Leah

... a contradiction in itself? May well be so.

Still, if anybody practising magick, while an atheist, or without calling specific spirits, happens to be on this board,
could you please pm me?

I've got a few questions, which I don't feel comfortable to discuss in public.

Highly appreciated.

reprise

I certainly know plenty of people who don't believe in a deity but do believe in mystical forces which can be harnessed through certain rituals. Is that what you're talking about when you use the term "magick"? FWIW, none of those people would call themselves "magicians".

Leah

your description is rather appropriate.
"FWIW" (???) ..., sorry, am no native. In this country one is being refered to as a witch/wizzard (which though includes the pagen traditions), or a magician (tarot, wax dolls, amulettes, talismanen, ...).

triplew00t

There are many Taoists and Confucians who do not believe in a deity but believe in Feng Shui and the I Ching... Though, honestly, most of the ones that do believe in the I Ching and Feng Shui DO believe in gods, there are a few who do not. I was one of them for a while before becoming a student of Zen.

Nero

Leah

Thank you, triplew00t

I'm more thinking of the direction:
Dion Fortune (1891-1946), also known as Violet Mary Firth,
who after having left the "Golden Dawn" (Aleister Crowley)
founded the "fraternity of inner light".
Fortune founded the idea that all beings have specific powers/abilities within temselves, ......

reprise

Leah, FWIW = for what it's worth.

Heathen Dawn

You mean "magick" as the "Art and Science of Causing Change in Conformity with Will"? (Crowley's definition ). Well that would depend on the kind of atheist. Atheism simply means "no belief in gods"; that doesn't exclude the supernatural outright. There are quite a few pagan magicians who regard the pagan gods as Jungian archetypes, not real entities, so they would qualify for atheistic; but they do believe in spirits, mystical energies, divination and a whole host of other supernatural phenomena. Such people would have no problem with the concept of causing change (in the physical world) in conformity with their will. Witchcraft is independent of a belief in gods. Wicca is different because it's neopagan Witchcraft, it has belief in gods as part of it.

But the atheists you're likely to meet here on these boards belong to a broader category of worldview, called metaphysical naturalism - the worldview that nature is all there is, and that the supernatural is entirely fictional and non-existent. Under that view, magick is simply impossible. The laws of physics are above alteration. There are no energies or spirits that can be manipulated to drive a change in conformity with will. All behaviours, of everything in the universe, are immutable physical-chemical behaviours. "In the beginning were the particles and the impersonal laws of physics, and through billions of years of evolution, the particles became intelligent stuff such as us".

I'm a metaphysical naturalist and secular pagan. I don't do magick. I don't touch magick. I regard it as a waste of time. There is no evidence for any kind of efficacious magick. The only ties I have with the pagan mindset is my reverence for nature and a few secularised rituals I've appropriated from pagan sources (such as the calling of the Four Elements: instead of Earth, Fire, Water and Air I have Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen, the four elements of organic chemistry).

Whew! Enough blabber.

Leah

I wish I could express myself the way you people can. I will eventually.
So you do experiment within rituals, and you gather the energy for what?

Well, these pracitses are not to be spoken about, and I do agree with most you say, ... except for that it works .
And that is where I seek understanding, it is time for me to develop further what I have been "playing with" for too long.

Heathen Dawn

Yes. Paganism is rich in rituals; I just have to secularise them, to take all the supernatural stuff out of them.



I don't "gather energy". "Energy", by which pagans and New Agers usually mean "mystical energy" or "psychic energy", is a concept of which I'm sceptical. Rituals, in my mind, are not for changing external things, they are for celebrating things to myself and the group.

Calzaer

HD:
Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen?

Where are Sulfur and Phosphorous? We couldn't have higher organic life without them, even if we had all the C, H, O, and N in the universe.

What about Sodium, Potassium, Calcium or Iron? Maybe not a requirement for "life" in general, but certainly a requirement for humans.

(And for some of us, Lithium would be nice, too. )

Anyway, my point being your "four corners" is leaving out at least two seriously important organic elements. If you're tossing the "states of matter" elemental model (Earth = solid, Air = gas, Water = liquid, Fire = energy), why do you feel the need to keep to the number four?

{Edit:
I'd be skeptical too, except I literally see the stuff everywhere I look. It's one of the things that makes me think I'm crazy. And no, the doctor hasn't found anything wrong with my eyes except a smidge of myopia. }