I’m not entirely sure I would agree with defining Nietzsche’s philosophy as shallow individualism, as your second paragraph implies. Nietzsche often proves both playful and subtle in his language, and methinks his real focus was upon being sincere in whatever one does. My admittedly surface reading of Aleister Crowley’s thought finds Crowley echoing this more enlightened version of Nietzsche, especially in his focus upon finding and following one’s True Will. With this said, there are – sadly – many out there today who miss the moral (Oh, how he would hate that characterization!) subtext of Nietzsche’s thought entirely, which is a shame.
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Fitting magic into daily life isn’t as easy as it used to be, with the pace of life making it more difficult to bring people together to practice magic and share learnings – work 10+ hour days, get to the gym, time with the kids and what’s left is 1/2 hour to an hour a day. Someone needs to bring magic into the 21st century, cutting away the dross for the gems, making it accessible and meaningful rather than the clutter that exists in the main today. Showing people that the energy exists and how to work with it does not require learning 20 pages of ritual but a commitment to learn how to use it and harmonise with it. Bardon for all his critics is the best contemporary magician of our time – at least insofar as book 1 goes – if you did half the exercises in initiation into hermetics for a year you would be a heck of a magician.

If I try to look it on the positive side you aren’t talking about the same thing.
Maybe there are other perspectives about this, but I don’t know them and I even know less about what are the origins of your article (that may have more importance than what I can imagine)

Best regards,

If Tyson were a reasonable person he would offer a statement either retracting or clarifying his position, but he has chosen to ignore each of the varying responses to his piece.

As it stands there are no points of agreement between us on this issue.
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Best regards

While I fear that a full response to your comments would require another article, I’ll try to make a few cogent points below:

I find it absolutely fascinating that you are part of a Western subculture (in this case, the “rawies” in question), with its own norms and values, embracing an alternative approach to neo-shamanism, and finding new metaphors for the power of the “other.”

For years, I have advocated an approach to neo-shamanism in which research takes a back seat to inspiration. That does not set research aside, but it does reorganize the relative authority of “what is in books” and “what has been experienced.” There is no “correct method” for expressing the experiences that one has when delving into the “spiritual other” other than those that ones culture dictates. In this case, that culture is not the wider perspectives of Western culture, but those of the subculture that shape the experiences themselves. Such a subculture is not, however, entirely free of the culture that it developed within which it developed.

I would hesitate to say that there is “something special and powerful about reconstructing practices of indigenous cultures” in a larger sense. The practice of reconstructing practices from other cultures is in fact a very Western practice, one that has been likened to another Western practice, colonialism. It is special and powerful within a Western context, in which is informed by those same colonial and “globalizing” forces. Whatever sources we mine for our inspiration, it is critical that we remember that these reconstructions are based on our beliefs, our values, and our culture.

I agree that, for Westerners, the ability to point back to earlier examples of similar practices, inside or outside of our culture, can lend a certain credibility to such beliefs. As to whether it should be belief that spawns politics, or politics that informs spiritual experience, I think each individual will find that the answer is a bit different and wholly personal. Further, the distinction itself may be more of a matter of perspective, and the two approaches are not really too different from one another. In both cases, the two types of knowledge intertwine, allowing the practitioner to integrate what are normally separate types of “truth.”

Neo-shamanism is, in some respects, a way of approaching new meanings of “truths” and as such is informed by other truths we experience in our lives. I would be very interested to hear more from you about how this works out in the “rawie” community.

Interesting essay but I have to point this out:

“What pits the OTK apart from other Thelemic groups is that instead of focusing our studies exclusively to the life of Aleister Crowley, or some other Thelemic prophet, we are mostly concerned with how Thelema can help humanity solve the tremendous problems that we are about to encounter. We realize that we live in a different world than our predecessors, so we must endeavor to see how Thelema is relevant in today’s world.”

This statement is highly disingenuous. I know of no organizations which ‘focus [their] studies exclusively to the life of Aleister Crowley.’ I’d love to know what he is referring to…

93 93/93
IAO131

I really appreciate your perspectives here!
Tonya Kay´s last blog ..Updated January 26th, 2010

To attempt an answer to your question, I’m afraid I have to say both yes and no.

As members of Western culture, we are inheritors of these myths. What you choose to do with them is, of course, up to you. However, in communicating with other members of our culture, they get to make their own choices as well.

Whether we accept these myths (such as the Noble Savage) or not, our language is shaped by our culture. When we use the terms “shaman” or “neo-shaman” we are invoking these images for other people. Their understanding of what we are saying is informed by these images.

If we go ahead and reject the myth, then we need to do so explicitly. The connection, otherwise, is implicit in our culture. Just as, if we use the word “priest,” we imply Christianity unless either the context says otherwise or we explicitly make the distinction.

It is possible for us to reject the connection, but impossible (or perhaps simply unwise) for us to ignore that the connection is there in the first place.

Do you think neo-shamanism can be informed by self-reflection and self-realizations without the use of the much-maligned (deservedly so in my opinion) Noble Savage archetype behind it?

In other disciplines, the process of definition has already been completed to a large extent. The popular material monism of most science, for example, has already bounded the world to include some experiences (gravity) while not including others (spirituality) and to miss the point and value of some others (poetry). The pure Neoplatonist hubris of such a move would be startling, were it not a direct effect of culture.

The magician and the mystic, often, face the chaos of the world beyond culture and language. Systems such as the Cabala and (dare I say it) the chakras are ways of not just recognizing patterns, but at the same time creating order so that we can use out big primate brains to think about things.

Because you are right, without that specific language (technical language) to think about and speak of our experiences, the spiritual/magical is just “the sound the color blue makes when it’s cast out of tin and struck with a hammer at the speed of joy.” And the shape of that language indeed seems to shape our perceptions.

93’s