Magic and Subjective Synthesis
A discussion on a list about magic about our birth religions, the Moon, symbolism, whether cultures
saw it as male or female (as did they the Sun,...not always was the Sun male), I
am still working through integrating my mental models of magic.
Lisiewski, whatever one thinks of his systems, to me brought up a good point in
his discussion of "subjective synthesis", that is, accounting for one's innate
characteristics and experiential programming beginning in childhood, and
integrating them, and not just ignoring or unthinkingly rejecting them, for the
best results in one's workings.
Whatever we are brought up, or absorb through our family and cultural
environment, as infants, as toddlers, as children, is embedded in our
subconsciousness, even if reject it consciously in our teen or adult years, even
if we do psychological work to bring it to light in psychoanalysis, etc.
Wherever you go, there you are.
So, just like in science, one has the best results if you lay out all the
variables on the table, and the ones you can't change or omit, you must include
in the research design. Since magic is connected to the various levels of one's
mind and emotions, discerning and laying out as many of those variables as one
can, can only clarify and improve one's intended results.
Knowing and conceding there are both material/visible and immaterial/invisible
(to the physical eye) aspects to reality, for me, the orthodox sciences deal
with and explain the material world most satisfactorily as an educated adult.
Yet my innate childhood system of explanations of the material world are still
embedded in me, and the more I dig out and lay out there in my consciousness,
and integrate with this, the more whole I will be, and more successful at
dealing with the material world I encounter, magically or conventionally.
We all have our patterns and layers to resolve (subjective synthesis). And
importantly, some of these will conflict with each other, even severely, like a
person who was raised in a strict Christian family yet is drawn later in life to
a magical path (and especially to magical or neopagan paths which both it and
Christianity see as antithetical to each other). Yet rejecting Christianity
consciously does not mean it has been dealt with subconsciously, and often I see
people in continuing self-conflict. I myself have cycled through my
uber-Catholic phases and my animistic-pagan phases, almost like the cycles of
the Moon!
So this is something I still deal with, even as an aging man, and perhaps my
only goal really in my inner life, is to "unpack" all these contradictions and
experiences as truthfully as I can, so that I can get as much self-knowledge as
I can, as much wisdom as I can, and when I die, I can either surrender to
oblivion peacefully, or go to the next world peacefully.
Here in brief are some of the maps/models I must integrate:
1. Childhood mysteries of experiences unexplained; family life
2. Childhood mythology built through TV, movies, books (ex. Dr. Seuss and Greek
mythology, such as the D'Aulaire Book and the movie "Jason and the Argonauts."
and "The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao," "Sword in the Stone" etc.)
3. Traditional pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic indoctrination in early grade
school and through different phases in life, which carries the weight of
medievalism, angelology, saints and demonology, as well as the Mass and the
sacraments
4. Native American values, stories, experiences, etc. in various phases from
childhood though adulthood
5. Conventional modern science, from childhood plans on being a scientist
through my training and work experiences as an anthropologist, archaeologist,
etc.
6. Occultism and ghostology, from childhood, including my first experiences with
such things as astrology, numerology, Edgar Cayce, Atlantis, Arthur, esp.
beginning in junior high, etc.
7. What I am learning as an older adult in groups such as these (I took
yronwode's Hoodoo correspondence class, did GD-Enochian stuff, and belonged to
Greer's AODA for a bit), and from books such as Josephine's.
Necessarily, the later elements are not as embedded in me as my childhood
elements are.
So what have I finally resolved, after a lifetime of struggle? Apart from
"archaeological excavation" of my life and psyche, finding interesting artifacts
and hidden features here and there, I realize that some of these things cannot
really be integrated in a single map, or at least one ends up with a really
confusing map. Instead, I have a series of overlays on a single map. Do you
remember that article in some encyclopedia on the human body with the clear
plastic sheets, each with a color system (digestive system, nervous system,
circulatory system) overlaying the same human body? That's kind of what I am
settling on.
Reality, whatever it is, is a vague shape. And there are these overlays we each
construct, or others have constructed for us.
And in fact, for each of us, we may have a few or dozens of overlays that serve
as models or maps over the thing we call Reality. So then we ask ourselves, how
well does a particular overlay fit the Reality we can perceive? What fits and
does not fit, and why or how? If something does not fit, what do we do about it?
Do we hold onto it anyways, or do we discard it? What are the implications
either way? And some things we just can't evaluate, not yet, we need more data,
more life experience.
BTW, I end things abruptly sometimes. Like now :-)
saw it as male or female (as did they the Sun,...not always was the Sun male), I
am still working through integrating my mental models of magic.
Lisiewski, whatever one thinks of his systems, to me brought up a good point in
his discussion of "subjective synthesis", that is, accounting for one's innate
characteristics and experiential programming beginning in childhood, and
integrating them, and not just ignoring or unthinkingly rejecting them, for the
best results in one's workings.
Whatever we are brought up, or absorb through our family and cultural
environment, as infants, as toddlers, as children, is embedded in our
subconsciousness, even if reject it consciously in our teen or adult years, even
if we do psychological work to bring it to light in psychoanalysis, etc.
Wherever you go, there you are.
So, just like in science, one has the best results if you lay out all the
variables on the table, and the ones you can't change or omit, you must include
in the research design. Since magic is connected to the various levels of one's
mind and emotions, discerning and laying out as many of those variables as one
can, can only clarify and improve one's intended results.
Knowing and conceding there are both material/visible and immaterial/invisible
(to the physical eye) aspects to reality, for me, the orthodox sciences deal
with and explain the material world most satisfactorily as an educated adult.
Yet my innate childhood system of explanations of the material world are still
embedded in me, and the more I dig out and lay out there in my consciousness,
and integrate with this, the more whole I will be, and more successful at
dealing with the material world I encounter, magically or conventionally.
We all have our patterns and layers to resolve (subjective synthesis). And
importantly, some of these will conflict with each other, even severely, like a
person who was raised in a strict Christian family yet is drawn later in life to
a magical path (and especially to magical or neopagan paths which both it and
Christianity see as antithetical to each other). Yet rejecting Christianity
consciously does not mean it has been dealt with subconsciously, and often I see
people in continuing self-conflict. I myself have cycled through my
uber-Catholic phases and my animistic-pagan phases, almost like the cycles of
the Moon!
So this is something I still deal with, even as an aging man, and perhaps my
only goal really in my inner life, is to "unpack" all these contradictions and
experiences as truthfully as I can, so that I can get as much self-knowledge as
I can, as much wisdom as I can, and when I die, I can either surrender to
oblivion peacefully, or go to the next world peacefully.
Here in brief are some of the maps/models I must integrate:
1. Childhood mysteries of experiences unexplained; family life
2. Childhood mythology built through TV, movies, books (ex. Dr. Seuss and Greek
mythology, such as the D'Aulaire Book and the movie "Jason and the Argonauts."
and "The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao," "Sword in the Stone" etc.)
3. Traditional pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic indoctrination in early grade
school and through different phases in life, which carries the weight of
medievalism, angelology, saints and demonology, as well as the Mass and the
sacraments
4. Native American values, stories, experiences, etc. in various phases from
childhood though adulthood
5. Conventional modern science, from childhood plans on being a scientist
through my training and work experiences as an anthropologist, archaeologist,
etc.
6. Occultism and ghostology, from childhood, including my first experiences with
such things as astrology, numerology, Edgar Cayce, Atlantis, Arthur, esp.
beginning in junior high, etc.
7. What I am learning as an older adult in groups such as these (I took
yronwode's Hoodoo correspondence class, did GD-Enochian stuff, and belonged to
Greer's AODA for a bit), and from books such as Josephine's.
Necessarily, the later elements are not as embedded in me as my childhood
elements are.
So what have I finally resolved, after a lifetime of struggle? Apart from
"archaeological excavation" of my life and psyche, finding interesting artifacts
and hidden features here and there, I realize that some of these things cannot
really be integrated in a single map, or at least one ends up with a really
confusing map. Instead, I have a series of overlays on a single map. Do you
remember that article in some encyclopedia on the human body with the clear
plastic sheets, each with a color system (digestive system, nervous system,
circulatory system) overlaying the same human body? That's kind of what I am
settling on.
Reality, whatever it is, is a vague shape. And there are these overlays we each
construct, or others have constructed for us.
And in fact, for each of us, we may have a few or dozens of overlays that serve
as models or maps over the thing we call Reality. So then we ask ourselves, how
well does a particular overlay fit the Reality we can perceive? What fits and
does not fit, and why or how? If something does not fit, what do we do about it?
Do we hold onto it anyways, or do we discard it? What are the implications
either way? And some things we just can't evaluate, not yet, we need more data,
more life experience.
BTW, I end things abruptly sometimes. Like now :-)