annarb wrote:it sounds to me and please correct me if im wrong... but that your saying magic is simply psychological motivation or a placebo and to me magic has never been that.. to me the whole point of magic is action at a distance or making something objectivily happen through nonordinary means...please correct me if i misunderstood but to me it sounds as though your stating that magic is like a placebo?
Hmmm... this might be a long answer. I was brought up to believe in the occult, so the spiritual world was never not real to me. I didn't know organised religions really existed until I was older - I was told about fairies, about the astral, hedge riding etc. I remember we used to leave saucers of milk or sugar water out for the Fae, and there were certain parts of the garden that we weren't allowed to go into. Therefore the spiritual world has always been real, always been tied directly to the mundane world.
Now, I believe that reality is both objective and subjective, not one or the other - we have an objective reality that exists outside of our need to believe or understand it, the sun rises and sets, we age, we breathe and our heart pumps blood through our veins - none of that matters if we believe in it or not. We also have a subjective reality, that which we use to perceive and understand the objective reality, and thats dependent on many things - we can see a limited amount of colours, hear a limited range of sounds, and much of our subjective reality is dependent on our interpretation. Neither reality, the objective external reality and subjective inner reality, is any more valid than the other, but the objective reality doesn't require us to perceive, believe or understand it for it to exist, while our inner subjective reality requires that we believe in specific key factors in order for it to exist, such as the existence or non-existence of God, good and evil, right and wrong, our moral code etc.
Through my belief that reality is both subjective and objective, I can see that the most important element of my inner subjective reality is belief - I am creating my subjective reality solely through my belief in the validity of my perception of the external objective reality, and my trust that my understanding of that objective reality is valid, and that through that understanding I can function subjectively in an objective way. This has lead me to study a range of things - I have studied both Newtonian and Quantum physics, theology, and world religions. I spend a lot of time discussing both religion and science with people, and have contacts in both fields that I rely on to test my own understanding who know a considerable amount about the subjects than I do, for example my father who holds a PhD in chaos mathematics, and several university lecturers and holders of doctoral degrees in theology, along with other people I've met in the last thirty odd years I've studied and practiced magick.
I believe strongly in the spirits of the Ars Goetia, but that each spirit listed is a demonised form of an older god from a culture conquered by the forming nation of Israel. From my history of sexual abuse and then sex addiction, and several other key factors that happened in my teens, such as severe addiction and being clinically dead from collapsed lungs brought on by ruptured ulcers, I believe I was visited by the demon Asmodeus, and through making a spiritual pact with him now consider him to be my personal patron, and guide. I have studied the legend of Asmodeus back to its roots in Zoroastrianism, and have seen his presence in my life many times since.
I also believe that my life is tied in with the Goddess Lilith, and that through sheer persistence and being killed by her through a pulmonary embolism, which I only survived by having my heart restart when I fell backwards down a flight of steps, I have piqued her interest, and that she continues to be a presence in my life. I also follow a form of Demonolatry in which Asmodeus and Lilith are husband and wife, thus making me yet closer to her, even though shes traditionally not that nice to men as a whole.
I believe through my understanding of objective and subjective reality that my subjective beliefs in the gods I worship then in turn affect objective reality solely through my personal beliefs, but also that my beliefs are not any more real or valid than anyone else's, as their beliefs are also subjective. Therefore I don't tend to discuss my beliefs with people, nor try to force them on others, as they can be subjectively real for me, but not for other people whose own subjectively real beliefs are equally as valid. Therefore it really doesn't matter that much if what I believe in is true objectively, what matters is that I believe in it myself, and it is therefore subjectively real for me.
I have experienced dying twice - both are part of the public record, I was admitted to hospital with a ruptured ulcer and collapsed lung, while I was in hospital my other lung collapsed under the strain and I suffocated to death. I have a scar down my front from where my rib cage ends to my navel where I was literally ripped open so they could repair my diaphragm and allow me to start breathing again. The second time I had blood clots travel from my legs as a result of deep vein thrombosis brought about by not moving enough on a flight to Australia, and I believe that Asmodeus saved my life by restarting my heart - I remember seeing him stomp on my chest, though its most likely falling down a flight of steps did it. I attribute both deaths to Lilith, as the first time I was actively petitioning Lilith to resolve something and the second I heard her voice quite clearly say 'If you can survive this. you can survive anything'.
So no, I don't believe that magick is a placebo, I believe that it is an application of the will, but through the medium of belief. As reality is subjective and objective at the same time, causing changes in your own subjective reality can in turn cause changes in the external objective reality.