Someone on FaceBook asked me the title of this post in regards to the whole Dee and Kelley and Enochian piece. At first I tried to be all nonconfrontational and just sort of sweep it under the rug, I'm ok, you're ok, no big deal, just old fashioned miscommunication ha ha ha ha.
You know what though, two years ago I wrote a post called "What the HELL is going on here?" In it, I talked about this very subject. People think Dee and Kelley and Agrippa and Levi and Trithemius and Crowley and Mathers were all hot shit on a silver platter, and they were in a lot of ways, but in other ways they were cold turds on a paper plate. They weren't any different than modern occult authors. They were subject to the same temptations and miscommunications we are. They were as base and greedy and noble and awesome as us too. They were human.
People don't want to think Moses shook piss out of his dick with the same hands he used to carry down the ten commandments, but he did. Get over it.
But it's a valid question that deserves to be addressed. What if I am, with all good intentions, accidentally misleading anyone who buys my books? What if I'm duped and somehow subconsciously making all this shit up?
I ask myself that regularly. I think it's a healthy practice to stop and take stock on occasion, check my bullshit detectors, and test the spirits. I'm brutal when it comes to my own experiences. I don't trust me any more than I trust anyone else. If shit's not working, I try not to make excuses for it, I try to fix it. I'm sure I've slipped on occasion, but I go back and fix it as soon as I can.
I don't just do it for posterity, either, I have an insatiable need to be right. It's so important to me to be right that I won't put up with being wrong. If I'm wrong, I want to know it so I can fix it and be right again.
I've learned there are limits to how "right" a person can be. It's a relative thing, and experiences vary. This isn't an exact science we're playing with here, there's going to be some fudge factor involved. I may very well get something wrong and it might take a while before I fix it.
So the only way you can really be sure that I know what I'm talking about is to try out what I'm doing and see if it works for you. If you get radically different results, let me know. If you can't reproduce the kinds of results I'm getting, then I'm not writing it right, or there's something wrong with my approach, understanding, or interpretation. Or you're doing it wrong.
Head for the Red: The ongoing adventures and insights of a magician's attempts to accomplish the Great Work.
My point was that it's hurtful and dismissive to call someone else's tradition a hoax or fictional.
ReplyDelete"So the only way you can really be sure that I know what I'm talking about is to try out what I'm doing and see if it works for you. If you get radically different results, let me know. If you can't reproduce the kinds of results I'm getting, then I'm not writing it right, or there's something wrong with my approach, understanding, or interpretation. Or you're doing it wrong. "
ReplyDeleteI had that self same thought yesterday on the drive home!
Effectiveness is measured in results, not in theory, as some folks will discount entire realms of theory without trying any of the work, or seriously considering any of the proofs. Sad but true.
I don't give a fuck if I hurt your fucking feelings. Grow up. It take a mature person to handle magic, you need to check your sources a lot better than you apparently have, you need to be honest even if it hurts your feel feels.
ReplyDeleteThis bullshit, "it's hurtful..." Fuck that. Pain is weakness leaving the body, or in your case, the system of magic that you've accepted that has less foundation in reality than you want to admit. Would you insist that Steganographia Magic from Trithemius was really real angels even after they broke the code and published the hidden meanings, proving it was an exercise in cryptography?
You're holding on to the desire for it to be real, and it ain't, so you're acting like a petulent child, smoke screening so you don't have to accept that A) you don't know what the fuck you're talking about because you never read the fucking diaries in the first place, you've just believed what every one else has said, and B) you're a spiritual cry baby.
My last comment was to Derek, by the way. Not to Jow. Just making sure that's clear.
ReplyDelete"People don't want to think Moses shook piss out of his dick with the same hands he used to carry down the ten commandments, but he did."
ReplyDeleteWhy not? Only those who believe the "meat envelope" (your phrase, I believe) is evil, rather than some pretty cool (if not perfect) engineering would have issues with this. And, in any case, the ancient Hebrews and the Jews were pretty big on handwashing.
But, back to the actual subject of your post...humans are humans, no matter how "advanced or spiritually perfected," we can only deal with what our filters allow us to. Last time I checked, anyone who left a written record was human and opperating through some filter or another.
@Lavanah, yeah, exactly.
ReplyDeleteI only used Moses in this example because I've already used the "Jesus farted in his hand and sniffed it" a few times over the years to point out that holy figures are human, we can't put them on pedestals, and everyone makes mistakes. Also, Moses with the Tablets of Law is a lot more like Dee and the diaries of the enochian system that people are so hung up on. It's fundamentalism, idolatry. People have put more importance on the Media and the Messenger than the actual Message itself.
I have theory that it is damn near impossible teach magic. The best that we can do is offer a few tools (like a magical system) and help a person try it out. People either figure a way to make it go or they don't.
ReplyDeleteI also sort of think that magical systems are bit like that too. I think Jason over at Stragetic Sorcery posted not too long ago about the difference between maps and the actual territory.
If someone sells me a bad map (even in bad faith), but I manage to find my way to my destination with it, I think that is pretty awesome.
Of course, I still try to find the best map(s) I can get. Or steer people way from bad maps either.
Jay
Apparently, I only apologized to Derek on FaceBook, and not here too. I should have, I was being a bitch. I swear to god it was PMS. Derek was a mature and responsible adult who IMed me to clear the air, and afterwards we were all friendly.
ReplyDeleteBut since POS so kindly pointed out that I hadn't mentioned it here as well, I'd better do so. I was being an ass hat, and Derek didn't deserve to be treated the way I treated him. When I was hung up on Chaos Magic and some other bad belief systems, I needed to be told to grow the fuck up. Not because it was ChM necessarily, but because of my attitude. When I get a whif of that attitude, I tend to tell people what I wish I could ahve said to myself back then. It's called Projection or something, I think. Anyway, it's fucked up, and I shouldn't do it.
So for the Blog Record as well as the FB record, I'm sorry Derek.
I never apologized to Derek at all. Come to find out, it was someone else entirely.
ReplyDeleteOops.