Difference between IM and Magic

[pianoperformer]

There are many branches of the occult that deal with magic/k. The rituals are many and differing, but usually involve some kind of ritual, involving symbolism, and sometimes certain gods or spirits.

The intended result for magic/k and IM are pretty much the same.

Therefore I ask, are they pretty much the same? Is magic/k just a more elaborate form of IM? Perhaps the symbolism and ritual helps solidify the belief in your mind. Maybe it is a stronger form of IM, even, again because of the symbolism. My experience is only with ceremonial magick so I can only speak from that perspective.

This realization just came to me the other day, but I find it interesting. I'd especially like to hear from ALG, since he has studied the occult, from what i've read in his posts. But I welcome ideas from anyone.

Basically my questions are:

• Is magick and IM the same?
• Is magick a stronger form of IM?
• Do the rules governing both differ? Anyone who practices magick will report that strong belief is central to making the ritual work.

[Acting Like Godot]

It's a bit like picking up a hi-tech hand-held electronic device, and asking, "Is this a camera? Or an Internet device? Or an MP3 player? Or a PDA? Or a handphone? Or a computer game?". Because, nowadays, as you know, you could jolly get one single eletronic device which can do so many different things.

I think that rituals, or ceremonial magick, do have their unique advantages. Among other things, I believe that intentions can attach to specific physical objects (there are some interesting scientific experiments by Professor William Tiller which Lynne MacTaggart writes about in the book "The Intention Experiment"). Therefore there is some significance in using blessed, holy or consecrated objects in rituals.

Also I believe that all objects naturally have some inherent types of energetic qualities. This is quite apart from cultural symbolic meanings - I am referring to inherent natural energies. Eg different types of crystals and rocks will all have slightly different sorts of energies. Thus choosing the right sorts of objects for use in ceremonial magick does augment the process of fulfilling your intention.

Thirdly if you accept the idea of Esther's Abraham or Jane's Seth (and these are all major pillars in LOA theory), you have to accept the idea of non-physical entities. And it would be unsurprising that some of them can be summoned or invited into your presence, via some form of magick, eg ceremonial magick. (Of course whether you want to do this, or should do this, and if you do, what kind of entity you should summon, is another sort of question altogether).

....... I have more to say, but gotta run ....

[pianoperformer]

I do agree with you totally, especially about objects, spirits, etc. I have no doubt in that. But the end is similar, isn't it? Well with ritualistic magick you can make it much stronger. But is there anything one can do that the other cannot? This is letting alone the fact that there are things where ritualistic magick would get you a result much faster.

If I may ask, what forms of magick have you studied? What has been your experience?

I'm not real big on very structured rituals, nor am I fond of those who summon entities just to order them to do something. To me, that's not the way to get things done. My preference has always been doing most things mentally.

I was once interested in Thelema, but the rituals are much too involved for me, and it would be too difficult to get all the requisit items. I still look into it every so often, but those rituals push me away. I find Crowley's writings fascinating, though.

[Acting Like Godot]

I'm quite new to magick. I only started this year (I'd previously written on this forum about the odd synchronicity that led me to magick).

I read the books etc but frankly there's a lot of ritualistic stuff in the books which simply isn't practical/possible to do in my part of the world. The reason is that most of the available books seem to be written by European / American witches and wizards, and they often refer to, say, the use of certain types of plants etc for ritual purposes, but those sorts of plants simply aren't found where I live (a tropical part of Asia).

Now Asia itself has no lack of its own indigeneous magickal practices. However, a lot of it isn't easily accessible to me, because:

(1) unlike in the West, metaphysical practitioners generally don't do things like write books, hold seminars and appear on the Oprah Winfrey show; and

(2) when they DO write books, most of them aren't in a language I can read. Instead they'd be in Thai, Hindi, Malay, Bahasa Indonesia, Vietnamese or Tibetan.

Still I've met a few metaphysical practitioners in my part of the world and it's been very educational. One chap is a Chinese fengshui guy who's also pretty formidable on the psychic front. I consider him a friend now, but the problem is that he speaks very bad English and I speak very bad Chinese, so we are mutually challenged on the communication front, when we seek to discuss metaphysical topics in depth.

What IS very interesting to me is that although his English is so bad that he definitely wouldn't have read books like "Ask and It is Given" or "The Secret" or "The Seth Material", nevertheless when he explains metaphysics and the paranormal from his Chinese metaphysical perspective, the similarities between what he says, and what the Western books say, are just absolutely unmistakeable.

In the end, it's the same universe after all.

[Mags]

There are many different teachers of the same message and there are many different paths all to the same goal.

In a diverse world, everyone gets to pick the teacher, theories, and practices that work for them. If the world was homogenous, we would only ever need one teacher, one theory, one practice.

[mercuryrising]

Originally Posted by pianoperformer

I do agree with you totally, especially about objects, spirits, etc. I have no doubt in that. But the end is similar, isn't it? Well with ritualistic magick you can make it much stronger. But is there anything one can do that the other cannot? This is letting alone the fact that there are things where ritualistic magick would get you a result much faster.

If I may ask, what forms of magick have you studied? What has been your experience?

I'm not real big on very structured rituals, nor am I fond of those who summon entities just to order them to do something. To me, that's not the way to get things done. My preference has always been doing most things mentally.

I was once interested in Thelema, but the rituals are much too involved for me, and it would be too difficult to get all the requisit items. I still look into it every so often, but those rituals push me away. I find Crowley's writings fascinating, though.

Have you looked into Chaos Magick? It allows quite a bit more creativity in the whole process and works well with the already established understanding of IM (well, my understanding of IM). Here's an excellent site.

I think the value of magick over IM is simply ritualistic or formulaic thought. It's hard to manifest something if your mind is all over the place, whereas a ritual can be repeated over and over, drawing more and more energy to a specific thought or set of thoughts. The use of particular actions or objects adds more associations to center the mind on creation. IMO, you can come up with your own rituals using any set of tools, actions, thoughts and whatnot.

Regarding your comment about summoning entities, your thoughts are entities, no?

In Chaos Magick, they have what are called servitors which are essentially thought forms that do particular tasks for you and exist separately from you (so they can do things while you are sleeping or whatever). We do this anyway, obviously. Magick just brings it into conscious control.

Hope that helps.

[pianoperformer]

I have heard of chaos magic but never really looked into it much. Thanks for the link!

Well, I meant actually when some magicians choose to summon demons to do their bidding. It seems rather dangerous.

[infinitethoughts]

Originally Posted by pianoperformer

There are many branches of the occult that deal with magic/k. The rituals are many and differing, but usually involve some kind of ritual, involving symbolism, and sometimes certain gods or spirits.

The intended result for magic/k and IM are pretty much the same.

Therefore I ask, are they pretty much the same? Is magic/k just a more elaborate form of IM? Perhaps the symbolism and ritual helps solidify the belief in your mind. Maybe it is a stronger form of IM, even, again because of the symbolism. My experience is only with ceremonial magick so I can only speak from that perspective.

This realization just came to me the other day, but I find it interesting. I'd especially like to hear from ALG, since he has studied the occult, from what i've read in his posts. But I welcome ideas from anyone.

Basically my questions are:

• Is magick and IM the same?
• Is magick a stronger form of IM?
• Do the rules governing both differ? Anyone who practices magick will report that strong belief is central to making the ritual work.

Magic and IM are exactly the same.

Existance is pure magic.
Consider how you spring forth existance-cing from your emptiness, eternally in the never ending Now.

[Acting Like Godot]

Candle magick is perhaps the thing which would make the most sense to both magicians and IMers. I haven't really done it myself, but I plan to try.

Basically, it works like this.

1. You have an intention.

2. You choose a candle of a colour that corresponds well with your intention. (Here you can follow the chakra system - for example, red is about physical vitality, strength and passion; while green is about fertility, abundance, growth, prosperity etc.)

3. There is something about a magickal ritual of anointing the candle with oil, but IMers might want to skip this bit.

4. You light the candle and you meditate on it, while focusing on your intention. When you're done, you let the candle burn on and on, until it burns out.

There are a couple of magickal explanations of why this works - it relates to fire elementals and so on.

But equally, those who have ever done traditional meditation (without any specific wishes or intentions to manifest) with a candle will know that there's something ... unusual ... about a candle flame, in the way it helps to focus your attention.

Which, of course, is very important for LOA.

[pianoperformer]

Wish I could use a candle. But unless and until they have candles that are safe for blind people, they're rather out of the question.