• T Clark
    13k
    A state monopoly on magick enforced by clairvoyant tactical police units.jamalrob

    Been done - "Minority Report." Good movie.
  • T Clark
    13k
    council of Sharnfdrake

    I looked it up and got "Council on Aging, Town of Sharon Massachusetts."
  • T Clark
    13k
    When using the word "magick", the implication is that what we're discussing is not stage magic. But something else.Bret Bernhoft

    We all know what "magic" or "magick" is. Samantha wiggles her nose and Darrin's dick gets three inches longer. Harry Dresden summons a demon to do his will. Alice watches some cat disappear little by little till only it's smile is left. Witches fly on brooms. Madam Rue mixes up Love Potion #9 and some guy starts kissing police officers.
  • Tobias
    984
    ↪Tobias
    Actually my post was directed toward Bret and the op. I just inserted a line from your post. so I put quotations to give proper credit to you, for that phrase.
    Metaphysician Undercover

    Ohh, I misinterpretete that in that case. My apologies :)
  • jorndoe
    3.2k
    A state monopoly on magick enforced by clairvoyant tactical police units.jamalrob

    Some are ahead of you:

    Saudi Arabia's War on Witchcraft (Aug 19, 2013)
    Saudi religious cops trained to fight magic (Feb 2, 2016)

    Supernatural magic(k) is fiction, imaginary, found in fantasy stories and tall tales (and here sort of).
    Those Saudi Arabian accused are therefore innocent of those charges.
    So trivial it is to imagine a glass of wine materializing in my hand out of the blue, though.
  • Tom Storm
    8.3k
    Does anyone have an example of Magick they can site?
  • Srap Tasmaner
    4.6k
    I'd be open to using a somewhat more "magical" vocabulary to talk about the role of our thoughts in the world.

    For instance, to think of someone as your enemy is to make them your enemy, though it might be news to them. I've flirted with defining away this sort of thing, taking "thinking" here as a sort of shorthand for how we are disposed to act.

    But there is precedent for going the other way. "The mind is its own place, and can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." (In a somewhat Miltonic mood, Geoffrey Hill said a poem is a "fortress of the imagination".)

    This way seems to imply a pretty heavy commitment to free will; the other way is more flexible.

    I suppose I'd like to say, there is something special about thought that isn't really captured in the somewhat mechanical model I used to entertain. Magic talk seems to go a bit overboard with that, but maybe it's worth thinking about what they're trying to capture.
  • James Riley
    2.9k
    Does magick exist? Yes.
    . . . is it possible that the paranormal is more ordinary than we assume? Yes.
    Does prayer work? I do not know, but I think it might, depending on who does it and if they do it "right." I have to take this opportunity to jab Rush Limbaugh and his disciples: If hope is not a strategy, then neither is prayer. So go suck on that.
    Are miracles possible? Yes (but the definition of "miracle" is troublesome).
    . . . . if magick is real, should there be law governing how it can be practiced? No. Such a law would be a waste of time because magick is beyond the jurisdiction, literally and practically, of any who would pretend to enforce.
    . . . should there be institutionalized rules for how magick is conducted? No. See "law."
    . . . should there be punishment(s) for violating those regulations? No. See "law."
    Is magick real? Yes.

    Enforcement protocols are stupid, and bring to mind the Salem Witch Trials. Ineffective and stupid.

    I believe magick is real, and I have experienced it.

    I also think others have experienced it. However, like the movie "Men Who Stare at Goats", it is beyond the jurisdiction of those who would pretend to reduce it to their non-magick-world ambitions.

    I think spooks (CIA, KGB, et al) have crossed into the realm, with astral projection, remote viewing, moving objects with the mind, etc. but I also think it does them no good whatsoever, at least as far gaining advantage over opponents.

    A final thought, by analogy only (could apply to moving objects with the mind): At one time, people were awed by the sunrise and the sunset. They may have perceived it as magick. Then along came those who don't believe in magick, reducing the phenomena to calculations, paper, science, physics, reasonable explanation, critical and analytic thought, etc.. They thought that by doing so they had pulled the magick carpet out from under the phenomena. They were and are wrong. It is still magick to this day, notwithstanding all the truth of their efforts. Only those who are no longer awed by it, who no longer perceive the magick of it, have suffered. I would feel sorry for them, but they are off in their frenetic search of something they will never find, simply because of the search.

    There are still a few among them though, after a long days work in the lab, who sit out back with more than a few beers, watching the sun set or rise, and cry with the awesome magick of it. Good on them.

    The same analysis could apply to a pre-contact Amazonian Indians seeing an airplane fly over head. The pilot only thinks he knows better, and that simply physics holds him aloft. But it is magick. Everything in life is Magick, most especially the "now." I won't listen to one who has not found "the now" tell me that magick doesn't exist.

    Done.
  • jgill
    3.5k
    Although Crowley came from wealth and later made a living as the founder of Thelema, one should observe he had a wicked sense of humor and it's quite possible he chuckled at the naivety of his numerous followers while lurking behind the Green Curtain. He was a pioneer British climber and wrote of his adventures on the rock and his feuds with other notable climbers, like Owen Glynn Jones. Here is an anecdote that may give one pause when asking, Was he really serious about "Magick"?

    Another very amusing incident occurred at Arolla. A little way above the old hotel is a large boulder, which had never been climbed from the hotel side. I spent some time before I found out how to do it. One had to traverse the face to the right, with a minimum of hand hold and foot hold, until one came to a place where the slope eased off. But this point was defended by a bulge in the rock which threw one out. It was just possible for a very slim man with a prehensile abdomen. But it was a matter of a quarter of an ounce one way or the other whether the friction grips were sufficient or not. It was one of the most difficult pieces of rock climbing I had ever tackled.

    I decided to have some fun with it and taught a girl how to do it. I then offered a hundred francs to any guide who could get up. We got together a little party one afternoon and I proceeded to show off. Several other people tried, but without success. I began to mock them and said, 'But this is absurd --- you fellows can't climb at all --- it's quite easy --- why, I'd back a girl to do it --- won't you have a try, Miss So-and-so?' My pupil played up beautifully and pretended to need a lot of persuasion. Ultimately, she offered to try if she were held on a rope from above. I said, 'Nonsense, you can do it perfectly well by yourself!' The company protested that she would kill herself; and she pretended to be put on her mettle, refused all help and swarmed up in great style.

    This made everybody very much ashamed. Even the guides were stung into trying it. But nobody else got up. So I started to coach them on the rope. Several succeeded with the moral support and without being hauled. A fair number, however, came off and looked rather ridiculous, dangling. People began the urge the chaplain to try his hand. He didn't like it at all; but he came to me and said he would go if I would be very careful to manage the rope so that he did not look ridiculous, because of the respect due to his cloth. I promised him that I would attend to the matter with the utmost conscientiousness. I admitted that I had purposely made fun of some of the others, but that in his case I would tie the rope properly; not under his arms but just above the hips.

    Having thus arranged for the respect due to his cloth, I went to the top of the rock and sat sufficiently far back to be unable to see what was happening on the face. When he came off, as the rope was fastened so low, he turned upside down. I pretended to misunderstand and jerked him up and down for several minutes before finally hauling him up, purple in the face and covered with scratches. I had not failed in the respect due to his cloth. But quite a number of people were sufficiently lacking in taste to laugh at him"
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    It's sometimes hard to distinguish technology/science from magick (many magic tricks these days use gadgets, vide Peter Popoff).

    Was Jesus an ophthalmologist who performed cataract surgery (cured blindness), did Jesus prescribe rifampcin, dapsone, and clofazamine (heal a leper), did Jesus lace 5 loaves and 2 fish with nesfatin-1 (satiety molecule), did Jesus clone himself (resurrection)...?

    I'm quite intrigued by the fact that God, the divine, seems to be mixed up with healthcare. No wonder physicians "suffer" from God Complex (my sympathies go out to a certain SD).
  • Bret Bernhoft
    217


    That is an interesting thought. The language used for such a series of documents would probably be both tedious and extravagant. I would hope that, if these kinds of rules were ever to be drafted, the language chosen would be done so quite carefully.
  • MAYAEL
    239
    I expect no one to agree with me on this but, Magik is real and is used every day infact everyone here is under several spells and completely oblivious to it

    Holly wood has done a massive disservice to mankind by blinding the world to what real magik is by showing people this Hollywood magic crap that is far from what magic is really like and so they have made the people blind to the truth
  • Tobias
    984
    How come you know the truth?
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    We all know what "magic" or "magick" is.T Clark
    Yeah, sufficiently advanced technology. :sparkle: (Beam me up!)
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