I hope this is a good refresher course for some of us... And I hope you enjoy the read. You can find the original at
( http://www.angelfire.com/mi3/tomekeeper/intro/philos.html)
Tomekeeper's Philosophy
I think I owe it to anyone that reads the files at this web site to know what I believe and henceforth why I chose to include what I did. Also, I live in everyone's favorite land of snow and rock known as Canada, so forgive the Canadian/British spellings (such as centre, colour, endeavour, etc. We use many "u"s and "re"s where our American counterparts do not). Also, about spelling: I refer to any Active Casting art (which requires no rituals) as simply "magic". I call any Passive Casting art (which requires rituals) "magick". As an point of interest, Aleister Crowley put a "k" in magic to make it fit his gematria. It really has no intrinsic value unless you're looking for yet another way to mess with the word "magic". Do not be confused by my use of the term "magic" and assume I'm implying the slight-of-hand or sensory illusions variety. I will never make reference on this site to trick magic or stage magic.
Finally, I ask you to forgive the following page's garbled arrangement. The sentences are quite haphazard and thrown together into an "Advice Collage", so please bear with it. I will not re-word it quite yet, as it does communicate my message. Anyway, here it goes:
On the Use of Magic in Life:
My magic philosophy is one of general non-interference. Magic is a priveledge of the same order as driving a car. It is useful for travelling long distances, but for your every day routine (i.e. Brushing your teeth, going to your kitchen), it is impractical and destructive. In the same way magic, though quite useful in some situations, is too powerful to be using like a good luck charm, for mundane tasks, or to satisfy some underachiever's need for "proof". Be careful, those of you with magical talent, and be even more careful, those of you who are growing in magical talent. It is tempting to meddle in every part of your life and everyone else's, but resist. A great deal of damage can be done by a single errant spell. Think long and hard before casting anything. Use a scrying mirror to determine the first, second, third, fourth and fifth generation effects of any spell cast (by Generation I refer to the successive effects caused by a single spell). Also remember this: A single protective spell is easier to cast than to curse every possible adversary. I would like anyone who is seriously considering magic to visit the following web page on what has been coined, "The Ripple Effect". Use it to determine if magic is really what you want. Not everyone is born to be a magician. For the vast majority, in fact, magic is not a necessity (however nice it would be) and the individual can survive quite nicely without having to make extra efforts on the ethereal level.
On the Responsibilities of Magic
Magical ability can be a hard thing to cope with. It is the granting of phenominal power that is limited only by your imagination and skill. The skill of the average supposed "magician" is negligible, being limited to having to imagine most results and rely heavily on luck to fill in for their ineptness, but some are truly gifted casters, being able to perform even the most difficult tasks with a magical touch. Many times magic could be used, but if you are a caster of even moderate skill the potential for damage is enormous. I, personally, have done a lot of damage to myself and others while in the apprenticeship stage of magic. I am now extremely wary of casting abilities. Magic is extraordinarily dangerous, even when used for the most benign and altruistic purposes at heart. I urge and plead with potential magicians to carefully think about every spell and every action. Nobody will turn back time for you, so think before you act. The magician's niche in life necessarily hurdles them into many areas of scholastic study, encompassing a wide variety of arts and sciences, and eventually takes its toll in time and tedium. A delicate blend of skepticism and foresight makes the magician's mind a calculating piece of machinery which anticipates and acts when others are still confused. Be certain of what you want, and be careful of how you strive for it.
Every magician should deeply examine themselves before embarking on the trail of power. One must be sure of themself by knowing their abilities, strengths, weaknesses, and by being able to honestly self-evaluate at every major stage of progression. Please, by deepest concern and most solemn warnings, be wise about everything you attempt in your magical endeavours. Here is an email that I received from a reader who felt his story could benefit and serve as a warning to those that would practice dangerously or hastily without care.
On the Joys of Magic
I digress, though. Magic is a wonderful blessing as well, despite the run-down I've just given it. Being able to understand and, better yet, change the ethereal/spiritual world is quite a gift. Like the Pawn which is promoted to a Queen so is a person who suddenly realizes that the magical realm is within their grasp. The problem is that I've seen too many Queens demote themselves to Pawns because they do not have a clear idea of their own philosophy. I'm not an Ancient quite yet, but I have seen many apprentices come to me without any clear understanding of their own philosophy, and those that did know their own philosophy usually had a contradictory or incomplete one. It is important for a magician to have a founded belief system that allows them to work within magical boundaries. I hope that by reading this, it will provoke you to understand and to solidify exactly what your position in the eternal is, to determine your standpoint on eternal philosophy, and to be able to work with the higher ethereal powers in accordance with those beliefs.
On the Display of Power
There is also a responsibility, however, that comes along with the acquisition of power. Power in magic is something that one will inevitably attain if they have any skill in magic whatsoever. As such, it is the magician's responsibility to make sure that, regardless of how much a person coaxes you to, you never show off your magical talent. It is not a sign of weakness, being unsure, or of inability. It is the solemn oath of every true magician that you will never show off your ability to anyone, be it friend, enemy or family. There is no higher pact that this one which the true magician makes with themself: To show nobody for any reason. It is the unspoken, though not unwritten, rule of all magics. Subtly in magic is paramount. Much like the master of any of the martial arts, though they train and study and practice at honing the power to destroy, it is that same power and discipline which allows the master martial artist to remain at peace and make his massively destructive ability unnecessary. The master magician must also practice, and train, and study, and put diligent effort into their spellcasting and research. At the end of the road, the same effect becomes true of the magician. Though capable of impressive displays of magic if the need arises, the true master chooses to bear a little ridicule or to let a slight go unchallenged rather than impose their skills on every sniggling situation. This responsibility with magic may not be overstressed. It is important to keep one's ego in check and to be sure that power does not become a personality flaw.
On the Use of Occult Terminology
While studying the ways of the occult, one will find a huge amount of information that uses a line of reasoning similar to the following: "Necromancy is actually the art of divination through spirits due to its Greek roots necro, for dead, and manteia for divination." These sorts of tidbits are things that, though interesting, I only occasionally include for the love of knowledge itself -- for the true philosoph. When it comes down to practicality, however, the fact of the matter is that the Latin axiom Tempora Mutantur must be acknowledged (i.e. "The times are changed"). The amount of necromancers in the world that actually know about or use the old Greek system are very few, and very far between. The vast majority of necromancers in the world are of the variety that is explained on the Advanced Necromancy page. Because the etymology would seem to point to different roots does not mean this is a less valid form of the practice. Indeed, the vast majority of practitioners that call themselves necromancers are actually death magicians, as described, but we retain the title Necromancy as a courtesy to those who came before us. Likewise Sorcery -- perhaps as the best example of all -- was originally a divinatory system based on the casting of objects and reading the pattern. I have never read any material or spoken to any practitioners of that art, however, that claim the modern practice has anything at all to do with its early roots. This is why on The Library of Knowledge you will see that Necromancy is a title that has been retained, that Black Magic is a term still used, and that other such words associated with the arts have been left in. The times have changed, and the practices are now performed as they have been defined on this page series. Now is the time of redefinition, and now is the time that we reconstruct the foundation of these arts so that, two thousand years hence, people will reflect on us, our practices, and study our systems. Etymologies are fun, and sometimes revealing, but the fact of the matter is that, almost by definition, etymologies are outdated and only of interest to academics. Epistemology itself dictates that we use labels to convey thoughts, like you are reading these words right now, so I have not avoided the names that have been traditionally used. Moreover, on this same strain of thought, the titles and concepts used on this site are all English. Ki, Chi, Qi, Prana, Numen... LIFE FORCE. I do not consider names given to identical concepts in another language somehow superior, so I do not dip into cultures I am unfamiliar with and borrow labels that have different connotations. I am sick up to the gills with the notion that using English titles for precisely the same concept is inferior, so I will not load up on jargon from a thousand cultures and religions. I am not fascinated with oriental culture, nor occidental, nor my own culture, nor Egyptian, or any other single group of people and thus will only write using terms we can all understand at face value.
On the Use of Ritual Magicks and "High" or Ceremonial Magicks
Magic is the application of energies that are ambient in one's environment. This has been a well-established fact from long before the printed word. People often talk of channeling their anger, or absorbing from the air around them, and from older techniques which are mirrored in the "In with the good air, out with the bad air" sort of meditation methods. There is an intrinsic problem with people saying energy comes from items. If items themselves had a natural power worth considering, why would nodes have to be set up? Wouldn't all of nature be a big nature node? It obviously isn't, according to the vast majority of practitioners. Also, wouldn't it make enchanting futile, and the practice of any personal magic worthless? Really, if you think about it, if items had any noteworthy power the expedient thing to do would be to treasure-hunt for the most powerful ones, right? ... The few dissenters to that theory tend to be only looking to make trouble or are people that disagree with almost every other established fact of magic as well. The main error in rituals are that they are nothing but a crutch. Rituals are used to steep in dogma, ceremony, and religion that which would otherwise be a pure and simple form of magic. The same high magicks of Solomon, though definitely and irrefutably worth studying, are so ritual burdened that one can not even begin to consider practicing it without investing a considerable sum of money. I can not emphasise this enough, it seems. The "Sword of Truth", "Staff of Power", and "Ring of Conjuring", and "Circle of Protection" style of magic holds very little historical weight if viewed outside of the influence of Christianity and Judaism on mystic practice in the middle ages and renaissance. If someone wanted a secret decoder ring they'd collect Koolaid points, not practice magic. I must give them some credit -- it's a far cry better than chaos magic -- but there is far too much religion involved. Furthermore, there is the less-ritualized but over-religious methods of practice like Enochian, Thelema, Kabbalah, and especially the damnable Wiccan systems. These are nothing short of a blatant hampering on the use of energies directly. Direct magic is the most pure magic available. It is the ability to use just your own skills to the end of a fully functional and time-honoured method of occultism. High Magicks and Ritual Magicks would have long ago been abandoned if they had no religion attached to them; because of the religion and mystique, however, they have survived like any other arbitrary deist practice (valid or not).
I should qualify this, however. The fact of the matter is that most forms of magic that exist today actually work. Ceremonial magick works, Direct Magic works, Solomonic magick works, and even supplications to unknown entities brings results. People travel the stages of the Sephiroth and learn, as a fact. The Christian prays to God and gets responses -- it's a given. The Diabolist "prays" to a demon and gets results -- another given fact. In the same way, someone using the Lovecraft Necronomicon may get results (despite its fictitious origin) and so on and so forth may the list go on. The point is that, though these work, the same level of result or better may be attained through the use of Direct Magic. If a person requires the gadgets and trinkets of ritual magicks, let them go ahead and use them. It can not be said to be wrong for a person to get their first tastes of the occult in something of that nature. For the initiated, however, let us step beyond the physical toys and mind-crutches too commonly burdening our magics and get to the heart of the matter: the mechanics of the spell format itself in purest form.
Errata
A lot of people do not like this philosophy. "Magic is not about rites and incantations? You're absurd!" Well, perhaps I am. If absurd means that I don't trust people just because they say so, then yes. If it means I do not consider magic to be mystic spookiness purported by people, who, practically speaking, have no more education than I do, then yes. If it includes disbelief of the notion that believing in something sincerely enough makes it true, then count me in. If being absurd is distaste for: occult philosophy games, paradigm assimilation, all beliefs are valid, spirituality, poor logic, the shunning of science, pushing away rationality, withholding magic for elitists, clothing "enlightenment" in riddles, arbitrary humanist ideals, caveman-style guessing games, not speaking out against circular argument, faith in chance, faith in humanity, trusting what the friend of a friend said, ignoring what we know as reality, asking stars or gods or rocks or chips of wood or ceramic or glass for answers, then I am. Magic is the next discovery of humanity that is ready to break through. It will not be with Iron Age mentality that we solve these mysteries, though. It will be with common sense, sharp minds, critical analysis, and a working knowledge of the human condition that we will further these arts and find them codified in the textbooks of tomorrow. Do not place your trust in the axioms of the past. That is what happened in medicine, as well, and it took hundreds of years before the medical community admitted its blunder and tossed aside the Galenic texts. This phenomenon has also occurred in occultism, and it must stop. Burn down the mainstream and its opinions -- see the world around you and understand occultism through the eyes of a reasoning human being instead of the wide-eyed sycophant that propagates these feel-good philosophies and soothing mind-vices. The precepts presented here and hereafter are proposed to be the most plausible reconciliation given what we know from textbooks of common knowledge in the arts and sciences, and what we know in practice from casting and analysis.
Prerequisites of Occultism
When considering occultism as an art within itself, the non-magician looks to the vast world of opinions and beliefs and dogmas and doctrines and faiths and reasonings that exist and, rightly so, is dazzled with confusion. What is one to make of all these different and conflicting ideas? For one, the difference between occultism and religion is often intensely blurred. I'll make a quick clarification on the difference here so that the rest of the information provided here is put into context. Religion is belief in supernatural things based on faith. Occultism is belief in unseen mechanisms based on results. With this in mind, let's keep a few facts about the real world in mind while examining occultism, since these will all crop up again as you continue your studies.
If you are starting into the world of occultism, there are a few things to keep in mind and a few assumptions that will be made about you as material is presented:
Requirement 1:
It is essential that you have a basic understanding of the laws of physics, of the new theories out there concerning dimensions and energy exchange, and are capable of reading into scientific or scholarly articles without losing focus of the meaning. Science and magic are inextricably intertwined and a failure to understand science will cause a failure to properly understand the limitations and upper boundaries of magic. A decent understanding of psychology and philosophy is also assumed to be part of the common knowledge of one who is considering entering into the world of occultism. Psychology is important for a few reasons, but the prime of these can be summed by a quote by Francis Crick from The Astonishing Hypothesis (1994): "The single most characteristic human ability is that we can handle a complex language fluently. ... This ability leads to another strikingly human characteristic, one that is seldom mentioned: our almost unlimited capacity for self-deception." Humans can convince themselves of nearly anything, and when you approach such a seedy subject as occultism it would be wise to already have a base understanding of what is common in human nature. Occultism, as with every other branch of epistemology, has been riddled in errors throughout history because people are willing to swallow whatever someone else says solely for the fact that it was said. This trend carries on today with the "It's in print, so it's true" mental reflex. Everything you hear must be given the proverbial 3rd degree or else knowledge is reduced to simpleton dogmas and popularity contests. For this reason, philosophy is also a very important study for the beginning magus. It allows you to remember argumentative algorithms used in other debates and transmute them to occultist rationale quickly and cleanly so that otherwise complex matters can be handled with reasonably little trouble. This is also the reason that history, sociology, or anthropology is helpful. From the social sciences we gain the ability to stand on the shoulders of intellectual giants and learn from their knowledge, thus turning it into our own wisdom. We learn and build from what the great minds before us have said and become great thinkers ourselves if we learn from them. If someone disagrees with something, fine, but question why. See why they say what they do, where their ideas come from, and what the foundational principles behind them are.
Requirement 2:
This one may seem like a no-brainer, but it really is not. The rest of this site assumes you know how to define energy. The interpretation and implications commonly used in society are conceptually easy, which is why they are used at all, but when that kind of definition carries over to a more scientific forum, such as occultism, it leads to a great deal of misconstruance. People have been known to make it through highschool and even into the lower levels of university without having a real grasp on what, exactly, defines "energy". The societal stereotype tends to treat it a lot like water though its true properties are vastly different. It is not malleable, its base traits remain the same at all times (though we have found many creative uses for them), it is not "collectable" or stagnant or created or destroyed and, most importantly, the human mind is not solid-state machinery. We have inefficiencies in our body and in every energetic operation that exists. There is no one-hundred percent efficient system, there is no "energy conversion" in the sense that the energy itself changes properties, there is no such thing as force-fields or changing energy, etc, etc, etc. Sitting down with a "Physics Made Easy" type of book makes this entire debate a non-issue. Let the uneducated spew whatever they want. Real answers come to those that diligently seek by proper extrapolation of founded principles.
Requirement 3:
It will be assumed that one who is studying occultism at all believes there is something to be learned through study. This preemptively eliminates ideas such as relativism, existentialism, and subjective reality hypotheses. The post-modernist scherade is politically and socially very pleasant but utterly worthless when it comes to getting real answers. Occultism is a scientific endeavour buffered and interpretted by extensive knowledge of the humanities. It does not rely on blind faith, nonsensical mystic spookiness, or vague riddles. You will find, upon reexamination of most paths and occult disciplines out there, that most of them are not fit to be exposed to anyone with even a vaguely critical mind. They break down in the cipher of logic yet practitioners flourish because they are more concerned with the illusion of intellectual freedom than they are with truth. All current knowledge is valid consideration when looking at occultism. We will not ignore the laws of science, nor will we discard the utility of logic. Occultists will likely look at modern academic theories with more skepticism than the average person, since we know of an aspect of life (magic) that is not yet adequately addressed within these models, but it will be assumed that the occult student is not interested in turning occultism into a flimsy little egocentric religion.
Requirement 4:
All discoveries of science and all revelations of philosophy (occult or otherwise) are given consideration, as most occult and religious paths do, but they are then to be evaluated for validity. This surprises many people, unfortunately, but the sad truth is that there is such a thing as a "bad idea" and there is such a thing as something that is "wrong". Far too many occult paths successfully get away with reproducing an "A=B and AB" mentality in those that want to know how to work with magic and it turns them into confused muddles of contradictory philosophy. The standard occult student is often swept up by the first liberating surrealist philosophy they find and feel great about themselves because they have found this ego-boosting psychodrama that, in the end, leaves them no more skilled than when they started. Related to this point, the assumption will be made that people are interested in furthering their knowledge and that practical power will follow real and diligent study. People that enter occultism to fulfil their crazy fantasies or who consider it nothing more than a philosophical game will be better off looking elsewhere.
Requirement 5:
It is assumed that people understand that this is a long journey, a difficult one, and that muttering a few words from a dead or incomprehensible language and swinging around some tools does not produce magic. Magic is a highly technical, involved, difficult, complex, and utterly frustrating process sometimes. Diligence, effort, hard work, long nights, and terribly knotty enigmas will be a routine part of the occultists life. These should, ideally, not be because of the information from other occultists, but because it is part of the complexity of life itself. As with all knowledge, the acculmulation thereof only makes life more difficult. It presents more options, more choices, and will place greater onus on the caster. Foggy notions of simplistic magics with blanket responses or equally hazed self-glorification notions flat out deny the fact that we live in a complex world where factors interchange and compete constantly to produce illusions of balance and whatnot else. Conceptual frauds slip into magic as though they were intellectually valid all the time, and many people bite for it without question. Stop, think, and question. Be sure to give pause and think, "Is this possible? What examples do I see to support or deny this?".
Requirement 6:
There will be a general understanding, as you read these pages, that you know the difference between "Gullible" and "Open-Minded". Being Open-Minded is good; it means that you give all possible theories fair consideration after hearing all sides of all contending views as much as is practically possible before evaluation. If "Open-Minded" is misunderstood to be "Accept Everything" and leaving it at that, it becomes synonymous with "gullible". Once again, it can not be stressed enough -- we can not make progress with a post-modern mentality if there is no evaluation afterwards. In the study of occultism, as it should go without saying by now, you will need to be mentally sharp. You will hear many things about occultism that are false -- due either to impossibility through extreme improbability, or because the mechanics and presumptions of the information are unreal (this is common in aimless/illogical magics or tradition/fable/myth-based magics). Please do not underestimate the importance that one's own intellect will play in the performance and study of magic. Collecting facts is simple. Children learn to do it from an early age. Analysing and comparing these facts, however, then evaluating them based on other pieces of known information is a skill that some people never master. Be sure you are a capable and fit mind for the task at hand if this is something you really want.
Back to the Basics!
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