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 Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 1:27 am
So I was watching Howl's Moving Castle and I had this random thought: What if society did not go scientific and the majority still believed in magic?
We would have institutions devoted to magic; magic would be used in war; it would become a job. Magic would be the fulcrum for everything!
But in this world that did not happen and only Fate knows why. I was discussing this with a friend and comparing my experience of being drunk from a magical/energy user perspective. When I was drunk I had to touch people because I could not sense their energies when I was around them. I could sense nothing!
Now, most people would go, well yah...you were drunk. My friend went along my vein and agreed that my energy levels and my shields were completely off. This is mostly because alcohol is a depressant I am guessing.
What if society didn't go scientific? Would we live in a magical world that many people live in, just not the majority?
Discuss above.
~~~~~~~~~~
Technology for a lot of magical users is wonky and dumb always. Even for non-magical users who have high energy or the unconscious ability to drain energy have tech problems. I came home from visiting my dad one day and I turned on the light in my room. Now I was pissed at my dad, very, very pissed because he's an idiot. So I turned on the light, recently replaced light, and I looked directly at it and ZAP! Goes out.
Now I got even more furious because I knew subconsciously, though not consciously, why that happened. It was only until after I had calmed down had I realized what I had done.
However, science can not explain this. The donors to psychic vampires say they feel cold and low energy (obviously) but sensors can't pick up on this.
Why?
Is it purely psychological? I know that if I tell someone I have cursed them they will believe it and slowly curse themselves and I don't even have to do a thing. Because, even if the target does not believe in magic, in the most primal parts of the brain they still believe in it. That fear is what I am manipulating when I tell them I have cursed them and psychology takes care of the rest for me.
Carl Jung was a fascinating psychologist. My psychologist and I sometimes talk about magic and he usually compares it to psychology because in reality, there is not much difference. Sure, magic can still do things that even psychology can not understand, but there are many similarities. A person who hears voices may have a gift for clariaudience, but in the modern world they deem such a person as crazy and schizophrenic.
What do you think about psychology and magic?
Discuss.
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 6:42 am
1) It would be hard not to "go scientific". If you were given the option to have your teeth extracted using scientifically approved methods involving anaesthetic, or a magickally approved method of laying-on hands, which would you choose? The move towards results that are more-or-less guaranteed to work will trump the unreliable, shaky and altogether unknown land that is magick. I mean, most of the time you can't prove much of anything in magick - with such inability for testing and overall unreliability in results, there's no way a society would come to revolve around it the way they do in fantasy settings.
2) There are similarities between a car and a bike, but it doesn't make them the same thing. I dig treating bits of magick as though it were psychological - it's a useful metaphor/abstraction, and it seems to have made some interesting headway into the occult field - but ultimately, treating magick as though it's "just" psychology - or "just" anything - is confusing the map with the territory: metaphors are for comparison and elucidation, after all.
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 12:22 pm
1) The Inquisition.
2) Oddly enough, this reminds me of Star Trek. One of the books mentions that dilithium crystals look just like quartz, and many dilithium crystals were lying around in natural history museums, private collections, or still in the ground (deemed useless) because no one knew how to tell the difference. There is schizophrenia--if you'd ever met my aunt, there would be no doubt in your mind--but it's just as true that some with clairaudience may be diagnosed with a mental illness. With the level of science we have and all the 'magical' knowledge that has been lost over the centuries (or, at least, not nurtured), there is no fast way to tell.
There is a South Pacific island where, any time someone on the island is sick, the village elder/shaman gets everyone together in a group and gets everyone to talk about what's making them sad, angry, etc. When everyone has spoken and talked honestly about their problems and frustrations, the session is over. 90% of sick people become well again after this talking session. It's safe to assume that the other 10% have some real problem that would need modern medicine to fix, but the other 90%? It's a proven fact that we can make ourselves sick just by being 'down' emotionally. It's also a proven fact that someone who believes they're being ill-wished will sicken, have bad luck, or become clumsy or indecisive--if that person talks out their problems with you (or without you, if it's a personal thing) and clears the air, those bad feelings don't stick as well.
I think science--psychology, physics, and biology especially--is always coming closer to understanding how we and the universe at large work. One day, magic, too, will be explained and understood by it. In the meantime, magic-users are the guy in Panama with mosquito netting, waiting for doctors to discover that malaria isn't spread by poor sanitation.
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 3:14 pm
Oh of course there are still schizophrenics out there, I probably should have been a little bit clearer. But it is sad when someone comes along with a gift and people deem it as a mental disorder. I was listening to a podcast and the psychologist speaking was telling the viewers about her experiences with people that have a gift. However, it would be odd if she wrote that down.
Christianity is a big factor I think in a non-magical society. Even though they rarely killed real magic users or users of the old ways, a lot of knowledge was still Christianized. For example, the Anglo-Saxon charms (I forget how many there are) have been very Christianized. Scholars think that a lot of the wording has been either replaced or taken out based on better copies of the charms.
In the past people who were accused of witchcraft (and I am going to use Isabel Gowdie for this example) were accused as such because people had seen them "flying". As I understand it flying is sending out the spirit of yourself into the night air and off to the Underworld. Robert Cochrane did this often (as he says in his letters) yet no one sees witches flying anymore. Except perhaps children, and they are told "it is just your imagination".
Why? Why do we not see witches flying anymore? Is it because we have lost the actual knowledge on how to fly in the astral realms? Or have humans simply stopped being able to see spirits?
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 4:12 pm
Angus of the Crooked Way Why? Why do we not see witches flying anymore? Is it because we have lost the actual knowledge on how to fly in the astral realms? Or have humans simply stopped being able to see spirits? A better question is - did we ever see witches flying? Just because they were reported to do so - or people reported to have seen them - does not mean that they did.
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 5:54 pm
Mitsh Angus of the Crooked Way Why? Why do we not see witches flying anymore? Is it because we have lost the actual knowledge on how to fly in the astral realms? Or have humans simply stopped being able to see spirits? A better question is - did we ever see witches flying? Just because they were reported to do so - or people reported to have seen them - does not mean that they did. Exactly! But then why do people have the ability to now? Robert Cochrane called it flying, many people today call it astral projection. Are we taking myths and making them reality for ourselves as users of magic?
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 7:53 pm
Angus of the Crooked Way Mitsh Angus of the Crooked Way Why? Why do we not see witches flying anymore? Is it because we have lost the actual knowledge on how to fly in the astral realms? Or have humans simply stopped being able to see spirits? A better question is - did we ever see witches flying? Just because they were reported to do so - or people reported to have seen them - does not mean that they did. Exactly! But then why do people have the ability to now? Robert Cochrane called it flying, many people today call it astral projection. Are we taking myths and making them reality for ourselves as users of magic? Bona fide flying and astral projection are two pretty different disciplines, though. Planes don't astral project.
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 8:04 pm
Is there really any difference between technology and magic? Our technology is the culmination of thousands of years of discovery and imagination. The processes we use to produce our modern wonders are very much like magic.
Hell, our physics and chemistry are much like magic. The only difference is that we have a very good idea of how these things work. That's why they aren't called magic.
When we figure out how "magic" works, it probably won't be called that anymore.
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 10:25 pm
Mitsh Angus of the Crooked Way Mitsh Angus of the Crooked Way Why? Why do we not see witches flying anymore? Is it because we have lost the actual knowledge on how to fly in the astral realms? Or have humans simply stopped being able to see spirits? A better question is - did we ever see witches flying? Just because they were reported to do so - or people reported to have seen them - does not mean that they did. Exactly! But then why do people have the ability to now? Robert Cochrane called it flying, many people today call it astral projection. Are we taking myths and making them reality for ourselves as users of magic? Bona fide flying and astral projection are two pretty different disciplines, though. Planes don't astral project. You are becoming too literal. Cochrane explains flying to be much like astral projection. Not literally moving one's body through the air.
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 5:09 pm
Flying/astral projection:
Scenario 1:
Complete BS, made up because of the myth that witches fly around on broomsticks or are given demon wings by the devil, etc., etc.
Scenario 2:
Some people who could see spirits could see someone astral projecting, which is sometimes described as flight (sans physical body). This would also explain some stories of seeing a witch hovering over a sleeping person's body or walking around outside when they're clearing somewhere else--like a prison cell. Consorting with the devil could simply be someone astral projecting, walking with some spirit or other astrally-projected person. Seeing things like that didn't used to be a sign of mental illness, so those capable of it might have admitted it more freely and failed to block themselves from it.
Or, you know, scenario 1. *shrug* If 2, then 1 would still have happened a lot. There's a lot of evidence that people would just make stuff up about a neighbor no one liked, especially if times were bad.
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 6:59 pm
ArynChris Flying/astral projection:
Scenario 1:
Complete BS, made up because of the myth that witches fly around on broomsticks or are given demon wings by the devil, etc., etc.
Scenario 2:
Some people who could see spirits could see someone astral projecting, which is sometimes described as flight (sans physical body). This would also explain some stories of seeing a witch hovering over a sleeping person's body or walking around outside when they're clearing somewhere else--like a prison cell. Consorting with the devil could simply be someone astral projecting, walking with some spirit or other astrally-projected person. Seeing things like that didn't used to be a sign of mental illness, so those capable of it might have admitted it more freely and failed to block themselves from it.
Or, you know, scenario 1. *shrug* If 2, than 1 would still have happened a lot. There's a lot of evidence that people would just make stuff up about a neighbor no one liked, especially if times were bad. I see, I see. Either way, we make the myths real for ourselves. That's why I like to read Fairy Tales. Lots of good myths to explore further, I feel. Though, a lot of them have been Christianized, but that makes it more fun!
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 8:14 pm
Arcanist Angus ArynChris Flying/astral projection:
Scenario 1:
Complete BS, made up because of the myth that witches fly around on broomsticks or are given demon wings by the devil, etc., etc.
Scenario 2:
Some people who could see spirits could see someone astral projecting, which is sometimes described as flight (sans physical body). This would also explain some stories of seeing a witch hovering over a sleeping person's body or walking around outside when they're clearing somewhere else--like a prison cell. Consorting with the devil could simply be someone astral projecting, walking with some spirit or other astrally-projected person. Seeing things like that didn't used to be a sign of mental illness, so those capable of it might have admitted it more freely and failed to block themselves from it.
Or, you know, scenario 1. *shrug* If 2, than 1 would still have happened a lot. There's a lot of evidence that people would just make stuff up about a neighbor no one liked, especially if times were bad. I see, I see. Either way, we make the myths real for ourselves. That's why I like to read Fairy Tales. Lots of good myths to explore further, I feel. Though, a lot of them have been Christianized, but that makes it more fun! I guess it's one of those Chicken-and-Egg scenarios. Though I'm pretty sure that communing with Cthulhu happened /after/ Lovecraft's publication of the "Call of Cthulhu", regardless of what many occultists seem to believe. Still, there's no shame in taking what was previously mythological, fictional or otherwise a non-practice in reality and making it real; quite the reverse, in fact.
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Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 12:46 am
I kind of like a vision of the Piers Anthony "Incarnations of Immortality" series...
Magic and science living side by side. Granted, it's a bit flashy and out there, but still a cool concept. Limos in the streets and carpets hovering above...jewelry charmed with birth control...fun stuff like that.
Hey, we can dream...
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Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 6:06 pm
Azana Brown I kind of like a vision of the Piers Anthony "Incarnations of Immortality" series... Magic and science living side by side. Granted, it's a bit flashy and out there, but still a cool concept. Limos in the streets and carpets hovering above...jewelry charmed with birth control...fun stuff like that. Hey, we can dream...
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