Slow day today, hope you don't mind me thinking out loud...
[quote]Please note that the people involved in this discussion are often referred to by others as 'Discordians' and may use terms that offend your sensibilities, but I often find that it's good to shake your own tree once in a while.[/quote]
From what I understood, Discordian is a very specific type of magician usually aligned the far side of Chaos with allegiance to Eris? The magical anarchist lol Unlikely any more nor less obnoxious than most paths on a mission. I have very little sense so whether I have sensibilities to be offended is questionable
Although anything written in red on a white background puts me on BS alert
[quote]whole trend of communicating with other entities which are generally accepted as mythical (fairies, dragons, etc.). [/quote]
Interesting to read the opening Discordian saying this - sounds like one of the teenage angst variety who dabbled in the GD before going freelance
Sorry, couldn't help myself. But I'd argue that mythos is the backbone of magic - in every form. Would he be slating the dragons if he were talking to a Chinaman? Fairies if talking to a Western Irish woman? They each have their origin somewhere and they each ride deep within the collective psyche. The collective manifests in the individual - so it is undoubtedly the individual he has issue with, rather than the mythos itself...nay?
Also, his punctuation is appalling - but what can you expect from a Discordian
Down with all the rules. Hail Eris! Hail Eris! Hail Eris! Buuuggggaaaaiiii!!?
Has energy really never been properly defined in science? I find that hard to believe. I would have assumed it to be something to do with the speed molecules vibrate, or collide or something to that effect in my limited vocabulary.
Taking offense at the word 'energy' is pointless, it's clearly a
homonym Being horrifically naive on the subject, is the energy produced (or is it consumed?) by 'dark matter', quantifiable? Purely out of curiosity. Are human instruments capable of measuring every level of quantity? I'm sure I read somewhere about moler masses or something equally as head spinning that certain atoms or what-knot needed to be grouped together because it was impossible to know the mass of one atom due to its meagre size. Equally, perhaps there is an energy so very great and vast that we do not even register it - beyond our radar like an audiogram scale. We may see its effect but attribute it to other things that we can detect and consider more likely - or simply display enough influence to make them likely.
But granted, Singer is along these lines too and suggesting serious study - such as I believe the Dragon Project did regarding sacred sites. It's not entirely unheard of.
[quote]take kundalini energy, the ‘energy centers’ and the two ‘psychic pathways that travel up and down the spine. now they’re not really THERE…but in terms of a method they are used AS IF they were there.[/quote]
Haha....oooooh. Now even a scientist would not say that, surely!
What's the story about the sheep in a field I remember from my MA quantitative research methods lectures? Ah yes...
A tourist and a scientist are sitting on a train through the Scottish highlands. They look out the window and see a black sheep. The tourist exclaims "Oh, the sheep in Scotland are black!" but the scientist simply concludes "no, one side of one sheep on one hill in Scotland is black."
We can't prove what we know, yet alone what we don't know - that we can only give an educated guess, and that itself is only valid if the education can be deemed a good one
[quote]it’s like the tree of life isn’t an actual TREE, ya know?[/quote]
In what it is, it is - material or metaphysical. What is any tree?
Oh the hours of life one can waste in philosophical debate. Which is not to say unimportant debate. Just time consuming
[quote]Magic, in my experience appears as the change of perception through conscious will.[/quote]
Never unconscious - that's interesting. The doer or the receiver; both?
[quote]It appears to me, that magic was simply a model created without the advantage of modern neurology, one that we can replace to some extent with modern scientific models.[/quote]
Is modern neurology an advantage? In what way? Love to know the reasoning behind that comment from a man who compulsively has to categorise everything
If the subject can be discussed in both magical and scientific terms why has no one made an attempt at the former in this discussion?
[quote]It’s a different model used to discuss concepts which may be very hard to otherwise discuss or attempt to implement.[/quote]
Bordering on ironic - what the peasant folk were using to describe science one could say lol And yet none seem to feel that magic is within science and science within magic; that they are 'different models' for describing the same thing rather than non-conflicting truths of each other. Easier to see magic within science I suppose, than to see science within magic... at this stage, but symbiotic none the less I'd venture.
I find Cainad's approach interesting - bottom of his second paragraph especially. Nice approach. I still think Phil Hine's explanation of what magic is in
Oven Ready Chaos is one of the best I've ever read.
[quote]this is why we need to define our terms in order to speak about this in any sensible way.[/quote]
You know what. I have a theory.
How many times a post do you hear this battle of lexicon? 'We need to define what we're talking about!'
Well, I think, if we really wanted to, we would have done that a long time ago. But, as we keep shouting the above phrase, it would seem there is some, possibly subconscious reason, why we don't.
[quote]In every model of magic that I’ve studied, (Wicca, Thelema, Chaos Magic) there’s no discussion of rabbits in hats, or sleight of hand… no fireballs getting thrown from bellies, no flying etc etc etc, in almost all of the cases, we’re dealing with metaphors which are more aligned with psychological manipulation, rather than manipulation of the physical world.[/quote]
Ratatosk has a point
I like everything he says there actually.
[quote]Paganish belief systems[/quote]
Coming from a Bantu! lol Love it.
[quote]I think that people who try to describe the wierd shit in the universe using scientific terms are deluding themselves.[/quote]
Interesting statement...'big guy'
[quote]The use of the scientific method is a continuation of a long line of occultists’s work.[/quote]
Nice penultimate paragraph that one.
Hmmm. Interesting discussion. Could have done with a summation of all comments at the end to group several things that were said. Didn't really get anywhere we haven't been before. But still interesting. Disappointingly no mention of Eris anywhere in the discussion