Magickal Terminology

General Discussion
1

I’m about to sound very stupid, so excuse me for a second.

When I read a lot of occult texts, I find an odd sort of terminology unique to such texts, which though I can basically glean the meaning of it, still seems strange to me.

And I feel that when I’m doing my own sort of occult writings, perhaps I sound not as sophisticated because I don’t use these odd terms.

Here are some examples:

  1. Praxis: I get this is basically practice. But, why don’t we just use the word practice? Is there a difference? My googling has revealed that basically praxis is theory put into practice, and practice is just the repetition of some action. But it still seems rather a fine line.
  2. Arte: Obviously it’s a form of the word “art”, but as above, why don’t we just use the normal word? Is there a difference? Are we just trying to sound sophisticated? Googling has not uncovered anything here unfortunately.
  3. Nexion: I see this peppered throughout various texts. I think it means just a gateway or portal of some kind but want to be sure I’m not missing anything.
  4. There may be others I haven’t thought of. Feel free to point them out.

I know this sounds silly, but I find many magickal texts rather intimidating because I have no idea why they’re writing in this odd way. E.A.'s works are at least pretty down-to-earth because they lack a lot of this flowery language.

Perhaps there’s nothing to it, and if so, I apologize. But I figured here was the safest place to ask without being ridiculed as uneducated. I need some sort of “how to speak in flowery magickal language” guide.

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2

ive never heard praxis

from what i found arte comes from Latin for Professional, the professional practice, the noble arte, Magick

Nexicon ive heard thrown around in Sci-Fi, the word comes from Nexus which means a connection between two things so in this case a physical and magiickal word.

Dont worry amount all that stuff mijo, you’ll learn to just ignore it, at east thats what i do. most of the time when i read occult text i try to get through it and its mostly just annoying than intimidating, you’ll get through it and a believe in you.

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3

im right along with you i havent really…read any occult book…but i think i should to have a better idea of thiings

4

You’ll see stuff like this a lot if you read academic texts written by the less academically gifted. There seems to be this odd compulsion among those who sit around the bottom and middle tiers of their chosen areas of expertise to try and make their work sound more impressive by using fairly unusual words ( more often than not, in completely the wrong context ).
I reckon they’re trying to mimic the way those with a higher standard of education sometimes use a phrase that has been common to them for a long time, but is unusual outside of their social circle. My advice would be to ignore texts like that entirely: a competent author writes in a way his audience will understand.

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