Forest Wizard

Tag: reality

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  • A Magical Update: My entry into the Golden Dawn system of magic

    A Magical Update: My entry into the Golden Dawn system of magic

    Near the end of June I started keeping a magical journal.

    It was something I always intended to do, since every spiritual teacher and system instruct you to do so, but the blank page terrified me. What am I supposed to write in there? What if someone finds it? What is the purpose of this record? Is it a regular journal but with moon signs? Do I write in code? Am I gonna fuck it up?

    My indecisiveness and need to find “the right way” frequently keeps me from starting anything in earnest. It’s one of the demons I’m trying to exorcise.

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  • The (In)Stability of our Realities, and the Importance of Silence

    The (In)Stability of our Realities, and the Importance of Silence

    Pretext: Reality, Magic, and the MAGA Mindset

    Reality

    As mentioned in the above linked blog post, reality is how an individual realizes the actuality. What we individually understand to be the real world is, in fact, our own reality, which is itself only our physical body’s interpretation of the stimuli around it.

    Think about that for a minute. We have spent our lives believing that what we see through our eyes is exactly the same as what every other set of eyes see. We believe we live in a physical, objective world based on facts and laws and math.

    The truth, though, is more complicated. We, instead, have created a world built on the assumption that we are all having the same experience, and we have created language in an attempt to share said experience. To make sense of the experience, we have created systems and structures (like math) to act as scaffolds, allowing us to climb closer to understanding.

    Our brains interpret stimuli that is collected by our sense organs (ears, eyes, skin, nose, tongue) and, together with the knowledge stored within it, our brains then turn all of that information into something we can make sense of: Reality.

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  • The Devil and the Terror of the Threshold

    The Devil and the Terror of the Threshold

    When I started my journey into Rosicrucianism, I was made familiar with the concept of the terror of the threshold. It was brought up in the Neophyte degrees, as a warning that crossing the threshold into the inner chambers of the Order would be terrifying. A Dweller at the Threshold, or sometimes a Guardian of the Threshold would be there waiting for us, attempting to convince us not to proceed.

    In modern Rosicrucian orders, this guardian is one of many roles played out in elaborate scripted rituals intended to create an atmosphere of magic for the postulant. The script requires the guardian to yield to the postulant; otherwise the ritual would end, and the postulant would not be admitted into the given grade.

    However, because my own experience with Rosicrucianism has not yet involved a Temple or Lodge, and solely happens in my own private home sanctum, my understanding of thresholds as a concept has not had the benefit of elaborate plays and group study. Despite learning the material and advancing in the degrees, I had not internalized the importance of knowingly moving into another place.

    As is always the case, what needs to be understood is understood, at the right time, and in the right place.

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  • Reality, Magic, and the MAGA Mindset

    Reality, Magic, and the MAGA Mindset

    Concepts

    Reality

    Studying Rosicrucianism introduced me to the concept of actuality vs reality. The problem in using the concept of reality as a measure of truth, they say, is that none of us can experience the reality of another person or being. The reason for this, of course, is that each of us can only interpret the environment around us with the help of sense organs integrated into our physical bodies.

    I use my eyes to identify a color or shape, for example. You use your eyes to do the same. We can communicate and agree that what we see is a given shape or color. However, we cannot literally see through another set of eyes. We cannot interpret that visual stimuli in the way another does. In short, we have no way to know if the way we interpret the world around us is the same way another does.

    Of course, there are methods of dealing with this, if there weren’t, we’d have a much harder time creating stuff like language and society. In fact, we have all agreed (by way of early childhood socialization) on foundational Truths, such as the real-ness of the physical, and the un-real-ness of the non-physical.

    Despite these large-scale shared Truths, they are still, at the end of the day, a part of our own, unique, personal reality.

    Actuality

    So, if we all experience our own unique reality that no other living being can experience, what, if anything, exists outside of that? What holds our shared realities?

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  • The Word

    The Word

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

    John 1:1

    For a long, long time, my whole life, maybe, I’ve believed that magic requires some kind of secret magic words; exactly like in the movies. All I need to do to get the results I want is to find the right magic words to use.

    I followed a magician several years ago who taught that complicated rituals always work, but people don’t want to do the hard stuff so they don’t do it.

    As time has gone on, I’ve realized that this is obviously not a helpful way to experience existence. In part because it plays into this idea that if you just follow the directions exactly, you’ll do magic. It’s easy to think of magic like baking; you can’t just throw whatever you want into the oven and expect to pull out a load of sourdough.

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  • a new understanding of Temperance

    a new understanding of Temperance

    Temperance is a card that has followed me around my whole life. It’s the card that has come up for me in personal card pulls more than any other, by far. It feels like it’s connected to something very deep inside me.

    So, imagine my frustration when I am unable to figure out the message of the card, again and again. The meaning alluded me completely.

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  • Depression, Magic, and Shifting Reality

    Depression, Magic, and Shifting Reality

    A fairly major part of occultism is the idea that you can shift reality to suit your needs. How this works depends on the tradition or system you subscribe to, but essentially the idea is that you can use your mental powers to create real, physical change around you.

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