You'd probably enjoy Gary Lachman's books. His latest, Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump, is quite good.
Not sure how much validity I give to Chaos Magic, but there are a lot of people who insist it works. I reserve judgement because I've never tried it.
I do believe that reality is malleable & open to interpretatio…
You'd probably enjoy Gary Lachman's books. His latest, Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump, is quite good.
Not sure how much validity I give to Chaos Magic, but there are a lot of people who insist it works. I reserve judgement because I've never tried it.
I do believe that reality is malleable & open to interpretation. That it isn't the old "seeing is believing" trope. It's more like you see what you believe you're going to see.
Oh boy. Magic works to the extent that you can talk yourself into believing it. The problem is what happens when you wish you hadn't done that, and you want to get out of it. I don't think there are any accomplished human sorcerers. There are only sorcerer's apprentices. From my point of view, that scene in Fantasia with Mickey and the brooms and buckets is a perfect depiction of Chaos Magic. Except that in real life, once the power is summoned and unleashed, there's no way for the apprentice to retain any power to get the brooms and buckets to quit. If you want to see a real world example of chaos magic, have a look at the invasion and occupation of Iraq. And approximately every aggressive invasion of a foreign land, ever.
I'm definitely aware of the possibility of the Uncanny and Extraordinary aspects of reality cropping up in my existence. It's usually great when that happens (not always.) Like, awesome. I've tried to keep my eye out for it, to be a little quicker on the uptake about noticing it when it happens. The notion of Opportunity is inherently magical, I think.
But I don't mess with trying to work the system with magic. I just try to do my natural best. I'm bad enough at that.
You'd probably enjoy Gary Lachman's books. His latest, Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump, is quite good.
Not sure how much validity I give to Chaos Magic, but there are a lot of people who insist it works. I reserve judgement because I've never tried it.
I do believe that reality is malleable & open to interpretation. That it isn't the old "seeing is believing" trope. It's more like you see what you believe you're going to see.
Oh boy. Magic works to the extent that you can talk yourself into believing it. The problem is what happens when you wish you hadn't done that, and you want to get out of it. I don't think there are any accomplished human sorcerers. There are only sorcerer's apprentices. From my point of view, that scene in Fantasia with Mickey and the brooms and buckets is a perfect depiction of Chaos Magic. Except that in real life, once the power is summoned and unleashed, there's no way for the apprentice to retain any power to get the brooms and buckets to quit. If you want to see a real world example of chaos magic, have a look at the invasion and occupation of Iraq. And approximately every aggressive invasion of a foreign land, ever.
I'm definitely aware of the possibility of the Uncanny and Extraordinary aspects of reality cropping up in my existence. It's usually great when that happens (not always.) Like, awesome. I've tried to keep my eye out for it, to be a little quicker on the uptake about noticing it when it happens. The notion of Opportunity is inherently magical, I think.
But I don't mess with trying to work the system with magic. I just try to do my natural best. I'm bad enough at that.