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Neopagans and Academia

To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.pagan.magick,alt.pagan,alt.religion.wicca,alt.witchcraft
From: "Martin Swain" 
Subject: Re: Neopagans and Academia (was Crowley Failure Stories ...)
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 03:58:11 GMT

"lorax666"  wrote in message
news:ZzDA9.48331$Ik.1220422@typhoon.sonic.net...
> 50021113 VII

> for good reason too. the academic community has apparently become quite
> convinced that those who practice magic are fools or untrustworthy, in
> part because of the unfounded religious propaganda trying to pass itself
> off as scholarship (e.g. from Oberon Zell and others who use a facade of
> scholarship to bolster their religiopolitical agendas), and in part due
> to academic biases toward materialistic atheism.

Aye.

> "Asiya" :
> >heh  Yep. "Scholarly" is sometimes taken as "non-spiritual" by them,
>
> with good reason. if you look at academics of magic you'll find that
> they are almost without exception studying some medieval history or
> another culture's beliefs and practices. my contacts in the academic
> world (very few) indicate that identifying as a practitioner is the
> kiss of death for the aspiring scholar (in refutation, please point
> out some practitioners of magic who are also scholars on the subject).

You are getting warmer...

> >rather than just making it up as you go along,
>
> the point is better made in a distinction sent by one of my email
> correspondents: that between operational vs. speculative magic. the
> Neopagan community has noticed that many Hermetic magicians and even
> some Neopagans are primarily speculative occultists. this extends
> even further when speaking of the academic world into complete
> abstraction from the subject matter (into areas such as sociology
> and anthropology at best). many Neopagans are primarily operational
> in their focus, and this turns to ART rather quickly (varying on
> traditional themes to create one's own formulae and spells). this
> latter kind of 'make-it-up-as-you-go-along' style is a demonstration
> of one's PROFICIENCY at operational magic (usually spellcrafting),
> rather than attempting to rely upon something some "master" may have
> told them about what they need.

The real issue, Tyagi, is that both sides are full of shit, because they
both involve buying into an entire mindset. Whether this one or that,
doesn't make any difference, the point where one subscribes to
a point of view that is handed out wholesale is where it goes wrong.

I'm not saying that a given herd might not be right, I'm saying that
the mechanism of subscribing to a given P.O.V. for social reasons
negates any value the content of said P.O.V. might have.

So generally it's worthwhile to examine motive on an individual basis.
For instance, if a given science type is poo-pooing a given crystal type
in an effort to look cool to his science type buddies (alt.skeptic, eh?),
then the content of thier argument can safely be discarded. Same deal
for the crystal types.

The amusing thing is that most people do not have a clue what
they are really doing most of the time. Fish & water. Hilarious.

Cheers

Martin



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