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To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.islam.sufism,alt.sufi,alt.magick,talk.religion.misc,alt.religion.wicca From: haramullahSubject: Sufi Magic and Mysticism (was Islam, Sufism, Magic and More!) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 07:15:34 GMT 50010928 VI! om Hail Satan! Hail Allah! assalam alaykum, my kin. "Slp" : >There are basically two kinds of magic. only two?! :> >One where one attempts to control or command or force various entities >and powers without permission, and one where one does things by permission. this is too simplistic. not everyone operates within a system in which 'permission' is necessary. you're describing this from your own Muslim perspective or from that of the conventional religious (and therefore mention 'permission' intending to be permission from a religious authority implies Muslim magic). I can agree that there are two categories of Muslim magic (permitted and without permission). I'll proceed within this context of discussion and rename the Subject header accordingly. >If one stops to think about it, how can one really safely control or >command an entity or power more powerful and more knowledgeable than >oneself without permission or without a greater force or power on one's >side? And still survive, that is. one would need to have bolstering magical *tools* or reservoirs of power from which to draw. comparable to non-magical engagement. >At one time in the far past, there was supposedly a small sufi order that >did practice magic or what would today be called sorcery as a method to >achieve enlightenment. are you familiar with mystical objectives and siddhi-like powers conventionally associated with spiritual development? there is the ability to convey miracles and there is the apparent misperception of power where the actuality lies beyond the comprehension of the mage (at least as described by a number of mystics). the former is considered by many Muslims to be 'permitted magic' while the latter is considered 'ignorant fooling with the ways of Allah'. perhaps this is to what you were alluding above. >...few if any survived the process, as powerful entities do not like being >commanded and ordered around by humans and are constantly looking for a >way out that usually results in the destruction of the human or the human >becoming under the control of the entity or entities. is it possible that the mere fact of being on the side of Allah predisposes these entities toward either hating or loving the Muslim magician? I have considered this seriously about the Jewish and Christian magician, mostly because there are many Christians, for example, or Solomonic mages at least, who take an adversarial attitude, arrogantly ordering the spirit/djinn/efreet around and expecting to be obeyed without question because of the wielded Power of their Almighty. I wonder whether taking a more conversational, less adversarial, attitude, treating these beings with respect that even some Muslims say they are due, might not result in a less dangerous interaction. in any case this is the first time I've really heard much from a Muslim about how magic is conducted outside Sufi orders and folk magic. >Most, if not all of these sufis were destroyed by the entities they >worked with. Highly undesirable. the texts describing sufi magic I have do not mention having any sort of trek with powerful entities other than Allah. I quote some below. >The sufi magic that you speak of does not really come from books. Certain >sufi individuals are granted certain permissions or given certain authority >to do certain things in order to accomplish the task or tasks that Allah has >set before them. As a result, they have certain perceptual abilities that >allow them to know that a certain verse or verses of the Quran will have a >desired effect in a given situation and how to use this, by their knowledge >or reading of the Quran with this special perception. People see this and >think, oh, sufi magic or Quranic magic. Whatever you call it, it is >something that is granted from Allah and is not even given to many sufis. are there constants in what is granted? is what is granted ever of a spell-like or ritual quality? >Then there is the stuff that the majority of magical practitioners attempt, >which works fitfully, if at all. Primarily because they are doing it by >rote, without any perception of events on the level on which they think they >are working. It is kind of like memorizing a set of computer commands, and >typing them into the computer without having a computer moniter to see what >they are doing. yes, like a science. this is how some see the magical art also, as some way of using the Creation to one's advantage based on the inner workings made possible by the Creator. this is the idea also behind what is called the Doctrine of Signatures -- a purposive essence discernable in form and associated function sown into the Creation by the Creator. it should be considered at least a kind of proto-science, if not a spiritual or acausal scientific lattice. >There are many entities in the other world that do not care for or are >indifferent to humans. again I wonder whether this is true of all humans or just those whose cosmology is adversarial to the entities. if you didn't worship a God whose preferences may be adverse to their way of living, if you didn't have the attitude toward them that you do, I wonder if they would have a different attitude. if they are pagan gods, for example, displaced by monotheists to lesser status and focus of attention, maybe they would harbour fewer grudges if you treated them with greater respect. >Once one goes too far into magic, one leaves the >protection (yes, this world is protected and under protection, for the most >part) that Allah has set up for the human race, and one either has to fend >for themself or they need to have have aligned oneself with something >greater than themself, and hopefully greater than any entity in this world >and the next. where does the power come from for those entities aside from Allah? it is said that there are some powerful djinn, for example, who are extremely devout Muslims. are they granted power by Allah to effect the work of Creation on the order of angelic beings described by Jews, Christians, Solomonic and Hermetic magicians, or are angels of a fundamentally different order of being? >Because there are some entities out there that we are like >minnows or frogs to, and they are great whales. And sometimes, if they are >involved with a human being, and you try to help that human being, they >attempt to either hurt or destroy the human being they are involved with, >and attack the one that is trying to help with magic. in the Hermetic world these entities would probably be compared with what H.P. Lovecraft envisaged: indifferent or antagonistic gargantuans shambling about stepping on humans who get in their way. asking why Allah allows them such power is probably little different than the age-old Problem of Evil. >helpless and can easily become the target of another entity. And if one >uses all of their energy to help one of [their victims], then one has nothing >with which to defend oneself and one very easily becomes the target. Which >is why this is best left to the sufis who have the authority granted by >Allah to utilize power and knowledge that does not come from them, but from >Allah. Even then, they suffer, and sometimes fail, because of their human >imperfections. how can you tell who is and who is not granted the power by Allah? is it only sufis who do? if so, how can you tell who is a real sufi and who is just faking it? >And if you still are considering pursuing magic because you consider magic >power to be just a force of the universe, remember that that force is not >only more powerful than you, it is more intelligent than you, and what >happens if it doesn't like you? does the force of which you speak have a name? does it have preferences, such that we might appease it or placate it so it won't hurt us? how did you determine its intelligence and power? here are some things I have read about sufi magic, I'd appreciate your comments in response to the pertinent points made by Idries Shah here: Magic is a training system as much as it is anything else. It may be based upon experience, upon tradition of celestial or other ascription, upon religion. Magic not only assumes that it is possible to cause certain effects by means of certain techniques; it also schools the individual in those techniques. Magic, as we know it today, may be subject to every form of rationalization. It embodies, taken as a whole corpus of collected material, minor processes such as small hypnotic techniques, and beliefs which attempt to duplicate natural happenings. While Sufism cannot be taken apart to see what its constituents are, the magical tradition, because it is a truly composite one, can in fact be so dissected. We are only concerned with that part -- a very large part -- of magic which is involved in the effort to produce new perceptions and to develop new organs of human development. [note the similarity of aim and conception with many other kinds of mysticism here, inclusive of the Hermetics -- haramullah] Looked at in this light, a great part of the human heritage of magical practice (which often includes religious practices) is seen to have geen concerned with this quest. Magic is not so much based upon assumptions that things can be done which transcend the normal man's capabilities, as upon the intuitive feeling that, if you like, "faith can move mountains." Those magical activities which are designed to exercise the projection of thought or ideas at a distance, or to see the future, or to attain a contact with a source of superior knowledge, all carry their echo of a dim human consciousness that there is a possibility of man's taking part consciously in the work of evolution; and the feeling of a stirring, evolving organ of perception beyond those senses which are formally recognized by physical science as it stands today. Magic, then, to a Sufi, is judged according to Sufic criteria. Is it involved in the development of man? If it is, where does it stand in relation to the main Sufi stream? Magic is seen, Sufistically, as generally a deterioration of a Sufic system. The methodology and repute of the system continues, but the essential contact with the continuing destiny of the system is lost. The magician who seeks to develop powers in order to profit by certain extraphysical forces is following a fragment of a system. Because of this, the warnings against terrible dangers in magical dabbling or obsession are frequent, almost invariable. It is too often assumed that the practitioners imposed a ban on casual magic because they wanted to preserve a monopoly. From the long-term viewpoint it is far more evident that the practitioners themeselves have an imperfect knowledge of the whole of the phenomenon, some of whose parts they use. The "terrible dangers" of electricity are not dangers at all to the man who works continuously with electricity, and has a good technical knowledge. Magic is worked through the heightening of emotion. No magical phenomena take place in the cool atmosphere of the laboratory. When the emotion is heightened to a certain extent, a spark (as it were) jumps the gap, and what appears to be supernormal happenings are experienced. Familiar as an example to most people are poltergeist phenomena. They appear only where there are adolescents or others in state of relatively continuous nervous (emotional) tension. They hurl stones, seem to cancel the force of gravity, move tremendously heavy objects. When the magician is trying, shall we say, to move a person or an object, or influence a mind in a certain direction, he has to go through a procedure (more or less complicated, more or less lengthy) to arouse and concentrate emotional force. [note the psychicism-oriented and spiritualism-oriented perspective on magical technology and effects; perhaps this locates at least Shah and perhaps Sufis like him in time and space -- haramullah] Because certain emotions are more easily aroused than others, magic tends to center around personal power, love and hatred. It is these sensations, in the undeveloped individual, which provide the easiest fuel, emotion, "electricity" for the spark to jump the gap which will leap to join a more continuous current. When the present-day followers of the witchcraft tradition in Europe speak of their perambulation of a circle, seeking to raise a "cone of power," they are following this part of the magical tradition. [this is also the contention of Satanists like Anton LaVey -- his ideas about magic are emotion-based also, though he doesn't seem to want to believe it effective for more than personal transformation on the order of deconditioning (Greater Black Magick, these Satanists have named it; otherwise 'High Magic' as named by Hermetici magicians and even Shah here -- haramullah] But the seer, who places himself into a certain state in order to penetrate beyond the time barrier, and the magician, who undergoes a course of training in order to attain a specific object, differ from the Sufi. The Sufi's task is to so organize himself as to make it possible for the meaningful operation of an organ of perception and action which will have a continuing effect. The seer and the magician, like many of the Christian mystics, are not wholly regenerated or reconstituted in the process.... Everyone should read Miss Underhill's book, *Mysticism*; and almost anyone who is interested in mysticism will generally be found to have done so. She points out a similarity of thinking between the religious and the magicial, between the mystic and the magus. To the Sufi, this similarity is in the end contained in the concept of "forward-reaching." This is the origin of the human movement toward, among other things, civilization, toward progress, toward more knowledge. [there appears to be a shared focus upon knowledge amongst the Gnostics, Sufis, and Hermetics, perhaps as a remedy for the torment of uncertainty, perhaps in order to persuade toward conversion toward their preferred religions -- haramullah ] Miss Underhill considers that the mystic wants to "be" and the magically minded wants to "know." The Sufi attitude is undoubtedly that of "being;" but, unlike the familiar type of mystic, he will use "knowing" as well. He distinguishes between the ordinary knowing of facts and the inner knowing of reality. His activity connects and balances all these factors -- understanding, being, knowing. Sufi methodology, too, organizes the emotional force, which the magician tries to explode, into a correctly running fuel for operating the mechanism for being and knowing. Both high magic and ordinary mysticism, viewed in this light, become for the Sufi merely the struggling on of a partial methodology which will simply reproduce its own pattern. Unless it evolves far enough to enable it to reproduce more than it inherited, unless, in fact, there is a genetic amplification of scope and sufficient power of reproduction of that scope, the whole thing is a creaking anachronism. At the best it is an escape from the destiny of the individual and the community. Are magical-type rituals a part of the genuine tradition of Sufis? They are not. For the Sufi, certain symbols will have associative and certain dynamic functions. These he will use, or be influenced by, instinctively. ----------------------------------------------------- "The Sufis", Idries Shah, Doubleday Anchor, 1971; pp. 378-81. --------------------------------------------------- it is obvious that Shah does not wish to attempt to make any connection whatever between magic of a mystical character, or what is essentially compatible with mysticism, and that which could be described as 'magic for practical purposes' (as for love, sex, money, revenge), though he mentions two in passing (hatred, love). the next quote from Shah is far more interesting, as it begins to delve into what he prefers, at least in *this* context, to call 'magic', though apparently not ritualistic in form: *Occult phenomena associated with degrees of the Sufi Path:* 1. *Mujiza* (Miracles). Performed only by prophets. 2. *Karamat* (Wonders). E.g.: walking on water, prediction of the future. 3. *Mu'awanat* (Supernatural Thaumaturgy). E.g.: flying, annihilation of space. 4. *Sihr* (Lawful or 'white' magic; performed by by permission of the Sheikh). ---------------------------------------------------------- "Oriental Magic", Idries Shah, Arkana Books, 1993; p. 72. ---------------------------------------------------------- it is obvious these are merely 'powers' or 'siddhis' perhaps until stage 4, where the magic becomes "permitted" by the spiritual authority. Shah characterizes these effects not as the result of spells, conjurations, or incantations, nor even as a result of the assistance by powerful beings, but just as 'occult phenomena', and we are left wondering whether they are legends intended to attract the convert and deny the speciality of legendary figures proclaimed unique in the annals of religious history (e.g. Jesus walking on water or, comparable to other text of Shah unquoted here, raising the dead, as Sufis as sometimes described as doing) or if he has any knowledge whatever of conventional notions of magical practice (the use of sympathy, contagion, etc., discussed at length by sources like Frazer, Bonewits and others, for example). ultimately I have been left with the impression that there is a fundamental character of magic depicted by mystics which *must* limit it to religious norms and conventions (such as what is at least within Sufism called 'permitted') in order to compete with folk traditions, place them in an inferior role with respect to the presumed spiritual authority, and set into codified restriction that which would otherwise serve up some kind of competition (as for spiritual, legal, medicinal, or political objectives). this is as much true with the contention and controversy surrounding the issue of spiritually-advanced humans (look to "saints" or "wali" for this particularly in Sufism) as to supernatural entities (about which little is said in Sufi literature, though Shah speaks of the invisible order of saints working in the background of mystics and directly comparable to the 'Great White Brotherhood' of Rosicrucians, 'Secret Chiefs' of Thelemites, or 'Tibetan Mahatmas' of Theosophists; Sufis call them 'Invisible Saints', led by an invisible Head of all Sufis, the 'Qutub', 'Magnetic Pole', 'Polestar', or 'Chief' (for more, see "The Sufis", p. 439, "Oriental Magic", p. 74)). Mabaruk bashad! (that is, "Blessed Be!", as translated by Shah, who says it is a Sufi salutation calling down the blessing, *baraka*, upon an individual or assembly; Shah describes Sufis as an ancient spiritual freemasonry communicating an illuminism lying behind all these other groups mentioned above; it is somewhat difficult to know how seriously to take him) haramullah -- emailed replies may be posted ----- "sa avidya ya vimuktaye" ----- "that which liberates is ignorance" http://www.luckymojo.com/nagasiva.html hoodoo catalogue: send postal address to catalogues@luckymojo.com
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