If that’s your definition of magick, then why don’t we try a much simpler test that cannot be touched by the “fudge factor”. I flip a coin a hundred times, and you influence it, through magick, to come up either heads or tails(your choice) 75 times or more.
Simple manipulation of the odds.
Easily testable and verifiable.
O.K. with you?
Thank you.
It doesn’t seem much different or any harder to swallow than any other faith based beleifs I can think of.
It seems unlikely that since your magic doesn’t do anything physically impossible that can’t be explained by other means (although the 10 G would convince me,) then it is unlikely that you are going to be able to convince Czarcasm of its efficacy.
No matter how improbable a feat you manage to pull off, Czarcasm can rightfully claim that Occam’s razor forces him to accept the rational explanation over the supernatural one.
You will both receive results that are valid within your own idividual beleif systems.
The only way to resolve this would be to propose an experiment that you would both agree on. For example, can you reduce the probability of a coin landing tales to zero? (Again, I’m not belittling, I’m asking. I don’t know if it works that way.)
If you can, perhaps you can agree on a number that is so extreme that Czarcasm will be willing to discount the statistical probability as so unlikely that it can be discarded.
Again, if you could cause a coin to land heads fifty times in a row, while still statistically possible, I, and most reasonable people would consider that damn convincing evidence.
Alternately, you just might decide that if it works for you, that’s great. If it helps you, what does it matter? Why worry about what others think?
I’m sad to see this thread has become a debate over the efficacy of religious powers.
As a Catholic, I was taught that transubstantiation is a fact. I was also taught that it was a fact of faith and neither subject nor testable by empirical methods.
If you feel that your magic is something similar, that works just fine for me.
Sorry, Freyr.
There’s a coincidence!
Czrcasm posted his idea while I was typing mine.
****I’d agree that we shouldn’t hijack this thread any further.
By the way… isn’t Czarcasm a woman?
**Scylla asked:
My understanding of neo-paganism is that it’s put together out of different pieces of older religions, and some that are made up on the spot (not unlike most other religions, just that this has happened recently and is still happening.)**
Pretty much. It might be better to say; Gardener took lots of pieces from Leland’s Aradia; Gospel of the Witches, Graves’s White Goddess and the Murray thesis about underground, surviving witch cults, mixed thoroughly with ritual from the Golden Dawn and created Wicca.
My question (if the above is correct,) is where does neo-paganism derive it’s power as a religion? I’m taking it, that the particular specific beleifs aren’t so important, as is the actual act of believing or faith is somehow tapping into religious power. i.e it really doesn’t matter if you drive a Honda, or a Chevy, both will get you there.
From what I gather you’re asking, how does Wicca derive its faith or belief, since it’s so diverse? Wicca gives people the tools to connact deity directly, with no intervening priestly caste. Your contact and subsequent relationship with deity is the important point. That contact and relationship helps us grow on a spiritual level. The Gods act as spiritual big brothers and sisters, helping us when we need it. Otherwise, it’s up to ourselves to learn the lessons of life.
Think of it this way; it’s like independent study back in college. You do most of the work on your own, but if you need help, the Gods are there to lend assistance.
Do the Gods have to be specific acceptable and already existing Gods, or can it be nospecific?
Can you make up your own God? If you do, does this create a new god, or does a preexisting entity fill the bill?
Some create a god, or go with a faceless god/goddess.
Some go with a preexisting deity.
Some go with no deity at all and worship the universe or nature.
Thanks, Freyr; I did a web search on him (Philip Emmons Isaac Bonewits) a couple of months ago but didn’t turn up anything. I’d really like to read some of his recent stuff.
His experiences with illness should give us some perspective on the relationship of magickal practice to physical well-being.
In my opinion, Paganism is not merely a derivative religion–it is more than a collection of bits and pieces of older faith systems, and it is not an attempt to re-create a faith system from the past (which is impossible, we cannot know from the sources available how culture actually worshipped, the thought processes behind the physical manifestations of their religions). It is much more than its trappings, be they magic or skyclad (nude) rituals. Please don’t confuse the use of spellcraft, incense, chanting or candles with the religion itself. Wicca is a sect of Paganism, as Baptist is a sect of Christianity. Magic is not central to Paganism, though I would argue it is to Wicca. Think of the different approaches to magic within the Pagan community as similar to the different uses of Communion among Christian sects. Catholics can receive Communion (the Body (wafer) and Blood (wine) of Christ) everyday. Most other Christian sects reserve Communion for once a month, or even once a year. Both are expressions of the relationship between those individuals and the Divine. Paganism is intensely individualized, so the rituals (methods of expressing the religious relationship) are very diverse.
Paganism is a revelatory religion. Its expression is an outgrown of an individual’s relationship with the Divine. The Divine reveals Itself/Himself/Herself/Themselves (political correctness and polytheism wreck havoc on sentence construction) in ways in which the individual can accept and gain a level of understanding of the Divine. Frankly, and I may be laughed off the thread, if not the board, I believe that this relationship, and the individual’s efforts to gain more and more understanding of the Divine, is the the core of our existance, the core of the existance of everything. Paganism is one way of approaching this relationship, of deepening the relationship, and of fulfilling the purpose of existance. So is Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Science, Philosophy etc., etc., etc. The purpose is to know and to understand. The path is just the path.
Kallessa, I agree with much of what you said, although I’d argue that magic is not central to Wicca - just to some Wiccans.
I know of very few pagans of any type who continue to concentrate on magic - paganism is, after all, a spiritual path. I am a practicing Wiccan and coven member, and I rarely (if ever) use spellwork.
[sub]If I could give myself $10,000, though, I’d be down to the candle store like a rifle shot. And if I ever find out how to throw a fireball, James Randi will be on my speed dial, because I could use that money too.[/sub]
For the non-pagan readers of this thread, you may have gathered by now that beliefs vary widely. At least in my little corner of the Wiccan world, there is a strong emphasis on individual beliefs, and on personal relationships with the diety of your choice. There are some ideas we have in common, but I wouldn’t assume anything. We can, as a group, tell you what many of us believe, but the only way to find out what a specific pagan believes is to ask them.
**Scylla wrote:
Do the Gods have to be specific acceptable and already existing Gods, or can it be nospecific?**
Some people simply call upon the Lord and Lady by Their Many Names and Manifestations. I prefer to call the Gods by name. This is where a good knowledge of mythology comes in. Know their name and what They’re known for. For example, don’t call upon Athena for sex rites. If you’re taking a long journey, calling upon Odin as patron of travelers would be a good idea. Or maybe Hermes. See my point?
Can you make up your own God? If you do, does this create a new god, or does a preexisting entity fill the bill?
Good question. The only Gods I know of that have been made up in fun are Beings like Squat; Goddess of Parking Spaces and Patron of Pizza Delivery Boys. Referring back to Bonewits, again, the influence a deity can exert seems to be proportional to the number of follower/believers it has. But I’ve never heard or seen anything to confirm or deny this.
Seawitch & Kallessa
Welcome, welcome! I second what you both said! clap clap
Czarcasm and Hastur:
If you do agree on a suitable demonstration, I’d very much like to observe, if that’s okay with you both.
So I’ll ask the question that I asked on another thread: How many gods and goddesses are there believed to be?
Jab1 -
Please bear with me here. I’m going to give a long, rambling answer to what sounds like a perfectly straightforward question.
Some Wiccans (I won’t try to speak for the other pagans) believe in a single God, who has both masculine and feminine aspects, and many different qualities. An analogy I’ve heard for this is one large book, with many different pages.
Some believe in a God and Goddess, each of whom have different faces. As an example, the God could take on the aspect of Thor, Mars, Maui, Ganesha, or whatever diety was appropriate for that particular moment.
Some believe in literally hundreds of Gods and Goddesses, each of whom are seperate entities. I know one man who gets highly insulted if you say that Mars and Ares are the same god, with Roman/Greek names.
And just to confuse it further, some don’t believe in a specific God or Goddess at all; they are more concerned with nature in general, or perhaps regard the Gods and Goddesses as psychological archetypes.
And for a lot of us, the answer may be one of the above on one day, and something different later in the week. Personally, I lean toward the single God and single Goddess. However, I might be wrong, and one of them might smite me shortly here.
Side note:
Um, I don’t know if you’ve ever read about Discordianism, but they have a pretty decent sense of humor; one of my favorite quotes is this one.
How many gods am I holding up?
a. One
b. Three
c. Three, but they look like one
d. One, but he looks like three
You begin to see the problem.
By whom?
Everyone believes differently, and has differences of opinion about the nature of gods.
Personally, I worship two kinds of gods. The first kind is your standard pagan deity (Frey, Brigid, Artemis, Dionysus, etc.), whom I regard as a personification of something in the collective unconscious. If I’m doing a working to make myself more open to love, for example, I might invoke Aphrodite, as a more easily graspable and concrete concept than Love in the abstract.
The other kind is the animist concept of the totality of the universe and the connections between everything that exists, Which I invoke as the Goddess and God in my rituals. For me, They are not the creators of the universe, but the be-ers (if you will) of everything that exists, both helpful and harmful to our perspective. For me, it is a good way of summing up the incomprehensible grandeur of the universe without reducing humans to meaningless gnats therein.
And, in my case, I don’t particularly believe in any Gods or Goddesses, at least, not as such. I believe that there is a Divine Presence out there, which I have no hope of comprehending though I continue to try, and that we humans tend to put faces or “masks” on this Presence in order to give ourselves something comfortable and familiar to work with.
OTOH, I walk with, and frequently ask for assistance from, my Spirit Guides. These two presences are equally unexplained to me, and most often manifest in the forms of Coyote and Wolf*, usually with good advice, though most often Coyote’s advice boils down to “let’s play,” and Wolf’s to “what can you learn from this?” But they are familiar to me; I presume they’re manifestations of my subconscious, but it feels more right to call them spirit guides.
*[sub]By this I do not mean the Native American Deities, although they seem to share some common characteristics. I respect our Native brothers and sisters and would not insult them by claiming to be following any of their shamanic paths.[/sub]
**Jab1 asked:
So I’ll ask the question that I asked on another thread: How many gods and goddesses are there believed to be?**
I dunno. My best recommendation, get all the books on mythology you can and start counting.