(written many years ago and buried on a file of random notes on background for occult-themed fiction on my hard drive ever since)
Magick can be considered as the art and science of producing changes in consciousness (Fortune)
Therefore advertising, political spin-doctoring, etc., are all species of magick (any sufficiently advanced applied psychology is indistinguishable from magick).
But the greatest magicians of all are those who can produce culture-wide paradigm shifts. (This is what Crowley meant by describing people like Buddha, Mohammed et al as Magi; and behind them, people like Luther, Blavatsky, etc., as 8=3). John Dee, who was probably responsible for the British Empire (he certainly coined the name) is in the running; but the greatest of the modern era were those who created the modern era - Marin Mersenne and René Descartes.
We can imagine a politically conservative group who desperately want to preserve the modernist paradigm (probably because their power and prestige depends on it). They will therefore do everything in their power to rubbish and discredit any kind of belief in magick, precisely because they do believe in magick (even if this belief is never expressed in such terms) and understand the power of belief. Outfits like CSICOP (whose prominent members include a number of ‘stage magicians’, who if they know their art at all know about manipulating peoples’ perceptions) may therefore be considered nothing less than a species of reality police.
Therefore advertising, political spin-doctoring, etc., are all species of magick (any sufficiently advanced applied psychology is indistinguishable from magick).
But the greatest magicians of all are those who can produce culture-wide paradigm shifts. (This is what Crowley meant by describing people like Buddha, Mohammed et al as Magi; and behind them, people like Luther, Blavatsky, etc., as 8=3). John Dee, who was probably responsible for the British Empire (he certainly coined the name) is in the running; but the greatest of the modern era were those who created the modern era - Marin Mersenne and René Descartes.
We can imagine a politically conservative group who desperately want to preserve the modernist paradigm (probably because their power and prestige depends on it). They will therefore do everything in their power to rubbish and discredit any kind of belief in magick, precisely because they do believe in magick (even if this belief is never expressed in such terms) and understand the power of belief. Outfits like CSICOP (whose prominent members include a number of ‘stage magicians’, who if they know their art at all know about manipulating peoples’ perceptions) may therefore be considered nothing less than a species of reality police.
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