i suppose you could call where im at ideologically now allegorism, esoterica without the theurgic element. everything in the visible world has an emblematic meaning, the relationship of external to internal is innate to man, and we should utilize this to glorify god, basically
many occult philosophers define “magic” in this secular way of doing things, using thoughts and words and actions, to alter things in reality. others define it as using those same tools to influence the divine sphere. theyre both missing the point in slightly different ways imo.
man has a relationship to the divine and can bring others to god but, he cant really tell divinity and divine things what to do, in my opinion. he can only elevate himself to a certain extent by properly understanding and utilizing his place in the cosmic hierarchy.
on the flip side i think the modern western occult definition of magic as “causing reality to conform to ones will” (extremely common + standard) is pretty stupid, as thats what i do when i order a book online, its kind of like secular overscholastic cope + larping, in my opinion
in classical studies of magical practices, for example if you read a book from the 1500s, it breaks up these hands on occult and esoteric engagements with the world into two categories, goetia and theurgy. goetia is what is commonly called black magic.
working with demons, evil spirits, things like that. you may recognize that term from a book that is now called “the goetia”, really thats a misnomer but thats why its called that. on the flip side theurgy is what i suppose would be called white magic.
things that now go under the banner of “angel magic” and such things. personally i think both things are actually bad and, these weird people who think theyre invoking angels via john dee style talismans and tables are assuredly not doing what they think theyre doing, lets say
over the years ive made a separate folder in my mind of other things, spiritual practices that have a proper and efficacious understanding of mans place in the hierarchy and what he can and should “do about it”. things like praying, contemplation, creating theological “works”..
sometimes i just call this stuff clerica as a third category apart from theurgy and goetia when analyzing hands on spiritual practices presently and throughout history. lots of work to be done
wouldnt ever really identify with hermeticism for a variety of reasons. i dont “look up to” hermes trismegistus but more importantly i just see the term applied to so many conflicting and wildly varying things im not really sure it means anything anymore
ive met people who do full on magic rituals + stuff who call that hermeticism, people who call alchemy hermeticism, people who call just looking deeper into symbolism hermeticism, people who call tarot cards hermeticism, i get why ofc but, its like the broadest umbrella possible
and then none of them have actually read the corpus hermetica of course... lol
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oh yes. it is time for… our second annual children’s book recommendation thread.
the last one changed amazon’s suggested products list forever. such power we wield.
we take childhood reading very seriously here. allow me to send you some book ideas from the cyclops family hut.
the last recommendations thread was done around our first kid’s book release. that thread is below.
we have another kid’s book dropping before the holidays - presently, the main thing we are pumping is that i have all my books together as a package now. scope-able on my profile:
last intro note: premise. a normal person might describe my wife as a “crunchy mom”. her vibe is in the mix here. books clearly affect a kid’s spirit and psyche so we tend towards things we feel will nurture the brain-spirit in some way. basically, we are the bottom of this meme:
apathy about other people that you come into contact with is really a form of contempt. if you dont care what a person thinks, you obviously dont think very highly of them.
i have this. its the best and worst feature of my personality. recently, i tried to figure out why.
[…]
in some ways, its served me very well. it allowed me to get through basically anything as an artist. if you go down the “whole path”, inevitably you get some harsh critiques or insults. if you don’t care what other people think, you’re just immune. it doesn’t affect you - at all.
on the flip side, the slight contempt for normal people (you see this online here, “normies”) or others in general is caustic. its rarely articulated - you never say it or consciously think it, you may not even notice it, but it forms the subtext for your social interactions.
i’d like to discuss christian and mormon orientations toward knowledge.
for a variety of reasons, mormon theology has been a large topic on X recently. this is one of my main areas of interest, but its difficult to briefly hop into.
so, i really enjoyed reading perelandra:
perelandra is the second book in the space trilogy by c.s. lewis. obviously there will be some spoilers in here.
in the book, there’s a few characters that are obviously proxies: a woman is eve, one figure is the devil. the narrator is obviously, to me, a stand in for the author
ransom, the narrator, who i just read as lewis himself, finds himself in an analogy for the garden of eden. he is observing the devil slowly tempt eve, basically. he’s able to get involved and argue a little bit but, he has to sleep, the devil doesnt - he cant stop the process.
parenting has this odd social dimension where youre always actively engaging with how other people see you.
so i go to this street fair. my son (3) gets stung by a wasp. never been stung before. freaks out. i take him out of the crowd and put him on some grass. he’s fine.
[…]
i also just so happened to have obtained an extremely large gyro seconds before this. in my haste and preference for my own flesh and blood, i abandoned the gyro.
when my son is injured, he just wants things to be normal. he personally insists i go back and re-obtain the gyro.
he doesnt want to talk about being injured, doesnt want any attention, he just wants everything to stay normal and not orbit around him so he can deal with it. great. so he wants me, his dad, eating his food like normal, on this patch of grass while he recovers from a wasp sting.
in the 1977 film ‘wizards’, one of the oddest movies ive seen, the earth is split between two opposing forces: one side uses technology, and one side has forbidden technology and instead uses magic. i thought this was an interesting lens to view the present AI discussion through.
the term “magic” gained its present english meaning at a time when our society was entirely religious. so, obviously, socially dominant religion with its hierarchy, history, and institutions used the term magic to denote what was outside it: witches, the occult, and such things.
however, we no longer live in that world. today, if we remove the baggage from the word magic, we have to be slightly honest and admit that talking to superhuman beings, items with supraphysical holy influence, casting out demons - this is all “magical”, as opposed to scientific.