yes, yes, absolutely not
It’s both tiresome and kind of concerning how people are talking about magic so much here. If you actually believe it’s real, you have an obvious responsibility to demonstrate it to the scientific community because it has humanitarian implications. If not, then save it for roleplaying games or whatever.
Agree. Woo shit is bad for society.
I have a psychotic disorder, so sometimes magic is just completely real to me despite most evidence being to the contrary. Like right now I’m in a magic kick. I can acknowledge right now that it’s likely not real. In a few weeks or months I might even be embarrassed by what I believed. I mainly feel that I’m not hurting anyone with the belief, so I may as well indulge it while it lasts. The biggest danger is trying not to join a cult while I’m stuck in this headspace.
I’m not really qualified for or comfortable with addressing most of this, but could you help me understand what you mean by “believe”? Because if you are able to tell me right now, during the “magic kick,” that it’s probably not real and connect it to your disorder, then it sounds like you are describing that you experience it as being real but might not believe it, like how someone might have a hallucination that they know isn’t real but that doesn’t directly change their experience of it. Am I misunderstanding you?
Yeah, I think it’s a lot like that. Other than just hallucinations, I can have delusions which are a patently false belief that have evidence against that you are incapable of not believing. I did a ritual earlier today and felt the effects. (granted it could’ve been a purely psychological effect because that was the main goal of the ritual anyway) But I am aware of dialectical materialism, and I know it is the accurate way to perceive reality. Just sometimes I find myself stuck in this mindset.
When I was closest to this kind of stuff I wss pushing my brain fucking hard with drugs. Mostly acid and speed so I wouldn’t be sleeping for days at a time and ess tripping hard too often. It put me in a PLACE mentally that feels very similar to what you described. I also felt stuck in it while not like truly believing in my heart of hearts it was real. I don’t know where im going with this entirely aside from i think I get what you’re talking about
That sounds a lot like it. That’s one reason I try not to mess much with drugs: I feel like my brain does some of that on its own, and I don’t need to help it get there. Not meaning to judge people who do use those drugs; that’s just my reason for staying away.
Ive done everything to a decent excess and can honestly say, you aren’t missing much.
Thank you for explaining.
what’s your idea of what magic is?
Anything supernatural. Calling something natural “magic” with no further context to explain that it’s a metaphor is obscurantist.
meh.
Why bother responding if that’s what you’re going to say?
Because it sums my opinion of your opinion nicely. And in a low effort package too.
You asked me, didn’t you? And I answered your question as straightforwardly as I could. There’s no reason you needed to present such worthless, affected nose-thumbing.
Can’t you just own whatever your beliefs are?
I’m shooting for a minimal empirical foundation in my conversational partners here. If you don’t have the experience then I’d rather not take the conversation further.
Are you trying to do magic rn? Are you Chaos Magicking by posting ragebait as a spell to make people angry? Have you ever heard of cause and effect?
I’m not sure what you’re asking here
Yes
Yes
Today while astral projecting I summoned Allah to try and weaken him so our hexing spells would work better.
He is so fucking powerful. I’m not at a power level to do this alone. I barely escaped with my life and I’m spiritually injured to a great amount, but I think I’ll make it.
I can’t imagine what he would do to a new, unsuspecting witch. I’m scared that I will have to face him again soon if I ever want to continue astral projecting. I’m currently burning healing incense and drawing spiritual energy from my crystals to try and heal as quickly as possible.
Please be safe everyone. Allah is much stronger than I first imagined and we will have to do this together if we want to slay a god.
I thought this was c/badposting for a second
Gonna dodge the question here because the answer was yes to all of them at one point.
BUT I RAN INTO A SMALL PROBLEM
Magic is not compatible with a materialist scientific understanding of the world and is thus counter-revolutionary.
You know, most people would discuss it a bit before deciding anything. But not Lemmy people.
What do you mean?
- yes
- a little
- no, i’m a marxist
What is your idea of magic that it is so in conflict with marxism?
- yes
- no
- no
1 - Hallucinogens are a fun time with my partner and close friend(s) and sometimes they can make me very introspective in a way that alters how I live my life.
2 - I’ve attempted meditation but it always feels like a waste of time to me. I could just be reading instead tbh.
3 - esotericism and occultism are really cool from a detached perspective. I adore their aesthetics and especially their history (all glory to Dr. Sledge) but I don’t believe in them.
A good meditation session can be super productive. You can work through some issues that have been burdening you, and put yourself in a noticeably altered mental state that can last days. It only really “works” like 1/3rd of the time for me.
I’ve just never been able to make it there (not for lack of trying) and it gets frustrating. I’ll keep trying and I’ll get it one day but its a slow progression
Meditation is a very big deal to me. At worst indispensable. At best eye-opening.
- Yes.
- Yes.
- No.
I think the process of deep introspection and working with hallucinogens can result in deeply personal metaphors or mystical experiences that don’t really fit in with the quotidian experience, but it’s important to remember that these are just ways of altering your perception of reality, everything outside your skull continues to operate as it always has.
Yes, hallucinogens can be fun and maybe therapeutic. I don’t ascribe higher meaning from the thoughts and feelings though.
No.
No.
Almost nobody understands a standard logical AND operator here in Lemmyville . I’m clearly looking for people for whom the answer to all 3 questions is YES. Because I want to talk to peers.
This is a ridiculous way to disparage people. Technically your question is most literally answered with a single yes/no rather than three, but it is not failing to answer the question to answer for the individual values because their logical relationship to the output is established by the question anyway. People are just giving you fuller answers than “Yes” [end comment] or “No” [end comment]. You didn’t say “only reply if you’re a hippy wizard,” you asked “are you a hippy wizard?”, to which “No” is no less valid an answer than “Yes”.
I would suggest that you spend just a tiny bit of the time you currently spend on logic circuits on pragmatics instead, because it might help you to not feel the need to attack people for answering in a way that would normally be considered more helpful (by means of “showing one’s work”) than spitting out a Boolean.
Honey rather than vinegar so on and so forth. Don’t be a dick
Sorry
For a bit in my early 20s and then I stopped doing 2 and 3 cause they were silly
Nothing wrong with meditation.
Didn’t do much for me. I’m fine with others doing it. I guess i sorta still do it in my own way as well but it’s by really really paying attention to music. Like lie down in a fully black room and only have music. So maybe it is still something I do a lot…I intentionally engage my imagination a lot with free form pointless writing and drawing or just sometimes putting on noise music and spacing out. So that might count but anything typically seen as meditation doesnt do shit for me
Sure, I didn’t mean to say you should still be doing it or anything. I don’t do what I’d consider to be “real meditation” anymore either. What you’re doing sounds cool and I’m glad you get something out of it.
Getting setting out of thing seems to be the point of meditation as far as ive had it explained in any way that makes sense
stop being galaxybrain and become voidbrain
I was a Discordian for a couple years. Im good.
Silly, eh? Well don’t be so sure.
Im sure. I’ve already done all of this and am quite locked into a Marxist materialist view. Cause people are hungry and there is work to be done in the real world.
oh, you accuse me of being unrealistic now. Well why didn’t you say so in the first place?
No. Im saying all of this is irrelevant and useless navel gazing and while you’re pondering ‘What doth life?’ There are real people experiencing real suffering. I dont give a dhit what the meaning of existence is while anyone’s existence is hell. Im saying your priorities are wrong
Ultimately I mostly agree with you, but I think it’s worth considering that some magical belief is a product of suffering and feeling helpless to that suffering, rather than it all being like aristocrats doing alchemical rituals or whatever (but sometimes it’s also that). It’s how some people (misguidedly) try to regain a sense of agency and purpose in their lives, and at least for those people I think it’s our job as Marxists to try to come to them from a standpoint of empathizing and trying to help them have real rather than imagined agency.
Yeah, but when someone is ask fsr gone as OP my patience is empty and even from a tactical standpoint, just not dealing witj their bullshit is the only way. I worked at an organic food store thst made most of its Jmoney selling fake medicine to old people with cancer. They paid the bills depleting people’s wills. It is useless stinkin thinkin that is reserved for those with the time to ponder useless shit. There is work that desperately needs to be done to ensure we have an existence to ponder and im not the most patient person im these regards.
Yeah, my objection might have been inappropriate because OP here is so cagey about communications (what even is “magic”?) that I think it’s fair to write OP off as bad faith. I’ve just known a lot of people like I described, or (by very rough analogy) like the old people who were buying the fake medicine, who are also believing hokum but not from a standpoint of privileged solipsism so much as desperation.
Sounds to me like you just lack experience. And that’s perfectly ok.
No, I got into this stuff and then decided it was nonsense. Tell me then, what is socially productive about drugs and magic? Who does that feed? How does your self centeredness turned into a delusion which you willingly aide with drugs help anyone at all and can you explain why it isnt an incredibly self centered and anti social focus? I know this bullshit like the back of my hand. Go tell that to a sweatshop laborer and see how universal your truths are you useless fucking hippie. I not only got past your trash ideology I openly resent it. Get a haircut. And give me a real response that addresses what I said instead of this passive above it all crap. Substantiate your claims you lazy fucking coward.
I don’t need hallucinogens to see the wonder and beauty of the world tho
its true, only the most powerful magicians draw upon nothing but the power of beanis
All things possible thru beanis
- Yes
- Yes
- Kinda but not really? Being open to the weird and misunderstood instead of fearing the unkown is good in general
Yes No No
Psychedelics are helpful to people on an individual level, but I’ve interacted with too many people who took acid a few times, determined their meaning of life is the truth, and then still act like entitled POS lol
-
Yes.
-
No.
-
Not really. I don’t believe in the supernatural. I think magic is real, but not in a supernatural way at all. Like watching a concert on TV vs being there. There is something “magical” that makes being there more than the sum of it’s parts.
Does “magic” really help you with explaining anything there? It seems like the differences between the two situations are obvious [edit: which is not to undercut their personal profundity or anything, to be clear, I love concerts] and magic is only obscuring the explanation.
-
-
Yes
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Yes, but it was prior to 1
-
Yes, likely as a result of 1.
Magic is real. It’s just very, very small.
Magic is like conventional reality except with fewer assumptions.
If conventional reality involves navigating a game, magic involves navigating a space of games.
If a game is a set of assumptions (and what emerges from that), magic is what you have when you discard some of those assumptions.
I’m pretty heavy on meditation these days (shikantaza).
You can whistle 5 notes that will make a significant chunk of the population feel hunger. If that’s not magic, what is?
What 5 notes? Gonna get rich with a food cart and subliminal messaging
Probably the McDonald’s jingle
Unfortunately these 5 notes have had a curse placed upon them whereby anybody except their owner uses them, they lose a substantial amount of money
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