All Religions use magick!

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All Religions use magick!
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Post # 1
If you look around at other religions, you will see that, even if the religion itself doesn't approve of witchcraft, It still has practices that are quite similar. Since magick is the art of manifesting one's will into the universe (often through words to the God/Goddess/universe,) pretty much every religion that prays does magick in their own way. Post your oppinions on this comment below.

Blessed be)0(
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Re: All Religions use magick!
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Post # 2

I completly agree and think this is true.

A prayer is similar to a spell since both are asking for an outcome to manifest.

Churches are similar to covens because both are a group of people who share the same beleifs.

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Re: All Religions use magick!
By: / Beginner
Post # 3
Well yes this is true, but they disapprove of "low" magick, There was a reason why alchemists, high magicians, and the like were not persecuted in the Middle ages. Did not you notice that only witches were persecuted to an extent but the alchemists and high magicians were not? That is because the rituals of High magick is similar to the "Christian" culture. High magicians were Kabbalists, and Kabbalists were usually Jewish and the Jewish faith and the Christian faith are pretty much similar, except Christianity's doctrine being such illogical (Seriously, I am Catholic) but that's a different story. Another good reason why High magicians survived is because the structure or essence of their rites usually has a form of "worship" if viewed by others. in "Low" magick, such as witchcraft and the like, they use "Sympathetic" magick, which is basically mimicking the effects of the spell by alternative, an example: If you would want to make it rain the "Low" magick way, you would get some water, and sprinkle it over a clay city or the like, while in High magick you take hours performing so (I know.) Low magick now and then has changed though, same as high magick. If I remember correctly, there was some part in history when the witches and high magicians lived in harmony and in congruent. That is why some witch traditions have had more High magick influence than usual and some High magick traditions had low magick in them. To sum it up, High magick in the middle ages was basically asking for a petition from a higher intelligence (Angels, demons, God, etc.) Low magick actually performs this as well most of the time, I read that they worshiped the God Pan and Hecate, the pray to their deities which was not the Christian deities. The High magick diety (YHVH) was basically the same with the Christians (The Father.) The Christians persecuted the pagans for doing their rituals and praising their own deities. Religion is in all ways magickal since it is usually in congruent to the "Law of attraction" which is a very powerful yet common "Secret" of magick (yet people tend to overlook it's importance.) The desire being the Divine fuel which drives us, The Willpower which is our aspect that endures, manipulates, trans mutate, and commands the Universe to change in conformity with will in regards to the Natural laws, and the goal which is our endpoint our "Light at the end of the tunnel." This is one of the most basic yet most powerful magickal formulae that I have came upon. Most religions have it, but they are not reinforced so that they lie on the ground gathering dust by the predecessors that rejected their potency. Religion has magick, but Religion is not magick in itself.

For all those that were offended, please maintain an open-mind and carefully consider those things that were said. I am sorry if anyone was offended, I am not saying Christianity is in itself bad, because it's not. It just does not work for me. Also, High magick is not a "better" form of low magick. They are different methods but with same results but usually different goals. Both High magick and Low magick are the same, Equal.
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Re: All Religions use magick!
By: / Novice
Post # 4
All religions that I have studied do have elements of magic in them. The problem occurs when the ego comes into play. What I like to call the "My god can kick your god's butt" syndrome. Then people get into trouble. Much of this is political or socio-economic in origin. Your enemy nation's gods become the demons in your religion.

I think there is a big difference between what the founders of religions taught and what organized religion teaches today. Most organized religions are a means of controling how people think, and have little to do with the true teachings of the religion. This is obvious if you read the Bible, the most published book on magic ever, and then look at what your local church on the corner is teaching. They are quite a bit different.

In the past, and in the present as well, when a religion evolved it took on the cultural traditions of the day. While these traditions may not have originally been included in the teachings, they were part of peoples lives at the time and they found their ways into the teachings. It is quite a challenge to figure out what was added by culture and what was meant when the teachings were set forth. As to date, I have never found a single religion that approved of condeming, persecuting or killing others because of their religious views. Anything like that always comes from culture, not Spirit.

LVX,

Shawn.
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Re: All Religions use magick!
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Post # 5

There are many connections between magic and religion if you care to look for them. In fact magic and religion have so many similarities you can only draw the conclusion that in the past the two were interwoven in some way, and if you look at the ancient religious practises of the Egyptians, Greeks or Romans you will see that many times priests and magic practitioners were interchangeable titles and practises.

If you look at magic, even the most jaded magic practitioner would have to admit that every act of magic is at its heart an act of faith. If you do not believe it will work then it definitely will not work. The same goes for religion. If you do not have faith in your religion then it is meaningless. You can grasp for that feeling of being watched over and cared for all you want but it will not be there. While the two things require faith in slightly different ways they still require faith. Magic needs faith in yourself, your abilities and the universe in general while religion requires faith in a higher power. Without faith both will fail and appear meaningless.

It was once a common practice among scholars writing about "magic" to distinguish it from "religion" and to treat them as somewhat exclusive of one another. However, as has been convincingly argued by more recent scholars, the various forms of magic must be viewed as a subset of religious practices practices that were outside standard cult rituals, and, though they often involved exotic divinities or even spirits whose names only occur in magical contexts, were nevertheless religious in essence. Magic was a means for achieving ends that its practitioners felt could not be reached with certainty through ordinary prayers and rituals, but like traditional cults it too relied on achieving a close working relationship with supernatural powers. There are numerous other similarities between ancient "magic" and "religion": both often involved the performance of rituals or recitations of elaborate hymns or prayers, and it was common for one activity to accompany the other; they shared many of the same goals, especially maintaining or regaining ones health, as well as seeking divine advisories on whether one should proceed with a certain venture, or attempting to obtain a favorable outcome; both relied on established bodies of knowledge and, quite often, experts who maintained such knowledge and used it to assist others; and, despite occasional innovations, both were extremely traditional.

If talking about religions who practice some forms of magic specifically, there are many examples, such as :

Christians often practice magick openly, especially in more rural cultures than the United States. For example, it is common in Mexico to invoke the financial aid of Saint Martin Caballero (a religious act) by means of a magical phrase ("citrum neuvo"), a thread-wrapped horseshoe, and a cloth bag filled with grains of wheat (a magical act).

nteria and Vodoun, two Afro-Caribbean religions with strong magical components, are sometimes wrongfully characterized by outsiders as a form of magic, although they
are both actually religions. The use of ritual baths and trance-possession seem to strike Euro-Americans as "magical" acts, rather than "religious" ones, despite the
fact that both religions have priestly hierarchs who conduct ceremonies for the congregation.

Hinduism has an entire sacred book (one of the Vedas) devoted to magical formulas.

And much more examples about the association of magick and religions.

Also I must say that Artezia made a great post, I really enjoyed it :-)

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Re: All Religions use magick!
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Post # 6
I think another fact may be that every human being who does concious acts and makes concious decisions is in fact carrying out magick and so in a sense it doesn't matter about belief or anything every human being on the planet in one way or another practices magick.
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Re: All Religions use magick!
By: / Knowledgeable
Post # 7
Wonderful thread. So much has already been covered, I will need to put a little thought into it to add something not said! I particularly loved Art's post, very well said and a point many people don't realize about ceremonial magicians verses witches.

Oh! I do have one thing to add on that, there was such a thing as "holy" magic back then, but they eventually stopped using the word "magic" altogether. This was probably due to the hypocrisy of it (do as I say, not as I do!). And now they just call them "rites" which is a fancy word for "ritual" and of course, the sacraments. Mass is also a very intricate ceremony that includes candles, incense, an altar, (holy) water, offerings (wine and bread offered "up" first), chant, prayer, song, and ritual.

In fact Orthodox priests, in my opinion, retain much of the same "feel" as a ceremonial magician of the Renaissance and they are far more open minded. When I first attended an Orthodox mass, I was six years old, and I remember being in awe of it and whispering to myself "magic...". I couldn't understand a word that was being said (it was in a different language), so it really emphasized the mystical nature of it. I always enjoyed attending them, and even began to memorize the responses and songs (which I had no understanding of) just to be apart of the magic of it! The priests always noticed my awe of them and would pat me on the head and say "duja dobre" which I learned later meant "very good". Catholic masses still have the ritual but not half the ceremony and sacredness emphasized in Orthodox ones.
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Re: All Religions use magick!
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Post # 8
Interesting post. I agree all the way, all religions use some rituals and prayers (I've also noticed the similarity to spells). I had this conversation with my best friend (who was raised Christian) many years ago and she agreed too. When you really study many different religions, you start to see they are very similar.
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