Everything Under the Moon

HopefulChild wrote:Technology should have been advancing our standards of occult discovery and theory. Instead it has been applied to limit and marginalize it.

That should be one of "our" goals as current occultists. Convince the next generation that it is their responsibility to integrate technology with the occult to bring the occult up to date and to discover new things where the two intersect.

It's funny that science (or technology) is so commonly used to debunk Witchcraft when, actually, it does a lot of good for it. The traditional secular view is that you either "believe" or you "know", but that's implying that there's no middle ground between the two. In my experience, I've been able to make amazing things happen by constructing them in the Summerland and then letting them manifest in the mundane world; certainly enough to know that there are rules that work for both realms.

Science is actually helping us to understand a great many things that we've believed for aeons (in the literal sense), and are now able to push into the realm of the known. While a belief in an external, conscious deity is perhaps the simplest and laziest acceptance of divinity, modern psychology has provided us a very real and tangible means of understanding fully what it is we connect with when tapping into the buliding blocks of the universe. Even people like Crowley used to posit that spiritual evocation was an aspect of brain chemistry rather than fallen angels, and the work of CG Jung has largely vindicated that view.

As technology advances, so does our understanding of ourselves, our universe, and our part in creation. It's long since past the time I first found the stars and moon to be beautiful, holding a loved one's hand to be humbling, and figuring out a long-unresolved problem to be inspirational. As our world develops, we need to develop with it, and doing so means our practice remains current, sensible and presentable to those who just don't understand it.

Maybe that's my biggest problem with pop-culture Witchcraft. There's just nothing to it, other than vapid and meaningless "spells" designed to distract people rather than evolve them. The distillation of Wicca into an applicable religion provided a meaningful worldview with which to use magic, and its removal in the modern Neopagan movement has simply left a hole that can't be filled. Without some form of religious and cogent worldview, the art of Witchcraft becomes effectively meaningless. Luckily, there are other religious constructs that have picked up the baton. Some are other Witchcraft traditions such as Dianic, Reclamation or Feri, while druidry and shamanism has also provided the crutch needed. On the other side of the moral compass Satanists, Dark Pagans and Setians have also filled the void. There are many others.

"That's my view and you should accept it" is a lamentable approach to an intellectual challenge, but all you ever get out of most witches and warlocks. The problem is that once the evidence stacks up to the tipping point, the individual adopting this mantra is forced to accept their views are incoherent, and won't just abandon Witchcraft - they'll resent it.

Embracing modern knowledge, technology and science is a means of making our experience better, more meaningful, and more powerful.

'Tis my view, anyway.

HopefulChild believes that fire isn't one of the elements. The Elemental flame beings that I was acquainted with lifetimes ago, would most likely disagree with that.

Snow

It's not that I disavow fire as an element. I just have the opinion that the component most represented by fire is in fact spark, instead of fire. Becks made a compelling comparison between the chemical process of fire and the biochemical reactions of our physiological function. I would not argue against her view because it is a valid interpretation of the same idea.
When you get to the root of fire, you find the electron/photon. That was my point.
When you Root water..you find water.
When you root earth..you find earth.
When you root wind..you find wind.

All of them are elemental. Why is it water, instead of liquid hydrogen, or alcohol? Because liquid hydrogen and alcohol can't be extrapolated from the other 3 as directly or completely as water.

Guess what you can't get from combining Water, Wind, and Earth? Fire!
What you can get from combining Water, Wind, and Earth is Electricity.

My most sincere intent was to suggest that fire is a vehicle for electrons and photons, and at the time that all of our ancient ancestors were using magic and building systems of understanding of magic, the one thing they couldn't consistently harness, was electricity. But they could harness fire, and so fire became the substitute solution, for an extract they couldn't themselves yet produce. As tradition gave way to dogma which gave way to legend, which gave way to ridiculed arcane ignorance, the root of WHY we use fire may have been lost, and with it a more direct connection to magic.

The scientific community that exists today has accomplished such amazing things. But for all that has been done, there are still notebooks written a hundred years ago by a Serbian American Electrical Engineer that still aren't even understood. Let alone applied.

Not to put too fine a point on it but, I would be no more inclined to change my perception of the elements just because someone claimed to be an element, anymore than I would change my perception of divinity just because someone claimed to be divine.
Sentient beings are wont to create oligarchies, and dogma, and traditions. History is replete with individuals and entire civilizations who truly believed that they were gods walking among mortal men. I wouldn't be willing to argue with them about it. It neither empties my pockets nor breaks my legs that they do so. To throw some Jefferson on it.

You should talk to Kevin about electricity.

Snow

HopefulChild wrote:It's not that I disavow fire as an element. I just have the opinion that the component most represented by fire is in fact spark, instead of fire. [...] When you get to the root of fire, you find the electron/photon. That was my point.

Intriguing idea.

Do you think you can take it further? Is what you call "the root" of fire truly the electron/photon?
Is the electron/photon also "the root" of electricity? Or, are excited electrons (which illuminate) the result of a "deeper root?"

For practical purposes there is no deeper root.

Unless you want to learn to set up a diamond trap and single photon emitter.

Oh Crud!
What got Imperious banned?

Imperious chose not to follow forum rules.

The 3fold law is not applicable to those who don't prescribe to that belief system. I don't believe whatever I put out will return to me and honestly I find it a bit of a shortcut way of thinking so one doesn't have to really take a scrutinizing look at their moral compass.

In my belief, if we are just, we are free to take the route of curses or whatever as we deem it necessary, and no bad energy will "return to us". However if we curse willynilly we will face repercussions in the afterlife.

I think it is not necessarily a hard and concrete rule. It just serves as an easy way to remind people to actually think things through before choosing to retaliate towards people or other potentially "bad" acts against people

cataluna49 wrote:I think it is not necessarily a hard and concrete rule. It just serves as an easy way to remind people to actually think things through before choosing to retaliate towards people or other potentially "bad" acts against people

This. I am not sure it is meant to be taken literally, because literally it just does not make sense in the real world. But if we used it as a device to think things through before acting, thinking about the repercussions, we can see that it is very useful.

manshin wrote:............ I don't believe whatever I put out will return to me and honestly I find it a bit of a shortcut way of thinking so one doesn't have to really take a scrutinizing look at their moral compass.

In my belief, if we are just, we are free to take the route of curses or whatever as we deem it necessary, and no bad energy will "return to us". However if we curse willynilly we will face repercussions in the afterlife.

I don't believe that whatever I put out will return to me "three fold".

I think it's been mentioned that Gardner's novel, High Magic's Aid was the first place this idea showed up. Then it appeared as a poem later on around 1975 in a magazine. Somehow, this evolved into the notion among new witches that there is a spiritual law in effect that says everything you do comes back to you - not only comes back to you but comes back to you threefold.

For a law to truly be a law, though, it has to be universal - meaning that it needs to apply to everyone, all the time, in every situation. And this just doesn't happen, we know that every single person who does bad things is not punished and all the good people in the world don't enjoy success and happiness. And the Wiccan author Gerina Dunwich says that if you look at the Law of Three from a scientific perspective it's not a law at all, because it's inconsistent with the laws of physics.

As well, there are countless numbers of pagans who will admit to working harmful or manipulative magic and/or curses and not experiencing bad coming back upon them. In some magical traditions, hexing is considered quite routine - as much as healing and protecting, and yet members of those traditions don't report negativity coming back at them.

I think the only good that comes out of this so-called "law" is that it prevents new NeoWiccan practitioners from flinging hexes and negative magic when they are starting out

Jenny Crow wrote:I don't believe that whatever I put out will return to me "three fold".

I think it's been mentioned that Gardner's novel, High Magic's Aid was the first place this idea showed up. Then it appeared as a poem later on around 1975 in a magazine. Somehow, this evolved into the notion among new witches that there is a spiritual law in effect that says everything you do comes back to you - not only comes back to you but comes back to you threefold.

For a law to truly be a law, though, it has to be universal - meaning that it needs to apply to everyone, all the time, in every situation. And this just doesn't happen, we know that every single person who does bad things is not punished and all the good people in the world don't enjoy success and happiness. And the Wiccan author Gerina Dunwich says that if you look at the Law of Three from a scientific perspective it's not a law at all, because it's inconsistent with the laws of physics.

As well, there are countless numbers of pagans who will admit to working harmful or manipulative magic and/or curses and not experiencing bad coming back upon them. In some magical traditions, hexing is considered quite routine - as much as healing and protecting, and yet members of those traditions don't report negativity coming back at them.

I think the only good that comes out of this so-called "law" is that it prevents new NeoWiccan practitioners from flinging hexes and negative magic when they are starting out

Exactly my sentiments!!

Woodsmoke wrote:Greetings everyone!

While not ultimately a question in itself, for I believe myself in this law, I fell once while browsing on the internet on someone advocating foregoing the law entirely, for practitioners of Witchcraft or really, anything falling under such practices.

I know there is quite a wild range of opinion about it, and I made sure to read previous topics about it, but what about forgetting it entirely, in the principles it carries (ethical grounding, and just a good knowledge of what you will change or bring into this world) ?

Do you think it is safe, or a good "way" to introduce new people into witchcraft?

They way I look at the threefold law and the Wiccan Reade is a kind of best practice solution, you don't have to follow it but it's a good way to start out or to benchmark. I believe in a more complex balancing of the universe and it's laws, obviously things happen that we don't expect or understand, but somewhere there is a reasoning behind it.

Is the threefold like karma? I heard it's less of that but more like guilt eating you up inside? Blessed be.

I understand it as karma. What goes around comes around. Wiccan do not cause harm for this reason. The practice is meant to promote positive outcomes for self and others.