Damien
well i guess that's what i'm asking really -
i have problems with the idea that one can be on two side of a (serious)
argument at the same time - or switch sides at will and it makes no
difference - seems just like an intellectual game playing and it can only be
done because the issues are not that well understood - or the debators only
have a very superficial understanding of the issues - imo real arguments
require proper engaging even passion.
In India dialectics (one of the oldest descriptions) there is a type of
argument called vitanda - which just means 'wrangling' -
the aim is just to win by any means rather than the more noble quest for
truth.
I agree though that dialectics is indeed
a part of magick / paganism - was perhaps even
one of its 'means of knowledge - yes try to see the other perspective is
important - but to just adopt a philosophy, no matter how revolting -
how can that lead to true deconditioning rather than 'bad faith' .
bb/93
mogg
-----Original Message-----
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Damien
Sent: 08 April 2007 16:22
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] magic and rhetoric
But is it truly bad faith, if the practitioner is invested in both
sides of the outcome? If the aim of the magician (or the sophist) is
to evolve and gain knowledge, then aren't all perspectives necessary
to do that?
There is also the gain of the dialectician: Thesis, antithesis,
Synthesis. Combinations of these two processes, an lead to a knew
understanding and a better ability to persuade someone else of the new
(view/truth of?) reality.
Just a thought, not saying either interpretation is necessarily
correct.
-Damien
--- Mandrake of Oxford <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Friend
>
> Perhaps an element of Crowley's training schema for magicians
> ie that they should cultivate the ability to argue the case from
> both
> sides -
> as in the classical techniques of the sophists.
>
> That kind of practice found its way into Pete Caroll's reworking of
> the
> whole
> Crowley thing into his first book on Chaos Magick - _Liber Null_.
> AFAIK chaos magicians still take this idea quite seriously -
> ie i sure i read an article either in Chaos International or Oracle
> where
> the
> current head of the IOT says how he was a 'lefty' most of his life
> but then
> decided he would be a 'fascist' for a while as some sort of
> intellectual
> exercise -
> which strikes me as about rhetoric - perhaps with the aim of
> deconditioning
> etc.
>
> Personally i was never that impressed by that idea in crowley et al
> - always struck me as 'bad faith' -
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