(no subject)
29 September 2019 09:59![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
haptalaon 'm feeling increasingly critical of a lot of New Age ideas.
"Don't use tools, you can just use your willpower"
The original urge here is good - we should never cripple ourselves by imagining we are without power when we don't have a wand. And yet, when you look at the sources, everyone uses tools. Even if those tools are occasionally just the spoken word; or if it's clear that the practioner's will is of equal or greater importance than the tool he brandishes (ie Gandalf on the Bridge of Khazad Dum). The tool is there to make physical your will.
"There's like energy everywhere, this abstract coloured light which you can do whatever with"
This is kinda the opposite of sympathetic magic, and it again asserts you can do things with your imagination without moving from your chair. Again, in our lore and history, I've not found any examples of this: ancient kings made models of their servants or killed people to be buried with them, to ensure those servants passed with them into the next world. You dance for rain, you make poppets to hurt people, you grow and pick herbs and apply them to the body. Why do you think any traditional folk practice puts such effort into these things, if they can be bypassed so easily?
I think even if you're "on the astral" or whatever, having made the cape magical artifact in the material world backs up its power and authority.
"Draw the energy from inside you. You are powerful"
Again, like the wands, this seems partially correct and like it can work. It also seems dangerous and exhausting, creating a link between you and whatever you're doing.
And believing in your own power is clearly critical to a lot of spellcraft. And yet, our sources again are generally clear that power is given to you - think about Gandalf, whose spell begins "I am the servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor". In other words, he first threatens the balrog with the name of the one who gives Gandalf his authority, and then with the tool he intends to use. Power comes from the gods, and resides in certain stones and plants. We draw energy, to the extent that it exists, from these stones. We petition the gods to back our actions.
"Spirit"
The ancient world was physical. The idea that there was a soul, a ghost like attribute which left the body on death, wasn't really a thing. The Anglo saxons and celts seemed to believe that their ancestors were like, alive in the barrows somehow. And that otherworld's like Avalon and Valinor and the Isle of the Blessed weren't, like Heaven, an imaginary realm existing somehow on a higher vibrationary level in spirit, but places you could theoretically walk to.
The ancient world didn't have a ghost/zombie distinction. Their vision of the dead was a combination of the two: the body of a zombie, but the mind and memory and malevolence of a ghost. Definitely physical.
I was talking about this with my heathen husband and saying, I don't think there's anything in the lore which would preclude a mortal slaying a god. They slay one another all the time (Greek, Mabinogion, Eddas). And he agreed - it would clearly be a tough fight that you'd likely lose, but I don't think there's any doubt in, say, the Eddas that the gods have a kind of physical reality. They are gods, and they are magnificent, but you could still touch, kiss or stab one.
Could you stab Jesus? Like, probably not. Only when he was manifesting as a mortal which most of the time he is not. I think this idea is coming heavily out of Christianity, that "spirit" exists as a general concept, and that heaven, the gods and the otherworlds all exist there.
~*~
What I'm seeing here is a very modern dominance of the mind over the body, and man over the wild.
We assign occult practice and rhe New Age, and anything with spirit or energy to the Lunar - which, I have just noticed, also governs the mind. The Solar governs the body, as well as reconstructionist polytheism and religion.(The Stellar is the imagination and senses, as well as mysticism and the "shamanic")
I feel like this Lunar work has its place, but it is a *place* in a constellation of spell working techniques, not the apex or purest distillation of them. I think bringing these Lunar attitudes into worship is kinda anathema to what worship *is*, and that's why ideas like the body, the material, the gods, and prayer, and an external-facing focus all cluster under the Solar together. There are other, older magics.
In my experience, Lunar craft is a bit like sticking your fingers in the mains. It definitely works, with a kind of laser-like efficiency. But it also lacks weird, and it lacks a kind of mellow intensity which work with the land spirits or the divine provides.
And when you add up all the things in this post: you're using imaginary tools, and imagined gods, in imagined otherworlds with imagined magic. You're putting a lot of eggs in a single basket, as well as consistently using the term "imagined" to relate to what you do.
I think the conclusion of this post is something like: Lunar magic works, and there's a sound reason why all these beliefs have come to be. However, they're not really consistent with reconstructionist polytheism, the ancient world, or even folklore, all of which are pretty insistent about the primacy of the physical, and the fact we draw power from elsewhere. Therefore, these forms of spellwork are apt to be rediscovered and pushed far more loudly than they currently are. Ancient and traditional ritual technologies were developed by people who relied on magic for far more primary and important needs than us modern folk, and we should therefore take their focus on the physical very seriously and ask why they needed this if we do not.
"Don't use tools, you can just use your willpower"
The original urge here is good - we should never cripple ourselves by imagining we are without power when we don't have a wand. And yet, when you look at the sources, everyone uses tools. Even if those tools are occasionally just the spoken word; or if it's clear that the practioner's will is of equal or greater importance than the tool he brandishes (ie Gandalf on the Bridge of Khazad Dum). The tool is there to make physical your will.
"There's like energy everywhere, this abstract coloured light which you can do whatever with"
This is kinda the opposite of sympathetic magic, and it again asserts you can do things with your imagination without moving from your chair. Again, in our lore and history, I've not found any examples of this: ancient kings made models of their servants or killed people to be buried with them, to ensure those servants passed with them into the next world. You dance for rain, you make poppets to hurt people, you grow and pick herbs and apply them to the body. Why do you think any traditional folk practice puts such effort into these things, if they can be bypassed so easily?
I think even if you're "on the astral" or whatever, having made the cape magical artifact in the material world backs up its power and authority.
"Draw the energy from inside you. You are powerful"
Again, like the wands, this seems partially correct and like it can work. It also seems dangerous and exhausting, creating a link between you and whatever you're doing.
And believing in your own power is clearly critical to a lot of spellcraft. And yet, our sources again are generally clear that power is given to you - think about Gandalf, whose spell begins "I am the servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor". In other words, he first threatens the balrog with the name of the one who gives Gandalf his authority, and then with the tool he intends to use. Power comes from the gods, and resides in certain stones and plants. We draw energy, to the extent that it exists, from these stones. We petition the gods to back our actions.
"Spirit"
The ancient world was physical. The idea that there was a soul, a ghost like attribute which left the body on death, wasn't really a thing. The Anglo saxons and celts seemed to believe that their ancestors were like, alive in the barrows somehow. And that otherworld's like Avalon and Valinor and the Isle of the Blessed weren't, like Heaven, an imaginary realm existing somehow on a higher vibrationary level in spirit, but places you could theoretically walk to.
The ancient world didn't have a ghost/zombie distinction. Their vision of the dead was a combination of the two: the body of a zombie, but the mind and memory and malevolence of a ghost. Definitely physical.
I was talking about this with my heathen husband and saying, I don't think there's anything in the lore which would preclude a mortal slaying a god. They slay one another all the time (Greek, Mabinogion, Eddas). And he agreed - it would clearly be a tough fight that you'd likely lose, but I don't think there's any doubt in, say, the Eddas that the gods have a kind of physical reality. They are gods, and they are magnificent, but you could still touch, kiss or stab one.
Could you stab Jesus? Like, probably not. Only when he was manifesting as a mortal which most of the time he is not. I think this idea is coming heavily out of Christianity, that "spirit" exists as a general concept, and that heaven, the gods and the otherworlds all exist there.
~*~
What I'm seeing here is a very modern dominance of the mind over the body, and man over the wild.
We assign occult practice and rhe New Age, and anything with spirit or energy to the Lunar - which, I have just noticed, also governs the mind. The Solar governs the body, as well as reconstructionist polytheism and religion.(The Stellar is the imagination and senses, as well as mysticism and the "shamanic")
I feel like this Lunar work has its place, but it is a *place* in a constellation of spell working techniques, not the apex or purest distillation of them. I think bringing these Lunar attitudes into worship is kinda anathema to what worship *is*, and that's why ideas like the body, the material, the gods, and prayer, and an external-facing focus all cluster under the Solar together. There are other, older magics.
In my experience, Lunar craft is a bit like sticking your fingers in the mains. It definitely works, with a kind of laser-like efficiency. But it also lacks weird, and it lacks a kind of mellow intensity which work with the land spirits or the divine provides.
And when you add up all the things in this post: you're using imaginary tools, and imagined gods, in imagined otherworlds with imagined magic. You're putting a lot of eggs in a single basket, as well as consistently using the term "imagined" to relate to what you do.
I think the conclusion of this post is something like: Lunar magic works, and there's a sound reason why all these beliefs have come to be. However, they're not really consistent with reconstructionist polytheism, the ancient world, or even folklore, all of which are pretty insistent about the primacy of the physical, and the fact we draw power from elsewhere. Therefore, these forms of spellwork are apt to be rediscovered and pushed far more loudly than they currently are. Ancient and traditional ritual technologies were developed by people who relied on magic for far more primary and important needs than us modern folk, and we should therefore take their focus on the physical very seriously and ask why they needed this if we do not.
no subject
Date: 1 October 2019 09:31 (UTC)I HAVE tools, and I never use them, apart from the cards. At best I hold one of the crystals I charged ages ago up to my head or heart for a given energy. I don't do a lot of magic but when I do, it's in that instant and not in a prepared circle. Funny thing, really.
"Ancient and traditional ritual technologies were developed by people who relied on magic for far more primary and important needs than us modern folk, and we should therefore take their focus on the physical very seriously and ask why they needed this if we do not." This is a very good observation.
no subject
Date: 5 October 2019 13:33 (UTC)YES. It's the old dichotomy and separation of physical = corrupt, lesser, and spiritual = pure, higher, superior. The physical is defined as something to be overcome, that will fade away, to reveal the spiritual.
Actually I was reading an interesting article about this a while back: https://aeon.co/essays/feminists-never-bought-the-idea-of-a-mind-set-free-from-its-body - not pagan necessarily but relevant to the conversation, perhaps.
It links into this idea that one can somehow beat the physical into submission with the power of the spiritual/mental (Prosperity Gospel? Miracle healings, anyone?), when in fact psychologists and neurologists are finding out more about how the mind and body are interlinked.
Through my own experiences, I'm leaning more towards the idea of brain and body as interlinked. What affects one affects the other. Anyone with a chronic illness experiences this. Brain fog, etc.