Lady Dragonfly wrote:However, you can't say "the senses are illusory" because senses just register the outside reality. If an object is misshapen by poor lighting, it may appear distorted and will be registered distorted; if a person have impaired vision, the image will be distorted, but that is pure physics.
Quite right. I stand corrected; unless we agree that
esse is percipi. But let's not. That way lies tautology. Or put another way: if Jacques Derrida falls in a forest, does anybody know that it is a forest?
Now, about the Witchcraft. Thank you for the information. So, you practice trance?... How different is this trance from, say, Buddhist meditation?
My understanding--and I'm sure Claudius can correct me if I'm wrong--is that in Buddhism, meditation is used to quiet the mind. Witches employ directed meditation, where the mind guides itself (or another acts as guide) along a path where certain features are known in advance. It could be called imagination being put at the service of the will, and some will say it is nothing but imagination. But then, if you're using it to gain more understanding of yourself, that really isn't a concern; though you need to monitor what's going on around you to make sure you stay on course. And if you're a witch, you either accept that at least a piece of what you're experiencing in your wake-sleep state has a level of reality, or you don't.
I don't mean to pry...
Sure you do!
How often do you get to speak with a live, captive witch who isn't a self-aggrandizing salesperson in disguise, and has at least some tenuous contact with reality as we all know and love it?
I don't mind. I'd rather answer questions honestly and leave people to think what they will, they let them imagine what they can, and come out far from the mark.
How do you actually cast spells? Do you combine ingredients, process them somehow, and then utter incantations? Whisper words? Are these words special and must be pronounced a specific way? What language do you use? Does an accent or a messed up syllable matter? (I've just recalled Army of Darkness movie... sorry.
). Or do you send a mental signal to influence things? I am really curious. Do you believe that a thought is material and can affect objects?
Yes, I occasionally cast spells. I don't do it often, and I'm sure some of what I do will simply be described as giving a supernatural tinge to science. For instance, I've regularly used some form of mental displacement to reduce pain for over forty-five years, since childhood, and my early attempts to deal with chronic asthma. I see it as a spell. Psychiatrists I'm sure would have a very different explanation. The point is, it works; and it fits the definition of magic that Aleister Crowley once famously gave: "Magic is the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with the will." Rather broad, I think you'll agree, but I suspect that was his point. What appears as science to some is magic to others. And it may be that what we consider magic and spellmaking today will at some point be recognized as legittimate mental practices--or wish fulfillment fantasies. Perhaps something of both?
There are different ways to cast spells, dating back through recorded history to Ancient Greece: prayer (not that prayer=spell, but that some forms of prayer are spells), talismans, candle work, sex, aromas (which were once regarded as a form of magic), etc. Some magical systems employ a raft of tools to facilitate spellcasting, such as those used by ceremonial magicians in the Golden Dawn, and subsequently carried over into modern witchcraft by the first witch to go public, Gerald Gardner. Some folk magic depends on the so-called laws of contagion and similarity, the point being, not that this censor filled with incense can truly dispel evil spirits, as some priests might say, but that it could trigger sufficient power of belief to change reality in accordance with these views. There are also tales from many religions of holy miracle workers, Christian and Buddhist saints, Jewish tzaddikim, etc, who simply changed reality by willing it at once.
Does it work? Up to each person to decide, isn't it? The spells I've performed have worked, at least, as I've seen it, and I worked hard at them. It could be said that reality would have continued anyway along the path it merrily trundled, whether I had interfered, or not. That's fine if someone believes this. I'm not asking anybody to accept my version of reality as theirs. The spells gave me results, or so it seemed, and I have no way of establishing a control subject for an experiment.
As for languages, colored candles, incense type, etc, there are two schools of thought. One is that you use it all because it's right and proper, with a special affinity for the "work" you are trying to achieve, and makes results more likely to occur. The second is that it's all intended to aid the witch's imagination. Much the same dichotomy has dogged the Roman Catholic Church in arguments over translating the bible or holding the Mass in local vernaculars. Is it possible to consecrate a marriage in the middle of a rain forest with only a branch from a tree, if the priest/ess be true? I follow the second theory, in any case, and I rarely use tools.
I don't mentally influence things, unless I'm trying to work on my body, or to heal pain in another. Then what I mentally influence is more than likely not the thing itself, but a representation of it in my mind, upon which I work.
And, finally, if nothing can be accomplished without little help of physical reality, what is the worth of all these spells?
If I want a certain job, I may have a fantastic resume, but why shouldn't I also help matters along by dressing up a bit for the first interview? I may think I'm a young, muscular Adonis so a first date will go very well, indeed, but wouldn't it help if I let it slip that I owned three major department store chains? It never hurts to find the means of making your chances better.
And in some cases, where physical efforts are impossible, spells can provide an alternative. There, you're playing against the unknown, since you have no way of influencing the outcome physically. You can only believe that what you're doing will make a difference, and if you've had successes before, it certainly helps.
