Prove Me Wrong: Magick and Psychology are the Same | Forum

@Hartnell. Ahh, now I understand the question.

I wouldn't personally choose to win a game of chess with magic because that would kind of take the fun out of it.

However, if I wanted to use magic to win a chess game you would be using intent, probably to disrupt your opponents decision making processes - whether by giving them a fever, or an anxiety attack or whatever. ...Or by making their car break down on the way to the game so they have to forfeit and lose. Any magical scenario uses a force. I call it intent, but whatever it is it is a force and physics is the study of the natural laws of our universe which encompasses forces.

The realm of will, desire, intent, emotion, projection, experience, receptive perception and belief.
Magic or psychology?

Both :)

@Frater: I think I understand. You're equating magick with the subconscious.

Just because you say so? :)

I can imagine a soul. "Science" can't, it's not alive.

I have no clue what you're trying to say.

Quote from FraterLuciferi

Quote from Hartnell @Frater: What do you mean by 'beyond imagination'?

If you are going to understand occult philosophy then you have to put psychology away... The supernatural forces known as magic can't be imagined by the human mind ...       

I know what Frater is trying to say.

You can't use science, which is essentially the process of observation and reflection plus deduction to generate understanding.

You can't use your imagination.

You can't use any mental processes (psychology.)

You can't fathom nor 'understand' magic.

Essentially, magic, or the supernatural, is Mindless.

The Tao which can't be spoken?

Explain what that means.

The Tao which can be spoken isn't the eternal Tao.

Kinda like the sheep you speak of is a linguistic  symbol for the sheep, not the sheep itself. The 'actual sheep' is somewhere closer to direct experience , ghenja zenlike, man. :)

@Frater. You said: The round earth was not beyond their imagination as the thing "round" existed in their head. Ancient greeks believed the earth was round because they look at lunar eclipses...

That is kind of what I am saying... Just because one group of people can't imagine something doesn't mean that all groups of people can't imagine it (and perhaps even completely understand it).

In my mind, things such as faith, religion and the supernatural are not separate from Science.

For instance, the need for Faith would probably fall under psychology or anthropology. The choice of one's Faith would fall under Psychology. The act itself of praying or performing ritual would fall under Psychology. The manifestation would fall under Alchemy which (correct me if I am wrong) is a branch of Physics because it is the manipulation of energy to transmute matter.

Inner alchemy is esoteric psychology

Hartnell, I agree that inner alchemy could possibly be a psychological process when referring to spiritual development, but what about other alchemy like turning straw into gold.

Alone, psychology can only transmute what is in the body, and even then it is likely to enlist a chemical component to produce the actual change. But once you are manipulating things you can't touch, that are separate from the body, another force has to come into play. Unless you are talking about the psychology and consciousness of energy itself.

I am just curious... How do you define psychology?

SL: To answer your question about alchemy, there's always been an esoteric element to the kind of alchemy (as you say) which would be used to turn straw into gold:

"Alchemy is a philosophical and protoscientifictradition practiced throughout Egypt andEurasia which aimed to purify, mature, and perfect certain objects.[1][2][n 1] Common aims were chrysopoeia, the transmutation of "base metals" (e.g., lead) into "noble" ones (particularly gold); the creation of an elixir of immortality; the creation of panaceas able to cure any disease; and the development of analkahest, a universal solvent.[3] The perfection of the human body and soul was thought to permit or result from the alchemical magnum opus and, in the Hellenistic and western tradition, the achievement of gnosis.[2] In Europe, the creation of a philosopher's stonewas variously connected with all of these projects." 

About how I define psychology. Hmm. Tricky... but I think I can do it. Psychology is the study and understanding gained from study and the application of that understanding to everything. As a study it's the study of oneself and the universe with the knowledge that it's all generated by our brains in the first place.  There is nothing I don't consider 'psychological' in nature because that's all there really is. 

@Hartnell. I don't see psychology as the study of the universe - that is astrophysics. Lol.

What happened before we and our brains existed - humans certainly aren't as old as the universe. Are you including the the nucleus of individual atoms as brains or the consciousness of energy?

Funnily though, whereas you see everything as psychology, I see everything as physics. This reminds me of a debate Sheldon and Amy had - which is the superior science? Peace be - I'm not sure our lives are long enough to finish that debate!

Our experience is presented through a sort of prism-window which divides everything into two components: self and universe (or world). Universe as I use it means everything which isn't self.

Check it out: you are always the center of your own experience. You can fly all the way to Mars and you won't have moved at all from the center of your own experience. Try this: walk around a bit and notice that you are remaining still in the center of your experience and the environment moves around you, coming into your awareness as you walk, and leaving it from the other side. It's a trip. :)

This "self-in-the-center of an surrounding environment" is a basic structure of our experience. If our brain didn't divide sensory information into self/universe then astrophysicists would already be the universe they're trying to study! (Continued n a second post)

The universe is just a speculative idea as most people talk about it. We don't have any experience of it. If we did, if we could really fathom that universe, we'd know much more about it than we do now.

Next part:

I have no experience of a time before my brain existed whatsoever. I can arrive at the conclusion that there was such a time by reasoning and logic, meaning I can extrapolate that idea from my experience -- speculate about it. And that's all I can do. I also can use logic to come to another speculative conclusion -- that I am a part of a simulation in a computer and I became conscious when the whole shebang was turned on 38 years ago. Each are equally as valid, and in Pragmatic sense equally useless.

I don't have any reason to include the nucleuses of atoms as brains or conscious energy. I have my own experience,  which doesn't include anything that small because my nervous system only has a certain amount of detail it can represent.  Note: a model of an atom isn't an atom, neither is words in a boon describing an atom an atom. In fact atoms are supposedly so small we can't represent them as they are in our own minds -- we have to scale them up to a size which we can comprehend in order to mentally grasp them. 

To be clear, the idea the universe existed before my experience began is merely an idea. To even talk about it we have to create it in our imaginations. What we create in our imaginations is -- you guessed it -- imaginary. ;)

Here's two really great visual metaphors for what I think of as psychology. As me anything about them and I'll tell you it's psychological relevance.