Grant Morrison on "Pop Magic"

Magical Realist

Valued Senior Member
Received my "Book of Lies: The Disinformation Guide To Magick and the Occult" the other day. Chapter 1 is an introductory how to for DIY magic. I am encouraged as it appears simple and immediately testable. Results can be expected in 3 days, 3 weeks, or 3 months. The revelation for me is that it isn't about belief or faith. It's simply about expressing intent thru the imagination and thru ritual. We do this everyday. We leave a light on on the front porch waiting for our loved one. We put flowers on the grave of a relative. We wear our lucky socks to our job interview. We structure an alphanumeric glyph of an idea or observation online, sending it out into the anonymous ethersphere to raise the consciousness of the human race. We all assume more causal agency to our actions than can be physically justified. There is magic in the expression of intent and desire. There is amplification in emotionally charging it. You just have to do it for it to work. I dedicate this thread to evidence of the workings of magic and the occult. Don't pontificate if you haven't tried it.
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"THINKING ABOUT IT

All you need to begin the practice of magic is concentration, imagination and the ability to laugh at yourself and learn from mistakes. Some people like to dress up as Egyptians or monks to get themselves in the mood; others wear animal masks or Barbarella costumes. The use of ritual paraphernalia functions as an aid to the imagination only.

Anything you can imagine, anything you can symbolize, can be made to produce magical changes in your environment.

FIRST STEPS ON THE PATH

Magic is easy to do. Dozens of rulebooks and instruction manuals are available in the occult or “mind, body and spirit” sections of most modern bookstores. Many of the older manuals were written during times when a powerful and vindictive Church apparatus was attempting to suppress all roads to the truth but most of them are generally so heavily coded and disguised behind arcane symbol systems that it’s hardly worth the bother—except for an idea of how other people used THEIR imaginative powers to interpret non-ordinary contacts and communications.

Aleister Crowley—magic’s Picasso—wrote this and I can’t say it any better than he did:

“In this book it is spoken of the sephiroth and the paths, of spirits and conjurations, of gods, spheres, and planes and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether they exist or not. By doing certain things, certain results follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophical validity to any of them.”

This is the most important rule of all which is why it’s here at the start. As you continue to learn and develop your own psychocosms and styles of magical practice, as you encounter stranger and stranger denizens of the Hellworlds and Hyperworlds, you’ll come back to these words of wisdom again and again with a fresh understanding each time.

HOW TO BE A MAGICIAN

Simple. Declare yourself a magician, behave like a magician, practice magic every day.

Be honest about your progress, your successes and failures. Tripping on 500 mushrooms might loosen your astral sphincter a little but it will not generally confer upon you any of the benefits of the magic I’m discussing here. Magic is about what you bring BACK from the Shining Realms of the Uberconscious. The magician dives into the Immense Other in search of tips and hints and treasures s/he can bring home to enrich life in the solid world. And if necessary, Fake it till you make it.

HOW TO BE A MAGICIAN 2


Read lots of books on the subject to get in the mood. Talking about magic with non-magicians is like talking to virgins about shagging. Reading about magic is like reading about sex; it will get you horny for the real thing but it won’t give you nearly as much fun.

Reading will give you a feel for what’s crap and what can usefully be adapted to your own style. Develop discrimination. Don’t buy into cults, aliens, paranoia, or complacency. Learn whom to trust and whom to steer clear of.

HOW TO BE A MAGICIAN 3

Put down the books, stop making excuses and START.

MAGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

Magical consciousness is a particular way of seeing and interacting with the real world. I experience it as what I can only describe as a “head-click,” a feeling of absolute certainty accompanying a perceptual shift which gives real world transactions the numinous, uncanny feeling of dreams. Magical consciousness is a way of experiencing and participating with the local environment in a heightened, significant manner, similar to the effects of some drug trips, Salvador Dali’s “Paranoiac/critical” method, near death experiences, etc. Many apparently precognitive and telepathic latencies become more active during periods of magical consciousness. This is the state in which tea leaves are read, curses are cast, goals are scored, poems are written.

Magical Consciousness can be practiced until it merges with and becomes everyday consciousness. Maintained at these levels it could interfere with your lifestyle unless you have one which supports long periods of richly associative thought."==========http://disinfo.com/2014/10/pop-magic-grant-morrison/


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Please define "magic" for the purposes of this discussion, and please explain how it differs from activity that might have a more mundane explanation.
Thanks.
 
The only magic here is that there are people actually making money selling these absurd books to the gullible.
 
Please define "magic" for the purposes of this discussion, and please explain how it differs from activity that might have a more mundane explanation.
Thanks.

"We will confine ourselves to an extension of a well-known definition by Aleister Crowley and state that, “Magic is the Science and Art of causing Change, on a material as well as a spiritual level, to occur in conformity with Will by altered states of consciousness." — Frater U.: D.:, Secrets of Western Sex Magic
 
"We will confine ourselves to an extension of a well-known definition by Aleister Crowley and state that, “Magic is the Science and Art of causing Change, on a material as well as a spiritual level, to occur in conformity with Will by altered states of consciousness." — Frater U.: D.:, Secrets of Western Sex Magic
I may be wrong but a drunk purposely hitting himself in the face with a board seems to satisfy that definition.
 
I may be wrong but a drunk purposely hitting himself in the face with a board seems to satisfy that definition.

Or someone who does shrooms for example. The question is does the altered state of conscious change reality for the better or the worse?
 
Or someone who does shrooms for example. The question is does the altered state of conscious change reality for the better or the worse?
I would say it does not change reality it only changes our perception of reality. Also in general I would say ingesting a substance to change your brain chemistry is not that good of an idea. I believe that there are some people have had insights from altered states due to drugs, but it is not worth the risk of ingesting hallucinogenic compounds. An altered state can be achieved with out chemicals such as practicing zazen or hypnosis for instance.

Anyway none of that is magic. You missed the most important part of what 'real' magic has to have - an element of the supernatural. What that means is magic need to violate natural laws. You know flying brooms, disappearing, making material appear from nothing.
 
Or someone who does shrooms for example. The question is does the altered state of conscious change reality for the better or the worse?

That can be one or the other.

There's not really a recipe for how the individual mind reacts to psychotropic drugs.

An example: 19 year old me suddenly decides that 'the road looks comfy, I'll lie down and watch it'.
I'm definitely thinking, at that moment, that the world is awesome etc.

The guy walking past that twerp, that's intensely staring at the damn street while he's hugging it, might go 'this world fucking sucks'.
 
What that means is magic need to violate natural laws. You know flying brooms, disappearing, making material appear from nothing.

It may not necessarily violate natural law. Magic may work by weighting certain probabilities towards actually happening over others. Such affects may occur in a situation of equal or near equal probabilities--iow the most random states. It may only take the slightest puff of wind to push over a car teetering on a cliff. There IS some evidence for the effect of consciousness influencing quantum states. Does it affect macro states? Practitioners of magic claim yes, but I'm having a hard time gathering reports of personal experiences in this area. In time I hope to report my own, if I have the patience and curiosity to stick with it.
 
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There IS some evidence for the effect of consciousness influencing quantum states.
Citation, please.

This claim of yours is contrary to all and every scientific notion of quantum mechanics, and from what I understand such a claim is utterly without evidence.
While observation (conscious and non-conscious) results in a waveform collapse (under most interpretations of QM), there is no known evidence that consciousness actually influences quantum states. The result of the collapse is random within the probability function of the waveform. (At least as I understand it).

You clearly have some evidence, as you stress that there "IS" some evidence.
So please, before you go any further, post what you have.

Bear in mind that while this may be the parapsychology forum it doesn't mean you can just make stuff up - and that is what you seem to be doing here.
I may be wrong - someone may have won James Randi's $1m prize - as that is what this evidence you claim exists would result in, along with Nobel prizes and a fundamental rethink of quantum mechanics.
 
This claim of yours is contrary to all and every scientific notion of quantum mechanics, and from what I understand such a claim is utterly without evidence.
While observation (conscious and non-conscious) results in a waveform collapse (under most interpretations of QM), there is no known evidence that consciousness actually influences quantum states. The result of the collapse is random within the probability function of the waveform. (At least as I understand it).

You clearly have some evidence, as you stress that there "IS" some evidence.
So please, before you go any further, post what you have.

Bear in mind that while this may be the parapsychology forum it doesn't mean you can just make stuff up - and that is what you seem to be doing here.
I may be wrong - someone may have won James Randi's $1m prize - as that is what this evidence you claim exists would result in, along with Nobel prizes and a fundamental rethink of quantum mechanics.

I see. So consciousness can CAUSE the wavefunction to collapse, but it doesn't influence it. Please elaborate on this typically anal distinction.


"The quantum Zeno effect (also known as the Turing paradox) is a situation in which an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay.[1] One can "freeze" the evolution of the system by measuring it frequently enough in its known initial state. The meaning of the term has since expanded, leading to a more technical definition in which time evolution can be suppressed not only by measurement: the quantum Zeno effect is the suppression of unitary time evolution caused by quantum decoherence in quantum systems provided by a variety of sources: measurement, interactions with the environment, stochastic fields, and so on.[2] As an outgrowth of study of the quantum Zeno effect, it has become clear that applying a series of sufficiently strong and fast pulses with appropriate symmetry can also decouple a system from its decohering environment.[3]"===https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Zeno_effect


Bear in mind that while this may be the parapsychology forum it doesn't mean you can just make stuff up - and that is what you seem to be doing here.

You'd better curb your dickish attitude if you want me to respond to you. I'm not in the business of proving anything to anybody who immediately accuses me of lying, least of all to your primadonna ass.

But to avoid your accusations of evasion, I WILL provide you with a list of studies supporting the influence of consciousness on external events:

http://deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm
 
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It may not necessarily violate natural law. Magic may work by weighting certain probabilities towards actually happening over others. Such affects may occur in a situation of equal or near equal probabilities--iow the most random states. It may only take the slightest puff of wind to push over a car teetering on a cliff. There IS some evidence for the effect of consciousness influencing quantum states. Does it affect macro states? Practitioners of magic claim yes, but I'm having a hard time gathering reports of personal experiences in this area. In time I hope to report my own, if I have the patience and curiosity to stick with it.
Poppycock, hokum, and balderdash!
 
I see. So consciousness can CAUSE the wavefunction to collapse, but it doesn't influence it. Please elaborate on this typically anal distinction.
If you think the distinction is anal then it speaks to your lack of comprehension of what you invoke.

Think of it as being able to throw dice (cause the wave function to collapse) but not determine which face they land on (the result of the collapse).

Or imagine there are random playing cards face down... you can pick one (cause the wave function to collapse) but not determine the value of the card you select (the result of the collapse).

At best we can delay the picking of the card, or the rolling of the dice in an unstable quantum system with distinguishable quantum states (Quantum Zeno effect) - but that is not applicable to conscious observation - or do you think that Schroedinger's cat would always remain alive if watched - that the radioactive decay that triggers the poison would not occur?
You'd better curb your dickish attitude if you want me to respond to you. I'm not in the business of proving anything to anybody who immediately accuses me of lying, least of all to your primadonna ass.
I'm not accusing you, I'm suggesting that that is how it appears.
But to avoid your accusations of evasion, I WILL provide you with a list of studies supporting the influence of consciousness on external events:

http://deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm
Yes, I'm sure there's plenty of studies that support the notion, but none of it has ever been reproduced under scientific rigour. None. Zero. Nada. Zip. Diddlysquat.
Radin, though, certainly claims that such things are reproducible - but to date there is nothing he has been able to show. He mostly relies on meta-analysis to support his claims, yet his methods in such have been openly criticised - a review of his wiki-page will shed light on that for you.

Furthermore, you were not merely talking of the influence of consciousness on external events: that it does is trivial - our consciousness is part of what influences everything we do - and we influence others.
What was being called out here was the claim that there is evidence of the effect of consciousness influencing quantum states.
I await that evidence, though I'm not holding my breath.
 
BASIC SIGIL ACTIVATION




A simple sigil activation.

When you create a sigil, you’re investing it with a certain amount of emotional importance. When you hear practitioners of magick referring to the “energy” of a sigil, ritual or spell, this emotional investment is often what they’re talking about. For a sigil to be effective, however, it requires more than just the energy invested in the creation. It needs to be “activated.”


In the creation process, you’ve built up a substantial amount of psychological, emotional and creative tension, all around a symbol. For the sigil (and your subconscious) to do its work, you have to release that tension. This is called “activating” the sigil, although you’ll sometimes hear this referred to as “consecrating,” “charging” or “discharging.” There are as many methods for activating a sigil as their are practitioners of sigil magick, but they all share a common theme of buildup and release.

As with the sigil creation, we’re presenting the most newcomer-friendly version of the activation process. It’s something anyone with access to basic household items can do in just a few minutes. We’ve also written the steps out in plain English, and with a bit of context for why you’re doing these specific actions. This isn’t intended to take the mystery or the “magic” out of the experience, it’s just to give you some basic idea of what you’re trying to accomplish, and to make you as comfortable as possible with the process.

You will need:

  • Something to write with. Any normal pen or pencil will work.
  • Blank paper, or tracing paper.
  • A candle, fireplace, or other safe, standing flame.*
  • A metal or ceramic bowl suitable for safely burning a small piece of paper.
  • A comfortable, distraction-free place to work.
  • About 30 minutes, including prep time.
Step 1: Create a quiet, distraction-free environment. There’s a simple reason why traditional magick rituals are done at night, by candlelight, or under the light of the moon. It’s not that one time of day is inherently more powerful than another, it’s simply because it’s easier to focus your attention when you’re not distracted by the normal activities of daily life. Chaos magick is all about bringing a desire or intention one step closer to reality, and the less distracted you are when you’re activating the sigil, the better the results will be. Turn off your phone and your TV. Turn down the lights. Unplug or cover up anything you find distracting. This method of Sigil activation should only take about 15 minutes, so don’t worry about missing anything important.

Optional: Create a focus area. One of the practical reasons for things like the “protection circles” you see in popular occult fiction has very little to do with anything supernatural. It’s about creating a physical area where everything around you reinforces the mood and emotional state you’re trying to evoke. Creating a rough circle around you composed of things that are important to you, or which strongly relate to the sigil you are about activate, helps keep your mind focused during the activation process. Along the same lines, turning off the room lights and working under the light of a few nearby candles helps to keep all of the distracting everyday world in the shadows, at least for the duration of the ritual. Some people find that certain kinds of music or incense helps them focus, while others find these too distracting. You’re doing it right as long as you can completely focus on the activation.

Step 2: Quiet your mind. Just like you’ve removed the distractions from your environment, you must now to the same for your mind. You don’t need to meditate or go into a trance. You just need to close your eyes, and take a dozen or so deep breaths. Clear your mind of all thoughts, just for a moment or two. Once you’re done, you should be able to focus a bit more on the task at hand.

Step 3: Light the candle, ready the bowl. You’ll want the candle burning and the fire-safe bowl within easy reach as you go into the next phase of the activation. Make sure to remove anything flammable from the area.

Step 4: “Invoke” the sigil. This isn’t as arcane or mystical as it probably sounds. If you already have the sigil you created in hand (if you’ve just created it, for instance), you’ve already “invoked” it. If not, you’ll simply want to draw the sigil again on a new piece of paper. You can use a pen or pencil, although some people prefer the look of charcoals, crayons or oil pastels for visual effect. Don’t worry if you’re not much of an artist, this is about the intent behind the sigil, not being a perfect calligrapher. As long as it looks right to you, it’ll work just fine. You can also trace an existing sigil, which is a great way to activate a sigil that you didn’t draw yourself. (If you bought one from Sigil Daily, or found a perfect example in a book, for instance.) The act of redrawing the sigil helps to bring all of the emotional investment — the “energy” — back from your subconscious to the forefront of your mind.

Optional: Tear away the edges of the paper around the sigil. Don’t worry if you accidentally rip the sigil, or tear a small piece off of the drawing. Your goal here is to end up with a piece of paper that “fits” the sigil, and to reduce the smoke and flame for the next step.

Step 5: Focus on what the sigil represents. Look at the symbol you’ve created, and remember the reason you wanted it. Look at all of the shapes and angles. Does it speak to your core goal, desire or ambition? Now that you’ve identified what it is you want, are you ready to release that “energy” — as well as the psychological, creative and emotional tension it represents — and let the magick do its work? Listen to your emotions. There’s always a chance that what you actually want isn’t what the sigil represents, in which case there’s little point in activating it. (If that happens, use what you’ve learned and repeat the sigil creation process to create a new sigil. It should only take a few moments, and you can do it right on the spot.) Once it all feels right, move on to the next step.

Step 6: “Discharge” the Sigil. There are lots of ways to “discharge” the emotional investment of the sigil, and in this case you’re simply going to be burning the paper you’ve drawn it on. Light one side of it, and then place it carefully in the bowl, making sure not to singe yourself in the process. Watch as it burns, and imagine that all of the emotional investment you’ve placed in the sigil, as well as the idea it represents, is being transformed into a new form made of the universal forces of light and heat. Imagine that light and heat radiating out from this moment, into your past and future. Imagine the glow of the sigil’s tiny light spreading across your entire life. Watch it until the flame goes out.

Note: Don’t worry if the flame accidentally goes out during this process. It doesn’t mean that the sigil activation has has failed, or anything supernatural. Some paper burns better than others. Simply relight the remaining paper. The power of this step comes from the intention to release the tension behind the sigil, not on whether or not some wood pulp catches fire.

Step 7: Let it go. Once the flame of the sigil’s paper has gone out, the sigil is discharged. While the sigil may still be a fun thing to look at or think about, the magick itself has already happened. The process has started, and it no longer needs you attention. Let the sigil and what it represents go. It will work the exact same, even if you never think about it again. That doesn’t mean that you should avoid the sigil or anything. It’s a piece of art, and you made it! But now that it has been discharged, think of it as something like a souvenir.

Take a nice, deep breath, and then congratulate yourself. You just worked actual magick! If you feel the urge to laugh at how strange the whole idea was, do it. Put one some music or something, just to change your state of mind. Now it’s time to return to the world. You’ll probably feel a little lighter, and you may even notice that the world around you looks a little different. That’s perfectly normal, so enjoy the feeling.

Additional: Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride. In the coming days, you’ll start to see little things that are eerily evocative of the sigil you activated. Don’t deny these. Don’t dismiss them, even if they seem minor. This is the process starting to work, bit by bit, to bring your intention into reality. The more open you are to these changes, the faster the magick will come into effect.

It’s important, however, to note that your decisions play a hugely important part in how effective the sigil will be. If your sigil is about meeting a new romantic partner, for instance, you might want to think about going out to a place where that could plausibly happen. Staying inside your home, with curtains drawn and lights out, not answering the door, is actively working against the thing you want. Don’t count on the sigil to do the work for you. You’ve already bought the ticket, now you have to take that next step and take the ride.

If you’re uncertain about the whole “magick thing,” start with something minor and irrelevant. In fact, a great way to test the effectiveness of sigil magick is simply to create an activate a sigil that is of both fairly unlikely and of absolutely no consequence. “I will meet a jolly man wearing a furry hat,” for instance, or “I will overhear someone humming ‘Thriller’ by Michael Jackson.” You’ll soon be surprised at how utterly powerful sigils can be."
 
....Step 3: Light the candle, ready the bowl. You’ll want the candle burning and the fire-safe bowl within easy reach as you go into the next phase of the activation. Make sure to remove anything flammable from the area.

Step 4: “Invoke” the sigil. This isn’t as arcane or mystical as it probably sounds. If you already have the sigil you created in hand (if you’ve just created it, for instance), you’ve already “invoked” it. If not, you’ll simply want to draw the sigil again on a new piece of paper. You can use a pen or pencil, although some people prefer the look of charcoals, crayons or oil pastels for visual effect. Don’t worry if you’re not much of an artist, this is about the intent behind the sigil, not being a perfect calligrapher. As long as it looks right to you, it’ll work just fine. You can also trace an existing sigil, which is a great way to activate a sigil that you didn’t draw yourself. (If you bought one from Sigil Daily, or found a perfect example in a book, for instance.) The act of redrawing the sigil helps to bring all of the emotional investment — the “energy” — back from your subconscious to the forefront of your mind.

Optional: Tear away the edges of the paper around the sigil. Don’t worry if you accidentally rip the sigil, or tear a small piece off of the drawing. Your goal here is to end up with a piece of paper that “fits” the sigil, and to reduce the smoke and flame for the next step.

Step 5: Focus on what the sigil represents. Look at the symbol you’ve created, and remember the reason you wanted it. Look at all of the shapes and angles. Does it speak to your core goal, desire or ambition? Now that you’ve identified what it is you want, are you ready to release that “energy” — as well as the psychological, creative and emotional tension it represents — and let the magick do its work? Listen to your emotions. There’s always a chance that what you actually want isn’t what the sigil represents, in which case there’s little point in activating it. (If that happens, use what you’ve learned and repeat the sigil creation process to create a new sigil. It should only take a few moments, and you can do it right on the spot.) Once it all feels right, move on to the next step.

Step 6: “Discharge” the Sigil. There are lots of ways to “discharge” the emotional investment of the sigil, and in this case you’re simply going to be burning the paper you’ve drawn it on. Light one side of it, and then place it carefully in the bowl, making sure not to singe yourself in the process. Watch as it burns, and imagine that all of the emotional investment you’ve placed in the sigil, as well as the idea it represents, is being transformed into a new form made of the universal forces of light and heat. Imagine that light and heat radiating out from this moment, into your past and future. Imagine the glow of the sigil’s tiny light spreading across your entire life. Watch it until the flame goes out.

Note: Don’t worry if the flame accidentally goes out during this process. It doesn’t mean that the sigil activation has has failed, or anything supernatural. Some paper burns better than others. Simply relight the remaining paper. The power of this step comes from the intention to release the tension behind the sigil, not on whether or not some wood pulp catches fire.

Step 7: Let it go. Once the flame of the sigil’s paper has gone out, the sigil is discharged. While the sigil may still be a fun thing to look at or think about, the magick itself has already happened. The process has started, and it no longer needs you attention. Let the sigil and what it represents go. It will work the exact same, even if you never think about it again. That doesn’t mean that you should avoid the sigil or anything. It’s a piece of art, and you made it! But now that it has been discharged, think of it as something like a souvenir.

Take a nice, deep breath, and then congratulate yourself. You just worked actual magick! If you feel the urge to laugh at how strange the whole idea was, do it. Put one some music or something, just to change your state of mind. Now it’s time to return to the world. You’ll probably feel a little lighter, and you may even notice that the world around you looks a little different. That’s perfectly normal, so enjoy the feeling.

Additional: Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride. In the coming days, you’ll start to see little things that are eerily evocative of the sigil you activated. Don’t deny these. Don’t dismiss them, even if they seem minor. This is the process starting to work, bit by bit, to bring your intention into reality. The more open you are to these changes, the faster the magick will come into effect.

It’s important, however, to note that your decisions play a hugely important part in how effective the sigil will be. If your sigil is about meeting a new romantic partner, for instance, you might want to think about going out to a place where that could plausibly happen. Staying inside your home, with curtains drawn and lights out, not answering the door, is actively working against the thing you want. Don’t count on the sigil to do the work for you. You’ve already bought the ticket, now you have to take that next step and take the ride.

If you’re uncertain about the whole “magick thing,” start with something minor and irrelevant. In fact, a great way to test the effectiveness of sigil magick is simply to create an activate a sigil that is of both fairly unlikely and of absolutely no consequence. “I will meet a jolly man wearing a furry hat,” for instance, or “I will overhear someone humming ‘Thriller’ by Michael Jackson.” You’ll soon be surprised at how utterly powerful sigils can be."===http://sigildaily.com/activating-rituals/
 
Has the magick been working for you? Have you preformed the Sigil ritual?
 
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