David Mattichak:
> Interpreting the results of magick is always subjective.
I think the situation is far more complex than this. The first bit of objective data we have is the overall (if stated) intention of the magical action/materia being employed. My understanding (perhaps erroneous) is that conventionally there is a symbolic language engaged to effect the result, likewise, and if nothing else we should be able to distinguish between the initial stated interest in result and the later explanation (even if it changed) for how it "worked". I am not saying that practitioners won't shift (drift) in this interpretation, but we can objectively analyze this by recording any reflections on the spells or rites initiated and concluded. The intentionality of the effects is a primary factor in the phenomena as I understand it.
> In Magick in Theory and Practice Crowley says:
> } I have noticed that the effect of a Magical Work has followed it so closely
> } that it must have been started before the time of the Work. E.g. I work to-night to
> } make X in Paris write to me. I get the letter the next morning, so that it must have
> } been written before the Work.
Granted that Crowley was of reliable report (of which I am suspicious), and granted that such an event took place (without his having been tipped off as to a more than hypothetical arriving letter, and forgotten about it) as he's described, there are other possibilities than his conclusions. One of these is that in such an event the person who engages the rite to 'make a thing happen' may be connected to the event in question (intuitively or by some other skill or percept) and 'behaving along with the result' so as to give the impression (perhaps even to the spellcaster) of having caused it. Without the observation of the actual causal leverage, there is no rational conclusion to be made, and all the options should be considered by those making an evaluation of the data.
> } Does this deny that the Work caused the effect? That seems to imply that the sequence of events in a magickal operation might put the result
> } before the operation.
Does this *support* the conclusion that the spell caused the effect? I do not think that it is wise to conclude this. Leave it unknown and note the relation, a remarkable coincidence. Observe *several* such remarkable coincidences and let's talk about the resemblances amongst them. Crowley himself wrote similarly of successive billiards-shots as compared to flukes.
> I think that this is one of the fundamental reasons that magcik is so hard to quantify for study.
My impression is that the tendency to combat or conflate magic and science, causes and effects, gets in the way of simply observing and properly recording the data of the events themselves. Too many intrusions from presupposition and hopeful or critical bias are operating. The more people we can get looking at it, the less emphasis and stigma will become attached to the results of the studies. Where the effects are more blatantly unusual and more apparently supernatural, those more studied in illusion and legerdemain will need become involved in observation.
> Crowley, again, puts it like this:
> } ...there is a real apodeictic correlation between the
> } various elements of the operation, such as the formal manifestation of the spirit,
> } his name and sigil, the form of the temple, weapons, gestures and incantations.
> } These facts prevent one from suspecting the real subtlety involved in the
> } hypothesis.
Once one becomes familiar with the rudiments, the equipment, and the suppositions apparent within any specific magical system, I cannot see why knowing about the various elements ought to prevent one from understanding either the subtleties or the blatantly obvious hypotheses which may be involved. The most important element is to conceive of as many possibilities within one's cosmological framework as would make sense to those who will find the study of value. Ignoring them is half the problem of studies of magic. Too many questions go unasked, too little observation reported in enthusiasm of 'knowing' what is happening. I'm happy to see that this (along with attitudes toward the studies) is changing through time for the better.
> This is so profound that it seems almost true to say that even the
> crudest Magick eludes consciousness altogether, so that when one is able to do it,
> one does it without conscious comprehension, very much as one makes a good
> stroke at cricket or billiards. One cannot give an intellectual explanation of the
> rough working involved, as one can explain the steps in the solution of a quadratic
> equation. In other words Magick in this sense is rather an art than a science.
There are sciences of arts. That a thing is an art should never prevent our ability to connect (even over duration) excellence of performance and result. The main difficulty is the intrusion upon reflection of the performance for scientific sake, and in this Crowley has an important point (disruption for purpose of learning about the art may make more difficult the proper observation of its most adept performances; this is why we ought to try to identify those skilled in said performance and focus on them).
Jesper Petersen wrote:
> This is Crowley’s position, and it is obviously shared by many in the esoteric milieu more generally. Nevertheless, if we should respect this position in full, we couldn’t and shouldn’t analyse “magick” outside this subjectivist frame. In my opinion, this is much more problematic than any animosity resulting from publishing such a study. Sam quoted Lincoln’s theses; I am tempted to quote the fifth one:
>
> «Reverence is a religious, and not a scholarly virtue. When good manners and good conscience cannot be reconciled, the demands of the latter ought to prevail.»
>
> Of course, this does not mean that we have to be insulting, just play friends with informants, or cannot do research in dialogue with them. Information gathering has to be engaged and empathetic; we can even become friends. But to limit our research because of limits set up by those we study is to extend this phase into research as a whole. Reverence has to be negotiated on a case-by-case basis. Otherwise, we won’t be able to offer anything outside the frame we already have.
Agreed. Science has already been stymied enough by patients' rights issues in association to publicity surrounding novel theories (e.g. Multiple Personality Disorder, Recovered Memory Syndrome) with such egregious repercussions that we will not wish to potentially sully the outcome by a hamstringing requirement that we be a convert in order to observe (though I have no objections to converts issuing observations).
> ...I have rarely met any informants who weren’t at least surprised by academic findings, terminology or hypotheses. If they were not, perhaps we have just reproduced their own self-image?
It seems important to me that we keep an eye on for whom the research is being conducted (i.e. what audience) and what it is that the relevant peers may say in evaluation about the substance of those findings, moreso than complaints from informants about a researcher's *academic* slant to their study and its results. Sure, manners and being pleasant are valuable, as is informant confidentiality where it is necessary. A variety of slants to investigation are bound to be more important over time, however, than an ability to satisfy those whom one seeks to observe and explain.
One of the things that I've enjoyed about Susan Greenwood that I hope to see more of was that she provided a brief evaluation of previous anthropologists, investigators, and their attitudes and preconceptions about magic which they brought to their study, how it affected their results, and what it enabled them to disclose to future researchers. When I compare it to ethnography or cultural anthropology of less stigmatized areas of human behaviour (e.g. music), it is precisely this type of broad-sweeping discussion that I enjoy and from which I learn the most.
nagasiva yronwode ([log in to unmask]), Director
YIPPIE*! -- http://www.yronwode.org/
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*Yronwode Institution for the Preservation and Popularization of Indigenous Ethnomagicology
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