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Author Topic: Magick As A Psychological Operation  (Read 1660 times)

Baron

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Magick As A Psychological Operation
« on: April 25, 2017, 09:42:35 pm »
I wonder if anyone views Magickal Practice as a sort of Applied Psychology, particularly as a method of self-development and exploration of one's own psyche? To change the world around oneself, one must first change themselves.

In other words, maybe a love spell works by altering one's own outlook and receptiveness to receiving love. Making this change in oneself is what leads to improved experiences out in the world whereby one might attract more love.

So, the Magick is about self-transformation, which then leads to transformative experiences and phenomena in the World-at-Large.

Does this make any sense to you? If Magick does "work", maybe this is a mechanism by which it does operate? One "theory" of Magick. I am interested in your opinion.
« Last Edit: April 25, 2017, 09:50:31 pm by Baron »

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Re: Magick As A Psychological Operation
« Reply #1 on: April 25, 2017, 11:16:29 pm »
Quote from: Baron;205509
I wonder if anyone views Magickal Practice as a sort of Applied Psychology, particularly as a method of self-development and exploration of one's own psyche? To change the world around oneself, one must first change themselves.

In other words, maybe a love spell works by altering one's own outlook and receptiveness to receiving love. Making this change in oneself is what leads to improved experiences out in the world whereby one might attract more love.

So, the Magick is about self-transformation, which then leads to transformative experiences and phenomena in the World-at-Large.

Does this make any sense to you? If Magick does "work", maybe this is a mechanism by which it does operate? One "theory" of Magick. I am interested in your opinion.

 
The psychological model is a pretty popular one. I personally believe there's more to it than that, but that doesn't change the fact that said model works very well.

Baron

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Re: Magick As A Psychological Operation
« Reply #2 on: April 25, 2017, 11:36:54 pm »
Quote from: Emma Eldritch;205512
The psychological model is a pretty popular one. I personally believe there's more to it than that, but that doesn't change the fact that said model works very well.

 
I appreciate the response. So, the psychological model seems to have some validity, but may not be the only "way" to do Magick.

What about other theories of how Magick might "work"? Interested in opinions from people who are more practiced in it than myself, such as yourself. Again, thanks again for posting.

Faemon

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Re: Magick As A Psychological Operation
« Reply #3 on: April 26, 2017, 07:38:18 am »
Quote from: Baron;205509
I wonder if anyone views Magickal Practice as a sort of Applied Psychology, particularly as a method of self-development and exploration of one's own psyche?

Sometimes, but the more I read the more I find it's the other way around. (Barbara Hannah's Encounters with the Soul and Marie-Louise von Franz's Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales both early Jungians, both include a surprising—to me, surprising, because I'd thought any paranormalization of Jungian psychology came of a misunderstanding of the collective unconscious, even if Jung and "Philemon" seemed to have a spiritworker/spiritguide relationship. Nope, these sources took for granted precognition, curses, even time travel! They simply—by my reading, anyway—didn't seem to consider it as interesting as a given patient's relationship with their invariably awful parents.)
« Last Edit: April 26, 2017, 07:39:48 am by Faemon »
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Re: Magick As A Psychological Operation
« Reply #4 on: April 26, 2017, 11:33:51 am »
Quote from: Baron;205509
I wonder if anyone views Magickal Practice as a sort of Applied Psychology, particularly as a method of self-development and exploration of one's own psyche? To change the world around oneself, one must first change themselves.


Yep. Not the only form of magical practice (and certainly not the only one I do) but I usually say about 75% of my explicit magical work is applied psychology. (I'm not counting self-maintenance things like centering and grounding in this percentage, because that's hard to categorise.)

My argument for it is that we have both the most information about ourselves, and the most control over our own choices. Other things out there in the world, we have less information and less interaction. So it makes sense that it's often a much more direct action to change ourselves (whether that's a choice, a reaction to a choice, creating space to explore past history in a new light so we can let go of some past choices, etc.) than do more external things.
 
I've got some other summaries of theories of magic on my website, for the curious.
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Baron

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Re: Magick As A Psychological Operation
« Reply #5 on: April 26, 2017, 06:30:26 pm »
Quote from: Faemon;205524
Sometimes, but the more I read the more I find it's the other way around. (Barbara Hannah's Encounters with the Soul and Marie-Louise von Franz's Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales both early Jungians, both include a surprising—to me, surprising, because I'd thought any paranormalization of Jungian psychology came of a misunderstanding of the collective unconscious, even if Jung and "Philemon" seemed to have a spiritworker/spiritguide relationship. Nope, these sources took for granted precognition, curses, even time travel! They simply—by my reading, anyway—didn't seem to consider it as interesting as a given patient's relationship with their invariably awful parents.)


Thanks for the response, Faemon. I love Jung, and have been an intermittent student of his my whole adult life. Have not read the books that you reference, but I might look into them.

I guess that most of the patients that go to Jungian analysts will tend to self-select for awful parents. The well-adjusted tend not to seek treatment. Anyway, interesting post. Thanks!

Baron

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Re: Magick As A Psychological Operation
« Reply #6 on: April 26, 2017, 06:35:08 pm »
Quote from: Jenett;205531
Yep. Not the only form of magical practice (and certainly not the only one I do) but I usually say about 75% of my explicit magical work is applied psychology. (I'm not counting self-maintenance things like centering and grounding in this percentage, because that's hard to categorise.)

My argument for it is that we have both the most information about ourselves, and the most control over our own choices. Other things out there in the world, we have less information and less interaction. So it makes sense that it's often a much more direct action to change ourselves (whether that's a choice, a reaction to a choice, creating space to explore past history in a new light so we can let go of some past choices, etc.) than do more external things.
 
I've got some other summaries of theories of magic on my website, for the curious.


Yes, I think addressing the Self is the first step in an attempt to change the World. It is good to look within before moving without. Thanks for the post and the link. Good stuff. What a great Resource you have made with your Web Site! I will look at it in detail. Thanks again for providing it. Nice to see you here on this Thread.

Jabberwocky

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Re: Magick As A Psychological Operation
« Reply #7 on: April 26, 2017, 07:22:13 pm »
Quote from: Baron;205514

What about other theories of how Magick might "work"? Interested in opinions from people who are more practiced in it than myself, such as yourself. Again, thanks again for posting.

 
There's probably as many theories of magic as there are people practising it.

But on a broad level, the idea that magic causes subtle shifts in probabilities is pretty popular.  So a love spell doesn't guarantee you'll find love, but it makes it more likely. Which, like all the best magical theories, is entirely impossible to disprove.

There's also the slightly meta theory that results are what matter. Although arguably that's a negation of theory rather than a theory in its own right.

To take your love spell example, those of us that follow a results based approach would suggest that what matters is that it works and you find love.  If that result is achieved, whether it's because the spell made you more confident, improved your chances of meeting the right person or attracted the attention of an outside force is largely irrelevant.  Or at least only of academic interest.
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Pix

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Re: Magick As A Psychological Operation
« Reply #8 on: April 27, 2017, 12:01:23 am »
Quote from: Baron;205509
Does this make any sense to you? If Magick does "work", maybe this is a mechanism by which it does operate? One "theory" of Magick. I am interested in your opinion.

 
I think that's part of it, though I'm sure many people act more confidently because of a spell so that they actually get what they're after naturally rather than supernaturally (similar to how many people save themselves or are saved by someone else and then thank a deity for it rather than their own devices or the action of others who intervened).  When I first got into spells, I was pretty sure that's what it was myself, but I came to see it as more than that as time progressed.

But as to how it's a bit more complicated, I'll share a simple example that one of those teaching me witchcraft was that she used to cast spells for money as she was always financially hurting.  She'd usually get it, but then something would go wrong.  The last straw was when she got a bonus of over $200 (IIRC) and yet that same day her cat was mauled by a dog and had to be sewed up by a vet...the bill being less than one dollar of her bonus.  So she focused on her mind that seemed to dictate poverty, discovered some unresolved issues in her childhood, and then worked on transforming and healing that.  After that she cast another money spell which was followed soon after by a retroactive raise, and that time she got to keep all the money.  Furthermore, she has never felt the need to cast such a spell again as her finances have remained strong (she wasn't trying to get rich, she was just trying to get by).

That sounds like what you're describing.

But she and another (that other person being someone I'm exchanging emails with which is one reason I'm remembering a lot of neopagan and occult stuff right now) also helped me make a poppet to overcome both the psychological trauma inflicted on me and the continuing danger to my safety that person represented and when they helped with finishing it (which included a ritual burning of the poppet) there was a bird that was a spirit animal of one of them that watched (the only one of its kind and on a lonely beach), the poppet burned in a way that really did seem magical (as in a furious blaze burning far too fast), and when it was done the bird flew away. While it was about changes inside of me, there was something more at work as well (and it was very effective).

I also found that my magic(k) was rooted in creativity, and this makes sense to me...just as it makes sense that prayer just doesn't work to the point I'm scared to pray for anyone.  I believe it's based on my formative years, primarily one incident when I was newly 5. Long story short, I tried to wake up my parents (who I'd just been taken by, which they did to spite my mother's mother who had been taken care of me until then) and got punched so hard that my feet came off the ground until I bounced off the wall, and then they (hungover) didn't like me shrieking and sobbing over it.  And I believe experiences like that is a big reason why my prayers tend to turn out badly (seriously, I've experimented, and even prayers that SHOULD come true often turn out badly).

Next time it got late in the morning and the 'rents were too still sleeping hungover I went into the kitchen myself and, after some thought and having to backtrack once, I managed to pry out a box of cereal with a spatula and wooden spoon while standing on a chair (the rest was easy after that) and as I ate a warm feeling went through me that no matter how capricious the world of adults was, I could take care of myself. And that (with experiences later similar to it as it started a pattern in my life) is why I believe that spells work for me (as it's me doing it for myself rather than asking an authority figure for help), and why it must be creative rather than an established ritual (even when I make up my own spell, I have to make a new one to get the same results or it won't work).


Btw...the backstory for this is long so I'm going to skip it and get right to the part I wanted to share and hope it makes some sort of sense...there was a time I was actively suicidal but was stopped by a vision of a goddess (I do think some lingering shrooms in my system facilitated it, among other things, but that doesn't mean I think that therefore it wasn't real) and I later found out my grandmother (the one my parents took me from just before I turned 5) woke up from a nightmare and prayed for me at what sounds like the exact (or real close) same time.  Thing was, she prayed to her god Jesus, but I saw a goddess, and if Granny was one of the contributing factors for why I had this vision then I think it's this:  Jesus, to my understanding at the time, meant submission and I associated him with people who wanted to hurt me, but the goddess I saw essentially "told" (too strange for me to describe in a relatively brief paragraph) me I had to grow up rather than trying to crawl back into the womb that spit me out or otherwise being an eternal child.  That is, it reinforced the pattern of taking care of myself rather than trusting someone else to take care of me (and at the time it was a much better message anyway, and just what I needed).  I believe that were I a type that did trust in higher powers to take care of me then I"d have seen Jesus or Mary instead.  Despite the psychological conditions involved, I do think it was an actual mystical experience, and it did end up changing my life for the better.


When I got into magic, I first thought it was at least mostly just cheering one's self on, but I came to see it as more.  After hearing what others said, and my own experiment of directing myself to find a bunch of dimes (adapted from a Robert Anton Wilson experiment) which actually happened (and a ten dollar bill as well), I came to see magic as more "guided synchronicity."  (Btw, that guy I'm emailing knew of that experiment and I recently asked him if that was some prank he and the others pulled, and he says it was not, and that others were disappointed when they tried to repeat my experiment in finding a lot more money or other valuable things. :whis: And I think after 17 years that he'd come clean if it had been a prank on me.)

It can be more than that, too.  I had an experience that caused me to back away from it for a long while (the guy I'm emailing helped me to "shut down to the astral" over it as well) which is downright surreal and I feel uncomfortable sharing it because it borders on urban fantasy...though I will say it involved an accidental tulpa of some sort in which I saw something that I thought was completely real at the moment, and then it got more surreal still. In retrospective, the experience is baffling (and put it somewhere in the realm of people who encounter various paranormal entities), but I do think my subconscious mind was a factor in it...and yet it was completely unexpected and simple psychology doesn't explain it (even if you want to say I was psychotic then, it wouldn't fit standard descriptions of that, and I've never had an experience like it again).

There was another interesting experience involving the tarot in which I think I channeled something that manifested as chaos all around me, but I'm feeling too tired to share about that now. I will say that were I to ever read the tarot again (especially in that specific way) I'm going to be real sure to fortify myself and "rinse" right after. :ashamed:
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Faemon

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Re: Magick As A Psychological Operation
« Reply #9 on: April 27, 2017, 08:56:20 pm »
Quote from: Pix;205548
I'll share a simple example that one of those teaching me witchcraft was that she used to cast spells for money as she was always financially hurting.  She'd usually get it, but then something would go wrong.  The last straw was when she got a bonus of over $200 (IIRC) and yet that same day her cat was mauled by a dog and had to be sewed up by a vet...the bill being less than one dollar of her bonus.  So she focused on her mind that seemed to dictate poverty, discovered some unresolved issues in her childhood, and then worked on transforming and healing that.  After that she cast another money spell which was followed soon after by a retroactive raise, and that time she got to keep all the money.  Furthermore, she has never felt the need to cast such a spell again as her finances have remained strong (she wasn't trying to get rich, she was just trying to get by).


To be sure, the System is still dysfunctional with regards to ruthless exploitation of the working class, and that weird thing where it's people who are already rich that can afford to take significant thrift measures...but where prestige class promises some security, certainly personal stuff gets in the way and any way to get it out of the way and enjoy life is good! (Or even when it's not strictly a class thing—there was a TEDtalk by Andrew Solomon I think where it was mentioned a case of intersecting mental illness such as depression with poverty—met with great resistance and "unheard of!" because...?! I gathered that there was this attitude that people in poverty are supposed to be depressed but depression was/is a wealthy person's illness to get diagnosed with and attend to, and most people would rather we all keep it that way?! Instead of providing opportunities to treat depression in poverty-stricken people, and noticing that medical care alleviates poverty...)

I definitely agree that individuation is immensely important in synchronistic workings, but I find a difficulty saying that without feeding toxic individualism (where like...if you're poor, if you're anyone in any kind of poor, you just need to quit self-sabotaging and think positive, which is awful because in this case it's true and helpful but the way this same idea is most often bandied about is...not...)
 
Quote
I went into the kitchen myself and, after some thought and having to backtrack once, I managed to pry out a box of cereal with a spatula and wooden spoon while standing on a chair (the rest was easy after that) and as I ate a warm feeling went through me that no matter how capricious the world of adults was, I could take care of myself. And that (with experiences later similar to it as it started a pattern in my life) is why I believe that spells work for me (as it's me doing it for myself rather than asking an authority figure for help), and why it must be creative rather than an established ritual (even when I make up my own spell, I have to make a new one to get the same results or it won't work).


 No child should have had to go through what you did when younger :(  I do consider much (if not all!) of my own witchy ways too being a poetical way to reclaim/develop personal sovereignty. As I keep saying, if there were consistent empirical effects, this would be a science rather than a superstition. For myself, at least, I have found the practices effective, and for the world I live in...possibly, uncannily, also effective on occasion in remarkable ways, but when the "stuff" of the working is primarily so personal then I can really only be bothered with that, deeply personal stuff that it's almost futile to seek relating-to let alone perilous to universalize. Each instance is what it is/was, is how I think of it now.

Although I can also relate to some symbolic shape-shifting of shared intent? I'd sought refuge with my extended family, one who tried to convert me by saying that if there were no capital-g God, I wouldn't be living with them...and I agreed, because I believed that a wolf-shaped spirit guide led me to that situation. But wouldn't it have been so much easier had that been a bird-wingéd toga-clad anthropic figure rather than a wolf! Was the only difference language? Or was there truly nothing we shared, occupying such irreconcilably different paradigms? Probably something else my lowly mortal consciousness can't think of...
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Baron

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Re: Magick As A Psychological Operation
« Reply #10 on: April 27, 2017, 09:40:18 pm »
Quote from: Pix;205548
I think that's part of it, though I'm sure many people act more confidently because of a spell so that they actually get what they're after naturally rather than supernaturally (similar to how many people save themselves or are saved by someone else and then thank a deity for it rather than their own devices or the action of others who intervened).  When I first got into spells, I was pretty sure that's what it was myself, but I came to see it as more than that as time progressed....

...I also found that my magic(k) was rooted in creativity, and this makes sense to me...just as it makes sense that prayer just doesn't work to the point I'm scared to pray for anyone.  I believe it's based on my formative years, primarily one incident when I was newly 5. Long story short, I tried to wake up my parents (who I'd just been taken by, which they did to spite my mother's mother who had been taken care of me until then) and got punched so hard that my feet came off the ground until I bounced off the wall, and then they (hungover) didn't like me shrieking and sobbing over it.  And I believe experiences like that is a big reason why my prayers tend to turn out badly (seriously, I've experimented, and even prayers that SHOULD come true often turn out badly)....

...When I got into magic, I first thought it was at least mostly just cheering one's self on, but I came to see it as more.  After hearing what others said, and my own experiment of directing myself to find a bunch of dimes (adapted from a Robert Anton Wilson experiment) which actually happened (and a ten dollar bill as well), I came to see magic as more "guided synchronicity."  (Btw, that guy I'm emailing knew of that experiment and I recently asked him if that was some prank he and the others pulled, and he says it was not, and that others were disappointed when they tried to repeat my experiment in finding a lot more money or other valuable things. :whis: And I think after 17 years that he'd come clean if it had been a prank on me.)

It can be more than that, too.  I had an experience that caused me to back away from it for a long while (the guy I'm emailing helped me to "shut down to the astral" over it as well) which is downright surreal and I feel uncomfortable sharing it because it borders on urban fantasy...though I will say it involved an accidental tulpa of some sort in which I saw something that I thought was completely real at the moment, and then it got more surreal still. In retrospective, the experience is baffling (and put it somewhere in the realm of people who encounter various paranormal entities), but I do think my subconscious mind was a factor in it...and yet it was completely unexpected and simple psychology doesn't explain it (even if you want to say I was psychotic then, it wouldn't fit standard descriptions of that, and I've never had an experience like it again).

There was another interesting experience involving the tarot in which I think I channeled something that manifested as chaos all around me, but I'm feeling too tired to share about that now. I will say that were I to ever read the tarot again (especially in that specific way) I'm going to be real sure to fortify myself and "rinse" right after. :ashamed:

 

That was a lot of great stuff. Thanks for sharing! I think the term that you coined- "guided synchronicity"- sounds like a really good idea. When I posited that Magick might work as a Psychological Phenomenon, I did not mean to imply that it can not work in other ways. "Guided Synchronicity" makes sense to me. Anyway, thanks again for the post. I enjoyed reading it.

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