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Symbols and Their Success

To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.paranormal.spells.hexes.magic,alt.lucky.w,talk.euthanasia,alt.magick.chaos
From: (cX80, 3o>) 
Subject: Re: Symbols and Their "Success" (Re: Tarot and Qabalah...)
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 17:53:10 GMT

glass@panix.com (Robert Scott Martin):
>>> ...a "symbol" is not successful until it has escaped its author, 

glass@panix.com (Robert Scott Martin):
> Since "knowing you're done" is what's at stake here -- not some state of
> absolute completion -- let's agree. It's just as easy to rewind the tape
> to make the realization the main player: "[When] you know you're done,
> [when] it's done with you."

oh well said! and so one might compare and contrast the magical symbol
with which one grapples and never releases (a 'failure' by your measure,
as long as it never 'escapes' to the world) and those which are released 
to either forgottenness or some measure of escalated attention.

I relish the idea of considering them of two Currents, one of Thelema
(volitio, deliberate and caustic in this case) and one of Agape (your
community-building, focal effervescence of 'success' :>). mayhaps the
'failure' of one Current is a 'success' in the other?

bro xtienfen:
>> in the most covert operations of the Mighty Adepti, the exposure 
>> of the Formula to the vulgar is considered a massive FAILURE. 

> Maybe those "slightly" covert operations of the Mighty, which 
> include such tibetan sand paintings as history.
>
> The symbol is a curious thing in that it may be wielded to veil 
> or reveal. It is neither transparent nor inscrutable, neither 
> mute [boris karloff tongueless in giza] nor blabberous. Neither 
> "grudging" or "generous" -- or either, depending on the bystander.

another magical symbol which would not really be a 'success' if it
escaped would be that designed to harm someone, directed toward
that target. its 'escape' from the trajectory designated it would
also be deemed a 'failure', however Low a Magic it may be.

and yet the most heinous, the most dark, the most difficult, some
say even the most advanced, are always designated by the elite for
the elite. those without proper preparation through exposure to the
less challenging alternatives could suffer damage, the story goes,
from indecent exposure. entire cults are constructed around the
preservation of such atrocious-becoming-conventional taboos.

> The letter may be purloined. The "vulgar" may hear the "formula" 
> repeated with every heartbeat, and not know it for itself.

at some point we must ask whether its entirety has actually escaped
if its form is commodified while its essence remains hidden with
the prophet who provided the invention.

>>> The seducer makes no call without reply, even though reply is 
>>> impossible.  

> The daring magician works without regard for apparent likelihood -- or
> "results" -- but leaves the windows open in case the miraculous should
> stop by. To live "as though" the beloved existed is to make the beloved 
> possible.

maintained long enough, it may also develop into a habit.

>> zombies, kleppa
>
> One man's kleppa is another man's kipper.

precisely. what seems a bedpan to one is a champagne glass to another.

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