Hi, Nagasiva,


What a wonderfully full and challenging response! It will take me quite a while to absorb it all.

One thing that strikes immediately is your comment, near the beginning, that ceremonial/ritual practitioners come from social circumstances where emergencies are unlikely to arise. This is in illuminating contrast to the village wise woman etc that I deal with, who is only too likely to be called on to cope with somebody's burn or a heavily bleeding wound, or an outbreak of cattle disease. I suspect that the more urgent the crisis, the simpler the procedure. The burns and bleeding charms I know require only words and gestures. Fortune telling and thief detecting, on the other hand, do need apparatus, albeit homely ones.
I'll look further into this.
Thanks again,
Jacqueline
 




--- On Tue, 30/12/08, nagasiva yronwode, YIPPIE Director <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> From: nagasiva yronwode, YIPPIE Director <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Props, Paraphernalia, and Academic Study of Magic
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date: Tuesday, 30 December, 2008, 6:50 PM
> hi Jacqueline, Dave,
>
> let me apologize in advance for the length of this reply.
> I know that this is an academic list, and i am attempting
> here to launch into an examination not only of the subject
> of props and paraphernalia but also of the means by which
> such magical activities are studied.
>
>
> "jacqueline simpson"
> <[log in to unmask]>:
> >> ...what happens if a Ritual Magickian needs to
> conduct a rite in an
> >> emergency and does not have all his robes, wands,
> incense etc at hand ...
> >> Are there ...dispensations [to omission of
> accoutrements] in Magick?
>
> the spectrum of magic as conceived by human beings under
> this
> shifting label does include completely "propless"
> activities
> all the way to what may be completely fictional psychic
> powers,
> siddhis, and verbal magic utterances transforming the world
> we
> know through unknown principles of cause.
>
> Dave makes helpful mention of makeshift or 'on the
> fly'
> substitutions in transubstantiation rite:
>
> D E <[log in to unmask]>:
> > and there was a catholic explorer-priest whose name
> escapes me at present,
> > who wrote of celebrating an improvised mass in the
> wilds of China, using
> > river water and an oatmeal mush for bread, and how it
> was one of the most
> > moving experiences of his life
>
> much of what falls under the category of 'ritual
> magic' is a kind of
> ceremonialism whch doesn't tend to lend itself to
> emergencies because
> it is a practice of those whose class, culture, and
> condition has
> all of those variables of ordinary life already under
> control as a
> prerequisite to the more exalted Great Work that is being
> done.
>
> to ask whether ritual magicians might omit their
> accoutrements
> is therefore controversial, and touches on metaphysical and
>
> evaluative criteria of the process and aims of magic.
>
>
> Dave continues:
> > chaos magick came about at least in part as a reaction
> to the overblown you
> > must have seventeen kinds of props-and-paraphernalia
> before you can do
> > anything angle of 'traditional' ceremonial
> magic
>
> even within a more narrow zone of ceremonial magic, for
> example,
> as Dave points out, there are those (Chaos magicians) whose
> premise
> is often that tools, implements, accoutrements, are
> unnecessary, and
> in some cases that rules or principles of magic
> *themselves* are
> completely unimportant. sometimes this is explained (even
> by
> ordinary ceremonial mages) as an indicator about the
> metaphysics
> or cosmology of the world and how the mind is so important
> to
> what comes into being and changes.
>
> these same Chaos mages usually don't draw strident
> lines in the sand
> about what kinds of magic they will perform, or what it is
> that magic
> "should" be used for, whereas conventional
> ceremonial magicians will
> often do this, perceiving their art as spiritual, mystical,
> and thus
> important enough to reserve for deliberate and honoured
> occasions,
> often outside the ordinary world of social dramas and
> emergencies.
>
> where this begins to most seriously break down is where the
> ritual also
> starts becoming less important than the accoutrements, such
> as in folk
> magic and spellcasting. this is something that Dave was
> making plain
> and in a very helpful way:
>
> > because you can never find a black egg salesman when
> you
> > really need one.....
>
> and that's why it helps to be familiar with the exact
> ritual need in
> question where folk magic is concerned. when it comes to
> 'black cow
> milk' and 'black hen eggs', this tends to refer
> to the colour of the
> ANIMAL in question. eggs from black hens are far easier to
> obtain
> than an egg from a hen which is itself black, and one might
> simply
> keep and care for black chickens, collect and use their
> eggs (as
> in magical rites of cleansing and purification) to obtain
> them,
> or contact the right farm to do it for you.
>
> now if you ask the conventional folk magicians or witches
> whether,
> in a pinch, some other kind of egg could be used, more
> often than
> not the answer will be "No." that said, within
> the spectrum of
> those who consider how magic works and why, those who side
> with the
> notion that it is the mind that makes it work will suggest
> to you
> that the more powerful (or possibly the more powerfully
> believing)
> mages could substitute a lemon, or an orange, or a golf
> ball, roll
> that round object over the same body, and produce the same
> effects
> of purification and cleansing as another could with their
> black
> hen's egg.
>
>
> in an academic study of this type of magic, my impression
> is that
> such a study would either accomodate for a diverse spectrum
> of
> evaluation or locate itself within specific disciplines of
> hypothesis so as to properly test and evaluate them. if one
>
> is operating under the premise that magic is a social or a
> psychological phenomenon, then observing and possibly
> surveying
> the resultant attitudes and changes in consciousness and
> opinion
> of participants or targets of the spell would be necessary,
>
> for example.
>
> if one is operating under the premise that magic is a
> phenomenon
> that causes the changes that are intended (rather than
> functioning
> at merely social and strictly pacifying levels), then one
> would
> need to arrive at a means of evaluating (also?) the actual
> condition of the patient as regards their purification or
> cleansing, how this changed, and whether the use of that
> golf
> ball made some difference in the result of the ritual and
> its
> effects.
>
> would it matter if the golf ball were substituted in
> without
> anyone else knowing about it except the magician?
> that's
> the kind of question that quickly ranges into
> considerations
> that are fundamental and metaphysical and thus difficult to
>
> answer without taking some kind of stand on these matters.
>
> I can tell you what i, from a non-academic perspective,
> tend to
> do as a preliminary to evaluating the phenomena and
> actuality of
> magic, intending to make this evaluation a bit easier for
> me as
> a solitary observer and researcher as part informal
> settings.
>
> the first thing that i do is to nail down my premises under
> which
> i am operating for the purpose of my studies and
> activities; that
> is, i try to make these clear to myself: based on the
> surveys that
> i have conducted online, the many conversations that i have
> had
> with practitioners, the instruction i have received from
> the
> number of teachers of magic that i have engaged with (at
> times)
> challenging questions, and the study that i have made in
> text
> and other means about the categories of phenomena
> themselves
> and how appearances can be manipulated without a
> corresponding
> change in actuality (illusion, sleight, legerdemain, etc.;
> posterior justification and fabrication; storytelling
> and aggrandizement).
>
> what this has resulted in is a restriction for *my*
> purposes
> on what i personally call and categorize as magic. that
> broad
> range or spectrum that i mentioned at the outset of this
> post
> is the social context within which i started, and i nailed
> down my lexicon more precisely with each passing year so
> that
> i can more clearly know what i am considering and why, and
> not
> waste my time with things that i have eliminated as either
> inconsequential or unlikely. having started with a
> rationalist,
> scientific education in conventional university science and
>
> logic courses and supplemented with individual studies
> outside
> the academic curricula, i began to apply the principles of
> observation to phenomena supposed within the religious and
> occult worlds, and, through decades began to reach
> tentative
> conclusions about what i found tenable and useful within
> them.
>
> obviously these conclusions will only be as helpful to
> others
> as they might consider me to be reliable and capable. that
> is
> one of the disadvantages of proceeding this way, and one of
> the
> advantages of organized learning institutions and the
> options
> made available by a willingness to seriously investigate
> magic.
>
>
> that said, how i have restricted my terminology is that
> where a
> phenomenon pertains solely to mental intention and effects
> that
> require no tools other than one's mind i class this as
> 'psychism'
> or 'psychicism'. having looked into such
> investigations as that
> of Rhine and the Stanford Research Institute, supplemented
> with
> incidental studies by governments as i could trust them on
> same,
> i have eliminated these "forms of magic" as
> deceptions or of so
> small an attendant effect as to be unworthy of my continued
> study.
>
> on the other end of the spectrum from this, where a
> phenomenon
> is brought about quite obviously as part of a known
> physical
> cause, and does not masquerade as something else (as in the
>
> case of what i call 'stage magic', an entertainment
> and
> manipulation of perceptions in an observer) i call this
> 'engineering' (or lacking other language,
> 'applied technology')
> and also divide this *away* from what i understand to be
> 'magic'
> for the purpose of my study.
>
> I mean by 'engineering' such things as diverse as
> what would
> be considered some form of medicine by introduction of a
> substance to ingestion or even somatically absorbed, or
> what
> might be perceived in *association* with magic as a
> necessary
> conventional activity in pursuit of the aim of a ritual or
> spell. that is, i separate out what may be intending to
> *enhance* the conventional ('increasing
> probability' if you
> like) and observe this and see how it operates, where,
> and in what manner. the conventional cause and effects
> themselves i disregard as magic primarily because these
> are already studied in depth by conventional sciences.
>
>
> having narrowed the aperture of consideration, i then began
> to
> evaluate what level of investigation i wanted to proceed to
>
> emphasize in any given circumstance, having discerned that
> there
> were 4 general 'dimensions' of examination that i
> might bring
> to bear on any given incident or event that includes magic:
>
> 1) Sociological -- how magic affects social groups;
>
> 2) Psychological -- how magic affects participant
> conscousness;
>
> 3) Metaphysical -- how magic might function and if
> it is a hidden (occulted) aspect
> of the natural world which i may
> discover or disclose as technology;
>
> 4) Anthropological -- how magic fits into overall
> human behaviour and what a
> cross-cultural study of its
> practice tells me about it.
>
> I find that these are also the academic approaches to
> religion
> and magic that i appreciate and study as an element of my
> informal and solitary education, and that texts on these
> topics out of academic presses are increasing in their
> frequency, depth, and reliability through time.
>
>
> now returning to your very complex question about
> emergencies
> and ad lib or improvised ritual accoutrements, the way that
> you
> asked the question in part steers my response. what tends
> to
> associate itself with "Magick" is ceremonial
> magic, and this
> is in part due to the works of Crowley, and why i think
> Dave
> responded as he did. since Chaos Magick grew out of
> ceremonial
> magic as it extended from the influence of Crowley (in the
> work
> of Kenneth Grant and others influenced by the writings of
> Austin
> Osman Spare, Crowley, and the Golden Dawn), it makes sense
> that
> a question about an ability to be impromptu and substitute
> in this
> context would recall principles emphasized by Chaos
> magicians.
>
> authors such as Ray Sherwin and Peter Carroll (ignoring for
> the
> moment their diversity of quality) attempted to assert
> within
> a ceremonial magical culture something known for ages by
> folk
> mages but which was being lost in an emphasis on tools and
> riteforms with the continued use of the quasi-masonic
> framework
> adopted by the Golden Dawn: the ability to extemporize or
> spontaneously adapt to changing conditions for the purposes
>
> of magical aim.
>
> since ceremonial magic tends to deal in very specialized
> aims
> and psycho-social events, its tools are quite refined and
> its
> application isn't really suited for emergencies.
>
> instead, what kind of magic *is* suitable for emergencies
> is to
> what Dave made reference in his remarks: folk magic.
> principles
> of folk magic might be, in part, said to have inspired
> Chaos
> Magick's development in the face of the Golden Dawn. in
> parallel,
> it appears to me, the notions of magic's inclusion of
> psychicism
> and ability to extend one's influences beyond tools and
> leave
> them completely behind seems also to have received emphasis
> there.
>
> as i understand it, this latter development in part derives
> from
> the legends and characters or conditions ascribed to the
> result of
> magic's employment in mysticism as explained by such
> interesting
> sources as E.M. Butler in her "Myth of the Magus"
> series. that is,
> seeing that an understandable emphasis on tools and
> accoutrements
> became fashionable within the magic of ceremonial
> magicians, a
> kind of 'backlash movement' began amongst
> ceremonial magicians
> to exalt the liberty as well as the mind and consciousness
> of
> the successful mage as not in fact needing any tools or
> indeed rituals *at all*.
>
> this applies in all 4 levels of examination of 'what
> happens'
> about which you might have been asking:
>
> sociologically if people notice that the wrong (or no) tool
>
> is being used then they may not have the confidence in its
> results and (speaking strictly from a sociological
> evaluation
> of magic and its results), this can cause problems.
>
> psychologically, if the magician or others notice that the
> wrong
> or no tool was used then it may influence the mechanism
> that
> serves to effect the change being sought. it may certainly
> affect their *attitude* about the event, and if (speaking
> now
> *metaphysically*) what matters or counts as regards how
> magic
> works is how people *think*, then this could also cause
> problems.
>
> anthropologically, whether as part of a deception or, as
> you
> have suggested it, as from the circumstance of an emergency
>
> situation, the fact of the matter is that most magicians do
> extemporize and, lacking some specific component of a spell
> they have previously devised, inherited, or dug up from
> some
> august grimoire, will improvise a substitute without the
> need
> of (what you humorously referred to as) dispensations. this
> typically has its exceptions in august grimoires where
> formulae are specific as requiring difficult-to-obtain
> accoutrements, to which Dave might have been referring.
>
> seeing as there is no central authority in the general
> ceremonial magic community (as compared with the Roman
> Catholic Church with her Mass Transubstantiation magic),
> there is far less to require that any kind of dispensation
> need be made. the aggrandizement of the successful mage
> 'not needing the crutch of tools' plus the
> heterodoxy of
> Chaos magicians' assertions that 'nothing is
> true' and
> 'everything is permitted' certainly makes room for
> this amongst those to whom you are referring.
>
> the problem in concisely responding to your query is in
> part the terminology that you are using and the premise
> from which it proceeds. if a "Ritual Magickian"
> is in
> fact a ceremonial magician, then under what kinds of
> circumstances would she "need to conduct a rite in an
> emergency"? are there ceremonial first aid rituals
> that
> are conducted on the battlefield or in a disaster?
>
> the only example with this premise that i can conceive
> within ceremonial contexts would be defensive. they are
> conceived as being required immediately in the instance
> of what is called 'magical battle', and this
> between two
> rival magicians (several examples of roman a clef come
> to mind, Crowley's "Moonchild" amongst them)
> or between
> a magician and some adverse entity, agent, or
> intelligence (a demonic attack, for example).
>
> in such a case as this last the usual literary end
> is that only superior and powerful magicians may win
> in battles without their proper power tools. it is
> in part an element of the plot that they are caught
> without their wands extended, as it were (see this
> in the recent Harry Potter stories).
>
> in my experience and in reflection of actual mages
> outside of storytelling and the drama interior to
> ceremonial lodges, the usual convention centers on
> such treatises as "Psychic Self-Defense" by Dion
> Fortune, and typically extends into psychicism by
> my measure, or the reliance upon components that may
> be summoned from the mind of the magician (by word,
> gesture, or thoughtform).
>
> in the case of magicians outside the ceremonial style
> who may utilize ritual to effect their magical aims,
> it is rare that they rely upon august magical tools,
> or things for which difficulty of substitution will
> be a serious factor. they are comfortable making do
> with what may be found within the confines of a home,
> a garden, or a forest, and require no special authority
> to exercise this most practical finding of alternative.
>
> thank you for your kind attention,
>
> nagasiva yronwode ([log in to unmask]), Director
> YIPPIE*! -- http://www.yronwode.org/
> -----------------------------------------------------
> *Yronwode Institution for the Preservation
> and Popularization of Indigenous Ethnomagicology
> -----------------------------------------------------