I managed to free up some major bandwidth the other day. For the last three years I've been a member of a yahoo group called "RealMagick". For the last year or so, I've moderated it at the request of the owner. Last week, a couple of trolls popped up and I handled them, but then the list devolved into a long series of character assasinations and other stupidity.
I realized that I'm spending no time developing the things I want to develop, and still spending time trying to get people who have little interest in learning true magic stay on topic. So I quit. It's been amazing how much bandwidth that freed up. I was getting between 20-80 inane emails a day, worrying about people's mutual respect, and trying to get the topic of conversation to somehow be related to magic.
The final strawwas when the people that consistently posted on topic had their characters assasinated by the people who don't. I figured out that the real problem was that people who know about magic aren't really liked by the people who pretend to want to know about magic. They pretend to respect us, they pretend to have an interest in what we're saying, but when it comes to questions like, "Have yuo started performing Samekh yet?" the answer is always "No, because..." Likewise, "Have you conjured ANY spirits yet?" or "Have you read that chapter of Agrippa I referenced that is the source for the book you're talking about?" or "Did you follow up on the tips so and so gave you?"
Fools. Most of my angst with the magical community comes from being surrounded by fools. I had hoped to teach them bout magic, had hoped to at least provide a forum where they could express their thoughts and questions about magic, but primarily they are only interested in yelling at one another and playing "My dick's bigger than yours." And that's a game women play as readily as men on the message boards, believe you me.
So enough with the groups. There are a couple I will maintain a membership in, those that discuss magic, or at least consist of my social network of magicians, but all the large groups can bite my ass. Much more time for blogging and book writing now. And course REDEVELOPMENT because I STILL haven't found my motherfucking thumb drive. I'm annoyed about that.
Head for the Red: The ongoing adventures and insights of a magician's attempts to accomplish the Great Work.
I can totally relate to all that. Time is very precious these days - lots of opportunities going on we don't want to pass up. Can't waste time on people who already think they know all the answers.
ReplyDeleteGood for you
ReplyDeletePart of the reason I gave up on most of the magickal community...
ReplyDeleteAlso one of the many reasons I love the "self-ordained Zen Master" story of the Principia Discordia.
It did feel like mercury retro-d itself early.
ReplyDelete>>I had hoped to teach them bout magic, had hoped to at least provide a forum where they could express their thoughts and questions about magic
ReplyDeleteFor that, you'd have to pull an Amoris.
>>The final strawwas when the people that consistently posted on topic had their characters assasinated by the people who don't. I figured out that the real problem was that people who know about magic aren't really liked by the people who pretend to want to know about magic. They pretend to respect us, they pretend to have an interest in what we're saying, but when it comes to questions like, "Have yuo started performing Samekh yet?" the answer is always "No, because..." Likewise, "Have you conjured ANY spirits yet?" or "Have you read that chapter of Agrippa I referenced that is the source for the book you're talking about?" or "Did you follow up on the tips so and so gave you?"
ReplyDelete>>Fools. Most of my angst with the magical community comes from being surrounded by fools. I had hoped to teach them bout magic, had hoped to at least provide a forum where they could express their thoughts and questions about magic, but primarily they are only interested in yelling at one another and playing "My dick's bigger than yours." And that's a game women play as readily as men on the message boards, believe you me.
Well at least you found a way to focus your life more to what you want finally. I was wondering exactly what you were gonna choose to be the thing that gives.
But, as much as we are surrounded by posers and the semi-retarded, this is our community going through a normal self-correcting. I had one guy on a board I visit that came in, barely knew anything, but was going on about how angels and god are all about good and satan and demons are above good and evil and latched onto the whacked out things one crackpot said, as if it was gospel and went on and on about how the golden dawn were pedophiles and other crap.
In one thread, he's acting like he's greater than the dali lama (hey, there I was thinking dali might have been spelled with an H as the second letter; but, it was satan that compelled me to actually look up the actual spelling; I'm going to hell) and the next post later in another thread, he's asking me about remembering past lives. I told him to fuck off and he gets all in a huff, as if he hadn't actually been insulting to practically every member and called us all 'sheople'.
That was his word. I figured what he was trying to convey, but I was having trouble figuring out just how you'd say that.
Hey, the word verification for this post is 'ching'.
CHING!!!!!
Okay, it switched to disapper. Not as funny.