Again it is difficult to make this assertion (or any generalised assertion) about a culture that has been dead for centuries; a culture as you yourself say did not leave many written records and the information about them that we do have being written by cultures who were not sympathetic to either the culture in question or its world view.
An analagous argument would be to assert that a reconstructionist viking ship builder today has superior viking ship building skills to the vikings themselves. While this is entirely possible; it is difficult to validate without being immersed in the actual culture in question, which, baring time travel into the past (which both thermodynamics and quantum theory strongly indicate has zero probability of occuring) is impossible.
Then the problem of verifying unverifiable personal gnosis occurs. Could the observations you gain from divination be repeatable under standard laboratory conditions, double blind experimentation, peer review, etc?
My question does not concern magic or the experience of magic, rather it concerns how that experience translates into truth (or more accurately, standards of truth that have meaning to a community wider than the individual paractitioner or the community that participates in his / her world view).
Yes im sure there are a fair share of description of the demons of goetia but key features are probobly the same and If they are not are some of them faulty?
Or could it be the multilayering again.
On the question of EA being more knowing in magic then the Norse i do agree but If that makes him more close to their gods then them i wouldnt dare to say being that my knowledge of the Vikings Daily life is fairly modest so i cant say how big role their gods played in everyday life.
I believe that one persons experience and truth is a personal thing, your findings can be of help to others but they should use it as a base to find their own truth.
So we will have different truth for each individual in that case and none will be more true then the other.
If you follow the direct footstep of someo e else then you probobly will not get the experiences that you need to grow to your fillest potential.
@Grimner I would disagree. [quote=“TheStorm, post:7, topic:21207”]
And, having had our experiences, we have thus verified the philosophies to some extent, and can even further verify and validate them by communicating them to others… which is really how religions, philosophies, and cultures are created!
What separates magick from religion, however, is that magick is meant to produce results! Thus, personal experience and immersion into this pathworking system is not a search for gnosis, but for power.
So, “Unverified Personal Gnosis”, when filtered through the lens of magick, really becomes “Verifable Interpersonal Magick.”
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The problem with a subjective truth is that it quickly falls into the trap of many major religions in that it becomes an excuse for people to believe stupid things. What is real is real. What is not is not. To say that something that is not real is “real to you” is what the JCI does.
The issue with the kind of truth you get from divination is that it is unfalsifiable; that is the information that is received can be applied to any context and therefore cannot be invalidated. But if a truth like that can be fit into every context, it gives no meaningful information about any context. Take for example I do a standard three card spread about my love life. I get a five of cups for the past situation, the fool for the present and the wheel of fortune for the future. What does this tell me? From one context it could say that my love life sucked in the past, but is now open to new begginings and will be wonderful in the future. Or it could equally mean that while my past love life sucked it is now heading for a dangerous precipice and will in future be catastrophic.The reading can be applied to both (and more) contexts. Astrology, the dogma of organized religion, totalizing philosophies like marxism and freudian analysis all fall into the category of unfalisifable knowledge (which is why most of them have been disgarded or in the process of being discarded).
Given that the truth of divination has been shown to be unfalsifiable it is not surprising that every reading will be able to be fitted into any context of choice (and therefore “true”)
But let’s suppose that the truth revealed by divination was specific, unicontextual, precise and like scientific “truth” falsifiable. Every reading you have received so far has been demonstrably accurate. What is the guarantee that your next reading will prove to have the same characteristics? There is none. Your next reading could give you an entirely false result. There is no neccessary link between the accuracy of the reading you have done to date and what you will experience in your next reading. This is an example of an inductive leap and is a logical fallacy.
@Warlock [quote=“Warlock, post:33, topic:21207”]
But let’s suppose that the truth revealed by divination was specific, unicontextual, precise and like scientific “truth” falsifiable. Every reading you have received so far has been demonstrably accurate. What is the guarantee that your next reading will prove to have the same characteristics? There is none. Yuor next reading could give you an entirely false result. There is no neccessary link between the accuracy of the reading you have done to date and what you will experience in your next reading. This is an example of an inductive leap and is a logical fallacy.
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No it isn’t. If every divination so far has been accurate and specific then you know that you have the necessary skills and that these forces are real. If every time you’ve jumped off a ledge you’ve fallen to the ground then you can assume that gravity is real. In the same way, if you divine and get accurate results you can conclude that the forces behind divination are real.
It is one of the truly phenomenal events that I have witnessed in my life time as to how magic has been informed by science, particularly by quantum theory. And; guess what? According to quanum mechanics the world is not deterministic and operates by probability. So while it is highly probable that every time you jump off a ledge you fall to the ground, it is not neccessarily so. There is a very small probability that you will jump off a ledge and end up elsewhere in the multiverse. It is this insight into the probabilistic nature of reality that undercuts any inductive leap. Thus the logical fallacy of inductive leaps is also reinforced by the very nature of reality itself and further demonstrates that the next divinatory reading that the practitioner does, no matter how “accurate” he has been before may yield a false reading.
On a side note; the probabilistic nature of the Universe is the very thing that makes magic possible. If we lived in a deterministic, Newtonian universe, there would be no room to act, everything would be pre-ordained, and there would be no freedom. Magic pushes the probabilities of reality more in your favour.
@Warlock [quote=“Warlock, post:35, topic:21207”]
On a side note; the probabilistic nature of the Universe is the very thing that makes magic possible. If we lived in a deterministic, Newtonian universe, there would be no room to act, everything would be pre-ordained, and there would be no freedom. Magic pushes the probabilities of reality more in your favour.
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That I must disagree with. When you have seen what I have you will know that magick is far more than just shifting probability. How on Earth do you explain telekinesis then?
Not that telekinesis has been conclusively observed under standard laboratory conditions (yet) but if it had been (or if it will be) then another quantum mechanical phemonenon will be involved; that of quantum entanglement; where the particles are linked such that a probabalistic change in one is instantaneously recognised and reacted to by the particle that it is entangled with; no matter how far they are separated in space. Interestingly, Einstein called quntum entanglement “spooky action at a distance” because it violated the deterministic, Newtonian worldview that his General Relativity was born out of.
Crocell, in all the descriptions I read of him, looks like an angel to most people, but to me he appears as a reptilian winged and scaly dog that has a humanoid body. Similarly, Marbas is still a lion in my experience, but he speaks and dresses like a Victorian era doctor and has refined manners (and appreciates good manners back). If you condition your mind to see things a certain way, you’ll forget that some of it is also from your own mind. I don’t think describing spirits is helpful for adepts because they come in multiple guides depending on how you feel about thier energy and what they are doing for you. It’s okay to have an idea if you’re a beginner who has trouble visualizing spirits, though.