Hiya OP! Some words of warning on this topic: aside from ‘representation and reputation’ being of no practical use to your personal magic, it’s a dangerous game to play. Even on here, appearances are just that, and civility isn’t equivalent to camaraderie- what I mean to say is that spreading awareness to better represent and fix the reputation of magicians will backfire. Criminalistic and crazy types alike are often attracted to magic as a way to get what they want without any traces, and there have been panics engineered over the slightest off-tone ritual activity being made public knowledge. If it’s discovered that magic is a tool used by criminals and psychopaths, whom are attracted to it arguably the strongest of all, persecution will increase incredibly. Second, magic isn’t for everyone, at least in this age, and that’s not something you can change by spreading awareness and making magicians represented.
If you want to know why, it’s because there are many generations of bloodline manifest in people today that refute the existence of magic and miracles, a root of resistance to the magical arts. I’m willing to bet that many if not most people who claim to work magic don’t actually believe in it, or rather choose to situationally believe in it rather than regarding it as the operating system of reality. Deeper (re: non-surface) magic has a way of protecting itself incompatible or just stupid people, and there are plenty of the latter to go around. This natural protection system prevents people who aren’t ready to understand from doing so, which can happen in various ways- persecution, occultation, or if the information continues to circulate, eradication of the leak’s source.
There are lots of people around that circulate base magical knowledge like this. If you’re really trying to increase acceptance of magic/ians, then you’d need to try to instill belief in magic across the world, which would subsequently result in the specifics you’ve mentioned.
TL;DR- to get what you’re after, you’d have to work to make the world believe in magic and acknowledge it as the operator and originator of reality.
ETA: you can’t change people’s beliefs unless you’re a politician or media institution (more repetitions = more belief), especially not with individual articles or things like that. To get people to believe something on the level that they believe they’re alive, you have to show them, and the only way to show the whole world is with magic.
Even then, still. I had a dickhead mentor think it was funny to try a curse on me. That was part of the “community”. The LHP specifically is a lonely one.
This.
Nods quietly the world isn’t my responsibility. Not now at least.
You wouldn’t have survived by trying to find acceptance outside of you. People use people. Its a fact of life. Ultimately you are the best bet of your own survival.
You admit you don’t know much about anything, but, instead of telling us if you have any actual experience at all in magick, you go off on a diatribe of the way you think things should be
Before you get too big for your britches, maybe you should try a spell or three. This whole post seems to be nothing but something to stroke your ego. I’ve been praciticing magick for two decades now, and, while I don’t hide the fact that I do, I also don’t bellow it from the rooftops. That is what religion does, and doing so would dilute the force of what I do.
And those that say they “believe” you will have you locked up in a mental asylum, the Western world isn’t all that open-minded since the “Enlightenment”.
Well, it’s better than South Africa. I meant in the spiritual sense. Since the Enlightenment every aspect of European society has become ignorant and narrow-minded regarding things their little textbooks can’t explain.
Also, unlike them, we lost our indigenous cultures and are only slowly regaining them. It’s an admirable thing. The great roman Ovid once said : “It’s right to learn, even from your enemies.”
you might be surprised, i feel like my friends in asia (a country i wont disclose) are more ready to talk about this stuff than my friends in france because they’re raised with a belief in magic, albeit in a more superstitious fearful sense
Not everything was lost, not where I live at least. There’s alot of knowledge and Old customs that have been passed down to the next generation for centuries. I live in the countryside…
Also, young people in Japan for example don’t know that much about their old beliefs and Gods anymore, it’s not different than in our society.
And other societies aren’t more open-minded about magic. There’s some stuff that is accepted almost everywhere, healing for example. But talk to someone in South Asia about baneful stuff, you think they will be open minded about it? Nah.
And I’m not even gonna start about the situation in Islamic countries, cause I might get political
Well said, this is exactly my point. In the West the world is approached from the assumption that everything can be predicted by the little we actually know about it. In the East they’re more open-minded to being wrong, and to things that are not explained within the current scientific paradigm.
In Japan. This is not the case in less developed nations. I get where you’re coming from because I’m also Eurocentric by nature. But that doesn’t mean I believe in being bias, I believe in absolute honesty, without absolute honesty you can never learn, never improve, and never overcome.
If we didn’t learn from the gunpowder brought to us by the Mongols, then the Chinese dynasties would have conquered us first, because they were developing their own versions of firearms. If they did not learn from us, they’d be driving around in donkey carts, and wouldn’t have industrialized economies. I believe in learning from anyone, bias doesn’t apply to learning.
And yet I live in South Africa where muti, or magic is pretty common. Rural China and Taiwan are also pretty open to magic. I think you speak more from bias and assumption than from experience.
I never said that wasn’t the case, there is orthodoxy in even Taoism, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re more receptive to the idea of spirits and magic.
I think you’re reading something into my comments that isn’t there.
There are certain aspects of magic that is accepted in almost (!) every society. And there are aspects that are not accepted.
Am I biased? You said “we lost our indigenous cultures” but that’s not really true either, as I already explained.
I just really don’t like the statement “The west isnt open-minded cause people will call me crazy if I tell them about demons.” Cause basically nobody cares. You can do what you want. Yeah, maybe your neighbour will call you crazy when he hears you screaming to Lucifer in the middle of the night. But you won’t get thrown from a building by an angry mob.
You mistake what you say for fact. There’s a reason paganism needs to be reconstructed, because we lost so much.
Obviously, this is why the branch of Taoism I’m into is the Mao Shan sect which is heterodox. However, black magic is a larger fixture in their societies than in ours, and if you don’t think that’s the case, then I suggest you go meet some Javanese Shamans, Northern Thai Buddhists, and some heterodox Taoist sects, you would be surprised.
Sure, I won’t get thrown from a building by an angry mob, I agree. However I might get thrown into a mental asylum and forced to take drugs while they conduct human experiments on me. Much more humane.
Or if I’m a selected for programs that branched off from MK Often and MK Search. Or maybe they’ll try to try use some of their theories from the gateway process on me. You probably don’t know what I’m talking about right? Have a look - Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room | CIA FOIA (foia.cia.gov)
I’m not going to waste my time arguing with somebody who clearly has an aversion to facts. Not about to get banned for some kind of grudge you have against me. If you want to flaunt your ego you’re welcome to pm me so I can educate you further. Have a pleasant evening.
don’t think so.