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Theory: Invocation and Evocation

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      CommentAuthorSekhmet
    • CommentTimeFeb 7th 2010
     # 1quote
    Spinning off from another discussion - talking about the approaches of invocation and evocation of deities and other entities. Is there a dichotomy? What characterizes each approach? Is one or the other more associated with "ceremonial" or "pagan" magic, and what do those terms mean?

    The thread kind of started in Discussions, so here's the setup:
    Sekhmet:From the Female Magicians thread:
    Miss Twist:Obviously I'm looking at this from a very pagan perspective as that's my background and am quite biased in that direction, but the Ceremonial path is just... really obnoxious in the way it approaches things. Demand, command, threaten... words that come up a lot in the conversations I've had with the Ceremonials I know and the literature I've read on those paths and it sits really badly with me...


    I find this interesting. My perception is that ceremonial magic tends to focus on commanding and binding - that is, on evocation - whereas the pagan approach to the spiritual is generally through invocation. Any interest in a thread exploring and explaining the difference between those approaches (and/or in debating whether this dichotomy exists)?


    Gypsy Lantern:I think the term "ceremonial path" is being used in an odd way here. Do you mean Thelema? Golden Dawn, OTO or A.'.A.'. based traditions? Enochian or Goetic based work? Dion Fortune inspired ceremonial? Old style Grimoire magic? I think all of those things tend to be very different, and the things that unite them to the extent that they can be grouped together in to a single "ceremonial path" contain so much diversity that it's not terribly helpful to describe them all as obnoxious and displaying demanding and controlling tendencies.

    "Pagan" is another really broad term, and I never really know what it means. It tends to mean whatever the person using it wants it to mean, which can be wildly different from person to person. So it's difficult to discuss the merits of "pagan" versus "ceremonial" as we have to try and intuit what is actually meant by these catch-all terms.


    Quil:
    Sekhmet:My perception is that ceremonial magic tends to focus on commanding and binding - that is, on evocation - whereas the pagan approach to the spiritual is generally through invocation. Any interest in a thread exploring and explaining the difference between those approaches (and/or in debating whether this dichotomy exists)?


    I'm dubious about "ceremonial" vs. "pagan" as a dichotomy, for the reasons that Gypsy Lantern put forth, but I'd certainly be interested in a discussion of invocation vs. evocation -- though the boundaries between those terms can differ depending on tradition, or the dictionary a person uses! Plus maybe some expansion on the ideas of what it means to command or control.

    I was actually thinking of bringing that up in this thread myself, per Miss Twist's comment... I recently had a bit of a brainstorm about etiquette/politeness in addressing entities, and under what circumstances I was okay with using commanding-type language, particularly to those that are a great deal older than I am.

    Sekhmet:Perhaps better to focus on invocation vs. evocation to start, then?

    Considering GL's comments, though... hmmm. "Ceremonial" magic, for me, has always been a bit of a catch-all for a lot of organizations I perceive as high on formal ritual and "high ceremony" - anything involving initiatory grades, a fraternal structure, Masonic links, Latin names, magic words and summoning things into circles. But yes, that's an awfully diverse selection to be placing under one umbrella. "Pagan" would denote Wicca and other "earth-based" and reconstructionist religious groups, which tend to be more loosely organized and focused more on worship. There's a lot of grey area there, though, and part of the reason I'm interested in discussing this is to examine these notions because I'm not sure they're either accurate or helpful.

    I can't speak for Miss Twist, obviously.


    Gypsy Lantern:I actually have problems with the whole "invocation" and "evocation" dichotomy as well, and tend to think that those classifications exist primarily in the mind of the user, rather than in any concrete sense. When I bring the Lwa, it is difficult to categorise that as invocation or evocation, it just is. It's definitely a process of calling a presence into the room, but that is also accompanied by a strong internal presence or overshadowing which can segue into possession. It would feel very artificial to try and divide that experience up into "invocation" and "evocation", which makes me wonder whether it is the same in other contexts, and things are only experienced in this way because your expectations have been conditioned into those categories at the outset, regardless of what happens. Invocation/evocation often feels like one of those things that gets uncritically taken on board as a way of ordering magical experience, when it might not be hugely helpful. Certainly I prefer to keep things more flexible myself.


    Xstacy:Please do start! I think there's a lot to pick over :) Re GL's comments about invocation /evocation, is it more about the approach, thro devotion or command? The perceived position and nature of the magician in the cosmos being a key difference here I think.


    So, yes - lots to pick at here.

    First hurdle is probably defining the terms under discussion... One definition of the distinction between invocation and evocation can be found here, where it's characterized, roughly, as the difference between summoning and inviting. However, I've also seen "evocation" used as Gypsy Lantern seems to be doing above, as involving overshadowing or possessory work, and invocation as calling a spirit into presence.
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      CommentAuthorSekhmet
    • CommentTimeFeb 7th 2010
     # 2quote
    Gah, already muddied the waters by getting my terms reversed in the last sentence above. Sorry.
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      CommentAuthorQuil
    • CommentTimeFeb 7th 2010
     # 3quote
    Sweet!

    Okay, to clarify terms straight off ...

    I don't use the words evocation or invocation to describe my own practice, partly because they seem incongruous with the way I talk to spirits/gods*, and partly because I've always been unclear on exactly what they entail anyway. Dictionaries often use them almost as synonyms, with both words meaning something like "to summon, to conjure up" in this context. Sounds like "invocation" has something more of a feel of petitioning/entreaty (to a deity?), with a willingness to have that entity take at least some control of the situation, and/or the magician's body itself ... Might involve more worshipful praise, I suppose?

    While "evocation" is perhaps less deferential -- a practice applied to entities that the magician wouldn't necessarily want to worship or be possessed by. Almost a high/low magic division there, although that's a can of worms in itself ...

    *As an example. I recently wrote up a small charm-type-thing for moving-home purposes; it's meant to serve as an announcement of the speaker's presence to whatever might already inhabit the household. I'd have a very difficult time calling that invocation or evocation -- its tone isn't much of a petition/supplication, nor an explicit command -- it's more like the opening move for beginning a matter-of-fact polite discussion. Is that an invocation because it's a request, not an order? An evocation, because it doesn't happen to involve possession? My instinct is to say "Nah, it's just talking," then dismiss those two words out of hand; but I dunno, maybe applying them to my work would help me somehow.
  4.  # 4quote
    There's a lot of stuff like that. Talking to the dead, for instance. Both the ancestors in a familial sense, and spirits of boneyard in general. Where do they fit in? It's not like you worship them as a mystery, or aim for possession, but I wouldn't call it "evocation" either. It's more of a conversation, and not much is accomplished by shoehorning it into either box based on preconceived categories rather than direct response to first hand experiential data.
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      CommentAuthorPrincess
    • CommentTimeFeb 7th 2010
     # 5quote
    Is it to do with ideas of movement? With both "invocation" and "evocation" there is a sense of calling from elsewhere. If your dealing with something that's all ready local to you (genus loci or ancestors or whatever) it doesn't have that calling-towards quality.

    If your working in a system where everything is either SuperCoolGod up there or ShittyDemonServant down below, I think you'll end up with ideas of Invocation and Evocation. If the spirits are not a)essentially Other b) separated from you by rigid, huge hierachies or c) far away then you'll end up with something else.
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      CommentAuthorQuil
    • CommentTimeFeb 7th 2010 edited
     # 6quote
    Hmm, okay. But if a tradition/individual does use rituals that they classify as specifically evocation, and that (as a rough description) consist of summoning and commanding by force, does that mean they are necessarily

    - predicating their practice on a large, inflexible hierarchy based on SuperCoolGod vs. ShittyDemonServant thinking?
    - "demanding, commanding, threatening"? (Is that altogether bad? Something that should be avoided? Under what circumstances?)

    I'm sort of spouting questions into the air here, but the kernel of what interests me about this discussion is the implication earlier on: that there might be a problem inherent in systems that divide things so sharply, with evocation very low and invocation very, very high.

    The reasoning seems to be that even if those practitioners don't call the summoned beings "ShittyDemonServants" or whatever, there might still be an attitude that it's fine practice to say "I command and constrain you to do such-and-such, demon, you are bound to my will" -- to speak to whoever you're dealing with in that arguably unethical way. Or maybe it's not unethical, just rude. Not sure.

    Which is, admittedly, a tradition with a very long history; lots of systems encourage the magicians to be very polite to entities they're talking to, but lots of systems have traditions of being potentially as forceful as one wishes, too. There's an ancient Egyptian anti-scorpion spell where the speaker says he'll cut off Horus's hand, then set fire to Osiris and one of his cult cities, if he doesn't get what he wishes. There's magical threatening for you!
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      CommentAuthorPrincess
    • CommentTimeFeb 7th 2010
     # 7quote
    Quil: But if a tradition/individual does use rituals that they classify as specifically evocation, and that (as a rough description) consist of summoning and commanding by force, does that mean they are necessarily

    - predicating their practice on a large, inflexible hierarchy based on SuperCoolGod vs. ShittyDemonServant thinking?
    - "demanding, commanding, threatening"? (Is that altogether bad? Something that should be avoided? Under what circumstances?)


    Good questions.

    In terms of hierarchy, no it doesn't always mean large and inflexible. But I think it does always suggest hierarchy. Even if it is just the small hierarchy of "I am bigger than you so do as I say". I think the presence of a God-up Devil-down system can help with the process though. The ritual torture/threat of torture described in the Lesser Key would be less palatable if it was applied to, for example, something like an animal-totem or ancestor. It's easier to do violence against something "other" and easier again if that "other" has been put firmly in the "evil" category.

    The second question, regarding the threats, is more complex. I'm far from a pacifist, but I will admit I find violence aimed at spirits quite unsettling. Partly because I believe, to some degree or another, that spirits represent something within us. So it reads as self-directed violence in places. But also, because I think magical ethics are more like my everyday ethics. So violence towards others, even others I dislike, is strongly unpleasant.

    Exorcism, yes, I think can require violence. A level of violence is almost essential. If someone moved into my house without my permission and refused to leave then I'd feel quite within my rights to bust out the gun show and deliver fist sandwich. But evocation is different in that you've not only invited the entity, you've also compelled them to come. Kidnapping someone and then beating them until they comply is wrong.

    A second admission is that I don't I understand Goetic methods and that I don't like them. If the spirits are awful enough to allow this treatment, then I'm not sure I want them in my life. If they aren't awful enough to deserve this rough treatment, doesn't that mean I'm being a douche? This may of course have something to do with the fact that a) the few remotely goetic things I've done have ended untidily and b) my increasingly Christian identity brings some baggage of it's own about demon-human interaction.
    • CommentAuthorphilh
    • CommentTimeFeb 8th 2010
     # 8quote
    Princess:Is it to do with ideas of movement? With both "invocation" and "evocation" there is a sense of calling from elsewhere. If your dealing with something that's all ready local to you (genus loci or ancestors or whatever) it doesn't have that calling-towards quality.


    You're on the right track, Princess. "evocation" is from the Latin evocare - lit. to "call out, rouse, or summon" and has its origins in the Roman practice of petitioning the gods of an enemy city to come over to their side - and also in transferring a Roman god from one place to another - for example moving a statue from one temple to another involved prayers and rituals to gain the deities' assent to being moved. "Invocation" is also Latin in origin -invocatio or invocare - lit. "to call" it has both religious and legal usages in the sense of appealing to a higher authority (or someone with greater power) for assistance.

    I think a great deal depends on how one uses these terms. Evocation does not necessarily imply forceful commanding (just because its become associated with the Goetia), and its not unusual to find "prayer" defined as a form of invocation. Yeats for example, described his method of using symbols to provoke creativity as evocation - vision called forth from symbol - as might happen where an image of a hazel tree opens up into a landscape.

    The trouble is, these two terms get defined in a way that is oppositional and exclusionary, rather than modalities which may actually complement each other. I can think of plenty of examples from my own ritual practice where I could be said to be evoking and invoking during different stages of the same ritual. However, as Gypsy says, the terms just don't apply to many aspects of practice, so their usefulness as explanatory categories rather is limited, outside of very particular contexts.
  9.  # 9quote
    Partly because I believe, to some degree or another, that spirits represent something within us. So it reads as self-directed violence in places.

    and

    my increasingly Christian identity brings some baggage of it's own about demon-human interaction

    My grasp of grimoire-based magic is superficial at best, but isn't there a thing somewhere where you see the various demons you conjure as unruly aspects of yourself, and the purpose of the work is to bring them under your control. A bit like Christ confronting the Devil in the wilderness and mastering those aspects of himself. Is there something like that in Abra Melin, which you do after the HGA process? I can see that being compatible with Christianity, albeit in a weird heretical way, and I guess a lot of the people who wrote and worked from the grimoires back in the day probably treat the material in that Christian context. Sorry I don't have a reference for any of that. It's just something I remember picking up from somewhere and thought was interesting. Can anyone elaborate?
    • CommentAuthorphilh
    • CommentTimeFeb 8th 2010
     # 10quote
    Gypsy Lantern:My grasp of grimoire-based magic is superficial at best, but isn't there a thing somewhere where you see the various demons you conjure as unruly aspects of yourself, and the purpose of the work is to bring them under your control.


    Certainly that appears to be Crowley's own view, at least if you take his introductory remarks to his edition of The Lesser Key of Solomon wherein he states that The spirits of the Goetia are portions of the human brain.


    Quil:There's an ancient Egyptian anti-scorpion spell where the speaker says he'll cut off Horus's hand, then set fire to Osiris and one of his cult cities, if he doesn't get what he wishes. There's magical threatening for you!


    Not that uncommon in "pagan" religio-magical traditions of antiquity, as evinced by this invocatory poem from Theocritus:


    "O Pan, you who keep the lovely plain on Homole,
    Bring the boy uninvited into his loving arms,
    Whether it be the delicate Philonos or another.
    And if you do this, dear Pan, no fear the boys
    Of Arcadia with squill across your flanks and shoulders
    Will whip you whenever there is too little meat,
    But if you won't consent, all across your body with your nails
    May you scratch, biting yourself, and sleep in nettles;
    May you be in the mountains of Edonia in midwinter,
    Following the course of the Hebron, near the Bear;
    May you in summer guide your flocks to farthest Ethiopia,
    By the rock of Blemya, where the Nile can be traced no longer."
    Idylls, 7, 103-14

    The poet is in effect saying, "Pan, if you don't answer my prayer, I hope you're going to suffer really badly." (i.e. transferring his own discomforts to the god).
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      CommentAuthorPrincess
    • CommentTimeFeb 8th 2010 edited
     # 11quote
    I think that's an approach. A lot of the grimoires contain a sort of disclaimer which explains the difference between the lovely holy thing they do and nasty black sorcery. So the writers/practitioners obviously placed themselves on one side of a struggle. A lot of the preliminary invocations assume Christianity as a default state for the reader, so yeah. I can see how someone could incorporate this into their Christianity. It would tie in quite nicely with ideas of Christ given authority and "binding and loosing"and such.

    But to my pallette, it's still ick. I find Christian exorcism a dodgy enough area all ready. The idea of not just conquering a demonic foe, but then also asking it to stay round and do your shopping, seems to invite trouble.

    All this, of course, applying only to demonic evocation. Angelic evocation freaks me out a lot less. But that, of course, is nearing that boundary between invocation and evocation again.

    eta: Just googled for "angelic evocation" and came upon some very different occult boards. Thank goodness LN is mostly free of "epic astral battles" ugh. You defeated the king of darkness in ten minutes in your bedroom? Wow, that's just darling.
    • CommentAuthorphilh
    • CommentTimeFeb 8th 2010
     # 12quote
    Gypsy Lantern:...I guess a lot of the people who wrote and worked from the grimoires back in the day probably treat the material in that Christian context.


    Well, grimoires like The Key of Solomon start popping up around the 15th Century. It does help in understanding them, I would say, by examining them in that context. So, for example, one finds that in some grimoires at least, there is an emphasis on "ritual efficacy" in reading and using prepared texts just as one finds in prayer books of the same period. Similarly, some grimoires emphasis confession and prayer as a preparation for summoning spirits. The Liber Juratus (13th C) goes as far to state that only "shriven" Christians can succeed in the magical arts. There seems to have been a widespread medieval notion that prayers were quite similar to "magical spells" and both could be efficacious regardless of whether or not the user knew their meaning. There was a concern that the very practices used by the church to communicate grace could be subverted for magical (i.e. "evil") ends. Whilst the exorcism by clergy was a legitimate practice, conjuring them was not.

    Although printed grimoires start turning up from the 16th century onwards - there does seem to have been a view that in order to be effective, a grimoire had to be copied by hand, using consecrated pen and paper, for it to be considered "magically effective". Parchment remained the preferred medium for creating grimoires and talismans (over paper, despite it being cheaper) right up until the early modern. This is probably related to medieval views of writing as a powerful act in itself and possibly the tradition that "sacred books" had themselves supernatural powers. There was tradition of writing the name of Christ, or smatterings of prayer, onto a piece of bread or cheese, etc.; then ingesting it for a amuletic effect. There is also evidence that monks would clip squares of parchment from priceless books in monastic libraries and use them for making amulets for sale.

    Generally speaking, rituals in the medieval era were held to be effective, regardless of the disposition of those who carried them out, although some medieval theologians opined that demons could not, in fact, be coerced by ritual, but showed up with the intention of deceiving and ensnaring those who were foolhardy enough to attempt to constrain them.The focus on commanding spirits, demons, etc., comes largely from the belief that demons would resist attempts to conjure them and refuse to carry out the magician's instructions - it was very much seen as a battle of wills, with the magician calling on divine aid for help.
    The notion of a demonic hierarchy probably comes originally from the Neoplatonists, but its easy to see how this idea became part of mainstream theology - there was also an ongoing debate as to whether all demons were fallen angels or if some of them occupied a kind of middle ground.

    Much more on this in Owen Davies' latest book, Grimoires: A History of Magic Books and in Richard Kieckhefer's Forbidden rites: a necromancer's manual of the fifteenth century.

    Princess, ask Gypsy to invite you to the secret LN astral paintballing forum
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      CommentAuthorXK
    • CommentTimeFeb 8th 2010
     # 13quote
    Yeah Princess, you have to ask to join. It's like the Mason's recruiting style only with super fancy headgear and breastplates. Its like astral roller derby without the skates and with paint guns.



    The concept of commanding or deal brokering with infernal or divine powers is a bit foreign to me. I mean, I'm down with it as a cultural concept of applying the will to subjugate or align with Powers, but it just doesn't resonate with me. Upon reflection, I think many of the benefits of Ceremonial work have been tossed out with this bath water.

    I do use evocation through story telling quite a bit. Both to call out in the listeners a desired state but also more formerly to bring forth the sacred reality shaped by the story/myth itself. The storytelling is all about evoking a response in the audience and manifesting a specific form of reality.

    Invocation is a relatively new area for me. Asking for a specific intervention by a Power in the course of magical work previously felt like telling Grandma how to suck eggs. I mean, everything was already under Their observation and guidance, yeah? Now with my current work the invocation feels more like a skilled escalation for a specific task. I'm asking for a fix/change outside of my direct ability set on an assigned (to me) task and when it is done, my work on the task resumes. Because of my day job work experience, it feels a lot like asking the senior engineers to take a look at something and then pass the ticket back when that section is resolved.
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      CommentAuthorgrant
    • CommentTimeFeb 8th 2010
     # 14quote
    Princess:...I will admit I find violence aimed at spirits quite unsettling.


    How about burying St. Joseph to get a house sold?

    Same basic origin....
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      CommentAuthormardol
    • CommentTimeFeb 8th 2010
     # 15quote
    I'm sure Joshua Chance had a post somewhere describing how he perceives the lwa as some sort of interconnected power grid. There are the terminals which power your house, who are your spirits, but then there's the big power plant, representing the spirit archetype, which is the source connecting everybody's terminals. So he has his own Baron, and then there's the big Baron you talk of as the Baron powering that. Or something. I thought it was an interesting post at the time anyway that showed how the evocation/invocation line is blurred in voodoo.
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      CommentAuthorPrincess
    • CommentTimeFeb 8th 2010
     # 16quote
    Weirdly, I was thinking about St. Joseph as I typed up the last post. It still squicks me, but not so much as other ritual violence. With St. Joseph, it just seems rude. With more nasty things, it seems rude and worrying.
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      CommentAuthorEmberLeo
    • CommentTimeFeb 9th 2010
     # 17quote
    I know it's traditional if one has, say, a Yangi mound in the house that one regularly feeds, to say "This bad thing happened on your watch, and if you do not fix it by X date, you will be on water and plain candles until it is fixed. If you fix it by X date, I will instead maintain your existing lovely rations, and also give you a shiny bonus of Y thing you like very much."

    It's somewhat coercive pedrhaps, but it's within a context that the spirit in question has already agreed to do certain general jobs in return for a certain standard of pay, and is being told "Hey, I paid you and you let this slip. Am I paying you too much? I'd rather give you a bonus because you'll show me how much you rock on behalf of the household, but if I am paying you too much, I can certainly cut back...."

    Does that make sense to you folks?

    I have to admit, I'm even so not entirely comfortable with it, which may be one of the reasons I don't keep a Yangi mound for my own household (there are several others that have no bearing on this conversation).

    --Ember--
    • CommentAuthorphilh
    • CommentTimeFeb 9th 2010
     # 18quote
    Discussing this brought to mind an example of non-commanding "evocation" from a few years back, when a friend and I made "contact" with the genius loci ("spirit of place") of a local wetland area. We took several sessions (both day and night) just wandering around the area, until we found the place which felt like the heart of the area, a large pond bordered by a grove of trees. One evening, we sat down, and more-or-less "opened" ourselves to the area, whispering to each other what ideas/visions/sounds seemed to be significant. We perceived the genius as a kind of "swamp thing" in appearence, a coagulation of the various flora/fauna and the wetland. After a while (at least an hour) we both had the distinct impression that our presence had been registered, and that the genius was kind of curious, but extremely hesitant (small wonder, given the way the place was treated) so we just sat there and tried our best to be welcoming and at the same time, nonthreatening. Another couple of hours went by, and we eventually went home, satisfied with the brief-but-hesitant sense of contact made. "Something" (could have been an animal, we never saw it clearly) followed us out of the area until we got back to lighted streets. We both had the strong impression that the genius just wanted to be left alone, so that's what we did.
    • CommentAuthorXstacy
    • CommentTimeFeb 9th 2010
     # 19quote
    philh:There seems to have been a widespread medieval notion that prayers were quite similar to "magical spells"

    I'm assuming this a common notion in many other cultures too? I'm certainly seeing it come up a lot at the moment - the idea of there being a separation between prayer and magic seems to be a much later distinction. Perhaps this is where 'evocation' becomes a particular distinction - after all, prayer or magic to a divinity is one thing, but when calling on a 'demonic' force, the medieval magician doesn't want to be accused of worshipping those dark forces ("But your honor, I kept it outside the circle, honest!")

    XK:The concept of commanding or deal brokering with infernal or divine powers is a bit foreign to me. I mean, I'm down with it as a cultural concept of applying the will to subjugate or align with Powers, but it just doesn't resonate with me. Upon reflection, I think many of the benefits of Ceremonial work have been tossed out with this bath water.

    This is something that really interests me. So many of the traditional magical concepts seem rooted in the higher/lower dichotomy. The circle, the banishings (I know these have developed deeper meanings, but I'm guessing these were developments on the medieval concepts?), and particularly the importance of the Will.

    From a perspective of a medieval world filled will recalcitrant demons, developing and honing the Will must have been an absolute essential to avoid being overcome by Dark ForcesTM. Crowley (and others?)'s development of the idea of a True Will seems to be bridging a cultural gap here:

    View 1: The Forces are evil and must be commanded. The magician's willpower is the only thing that keeps him safe
    View 2: But selfish will isn't great either. Therefore we must recognise our True (Godly) will and act in accordance with that. The magician and the forces are both compelled to obey the True Will of the universe

    Does that make sense to you guys?

    EmberLeo:"Hey, I paid you and you let this slip. Am I paying you too much? I'd rather give you a bonus because you'll show me how much you rock on behalf of the household, but if I am paying you too much, I can certainly cut back...."

    Sounds like a servitor-style arrangement to me? I don't know anything about Yangi mounds so I don't mean that they are servitors, but it seems like the same kind of reciprocal relationship, just a longer-term one?

    Actually, that's the area of modern magic that seems most like the older 'command/control/battle of wills' style to me. But even there, the command/control style I've read in some places seems a difficult concept to me - why would I call up a force, then beat them until they comply (thanks Princess!)? Is it a just fluffy modern fallacy that actually, we can manage things much better with a bit of respect?
    • CommentAuthorphilh
    • CommentTimeFeb 9th 2010
     # 20quote
    Xstacy

    Regarding the operative similarity between prayer and magical spells: well attitudes change throughout the period - and there was often a difference between the official church doctrine and popular understandings. On the one hand, there was a belief that the spells of a magician were held to work automatically, whereas a prayer would not be efficacious if God chose not to concede it. Church teachings were fairly clear on this point, but the situation was certainly blurred because the Church also reccomended the use of prayers when healing or gathering herbs. There was also a widespread belief in the efficacy of the repetition of formulae - such as prayers in Latin, regardless of whether they were understood or not. Gradually, the efficacy of prayer widens over time to encompass material circumstances such as ensuring safe childbirth, protection from pestilence, revelation of the date of one's death, etc. Of course the grimoires covered similar territory - hence the overlap between the two. Richard Kieckhefer (above, and also Magic in the Middle Ages) is a very good source for this kind of discussion - he points out that the distinction between "religion" and "magic" was quite fuzzy - that they would not necessarily have been seen as opposites. The only difference between exorcism and evocation, was that the exorcist was struggling to command evil spirits to depart, whilst necromancers were calling on them to serve.
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      CommentAuthorXK
    • CommentTimeFeb 9th 2010
     # 21quote
    philh:Discussing this brought to mind an example of non-commanding "evocation" from a few years back, when a friend and I made "contact" with the genius loci ("spirit of place") of a local wetland area. We took several sessions (both day and night) just wandering around the area, until we found the place which felt like the heart of the area, a large pond bordered by a grove of trees. One evening, we sat down, and more-or-less "opened" ourselves to the area, whispering to each other what ideas/visions/sounds seemed to be significant. We perceived the genius as a kind of "swamp thing" in appearence, a coagulation of the various flora/fauna and the wetland. After a while (at least an hour) we both had the distinct impression that our presence had been registered, and that the genius was kind of curious, but extremely hesitant (small wonder, given the way the place was treated) so we just sat there and tried our best to be welcoming and at the same time, nonthreatening. Another couple of hours went by, and we eventually went home, satisfied with the brief-but-hesitant sense of contact made. "Something" (could have been an animal, we never saw it clearly) followed us out of the area until we got back to lighted streets. We both had the strong impression that the genius just wanted to be left alone, so that's what we did.


    This is a huge portion of my current work but mostly in human co-inhabited spaces trying to suss out what the dysfunction or low function issues are and how to help improve them. Applying the evocation framing to the relationship building process is helpful, thank you.
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      CommentAuthorgrant
    • CommentTimeFeb 9th 2010
     # 22quote
    philh:Xstacy

    Regarding the operative similarity between prayer and magical spells: well attitudes change throughout the period - and there was often a difference between the official church doctrine and popular understandings. On the one hand, there was a belief that the spells of a magician were held to work automatically, whereas a prayer would not be efficacious if God chose not to concede it.



    This is, I think, perfectly consistent with the Bible, by the way - there are a few instances of biblical figures doing magical things that work on their own, but are viewed as wrong because they worked separately from God's consent. (The Witch of Endor is a very puzzling figure in this light - successful necromancer who brings up the spirit of a prophet to issue God's warning.)


    There was also a widespread belief in the efficacy of the repetition of formulae - such as prayers in Latin, regardless of whether they were understood or not. Gradually, the efficacy of prayer widens over time to encompass material circumstances such as ensuring safe childbirth, protection from pestilence, revelation of the date of one's death, etc.


    Still is, actually - that's basically what a novena is, a prayer repeated nine times - usually over nine successive days - to obtain "special graces." (Nine is the number of grief; there's more Catholic numerology under the Catholic Encyclopedia's "Novena" entry.)
    • CommentAuthorphilh
    • CommentTimeFeb 10th 2010 edited
     # 23quote
    grant:The Witch of Endor is a very puzzling figure in this light - successful necromancer who brings up the spirit of a prophet to issue God's warning.>.)


    Yes, and there seems to have been quite a bit of debate as to whether the Witch of Endor was a seer, or an archetypal necromancer - although many medieval theologians followed the view of Augustine and Hippolytus that Saul had spoken with a demon masquerading as Samuel, rather than Samuel himself. The Witch herself is sometimes given the name Phitonissa in medieval texts - a rendering of "Pythonissa" from the Latin Vulgate Bible 1 Kings 28:7 - mulier Pythonem habens("a woman having the python"). By the 16th century, the case of the Witch of Endor was being used to argue that anyone who practiced "beneficient" magic, or who used the services of those who did (i.e. cunning folk and their clients), was implicitly making a pact with the devil and therefore was as much a sorcerer as any other bringer of maleficium
    • CommentAuthorXstacy
    • CommentTimeFeb 10th 2010
     # 24quote
    philh:On the one hand, there was a belief that the spells of a magician were held to work automatically, whereas a prayer would not be efficacious if God chose not to concede it.

    grant:there are a few instances of biblical figures doing magical things that work on their own, but are viewed as wrong because they worked separately from God's consent.

    So in a religious setting, magic is effectively forcing God's hand? That also makes sense of the vital importance of Will, to set oneself up against the edicts of God.

    I've been reading up on some Egyptian beliefs at the moment (sadly Amazon haven't delivered yet, so this is more compilations from the web than anything) and they don't seem to have a separation between prayer and magic - there is healing, divination through dreams and the creating of amulets and talismans, but these require the blessing of the Gods to succeed. I guess they did evoke Gods into their representative figures in the temples, but this doesn't seem to be with the intent of binding or commanding, just providing a more direct link between the populace and their Gods.
    •  
      CommentAuthorPrincess
    • CommentTimeFeb 10th 2010
     # 25quote
    I thought the point of the Will was to align yourself with the edicts of God? I am completely misunderstanding Thelema? Or is this a different Will?
    • CommentAuthorphilh
    • CommentTimeFeb 10th 2010 edited
     # 26quote
    Xstacy:So in a religious setting, magic is effectively forcing God's hand? That also makes sense of the vital importance of Will, to set oneself up against the edicts of God..


    Not really. What I said earlier was "The focus on commanding spirits, demons, etc., comes largely from the belief that demons would resist attempts to conjure them and refuse to carry out the magician's instructions - it was very much seen as a battle of wills, with the magician calling on divine aid for help. It was more likely that a magician would invoke the power of God to assist them to coerce a demon to give them what they wanted. Medieval views of demons were complex and heterogenous, and there was a great deal of debate as to how demons related to God and what was the cause of misfortune in the world. Misfortune could be explained by capricious spirits, a consequence of sin, bad luck, or chance. Augustine, for example, differentiates between disciplinary punishments (intended to correct the sinner) and storms, earthquakes, famine etc., as consequences of man's "common condition of wretchedness." He argues, more-or-less, that although divine providence was the ultimate cause of misfortune, placing the responsibility for catastrophes on fallen angels or evil men was misguided and an evasion of personal responsbility. Demons (in the view of Augustine and some of his successors) were very much thought of as "fallen angels" who enacted God's punishment - although demons appear to be independent, their behaviour was theologically, at least, constrained by God. As to the idea that there was a belief that the spells of a magician were held to work automatically - at least there was a "claim" that that this was the case - with the caveat that spells were often frustrated because of a mistake made in their enactment.

    Thomas Aquinas later modified this perspective by arguing that God was wholly good - and although he permitted evils to happen, he did not cause them to happen. For Aquinas, demons attacked men through temptation and punishment. The Devil was allowed to tempt a person of his own choosing, and if the person succumbed to temptation, the Devil was "allowed" to punish him because by sinning, the person has placed themselves in the Devil's power. By the late 13th century, it must have seemed that God was less intent on supervising demons, and that demons had a greater share in the cause of misfortunes. There was more focus on demons as causing misfortune in the world - and it is within this context that magic was understood. Demons were sometimes written about as having their own "will" and at least had the capacity to resist coercion - one 15th century text states that they "pretend" to be compelled, and only appear to lure necromancers further into sin. Moreover, demons were viewed as inherently untrustworthy, and thus had to be compelled to tell the truth.

    The Augustinian view gave magic only limited power - the emphasis is on examining your own conscience rather than pointing fingers in the direction of witches (Augustine tends to talk about magic as a "futile" although something still to be shunned). There was a widespread view in the 13th century that Christ's triumph over the Devil implied that Christians were immune from sorcery, and that even if harmful magic was occasionally effective because demons were permitted to punish men, it wasn't something that happened very often. A related idea was that magic could only really effect people who were already sinners. Sometimes one does find in grimoires the same theme - that magicians invoke the power of Christ over demons in order to constrain them. If you look at the restraining powers in medieval grimoires, it is very common to find conjurations calling on the power of God, Christ, the Saints, the Virgin Mary, Angels, etc. in order to constrain and coerce. Again, there is a lengthy discussion of this in Kieckhefer's Forbidden Rites.

    ...developing and honing the Will must have been an absolute essential to avoid being overcome by Dark Forces.


    Certainly demons could be resisted through will insofar as one had the choice to resist their blandishments - but I'd suggest that if you want to know more about the concept of Will in the medieval era, Augustine is a good place to start, since the western concept of free will more or less starts with his ideas. Crowley was certainly influenced by Augustine to a degree.
    •  
      CommentAuthorgrant
    • CommentTimeFeb 10th 2010 edited
     # 27quote
    Xstacy:
    So in a religious setting, magic is effectively forcing God's hand? .


    From my understanding of the Bible, it's more like trespassing on God's domain.

    Within the Old Testament, at least, I get a definite sense of God as a kind of King of Spirits, a very powerful invisible and spiritual being who lays claim to certain kinds of activity - things that can be done by humans or even, maybe, other gods... but shouldn't. For example, there's the story of the fallen angels that's alluded to in Genesis and is the main focus of Enoch. Angels came down and bred a race of monsters by lying with human women. God did not approve and, depending on your reading, sent the Flood as a response. In Job, Satan is *allowed* to do all those terrible things to test Job's faith. Tobit also has a woman being tormented by a demon (who also destroys seven of her suitors), who is defeated by a man following an angel's advice. So there's all this action going on behind the scenes that God really doesn't interfere with directly, and isn't responsible for in a "forcing his hand" kind of way.

    There's a theme in Tobit of praying for death, with the moral that the time of death is God's turf - if you start messing around with it, you're messing with God's "plan" (a word which I'd argue can be thought of here in an architectural sense, like a map or survey).
    •  
      CommentAuthorgrant
    • CommentTimeFeb 10th 2010
     # 28quote
    philh:... many medieval theologians followed the view of Augustine and Hippolytus that Saul had spoken with a demon masquerading as Samuel, rather than Samuel himself.


    That's brilliant. I don't remember hearing that before, but I do remember being perversely thrilled by the footnotes to that story in my Catholic study Bible because they had a kind of torturous logic-spiral feeling. I bet they're online....

    Heh: 1 Samuel 28:12, note 1: Human beings cannot communicate at will with the souls of the dead. God may, however, permit a departed soul to appear to the living and even to disclose things unknown to them. Saul's own prohibition of necromancy and divination (1 Sam 28:3) was in keeping with the consistent teaching of the Old Testament. If we are to credit the reality of the apparition to Saul, it was due, not to the summons of the witch, but to God's will; the woman merely furnished the occasion.

    Needless to say, I didn't buy the first assertion in that note as being in the biblical text at all, since the verse is clearly about someone whose job it was to communicate with the dead actually communicating with the dead. Saul hired the woman because she was known for doing this....

    The Witch herself is sometimes given the name Phitonissa in medieval texts - a rendering of "Pythonissa" from the Latin Vulgate Bible 1 Kings 28:7 - mulier Pythonem habens("a woman having the python"). By the 16th century, the case of the Witch of Endor was being used to argue that anyone who practiced "beneficient" magic, or who used the services of those who did (i.e. cunning folk and their clients), was implicitly making a pact with the devil and therefore was as much a sorcerer as any other bringer of maleficium


    Is that Python as in "Oracle of..."?
  29.  # 29quote
    The whole Pythoness thing is really interesting from a Voodoo perspective, given that witch women of Voodoo dance with serpents. Where does Pythonissa come from?

    Was the Witch of Endor an Ewok?
    •  
      CommentAuthorPrincess
    • CommentTimeFeb 10th 2010
     # 30quote
    We also have a Python spirit in Acts 16:16.

    "And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain girl, having a pythonical spirit, met us, who brought to her masters much gain by divining." - (Douay-Rheims Translation)

    The notes on that page suggest that "python" was a catch-all term for any spirit offering advice in a way similar to the Pythian/Delphic oracles. Apollo actually gets a name check in the notes from the People's New Testament.

    I'm assuming that the original text of Samuel didn't mention snakes of any stripe? I'm searching...

    and have found this website which says the word used was "owb".

    From the website: "The Hebrew word for medium is owb, and it has the idea of “mumbling” or speaking with a strange, hollow sound - as if one were “channeling,” with a dead person speaking through them. The Hebrew word has in mind the sound the channel makes as they speak"

    I fear we stray from the topic. But interesting stuff.
    •  
      CommentAuthorPrincess
    • CommentTimeFeb 10th 2010
     # 31quote
    x-post with Gypsy. Funnily, I was trying to work that into an owb-i Wan Kenobi joke. Just couldn't get it all to fit.
    • CommentAuthorphilh
    • CommentTimeFeb 10th 2010
     # 32quote
    Gypsy Lantern:The whole Pythoness thing is really interesting from a Voodoo perspective, given that witch women of Voodoo dance with serpents. Where does Pythonissa come from?


    Fascinating, isn't it? According to some sources, the Greek Phitonissa first turns up in the writings of the 4th C Bishop Methodios of Olympos as relating to the Delphic oracle. It passed into Latin where it became pythonisse and is used to signify a prophetess or sorceress. A text "On the Pythonissa" is atrtibuted to Hippolytus. Phitonissa turns up in Chaucer's "The Friar's Tale" where it is used in reference to the Witch of Endor.
    •  
      CommentAuthorgrant
    • CommentTimeFeb 10th 2010
     # 33quote
    Just peeking around Google, I find this book that links Python with "Set-Typhon" on the one end and the dragon of Revelation 12 on the other.

    I'm not sure about Set's relation to things from further south in Africa... snakes are a little different in Bantu myths, I know (they're wiser and less ambitious), but those are also not the same as the cultures around West Africa.
    •  
      CommentAuthorEmberLeo
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2010
     # 34quote
    philh:I'd suggest that if you want to know more about the concept of Will in the medieval era, Augustine is a good place to start, since the western concept of free will more or less starts with his ideas. Crowley was certainly influenced by Augustine to a degree.


    Because I've only recently been reviewing Augustine in the Mysticism in Catholicism class I'm helping with, I feel the knee-jerk need to point out two potentially obvious things:

    1: Augustine wasn't medieval himself, he was late-Roman period.
    2: It was Augustine who said "Love, and do as you Will", which is obvious to anyone familiar with modern Western Magic Tradition as being connected to Crowley's "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Love is the law, love under will."

    What someone better acquainted with Crowley may be able to tell me is whether he was agreeing with Augustine or turning him around. Augustine's point was that if we truly Love God, our will must be united with His, at which point our Will is the True Will, and cannot be wrong, so as long as you fully Love God, do as you then Will and everything is fine.

    I would expect Crowley actually reinforces that, but if he says Love *under* Will, that sounds like he's turning it around?

    Anyway, that one has been nagging me to get to for a while now (since I picked up Augustine, actually), and I haven't had the bandwidth to go digging for clarity, because I don't have time right now to seriously study Crowley and I don't trust that a brief overview will do me any more good now than it already has.

    Not sure how well this ties in with the Invocation/Evocation question...

    --Ember--
    •  
      CommentAuthorgrant
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2010
     # 35quote
    Union with God, involving love and will? It's relevant!
  36.  # 36quote
    I think the Crowleyan and Augustinian constructs are fundamentally the same (shocking statement), though in focus and direction they would be different. Maybe the only essential difference would be found in the respective definitions of sin. For Crowley, the word of sin is restriction. His is the love realized by the marriage of opposites as mandated by the true will--which is at once God's will. There are of course many philosophical similarities between Thelema and Christ via the God-Man mystery. Not worshipping Christ, but a system for becoming Christ. Crowley's system is scientifically focused on the microcosm, whereas Augustinian way is mystically focused on the macrocosm.


    -s-
    •  
      CommentAuthorPrincess
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2010 edited
     # 37quote
    Christianity is a system for becoming Christ. I think your worship Christ/become Christ opposition is too simplistic. Christianity does, and I assume Augustine did, see the two as related pursuits.

    Crowley's system is scientifically focused on the microcosm, whereas Augustinian way is mystically focused on the macrocosm.

    What does that mean? Why is Crowley more scientific? What makes you say that Augustine was particularly macrocosmic?

    eta: St. Augustine's writing is sometimes intimately microcosmic:

    Late have I loved you,
    0 beauty ancient, ever new!
    Late have I loved you!
    For behold, you were within; and I without
    And without I sought you,
    and deformed I ran after these forms of beauty you have made.
    You were with me and I was not with you.
    Those things held me back from you,
    Things whose only being was to be in you.
    You called; you cried; and you broke through my deafness.
    You flashed, you shone, and you chased away my blindness.
    You became fragrant; and I inhaled and sighed for you.
    I tasted and now hunger for you.
    You touched me and I burned for your peace.
    •  
      CommentAuthorEvan
    • CommentTimeFeb 11th 2010 edited
     # 38quote
    So much to discuss here I don't even know where to start.

    Acceptable vs. unacceptable magical practices in the Bible -- the key provision is Deuteronomy 18:

    There shall not be found among you one who passes his son and his daughter through the fire, a kosem of kesamim, a me'onen, a menachesh, and a mekhasheph. And a chover of chever, and one who asks an ov and a yide'oni, and one who seeks of the dead.

    Also, you can't let a mekhashepha live (Exodus 22:17), you can't tenachashu or or te'onenu (Leviticus 19:26), and if you nakav, you should be put to death (Leviticus 24:10-16). But a kosem also can be a hero, wise in charashim and an expert in lachash. (Isaiah 3:2-3.) The Bible also has chartumim, gazrin, ashaphim, and casdim.

    What do those terms mean? As Gideon Bohak points out in Ancient Jewish Magic, we can guess (based on etymology and context) but we don't really know. They were technical terms of the time, later interpreted to have whatever meanings later people thought were appropriate.

    (Compare: "At my party I'm fine with Mods, hippies, hipsters, and certain punks -- skins if they're SHARPies, finheads, peace punks, whatever. But no Teds or National Front assholes." How would people interpret that 100 years from now? How about 1000?)

    On a related note, here's what Bohak saw as the key distinction between holy acts and magic:

    the biggest difference between the Jewish holy men and the magicians seems to have been that the former relied on their own innate powers, and on readily available paraphernalia, to perform their miraculous deeds. The magicians, on the other hand, relied on an acquired body of knowledge . . . and often also on specifically magical implements, materials, words, and symbols, to perform their own miracles. . . .

    Had they the power to perform such deeds without this special technology, they would probably never have bothered to learn it at all. But as not all of us are holy men, some of us must learn how to do what to others comes naturally -- or by the grace of God.
  39.  # 39quote
    Princess, I am not familiar with your quoted passage, but my impression is to read this within the Christian context as I know it, with no change in my thinking. I'll concede though that this use of within and without does seem to illustrate your point.

    I still don't think that this passage suggests that the microcosm is given more importance, but merely that its importance is affirmed. I'll try to rephrase at any rate. Where I said focus I should have said emphasis. How about restraint or purification within the microcosm (Christian), as opposed to absolute expression of the microcosm (Thelema)?

    Also, I have a hard time arguing the semantics of this within and without, self and other, because this isn't a micro-macro- debate as much as a perceptual argument. Would Augustine accept the statement there is no god but man? Augustine would consider the ideal to be that of God (macro) and Crowley would consider the ideal to be man (micro).

    Thelema is perhaps only implicitly about faith (though probably not at all), whereas with Christianity, faith is central. I say Scientific as regarding the process, the method, not with any sort of value judgement.

    Christian doctrine that I am familiar with would place emphasis on faith as opposed to some method, such as grades of initiation. I would dispute your claim that the Christian aim is to become Christ, which is (though I make no claims as a Crowley scholar) what, among other things, Crowley and/or his philosophy was aimed at accomplishing.

    I believe even most Christian mystics would consider your assumption heretical. I know that even some radical Benedictines and a religious demonologist that I am friends with certainly would.


    -s-
  40.  # 40quote
    One more note of clarification. The implication about becoming Christ is to achieve the same status and/or go beyond it, not merely to achieve some degree of communion with Christ's holiness.
    •  
      CommentAuthorPrincess
    • CommentTimeFeb 15th 2010
     # 41quote
    I still don't think that this passage suggests that the microcosm is given more importance, but merely that its importance is affirmed. I'll try to rephrase at any rate. Where I said focus I should have said emphasis. How about restraint or purification within the microcosm (Christian), as opposed to absolute expression of the microcosm (Thelema)?

    That rephrase helps, thankyou. I can see your argument, but I think the micro/macro thing in Christianity is more complex than that. One on hand, yes, it's about purifying out the nasty stuff. But there is another side to that. Mainstream Christian theology is very clear that mankind is essentially good. Sin, or fault or whatever, is seen as unnatural addition to God's good work. There's a big current in Christianity suggesting that our aim is "full" expression of humanity as opposed to the "partial" humanity we live with now. Jesus is often called "the first real human" or "the most human human" and things like that. C.S. Lewis makes a big deal of this. He says Christianity is designed to turn tin-soldiers into real men.

    Also, I have a hard time arguing the semantics of this within and without, self and other, because this isn't a micro-macro- debate as much as a perceptual argument. Would Augustine accept the statement there is no god but man? Augustine would consider the ideal to be that of God (macro) and Crowley would consider the ideal to be man (micro).

    Augustine probably wouldn't say that exactly, no. But this is where a Trinitarian Christology makes things complex. Christ, who is eternally co-existant with God the Father, is a man. So it depends how you are understanding that statement. If it means God is came from mankind, or that he doesn't exist without us, then no that's not Christianity. But most Christians would agree that there isn't such a thing as God who isn't also Jesus. And Jesus is a guy. And Jesus is, they'd also agree, present in every human being.

    An easy way of saying it might be this: I am not God, but God is me.

    Thelema is perhaps only implicitly about faith (though probably not at all), whereas with Christianity, faith is central. I say Scientific as regarding the process, the method, not with any sort of value judgement.

    Ah, I see. For most Christians, yeah, I'd say this was a fairly safe statement. I know little about Thelema as it relates to the Scientific Method. So if you'd like to give more information, that would be cool.

    I would dispute your claim that the Christian aim is to become Christ, which is (though I make no claims as a Crowley scholar) what, among other things, Crowley and/or his philosophy was aimed at accomplishing.

    Maybe they wouldn't use those words, but I think the idea of people-->Jesus is pretty prevalent. We talk about living our lives "in" Christ. Not by him, or under him, but "in" him. There is a sense in which the Christian life is subsumed into a greater one. We talk about Christ living "in" us too. St. John of the Cross had this idea, which is still influential, that the lover comes to resemble the beloved. So as we love God we grow in resemblance to him.

    Also, as we embrace our full humanity, we come more and more to resemble the unique image of God we where meant to be.

    But I still see the distinction you are making. Maybe. There is an image of men-into-Gods that focuses on power. The human person will never have the authority of God except as a gift. So no, in that sense Christian's aren't trying to become Gods.

    But we are invited to live and interact with God on a level equal to that of Christ (who is also God, confusing, non?). A reccuring metaphor I hear is that when God the Father looks at us he sees God the Son.

    A metaphor that appears in my head, but which might useless, is that we aren't able to stomp around like Gods. But we can dance like them, eventually.


    I believe even most Christian mystics would consider your assumption heretical. I know that even some radical Benedictines and a religious demonologist that I am friends with certainly would.

    I think I'm being pretty mainstream here. C.S. Lewis mentions it in "Mere Christianity" which is about as orthodox/catholic (no caps) as things get. The mystical union between God and the believer is mentioned by pretty much everything. The Anglican marriage service (third largest communion, so fairly mainstream) mentions quite clearly that the "one flesh" quality of marriage is a mirror of Christ's union with the Church. So Christians and Christ are, in some mysterious way, one thing. (And, I feel I should mention this, all the Christians I've ever met would agree that he's non-Christian humans too. A lot of writing I've read on social justice focuses on this)
    •  
      CommentAuthorgrant
    • CommentTimeFeb 15th 2010
     # 42quote
    Life in Christ is pretty right on with my perception, but...
    Mainstream Christian theology is very clear that mankind is essentially good. Sin, or fault or whatever, is seen as unnatural addition to God's good work.


    ...is kind of at odds with most of my understanding. The central belief about humanity is that we're all sinful and require salvation. It's nothing we do - we're all born that way. The world we live in is flawed compared to the Kingdom of God - sometimes the wicked flourish and the virtuous suffer. And we all fall short of the ideal.

    We're all *capable* of goodness, sure, and we all have an inherent value as humans, made in God's image (with the capacity to create, the knowledge to know good from evil, all that jazz), but we're also spiritually weak and don't always make the choices we say we should.
    •  
      CommentAuthorserapionskot
    • CommentTimeFeb 15th 2010 edited
     # 43quote
    But I still see the distinction you are making. Maybe. There is an image of men-into-Gods that focuses on power. The human person will never have the authority of God except as a gift. So no, in that sense Christian's aren't trying to become Gods.

    Yeah, I think power is a good concept to maybe see differences. It is a central idea in Thelema that it is a false god that would deny a human any measure of power and pleasure. It is man that does this to himself. From another perspective, I think Thelema says No God.

    So Christians and Christ are, in some mysterious way, one thing. (And, I feel I should mention this, all the Christians I've ever met would agree that he's non-Christian humans too. A lot of writing I've read on social justice focuses on this)

    I admire this very much. I do hope to be reconciled with Christianity by this sort of sentiment. I really think it is beautiful that you say he's non-Christian humans too. I'll just attribute this to my faulty interpretation and assume yours.

    Out of curiosity, what can you say, if anything, about magical ethics from a Christian perspective. Have you read Meditations on the Tarot--Anonymous? I would be interested in a new post on all things esoteric Christian? Maybe there has already been one?
    •  
      CommentAuthorEmberLeo
    • CommentTimeFeb 18th 2010
     # 44quote
    Serapionskot: I would dispute your claim that the Christian aim is to become Christ, which is (though I make no claims as a Crowley scholar) what, among other things, Crowley and/or his philosophy was aimed at accomplishing.

    I believe even most Christian mystics would consider your assumption heretical. I know that even some radical Benedictines and a religious demonologist that I am friends with certainly would.

    Hmm, I've been going over Christian mysticism, mostly Catholic, and there is a through-thread of Union with God. In a Trinitarian context, that not only includes Christ, but reflects the state of being Jesus was necessarily in AS Christ.

    Grant: Mainstream Christian theology is very clear that mankind is essentially good. Sin, or fault or whatever, is seen as unnatural addition to God's good work.

    ...is kind of at odds with most of my understanding. The central belief about humanity is that we're all sinful and require salvation. It's nothing we do - we're all born that way. The world we live in is flawed compared to the Kingdom of God - sometimes the wicked flourish and the virtuous suffer. And we all fall short of the ideal.

    Two things. 1: Augustine is who brought up the whole Original Sin thing, for what it's worth in this conversation. 2: Actually you're agreeing there, according to my understanding. We're born in sin because of Eve's Original Sin, which was the departure from God's good work, and humanity's intrinsic positive value. Our work is to get past sin so that we can again unbury that innate goodness God gave us, which is obscured by the unnatural sin which we brought upon ourselves as a group, and individually.

    There's a lot of stuff in Augustine and others about clarifying the Image of God within each of us, and how that Image means we're truly good no matter how much we seem to suck. Augustine had a lot of trouble with that because he was, at heart, heavily influenced by Neo-Platonism, and the tendency to believe that everything physical was just crap to be avoided/discarded in favor of higher spiritual, noncorporeal bliss.

    --Ember--
  45.  # 45quote
    I mean in Thelema initiates are potentially to become God-men and establish themselves as the highest principle. Christians do not seek to establish their own logos, only merge or become as you say, AS Christ. That is what I mean along the microcosm and macrosm axis. In Christian mysticism there is always this sense of allowing a space for Christ to fill as opposed to Crowley's "I have crushed an universe and nought remains."
    •  
      CommentAuthorgrant
    • CommentTimeFeb 18th 2010 edited
     # 46quote
    EmberLeo:Augustine is who brought up the whole Original Sin thing, for what it's worth in this conversation.


    You're saying the doctrine of Original Sin dates back to Augustine and not before?

    I've never really thought about it much, but always thought it was basically biblical. Edit: Romans 5:12 sure seems to be about Original Sin, admittedly in a post-Augustinian translation.
    •  
      CommentAuthorEmberLeo
    • CommentTimeFeb 18th 2010 edited
     # 47quote
    The "Original Sin" interpretation is attributed to Augustine according to the Catholic scholars I'm taking classes from at SCU, yeah. Mind you, Augustine wouldn't have pulled it out of thin air, but having it put that way, and made a dominant doctrine that informs everything else as a base perspective? Augustine.

    Or so I am told by a variety of Catholic academics...

    [edit] Oh, I see - yeah, the passage you cite from Romans doesn't stipulate that all people are sinners from the moment they are born because of the Original Sin, only that sin in general came into the world because of an original sin. Augustine is credited with the Doctrine of Original Sin. In other words, there's a particular distinction Augustine made about how that first sin reflects on human nature within each individual, such that we aren't even born pure, so it's totally impossible to stay pure, not because sin is inevitable due to human behavior, but because we are each of us already stained before we even begin. This affects our interpretation of the nature of Salvation and Grace, about what we can and can't do under our own power, and what God has to grant us because He is so generous. His interpretation of the significance of the Original Sin on an individual level is what became doctrine after him, and wasn't before.

    I'm not an expert in this, mind you. I should go digging up details from someone who is.

    --Ember--
    •  
      CommentAuthorEvan
    • CommentTimeFeb 18th 2010 edited
     # 48quote
    Worth checking the Catechism to see what the Catholic Church currently, officially says about Original Sin:

    403 Following St. Paul, the Church has always taught that the overwhelming misery which oppresses men and their inclination towards evil and death cannot be understood apart from their connection with Adam's sin and the fact that he has transmitted to us a sin with which we are all born afflicted, a sin which is the "death of the soul". Because of this certainty of faith, the Church baptizes for the remission of sins even tiny infants who have not committed personal sin.

    404 How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam "as one body of one man". By this "unity of the human race" all men are implicated in Adam's sin, as all are implicated in Christ's justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state. It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called "sin" only in an analogical sense: it is a sin "contracted" and not "committed" - a state and not an act. . . .

    416 By his sin Adam, as the first man, lost the original holiness and justice he had received from God, not only for himself but for all human beings.

    417 Adam and Eve transmitted to their descendants human nature wounded by their own first sin and hence deprived of original holiness and justice; this deprivation is called "original sin".

    418 As a result of original sin, human nature is weakened in its powers, subject to ignorance, suffering and the domination of death, and inclined to sin (this inclination is called "concupiscence").

    419 "We therefore hold, with the Council of Trent, that original sin is transmitted with human nature, "by propagation, not by imitation" and that it is. . . 'proper to each'" (Paul VI, CPG § 16).

    Other denominations hold differently.

    And, of course, Jews don't believe in Original Sin at all, and don't believe the story of the Garden of Eden teaches that doctrine.
  49.  # 49quote
    Evan,

    I never knew that about Jewish belief concerning Eden. I have read Qabbalistic interpretations, but are you aware what the lay interpretation focuses on?
    •  
      CommentAuthorgrant
    • CommentTimeFeb 19th 2010
     # 50quote
    Funnily enough, purely by coincidence, minutes after making that post, I was reading Wisdom, Chapter 2, which ends with the verses:

    23
    For God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him.
    24
    But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world, and they who are in his possession experience it.


    There's a bit more in Wisdom equating immortality with God's original plan and death with the consequence for messing the plan up, which is also the gist of that Romans verse. I was kind of surprised - funny how that happens.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Original Sin starts with a debate between Augustine and the followers of a Syrian bishop named Theodorus of Mopsuestia, who was himself a follower of Pelagius, who was (the Encyclopedia points out) friends with a Roman lawyer and "eunuch by birth" named Caelestius. There are many more details about that under the "Pelagianism" entry. (Moral of their story: Interpretation and rhetoric are important.)

    Pelagius and Theodorus both taught that death was a physical necessity, and not the price for the first man succumbing to temptation. They were eventually, after a lot of backing and forthing, condemned as heretics.

    So, it looks like Augustine's the man. The Council of Trent mentioned in the Catechism is way, way post-Augustine... it's the one that formalized Catholicism after Luther started the Lutherans.

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