Thoughts on martial arts in magic?

New Magician Help & Introductions
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Ok so I’m new to magic and have very little idea how the rituals involved came to be, but would martial arts be a suitable way to direct the intent and will? To me something about the ritual aspect of magic seemed…off…if we’re connecting to spirits/entities/energies through intent and will, and rituals are merely tools to direct it then surely the ritual itself wouldn’t matter, you could just as easily spout gibberish, jump up and down a few times, then pelvic thrust your will into being (exaggeratedly ridiculous for humor and to illustrate the thought process). But if the ritual aspect itself is key, and the candles used, words intoned, insence burned, and spirits contacted are all integral parts of manifesting your will in this world…how can there be so many ways to get the desired result?

Thinking about all of that has given me an idea, that magic is a martial art. You can’t stop a physical attack without doing anything, right? At least not without a considerable advantage in spiritual force, and in my entire life as a martial artist i have yet to pull that one off. But magic and martial arts bear these similarities, martial arts are systems for learning to control the body based on learning patterns and movements known to work for the one who developed them, magic appears the same, it’s the only way i can explain the vast number of ways you can do the exact same thing.

So that made me think about a few things, and i would be interested in feedback/thought on them, and any glaringly obvious things i may have missed in my thinking that lead me to this rsult. Can martial arts be integrated with magic to a point that martial arts are used to perform it? Could i use a taichi form, or a karate kata to direct the intent and manifest the result in the real world? Would it even be possible to use that full physical, mental, and spiritual immersion to replace the standard rituals and actually enhance the effects of a particular spell, or even manifest greater and more immediate results than just creating an atmosphere and vocalizing the intent?

I’m not saying we could use that to go around directly creating and controlling the elements, banishing weather we don’t like, and pulling a fat pile of cash out of a previously empty pocket…But i won’t say i don’t think that could be possible, i’ve known people with pyrokinetic and telekinetic abilities so i think the limit of possibility is whatever you set it at for yourself… But for this post i’m mostly interested in other people’s thought on the ideas and the thinking that lead me to them, anything i’ve missed? anything i havn’t understood well enough to make these leaps?

P.S. This isn’t to say i have no belief in the ability t ocontact a spirit/god/thoughtform/angel/demon for whatever purpose, even if i took it as far away from the literal as possible there is still power in the belief of crowds, enough people feeding attention and energy to a specific idea, person, or spiritual being, will give it enough to be worth contacting, even if all you’re doing is contacting a collection of attributes and informations created by the coming together of a mass conciousness.

2

The short answer is yes. You could set the intention that when you perform a certain kata, or ‘ritual’ a certain goal comes to pass. That is in essence what a rain dance is. It is a certain set of physical movements that are done with the specific intent to make it rain.

I recommend you read Advanced Magic for Beginners by Alan Chapman. He works in the Chaos paradigm and the idea that you can make anything into a ritual as a vehicle for your intent is one of his central themes.

3

Another view-pt is the concept of ‘re-inventing the wheel’… and whether one-person, as a hobby, can come up with something that is the same as something that has been developed over time (trial and error, veering off course- find what works, its possible that prodigies/geniuses can come up with developments in a short period of time- especially if “guided”/informed/trained.)
Also in terms of ‘what does it matter what is done’ . there are certain which open certain … ways to support the energetic structure, like constructing a house of cards-- need build in such a way that it supports itself… and can’t “build the top first” and then the foundation… or whatever… and just as “barter” can be anything- if I hire-someone to do something, they can take (in exchange, as pmt) whatever… but not whatever I’d like, whatever they will accept (proposal made, accepted? or counter-proposition?)…

oft the idea of what is done can be anything- whether the construction of a pattern, or the Entity (Energy, or just stream of a Current-Tradition/system)...  perhaps, depends upon what sort of Working one is doing (not all are equal- apples and oranges and all that)..   -nor am I implying that a "system" just means something some other person has come up with (whether just a whim-recently, via research, or some 'implied' historical-chain: re your mention of (if) "enough people feeding attention and energy to a specific idea ~mass con" the 'egregore' idea... [which previously seem to have been thought of something created.. not just anything people think about enough.. like the "thoughtforms"= tulpas.. which was a proof/demonstration of attainment of Siddhi-lvl]

So interesting idea- I think one distinction would be what sort-of magical-ritual you are seeking to do… as different types, have different forms of focus (some might be more so than others)… as above mention of “Chaos paradigm”-even in that “school of thought” there are many clusters (and it isnt’ a school in the sense of all Chaos magic concepts translate and mesh)… What “plugs-you-in”? and not all equal (not saying better worse, just seem are mutually-exclusive to a degree… underlying Operating System/OS… incompatibilities… perhaps<?>
-just food for thought…

(even “doing martial arts” means something quite a bit different amongst many that use such a term… as there are Martial-Arts that are already integrated with…

4

interesting ideas, thanks for the feedback. So you’re thinking that it may work for some types of works better thna other…makes sense, i wouldn’t want to try holding a conversations whilst performing a kata, so much turning and changing direction would be annoying for everyone. and as for my definition of “doing martial arts” it’s in a more complete sense, pushing myself beyond the “predefined limits” of my body (though personally i find the idea of actual set in stone limitations ridiculous given what the human body has shown itself to be capable of).

Would you say it would be an effective system for more of a raw energy interaction type “system” then?

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I think you just created my favorite ritual.

6

Damn, you’ve given away my greatest secret!

You can certainly ritualize a kata, you should just use one you would hardly ever use otherwise, because you have to isolate it from the ‘profane’ or ‘vulgar’ (at first). You must ‘make it sacred’, which would mean reserving it for strictly magical use - that way your own mind has already imbued it with a special sense of numinous ‘power’ and significance.

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asian systems of occultism including the martial arts are nothing to fuck around with. You should not practice it without initation or you could do irreparable damage to yourself

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uote from: TieguaiLi on 01/17/15, 03:35 AM ... you could just as easily spout gibberish, jump up and down a few times, then pelvic thrust your will into being...

Damn, you’ve given away my greatest secret!

and people claim magic “wands” aren’t a thing.

You can certainly ritualize a kata, you should just use one you would hardly ever use otherwise, because you have to isolate it from the 'profane' or 'vulgar' (at first). You must 'make it sacred', which would mean reserving it for strictly magical use - that way your own mind has already imbued it with a special sense of numinous 'power' and significance.

i would create one specificly for a purpose, since the existing kata i practise already have their purposes and do the job well.

asian systems of occultism including the martial arts are nothing to fuck around with. You should not practice it without initation or you could do irreparable damage to yourself

I have been a martial artist for the vast majority of my life as a martial artist, in fact i’ve probably spent less time as a non martial artist than i’ve spent on the toilet (cumulatively i mean).

9

An Ode To Righteous Rightness and the Sound of My Own Voice :

So you should know about the occult applications of the martial arts then lol. Karate is a pretty common style, you could go learn from a real school and you would know that the Sanchin is a condensed form of the Yi Jin Jing training integrated into Fujian White Crane from the second period of Shaolin. You could also find out what it is for, and maybe learn the KiKo aspect where you project will and energy into space. In other words “a lifetime martial artist” who wants to know the esoteric side would not come to an online forum to ask such dumb questions when a real school teaches you. I have to heckle someone on this because with all the talk of this tradition that tradition, and posturing on who knows what , and who’s full of shit, I am of the mind that probably no one on here knows as much about the asian systems as I do on here, and you have to be initated lol. The subject of initation is something people get all bent of shape about when talking african religions on here, when all the traditional magical traditions are initiatory and cultural.

As far as coming up with a think tank, and pissing people off in the process, I am amazed at how people get defensive and don't really have a grasp of the roots of systems they claim to be a part of, which I have seen even in groups I have been a part of , people think they know whats up because of their membership, but never learn about the roots of their tradition or how it came to be or how it compares to others.  This is like the Karate man who doesn't know what the different styles of Karate are, just their own,  who bashes Kung Fu, when modern Karate after 1870 is like %40-60 Kung Fu, goes around saying "Karate is the best, Japanese is the best , fuck Chinese arts!, when Karate is not Japanese, and the name itself originally means "China style boxing" .  He is a Karate guy who takes or teaches Karate, and is a "liftetime member" in the "karate community". 

   This bullshit happens in occultism also.  Way too much. I couldn;t resist being a heckler because  frankly their are real answers as to how are martial arts applied to the occult and even evocation and possesion, but the questions and answers show that people really don't know shit about this topic, and the rebuttle "i'm a life time martial artist" is kinda laughable if you expect people to consider that a real answer. I'm just waiting for the Eye , or Gran Chemin, or some other numbnuts to pop up and say "Hey are you Asian? Did you have real initation in Asia? From Asians? Can you even talk about occult martial arts without seeing a real Asia teacher? Do you know how much you are just being a tard because, what do you know about Asia? Do you know how offensive you are right now? I'm so waiting lmao...... however

No one is stepping up to the plate, martial arts with a real occult base to them that still exist are mostly chinese or japanese, and all the shit that comes with it is very hard to deal with and sift through and their are a lot of specifics and they are initiatory. Very similar to the grimoire phenomenon in the west with regards to writings . Very much so. Again when I was trying to really research and share what I was learning about esoteric currents in haitian voodoo or palo a few key douche bags step up and open their mouths without really figuring out that their was a historical bases for what I was saying, because I really studied the source material and talked with a lot of people from within those traditions as well as my own experiences.

So if people want to dick ride those who step up and say “im in such and such, you don’t know what your saying and doing” . Here we go : "stay out of my system you are being super disrepectful to those who practice it, you don’t know what your doing, and you will never learn anything of value from the internet/dvd/book/most teachers/ and how I now this is I have been doing it longer than some of the younger folks on here have been alive and I still don’t know shit, I’m still relearning principles of stuff I was shown as a kid.

So here is some shit you can find in movies if you dig hard enough but its true: occult martial arts trigger certain alchemical processes in the body and open up nerve points for spirit possesion and exiting the body while conscious. You also grow and mix and absorb certain types of nature spirit souls that live in your organs. Some of these help you astrally project at the moment of death and travel life to life, some die off and return to the earth when you die. In reality, these things are not that secret, its just that no one can show you how to do them in most cases. People are lucky enough if they can fight legit iron body training, and most of the higher systems find that kind of power crude.

It feels good to be rightuhhh :slight_smile: There is no one that can say shit to me on this particular topic : ) : )

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talk about getting defensive, being a martial artist means you train in martial arts and you’re dedicated to your training, nothing more and nothing less. Do you really think that a person’s nationality is a qualification of their ability and the value of their knowledge? Do you really think the place you train has aany effect on the skills you develop? Does the source of the knowledge matter if the knowledge is viable for experimentation and application? and when you say that specificly asian occultism is something not to be messed with do you imply that it is inherantly dangerous to the user? or do you think it’s inherantly more powerful or potent than any other form? I’m here seeking knowledge from all disiplines because i believe that there is something to be learned from everything. So if you don’t wish to “spread knowledge irresponsibly” feel free to either refrain from posting, post some basic applicable principals that can be built on by others or with experimentation and experience, or if you are willing to share some knowledge that you may have along those lines but do not want it to be overly public PM me. As for your “stay out of MY system” and your leaps of logic taken from the very small reply i made to your initial reply which stated nothing other than the fact that i have trained matial arts for many years, no specific system metioned, no focus mentioned, nothing mentioned in fact other than the fact that i train in martial arts…please don’t lump me in with teenage wannabes who know nothing assume everything take the tinyest tidbit of information and blow it out of proportion and turn it into an attack on someone else’s thoughts, desires, intents, and personality.

and to reiterate my point here and hopefully avoid further misunderstandings, the fact that i am asking these questions and admitting my lack of knowledge other than the training i have undergone, which has indeed been the vast majority of my life, and was indeed martial arts, and by the statements in my question admits no occult background to that training, should be proof enough that i completely acknowledge my lack of knowledge and am seeking knowledge and insights to further my development alone and with the aid of those willing and able to give it.

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lol, I think you read it too fast, especially the part where I am having fun, I didn’t say anything about being asian as a requirement yourself, but that I expected people to pop out of the wood work to ensure that everyone is being “respectful” of its asian roots.

And also as part of it all the fact that you did come off as “hey im a lifer” , it doesn’t have anything to do with the occult martial arts. Mike Tyson would clean my clock but I doubt he knows anything about occult martial arts either, and he is a life time athlete , so its not about how good a fighter you are or what if you have studied a lot of styles, or even if your good, occult martial arts are a pretty specific thing.

And btw , the place you train does have an effect, as far as dangerous, it can be all types of dangerous from attracking the wrong spirits to causing random blood in your urine lol. Shit coming out of your skin, shitting uncontrollably, it can basically cause your organ systems to start failing.

I respect all serious traditions that have knowledge, nobody really has said much about the asian systems, and thiers a few douchbags on here if you ask about or experiment with the african systems they go nuts, when all the ceremonial systems in the west basically come from either witchcraft or the kabbalah or Hinduism and those are initiatory traditions. No one seems offended abbout chantinng mnatras like “hey I can make it work” when their is the correct pronunciation, and also if the mantra has been empowered by the teacher and the deity, because when you open the chakras, the deities come inside to indwell in them, which in tantra is like layers and layers of deities coming to live in the nerve centers.

So in the deeper systems their is a lot to something like “chakras” but no one goes “hey you don’t know what your doing” , when a lot of people that use a mantra whether they are a lifetime yogi or not or even are hindu, know enough to do it the right way they go through the ritual, but enough people say “hey if i practice it hard and do my best im sure i will get some benefit out of it” .

      I'm not saying experimentation is bad, or that initiation is a guarantee, im saying, why do people get so bent out of shape when its "the system their in" and someone brings up something they don't know about. I'm  doing this because I can and I know their is not nothing no one can say to me about it :) Cause they don't know shieeeettttt hahahah
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i admitted in my original post that my martial arts background has no occult side, hence my asking if it were possible to adapt it or develop it in that way myself, you’re right the internet has very little good information, most of it is basic meditation and basic principals taught in all decent martial arts schools, and by decent i mean the western schools that don’t completely butcher and bastardise the original form so far that it’s completely wrong to call it by whatever name rather than it just being a modern evolution of that root form. Personally i disagree that the place dictates the quality of training, i also disagree that nationality dictates the quality of your teaching, i would happily learn japanese or chinese occult martial arts principals from a jamaican, canadian, englishman, or inuit if they genuinely had something good to teach and i would be just as able to learn it in any country that i can function in.

And if you take offense to me wanting to take knowledge, principals, and techniques, to experiment with, adapt, combine with other things, and consider it a butchery of the method you use, consider it instead a desire to create my own system, using all of the knowledge and insights from everywhere they can be gained, and adapted by me to suit my goals, needs, and natural functionality quirks, which is exactly what i’m trying to go for.

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I really have nothing against you personally or what your trying to do at all I am really reveling in my opportunity to make other people look like fools for my own entertainment and it has nothing to do with you. Most people on here don’t don’t know anything about occult martial arts because they have to do with ancient chinese witchcraft, internal alchemy and tantrism. Most asian people don’t know much, because if you study a watered down system you have to question or criticize your teacher which is usually a very not good thing.

If someone is gong to teach you the old fashion way you have to have a lot of faith that the person is not huslting you. On another note the “masterless” disciples of japan who thought society even esoteric ones were full of shit, have a history unto themselves, musashi being a good example. Its fun for me because I know that the usual gremlins that would like to say some clever shit have no room to play on this court lol. If you want to actually have some real answers pm me.

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^ Very true, this is something I like to do myself, come up with new systems and methods, and sometimes have a hit (Personal Daemon and my Child), other times, like I’ve been trying to innovate a new system of divination, I’ve ended up striking out through discovering I can’t (YET) improve upon the existing systems.

It’s a real risk when you try to innovate and so long as you’re aware of it and don’t get discouraged if you strike out, there’s no reason not to keep trying, as I don’t personally think all the knowledge has already been discovered and there are no more valid systems left to be created/disclosed. :slight_smile:

Interesting.

In reality, these things are not that secret, its just that no one can show you how to do them in most cases.

Is this one of those “It can be learned, but it can’t be taught” things? You meet with those in yoga, core shamanism, and a bunch of other fields.

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martial arts are the most magickal rituals you can do, especially the eastern systems.

empyrean is right. you have to learn them from someone who really knows what they are doing. the energy travelling through your meridians has to move a certain way or it will royally fuck you up. and by the time you notice the symptoms kicking in, it’s often (almost) too late to stop the problem from taking you out entirely. eastern qi circulation is nothing to play games with.

however, finding the right teacher is going to be a lifelong journey, and you may NEVER find one. i’ll tell you why. the keepers of the vault tend to be extraordinarily racist chinese who generally have nothing to do with gwai lo (whites/foreigners). the chances of you getting to the heart of internal martial arts in china without being chinese are about as slim as the chances of a negro joining a white power organization. it CAN happen but you are more likely to end up being played as a useful idiot. so walk carefully.

16

what i was meaning in the original post was using martial arts forms (created for the dedicated purpose as needed) as the ritual focus for magick in the western format, a sort of hybrid coming together of parts, which i most likely will still experiment with, it seems like an interesting idea. Though now that i have a very nice pile of information (with more on it’s way to my bookshelf) and sources to work on the eastern systems i plan to train those techniques as well since that provides me much more to build on than the originators of those systems had when they developed them.

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I am a long time occultist and instructor in Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do Concepts and Filipino martial arts. Martial arts provide the back bone to many spiritual systems and philosophies. I teach these things as one. They are inseperable. All one has to do is seek common denominators. Ninpo provides specific Kata that express elemental powers for instance. Therefore these can be done in accordance with will within the circle to raise the required energy.
I have written MANY essays on this subject. I will try and hunt them down and post them here. The above is one example.

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that would be awesome if you can find them, i’m sure i’m not the only one who’d be interested

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WHY???

you don’t need to do that. the asians have their own magickal formats already, and plot twist: their magick is better than yours.

the daoist internal arts from wudang are lhp training for immortality through outer and inner alchemy (waidan and neidan), which incorporate the ingestion of magickal herbs as well as energy circulation (taoyin and qigong) and use martial arts stances, forms (tao lu), and foot movements (bugang) along with demonic possession rituals to draw the power of the stars.

esoteric buddhism (mikkyo, which is vajrayana mixed with tibetan tantra and shinto) is different. it is NOT zen, it is esoteric. esoteric tantric buddhists aren’t after immortalty, they are looking for supernatural enlightenment here and now. they do initiations to experience reality directly. in japan that means tantric and shinto rituals with martial art forms (kata) for invocation. but their spirits are of a different character than that of the daoists.

they both use martial arts in rituals and both are very well developed with long histories and many adepts from all over asia. i don’t see the point of you reinventing a wheel that is already as round as it’s ever going to get.

i don’t know what art you practice but i can tell by the way you talk it is probably derived from kung fu, so whatever it is, it is probably buddhist (tantra/shinto)-derived, not daoist.

if you came this far and don’t know the magickal side of your art you were only taught an exercise or a sport. to get far into the art and learn none of the rituals, i wonder who is teaching you.

if your teacher didn’t take time to teach you anything about mikkyo, he is either a sportsman taking ma as an exercise, or maybe he felt you are just a boxer not a magician. magick is not everybody’s calling.

either way, you have a lot of learning to do if you want to learn the esoteric rituals in your boxing.

it amazes me how little westerners know about asian magick. i find western magicians know even less about asian magick than we do about atr, but yeah

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The reason we weren’t taught the magickal side properly was because of the circumstances. We were taught elements of it, ones that could be presented and explained away in physical and acceptable terms to overzealous Christians.

As far as experimenting with it in my own way to see how it goes, i don’t believe anything has attained perfection, there’s nothing that can’t be improved and there are no pre-requisites for being the person that improves them (not saying i’m gonna usher in a new age of epicness but i’m not gonna say i won’t do that, no one truly knows what’ll happen with something they havn’t experimented with). The real reason i experiment with everything, regardless of having or not having a teacher, is that experimentation is the way i learn best, absorb information -> learn how it applies -> experiment -> repeat. That cycle just works better for me, nothing i’ve ever learned in the standard “paint by numbers” manner has ever progressed as fast or stuck as long as anything i learned with the method i just roughly described.

So yes i will be leaning the asian systems, i will be learning western systems as well, i will also experiment with combinations and adaptations of those systems because a) i’ll learn faster and better. b) nothing is perfect and if i find any improvements for anything, awesome.

As for who is teaching me, the instructors that actually had anything on that side to teach left and the whole system shifted to a purely sporting/fitness overly commercialized mess after the first 15 years, so for the last 11 years i’ve been training myself and developing my style myself.