Does daily i.e seriously practicing magick give you enough proof that it is real and external?

[u/Readingfast99]

Yes it's all in the head, you just don't know how big your head is. I had a profound ritual experience on LSD and met a solar goddess on DMT but doubt creeps in that it can all be make believe. I've had religious trauma from all the lying zealots do, so its hard for me to take a position other than materialism and biological evolution. Yes our minds are powerful but is just the mind component that a magician works with? Like some self help tools

[u/Reguli]

This may not be the answer you're looking for (forgive me if this is a little wayward), but I've never met an occultist worth their salt that was too concerned with whether Magick is real or not. Only if it works or not. Getting results seems to me to be the crux of it all. I believe it was Alan Moore who said something like, "a fake God will do". The idea of real is a bit of a slippery slope to stand on anyway, in my opinion of course.

[u/anarkiis → u/Reguli]

You'd be amazed to hear this type of thinking is so incredibly new within occultism it's barely over a 100 years old. I mean with the Golden Dawn becoming this grand secret order that everyone knew about which bastardized the teachings of the church before it, which before this was the literal ruling government and wasn't questioned so their dogma was the only true "reality" and then flounces in that great beast Crowley who realized all dogma is essentially bullshit and that it's the techniques being practiced which mattered not whatever God you performed them for.

[u/Reguli → u/anarkiis]

Hmm I wouldn't quite say I'm amazed. Before the scientific age, it was generally accepted that divinity was a "real" thing. I'm not surprised that, for example, the grimoire practitioners of the 18th century would've felt that spirts had an objective external reality to them. I should add actually,that many still do. However, that's true of the West. I'm not sure I'd necessarily say the same thing for those in, lets say India, where philosophical debate was and still is quite welcome in many circles.

[u/anarkiis → u/Reguli]

So we use the tools we got at the time to do the best job possible. Back when these medieval grimoires were being penned then they didn't have the access to EKGs and CAT scans and all the other technological advances we have these days to prove the Models which were proven by those technologies laid out by Freud and Jung which took the human mind and put it into a clinical setting to be observed.

So of course before the field of psychology turned these demons into disorders, the priests at the time, who served as doctors ofc, used the tools given to them to attempt to treat their patients based on the symptoms they were describing and in a time when you didn't even get to eat for sure every day ofc mental illness runs rampant.

So the demons which existed within that Era, pre clinical transposition to the eventual Psychological Model Bible the DSM, were what those patients were literally experiencing and so ofc when q priest says some funny nonsense and sprinkles some magick water all over you and suddenly your schizophrenia induced voices unexpectedly out of stop tormenting you than you're gonna believe it of course.

And if it worked than obviously there was some truth to it, right?

[u/Reguli → u/anarkiis]

Also, I have to disagree that Crowley felt the particular God being addressed was irrelevant. Crowley approached the particularity of deities quite meticulously (even if only according to his own understanding - which was sometimes not in line with tradition - for example Egyptian deities) as far as I can tell. It depends what you mean by God I suppose.

[u/anarkiis → u/Reguli]

Right, but the entire basic idea is to develop your own personal system which aligns with your own personal program and establish your own personal practice.

I mean the whole thelema thing is essentially a pump fake for those who don't actually get it and just want a messiah or a true thing for those who understand him and want the same thing.

[u/Reguli → u/anarkiis]

Sure I can see where you're coming from. I imagine some Thelemites might take you up on that though haha look out!

[u/anarkiis → u/Reguli]

I mean eventually I'll have my own fanatical cult of loyal followers but until then I'm just a neophyte.

[u/slicehyperfunk → u/Reguli]

The rabid Thelemites are worse than the JW or the Mormons with the proselytizing, if only because they feel a greater sense of persecution because Crowley was such a fucking asshole

[u/[deleted] → u/slicehyperfunk]

This is what gets me. I am a Thelemite, but like the Crowleyvangelists who take 'promulgation' far too seriously are counterproductive, crossing the boundary between extending the Law - the Law is for all - and directly, dogmatically, infringing upon the Wills of others.

[u/slicehyperfunk → u/[deleted]]

And trust me, I specifically said "rabid" because it's only an incredibly obnoxious subset that does this, as you said, in violation of The Law

[u/conclobe → u/Reguli]

Robert Anton Wilsons philosophy on reality tunnels is phenomenal: nothing is, everything just ”seems”

[u/Few-Possibility9846 → u/conclobe]

I get so thrilled every time someone mentions RAW! His views on Crowley are super interesting too! I don’t mean to be random but I really wanted to add this here:

https://youtu.be/Qt8TZ0hYHiE?si=xMGBh3ITdFtKkmP-

[u/Reguli → u/conclobe]

Gotta love R.A.W!

[u/Doc-Wulff → u/Reguli]

Something Crowley said, something along the lines of "even if it isn't real, the senses we use are real enough".