Magical elitism

[Gjallarhorn]

So, I frequent a Wiccan/pagan/general magic chat group and I've noticed a trend of "us vs. them" and magical elitism. When asked to even define magic people are met with rambling sermons on the beautiful danger that is magic, how sacred it is and how it's only attainable for a select few.

Witch genes, magical lineages, esoteric knowledge, threefold laws, demonic pacts, higher selves and hidden dimensions...

See, this isn't helpful. As Grant Morrison put it in an interview:

All this magic stuff needs new terminology because it's not what people are being told it is at all. It's not all this wearying symbolic misdirection that's being dragged up from the Victorian Age, when no-one was allowed to talk plainly and everything was in coy poetic code. The world's at a crisis point and it's time to stop *********ing around with Qabalah and Thelema and Chaos and Information and all the rest of the metaphoric smoke and mirrors designed to make the rubes think magicians are 'special' people with special powers. It's not like that. Everyone does magic all the time in different ways. 'Life' plus 'significance' = magic.

PopImage

Anyone else working on bringing magic back to the layman? Anyone else willing to say "here, let me show you" instead of "you'll have to join our coven/temple/order" or "oh just let me do it so you don't hurt yourself"?

 

[Iti oj]

I teach lay people its part of my path as a luciferian and I use aproach similar to what was suggest ed

 

[Iti oj]

How ever I disagree on one point to my understand of chaos magic is what the writer was calling for.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

How ever I disagree on one point to my understand of chaos magic is what the writer was calling for.

As Morrison actually is a chaote I think he's just calling attention to the now post-Chaos magic paradigm. Ya know, "all you need are sigils, switch your religion hourly, chaos stars everywhere," etc. It's become it's own niche and no longer fits what it was supposed to be. It's become structural.

 

[Sees]

Most are keeping their own rubbish or stuff from the Crowley era secret...let'em

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Most are keeping their own rubbish or stuff from the Crowley era secret...let'em

As if their 9th degree secret isn't blatant in most porno nowadays anyway.

 

[CynthiaCypher]

Most are keeping their own rubbish or stuff from the Crowley era secret...let'em

Crowley didn't teach that. We are to view every man, woman and child as a star. We are to be condescending to no one. All are equal under the Law.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Crowley didn't teach that. We are to view every man, woman and child as a star. We are to be condescending to no one. All are equal under the Law.

And yet he made several Orders and had degree-based secrets for them. Equal in spirit but not Law, it seems.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

So, I frequent a Wiccan/pagan/general magic chat group and I've noticed a trend of "us vs. them" and magical elitism. When asked to even define magic people are met with rambling sermons on the beautiful danger that is magic, how sacred it is and how it's only attainable for a select few.

Witch genes, magical lineages, esoteric knowledge, threefold laws, demonic pacts, higher selves and hidden dimensions...

See, this isn't helpful. As Grant Morrison put it in an interview:

PopImage

Anyone else working on bringing magic back to the layman? Anyone else willing to say "here, let me show you" instead of "you'll have to join our coven/temple/order" or "oh just let me do it so you don't hurt yourself"?

I remember when I first started looking into it, the same thing occurred where the magicians I asked were holding some sort of sanctity towards magic. If I remember correctly, you helped me grasp the concept better.

I'm not willing to say "here, let me show you" though because I'm not common with it and far from the best at it. Yet, everyone has to start somewhere.

 

[Quintessence]

Personally, I don't notice much of this attitude. I'm aware that it's out there, but the overwhelming majority of contemporary Pagan literature I've read over the years - along with other community media ranging from podcasts to print magazines - do not present spellcraft as something for the elite. It is very rare that I ever see anyone in the Neopagan community tout ideas like "Witches are born, not made," as if it's something inherited or limited to a select few.

When I have found this attitude, I've seen it primarily amongst general occultists and magicians: by people who practice spellcraft devoid of any religious intention and lean more towards things like Western ceremonial traditions. In the context of those traditions, they have a point. Historically, Western ceremonial spellcrafts were either practiced by the intellectual elite or closed-door orders. If they wish to replicate those traditions, they have every right to insist they remain elite, closed-door practices.

Meanwhile, many other traditions of spellcraft will continue to not care.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

I notice it a lot in newbies as well. Particularly the Secretive Newbie:

In reality, the Secretive Newbies are just like any other newbie in their level of experience and knowledge. However, for some strange reason, they feel the need of shouting about belonging to a long family line of a secret tradition no-one has thus far ever heard about. They tell of possessing a secret ancient BOS dating back to times when -- in reality, but who gives a damn about reality anyway -- only the nobility (if even them) and priests could read and write.

When questioned, they use the "I can't tell you, it's secret - and you are not initiated to our family tradition anyway"-line. They love to hint about the great secrets and absolutely huge magickal powers available to those selected few in their famtrad -- which the Secretive Newbie of course claims to possess. They are sometimes known to threaten people who refuse to believe their credentials with magickal attacks and if someone gets tired of their rantings and leaves -- they claim they caused it. Also, if someone they despise tells about an accident or illness -- they claim they caused it. If they happen to actually tell what they do know, it's usually from very, very beginner type of web sites (who reads books nowadays, anyway).

I don't know if there's any hope with this type... Their only friends seem to be others of the same category -- and some Insecure Newbies, who say things like "How do you know s/he isn't what s/he claims to be? You are sooo cruel that I tend to believe him/her...

All Those Lovely Newbies

 

[Quintessence]

I'll grant I don't really participate in any Neopagan/occult web forums or online communities anymore, but I certainly wouldn't say I saw that "a lot." I can probably count the number of people who might have fallen into that stereotype on one hand.

That page you linked to, on the other hand, represents something that I noticed with depressing frequency: self-created drama, toxic and trollish gossip, and a whole lot of whining about perceived problems. I don't feel that's what you're doing here, Gjal, but that web page reminds me of that kind of crap. How does creating a list like that serve our community in a positive way in any fashion? Near as I can tell, it serves no positive function - it's sole purpose is to mock newcomers and stereotype them so we can all laugh about how stupid they are and how much smarter we are. :sarcastic

Sorry, that's probably a bit of a tangent. >_>;

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Touche. Guess I'm just as guilty.

 

[Quintessence]

Oh, I sometimes do it too. I think we all do. Hopefully I catch myself, or someone else gives me a little thwack if I don't.

 

[HexBomb]

I have mixed feelings on this, and I may just be about to get called an elitist, but oh well, I have to be honest.

Anyone else working on bringing magic back to the layman? Anyone else willing to say "here, let me show you" instead of "you'll have to join our coven/temple/order" or "oh just let me do it so you don't hurt yourself"?

I think everyone can do magic. I don't think witches are born and not made. I think some people have more talent with it than others, just like I can't draw so much as a stick figure. If someone wants to learn magic, they can absolutely learn, and I'll even share some basic stuff, things that aren't complicated or prone to backfiring because at the same time I think people can hurt themselves doing magic. I've got a friend who did a love spell on a bloke she liked and he started to like her...so much he started stalking her, calling her phone, showing up at her work to the point where she was afraid for her life.

While I am all for more people doing magic, though, at the same time, I'm not going to go out there and publish my family's collections. This is not me saying you have to be born a witch, or that we are somehow better, it's simply saying it's ours. People put work into doing and creating these things and there is a big difference for telling someone a recipe for a tea to induce vivid dreaming and giving up a spell written by Great-Great-Grandmum Jane. By giving them something like that, I will be at least tangentially responsible for what happens, and I had to study for seven years before I was allowed to do anything on my own without parental supervision (or at least familial supervision) I can't really know if they know enough to do it safely, and then people think you're being elitist if you say "Well, let me watch you," or "Oh just let me do it so you don't hurt yourself."

And, well, I don't even give out my recipe for mulled wine and people want transparency in a couple hundred years of spellcraft? No freaking way. Again, teach the basics? Sure. Any day of the week. Basic recipes that are the least likely to backfire? Sure. More than that and you're going to have to put in the time and the learning and have the respect for those that came before.

And now I'm going to get accused of being a secretive newbie, aren't I?

 

[Erebus]

Anyone else working on bringing magic back to the layman? Anyone else willing to say "here, let me show you"

Not any more unfortunately. I've wasted my breath too many times to do so nowadays, instead I'll give book recommendations and suggest people learn on their own steam. I see magic as a resource that's available to everybody should they wish to use it, but I no longer have any real interest in teaching people the basics. Besides, the best way to learn (IMO) is to do the grunt work yourself.

That said, I have little patience for secret orders, long-winded titles and self aggrandizing claims of ancient magical lineage. To me it all seems like a hollow attempt at boosting one's own ego, especially in the information age. Grand High Magisters are a dime a dozen on the internet

 

[Breathe]

So, I frequent a Wiccan/pagan/general magic chat group and I've noticed a trend of "us vs. them" and magical elitism. When asked to even define magic people are met with rambling sermons on the beautiful danger that is magic, how sacred it is and how it's only attainable for a select few.

Do you think it's because of how magic often involves a lot of what could be considered by some (erroneously or not) as "hidden knowledge"?

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Do you think it's because of how magic often involves a lot of what could be considered by some (erroneously or not) as "hidden knowledge"?

I think people confuse personal experience and esoteric wisdom. Personal demons, gods, workings, etc are not something people want to openly display and no one is asking them to, but some people can't separate their own paradigm from magic itself.

No one could care less about your 72 sealed demons and how beautiful your higher self is. They just want to do magic.

 

[Breathe]

I think people confuse personal experience and esoteric wisdom. Personal demons, gods, workings, etc are not something people want to openly display and no one is asking them to, but some people can't separate their own paradigm from magic itself.

Pretty much. I'd love to do magic, really, even if it's just for a sort of hypnotic autosuggestion thing as opposed to some esoteric, external force -- but I just don't have the knack for it, I guess. It's all so alien to me, and every time someone has, say, told me a spell they know, it always involves things I never have: extremely specific candles, incenses, and planets in all sorts of positions -- but another friend of mine said you don't need all that, but said it's up to me to learn magic on my own. I just wanna try it out sometime.

No one could care less about your 72 sealed demons and how beautiful your higher self is. They just want to do magic.

"I have 72 sealed demons" would get my attention for 10 minutes.
Then again, someone saying they have a magic dog would too.

 

[Iti oj]

Breath I promise you none of that is necessary