BOC: 777 was: Re: BOC, tBS: (Imaginos) Overture, sevens...

[Dan Clore]

Jon Browne wrote:
>
> In message <32B33AD9.29C7 at columbia-center.org>, Dan Clore
> <clore at COLUMBIA-CENTER.ORG> writes
> >I just mean trying to perform the magick as experiments based on
> >scientific method, attempting to make controls for different factors,
> >and suchlike.  Of course many people practise magick.  (I'd guess the
> >number in the tens of thousands just for those directly influenced by
> >Crowley.)  What they don't seem to do (or at least don't publish) is
> >keep what Crowley called a "magick record" -- "I did such-and-such under
> >such-and-such conditions, and such-and-such resulted.  Then I tried
> >such-and-so under the same conditions, with this difference in the
> >results."  If a large number of those who practise magick kept these and
> >published them, comparison should easily show what works -- or if it was
> >all just chance that someone got good results doing something one way
> >rather than another.  Like sports figures who develop little rituals
> >because they happen to have had a good game after they did some
> >particular thing.
>
> I see what you mean. Hmm, well, a few people spring to mind. Isreal
> Regardie, Hyatt and Guest for example. Robert Anton Wilson has published
> one or two simple enough "how-to's" as well. It would have never occured
> to me to publish something like that principally because the results
> would be not just personal but infinatly subjective too. Having said
> that, there are published accounts such as these and people chose to
> disregard them for the same reason they disregarded Uncle Alistair in
> the first place. But I would have thought with a little research, you'd
> find hundreds of such accounts. But really, at the end of the day, for
> it to have any meaning, you have to walk the walk. You can't do it from
> an armchair, and I've often been told intellectualising on the subject
> only makes it harder. It doesn't _work_ like that!

The really good works of Regardie, Hyatt, and RAW (the best of the lot)
concern more in the way of psychological exercises.  As far as the value
of their work, I can concede that much.  When I talk about magick,
though, I mean influencing the world outside your nervous system.  It
ought to be incredibly obvious that practicing meditation and such will
change your consciousness.  (Often a very good thing to know how to do.)

And when asking for the support of empirical experiments, I mean more
than the million "how-to" guides on the market.  I want the evidence
that the method works.  As for finding plenty of accounts, sure, you can
find a ton of *completely uncontrolled, unscientific* stories.  Many
good examples of what I don't consider good evidence.  Your statement
about that being too subjective I don't understand; to establish it
would mean making it objective.  And btw, you might remember that RAW
attributes his own practice of ceremonial magick to "the madness of the
sixties".  He seems rather embarrassed by it all.

It is true that people usually just ignore such accounts when they are
published.

The usual viewpoint in these writers, I think, is to work yourself up
into belief *while actually performing an experiment*, but then to look
at the results afterwards with total skepticism.

As far as intellectualising making it harder, well, sounds too much like
a straight-line to me ("Well, that explains a lot about those who claim
success in magick!  Only the stupid can perform spells successfully!"
etc.)

> BTW I've got a *.wav of Crowley doing a spot of Enochian prayer if you'd
> like to hear HMV!

This is actually a recording of Crowley himself?  Send it on over.  And
tell me how to listen to the thing.
--
Dan Clore

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