the day after that happened, he was a little freaked out.

Wes: Indeed.

Lupa: This is a story I usually let Taylor tell, but I'll give you an abbreviated version - see teriel for a better version of the story. Our relationship really proved to me that magick happened. Taylor had spent about six years before we met doing a series of magickal workings to find a good partner, his magickal mate. I didn't put in quite that much work, I did a sigil to find a lover. One of the things Taylor had done was created a collage in early 2005 as a divination practice to get an idea of what the year would bring. The collage had some random information, some pictures, but he never really came up with a strong explanation for it. Most of the collages he'd done had obvious meanings. Fast forward to July 2005, and we'd been talking online for a little while. He gave me this collage to look at - and one of the pictures in the center was a picture of me that had been in a pagan publication when I'd been wolfdancing. There had been no name attached, and I didn't even know the picture had existed. All of the things in the collage related directly to stuff in my life at the time. The fact that this was so perfect proved he wasn't just some weird stalker, but that this had been a magickal experience.

Nick: I feel like all the traveling I've done and the people I've met is due to magicks. I was so reclusive that I never left my house, hid in the basement. Even five years ago, the idea that I would have traveled... I wouldn't have believed it. Just being able to go places and meet people is magick to me. There's sort of "lesser magick" where you're sort of trying to get things and get by, and then there's self transformation.

Bill: I've experienced a lot of strange things, but I tend to think of belief as something it's better to do rather than have. At the same time, the way that people appear out of nowhere.... The fact that I'm even still alive at this point.

Trevor: Wes, quoting Meta-Magickal Graffiti - you wrote that art is magick and that expression is powerful - when is an artist not a magician?

Wes: An artist is always creating their environment, or you wouldn't call them an artist. Engaging with the alteration of the environment, you are planting meaning - magick. Intentional magick-art is the purest form, but even people just painting landscapes are still creating magickal art.

Bil: Any good art is by nature talismanic.

Wes: Alex Grey's book really explains the mystic trance and how it relates to art.

Trevor: Is magick independent of morality, or not?

Nick: It's independent, but morality and ethics aren't the same thing. Ethics exist in any system, but morality is different. Sometimes harm can be a benefit.

Lupa: Magick is a tool, a neutral force. The good and the evil all comes from the individual who is working with the magick, I don't see it as inherently anything other than what it is.

Bill: I think it's unconnected to morality, but connected to ethics in that it is about internal consistency. Morality is more local custom.

Trevor: My experience has been that the things you're speaking of are not taught in public schools - why not?

Nick: Public schools are instruments of oppression and mediocrity - they only teach how to accept authority and sit still. Not about liberation.

Bill: There's an unfortunate association with religion - when people have tried to teach meditation, it's freaked out the parents.

Wes: Why not teach media literacy in schools? It's the same question. That should also be taught in schools, symbology, culture.

Nick: We need Freeman teaching public high school.

Lupa: Not to sound like a total arrogant fuck, but... I think that the practice of magick takes a particular mindset. Alchemy into chemistry puts esoteric ideas into a standardized form. In order for specific practices to be accessible to the greater population, they have to have some sort of common demonator. There would have to be some standardization and commonality so people from all backgrounds could the basics.

Trevor: Some of you spoke about results-based magick... how does magick identify a practice that does not work? Say some act that's been done and done and it is just not working, or not as well as something else. What are some practices that used to happen and don't now?

Bill: Ars Notaria - rituals in the middle ages to transmit the classical skills, rhetoric etc. Kind of like Abra Melin - lots of work, took a long time. By the time you had done all of this, you would have learned a lot. The church finally banned these practices because no one could ever notice them working.

Wes: The cultural argument - Abra Melin is a good example. The rituals and holy names and entities and all of this... back then, you probably could find gold because people might have just had it around and dropped it. Someone doing Abra Melin now can't just find gold like that. Doing this now can teach you about culture, but it's a different experience.

Lupa: Your spirit could lead you to a pawn shop for gold.... Shamanic practices - indigenous magickal practices - you used to have people serving a very specific small community. Now, we live in a huge monolithic culture, big cities, the family is as close as people get to having a blood-related tribe. We don't have the same kind of cohesion that tribal groups have. Shamanic practice has gone from being serving your immediate community and into self - internal workings. Also, lots of local people don't really see the need for a shaman. It's a different social dynamic. That doesn't mean that shamanism is irrelevant. Here in the middle of urban Portland, it's a matter of taking these older practices and evolving them for the culture we have here.

Bill: It's not just shamanism - I think Western magicians as a whole are really the only magicians who are isolated from their communities. We are very isolated.

Nick: For my own part, I've found that high ceremonial magick really does not work. I just do things, make items and put my energy into them, and that seems to work.

Trevor: Millions believe in the miracle of transubstantiation - there's no evidence that this occurs, but similarly the practice endures. Etc. Why do these magickal claims endure with thousands of years of not working?

Nick: This is one of those things about whether you believe the cops or Tim Leary - it's a judgment call. It's a game rule. Do you accept one reality or another?

Bill: You can make the argument that there's some pretty serious spellwork going on if we're still discussing the ideas of a 3500 year old Semitic tribe.

Wes: In early Judiasm, there wasn't really a hell. As Christianty evolved, the patterns became more and more ingrained. People are creating an egregore. It's there because it's been there, it's self-sustaining and it keeps growing. A lodge is the conscious construction of a group mind for a group.

Trevor: We'll open this to questions.

Taylor: Grant Morrison argues that you don't need to know how magick works in order to get results and all that matters is that you do get results. What does the panel think of this idea?

Bill: I think that's true. A lot of fundamental magickal techniques are biologically based - your consciousness is going to change if your breathing changes regardless of what you believe.

Wes: I think theory is informed by practice. I think he has a point, but it's a starting point. I think it's important to understand why things work for you.

Lupa: Especially if you're going to transmit your results to others. If you don't understand how you got results, you can't teach this. While you don't have to turn this into an exact science, but you do need to know what elements were successful. If you want to do this again to get similar results, you'll know what's more useful rather than just taking a shot in the dark.

Nick: I think you need to know how it works in terms of mechanics, but in terms of quantum physics... who gives a shit? If it's happening....

Lupa: If we name it we know it, we own it.

Bill: That's a good point, but I would differentiate behavioral practice from energy. Say I'm doing energy work, any model might actually be true, but the actions are the same.

Fox: Earlier you discussed why this isn't taught in schools. I would submit that part of what makes magick possible is the fact that you have to look between the lines, find the signal in the noise - part of the ability to do magick is the skill to find this in the larger cultural milue. Thoughts?

Wes: Fish don't know they're in water. Institutions don't know they're maintained by magick. This goes back to the idea of the group mind. The institution exists because it's created in an astral place, so of course it wouldn't acknowlege this. They're fish.

Bill: There's a great deal of magick in our normal society - advertising as sorcery, political speech as sorcery.

Lupa: I think we're in a magick-ignorant society. We have such a high rate of rationalism and religious fundamentalism, both of which are somewhat antithetical to magick. Other cultures tend to accept magick more, though even then there were people who were more proficient than others. In other cultures, it wasn't this amazing thing to be a shaman - in other cultures if you were chosen, you might even try to weasel out of it because it was somewhat separate from society. I think we're just seeing a different manifestation of that concept.

Wes: Things hidden because it made them more powerful, then hidden out of danger, now hidden because no one believes it.

Bill: Power in secrecy.

Audience: How do you envision the future of magick in the audience grows and more information available due to fictional representations?

Bill: Given long enough we will find or create everything we've imagined.

Wes: Relation to the unimaginable is the same whether it's technological or magical. As we become posthuman line blurs between technological or magical. Crosspollination between magic and transhuman. Magic Incorporated is coming.

Bill: Technology is something that we think we understand. Magic is what we think we don't understand.

Lupa: Cutting edge efforts will filter into the mainstream, the envelope will always be pushed.

Nick: Basic magical/mystical principles becoming more mainstream; practice will have to dig deeper. Andrew Chumly. Traditional magical practice viewed throgh chaos magick mindset. Turn to ancient traditions response to the "globalization" of magick. Last hundred years of magick have shown that "something you pull out of your ass" can be just as effective as ancient techniques; why not use both?

Lupa: Magick is not immune to dogma. The larger a practive becomes the more stagnation happens, new movements grow out of this dissatisfaction. Wicca becoming very dogmatic. Even chaos magick not immune. Fringe will always be present.

Bill: lowpoint was running into an extensive argument about the exact wording of "nothing is true, everything is permissible".

Audience: What is the role of fellowship and community when personal mythology is the main role?

Nick: Who needs or wants a congregation?

Bill: We have the same need for community as any human beings. Share techniques, give people lifts.

Wes: Common language is important to allow dialogue. We definitely live in postmodern times. Direct experience can only come within a community.

Lupa: Phobia against the idea of congregation due to bad formative experiences in more mainstream religions. Possible but difficult to make a cohesive community out of disparate individuals.

Nick: I just want research partners, that's all.

Audience: Due to the idiosyncratic nature of occulture... what are some shared beliefs or memes among the panel? What techniques used by groups like Christianity or Scientology are worth adopting or rejecting?

Lupa: That could take hours. This is the first time I've met Wes.... We could talk for hours about what we each believe and don't, but it would probably come down to... we believe that magick exists. This goes back to the last question about how it's harder to do community... whether it's the pagan community or whatever, we are bound together by the belief that there is something different - but what there is is something individual.

Wes: What I think is anathema is the idea that there is some reward after you die. Most of the rest of it is useful, but the idea that you're rewarded or punished after you die is really dangerous.

Bill: I'm really focused on techniques, and all of these traditions share behavioral techniques that are worth examining. As far as the worldview... that depends on what you want to do. I can't imagine why I would want to do what Scientology is doing, but nothing wrong with the techniques themselves.

Nick: I would say that organized religion is in a sense the opposite of magick - you're talking about a form of collective brainwashing, an enforcement of a certain reality through forms of psychic pressure versus something at its finest moment is about urging people to create their own path. I'm thinking mostly of the Catholic Church when I talk about the Church, but this goes for all organized religion - any time you are taking part in a religious ritual (versus a magickal one) you are submitting yourself to an external force. For me, my path is about exerting my influence on everything else. I'm not talking about mystical insight, but I don't believe in submission. Most of what you learn with organized religion is how to lead a cult, but do a fun one - do "Bob."

Bill: The root is legios, "to bind."

Audience: Do you believe the word or intent has some sort of recoil? Do you believe in the "three-fold law" or karma?

Bill: Sure.

Lupa: I don't see it as anything more than pure common sense. I don't see it as a universal law that if you curse someone, you'll get cursed three times. I think it's more that if you're a bastard, you're probably not going to have many friends who aren't other assholes. It's not really that cut and dried, sometimes it's choice and sometimes it's the luck of the draw.

Bill: I think karma is perfectly valid, but it has nothing to do with ethics or morality. The things you do over time create patterns. If I fry chicken every day, I might have a heart attack - that doesn't mean I'm a bad person.

Nick: I sort of have a belief kind of like the rede, but I think that's terribly moralistic. As they say in Magnolia, we may be finished with the past, but the past is not finished with us. It's only a limit of perception, it's all happening at the same time. This is about as real as a brick in your face. If I give you three candies, you're not going to give me nine... you're just going to come back for more candy.

Wes: If I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. I think the universe stops paying attention to you if you cry wolf. If you create that pattern, you lose a lot of power to change things. While I don't really follow the rede or set moral code, I try to do everything I say I will. I pay close attention to how I phrase things and what energy I put out, because I know how much I can self-sabotage if my words and actions don't line up.

Audience: I've heard a lot about the difference between religion and magick... what do you believe the place is between the application of one's own will versus submitting to some other ("higher"?) will?

Bill: I'm not sure that's the distinction. For me, religion is about imposing a particular view as opposed to a direct personal experience of the divine. You could approach that by wanting to be one with god, or wanting to be god - either of which is perfectly valid. What defines religion is the attempt to impose a mediator between you and the divine.

Lupa: I don't like the word religion, but my spirituality is largely based around negotiating my place in the universe, where my microcosm is in relation to the macrocosm. I don't really see this as a dichotomy, rather figuring out where it all aligns. I don't see myself as separate, more that I'm like a cell in a body. I have my own consciousness, and the universe has its total consciousness. I'm not opposed to or in alignment with the universal will, it's more about figuring out where I am in relation to it all.

Wes: One of the things that chaos magick is the model of sigil/servitor creation, the idea that you can create gods. I see Moses as a magician. By the time what he was doing was interpreted, it has become a religion. Religion is the psychic accumulation of the energy of the worshippers used to maintain itself.

Nick: I don't have much in the way of religious beliefs, I was raised athiest. I think that narratives are important, they give you context. For me, it's a question of various wills in the universe and some will benefit me and some will harm me - but I happen to live somewhere where most of the people want to take most of the power. There are bad people around, and we should try to take as much power from them as we can. I also think that the universe itself has a sort of will, it's a self-organizing information system. It just does what it does. We're just a bunch of meat, something else will eventually replace us.

Bill: I think it loves all of us, but that doesn't mean you get any perks.

Nick: I'll go with that.

Trevor: This has been great. There's links to everyone's works at esozone.com. Final remarks?

Wes: What's an innovative sorcery technique? I think sorcery is the use of magickal tools in magickal practice. When you look at this, it's a technique of change. Tools don't have to be the wand or the dagger... they can be a painting, or a collage, or audio tracks or whatever that you use to create a lever from which you can move things. You should develop your own styles, your own tools, and go from there.

Bill: The word ritual has the same root as the word root. It's a set process that you standarize to do something. I think people get away from that, they think that ritual is something you set aside... ritual is baking a cake.

Lupa: I like what you were talking about (Wes) about sorcery using tools to define magickal practice. You can see a form of sort of elitism - I see this both amongst occultists and pagans - the ideas that the open handed technique is better than using tools, that tools are only for people who aren't good enough magicians. I totally disagree with that. If your magick isn't fun, isn't enjoyable on some level... I don't want to say you're doing it wrong, but I think you're missing out. If you like the tools and toys, don't throw them out. Don't think you have to be the kid trying to be an adult who has to throw the toys away so people don't call you a baby.

Bill: Your practice should impress you. If it doesn't strike you as cool.... Also, thanks for inviting me here.

Nick: Shout-out to my favorite open-handed sorcer. Stick around for Foolish People part 2. Here's my esozone yearbook, sign it. Check out key64.net for a lot of what I've referenced.

Trevor: Thanks to our panelists, audience.

Comments

[traumentwerfer.livejournal.com]

This was very neat.

On defining magick...

The Science and Art of using both what is conscious and what is sub-conscious to cause Change in accordance with Will.

This may require bringing forth that which is subconscious and making it conscious.

I think this is what differentiates magick from using will for every day activities.

[vb2010.livejournal.com]

It's very useful post , thanks for sharing
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