Fragment 24

I want to continue the discussion of the two types of thinking. I thinking that a very brief historical perspective may help to make illustrate the difference between the two types of thinking. Magical thinking is humans' natural way to thinking. It is the thinking of the unconscious. The unconscious does not use Logical thinking. If there is any doubt, about this, all one has to do is observe their dreams. Humans became conscious by using Magical thinking. The ancient myths are proof of this. For early humans there were no voices in the head, instead the voices had an external source. There was no inside-outside (no subject-object) distinction. The Egregores were all identified with external sources. The voices of the Gods and Goddess were humans first conscious experience. The emotions , and feelings were given a voice. Literacy of course, accelerated the change to modern consciousness. The idea of Logical thinking first appeared with the figure of Ankenaten (c. 1335 B.C.), along with his dream of unifying everything into an all encompassing One. The Law on Non-contradiction first broke into consciousness. Although it had a long way to go. It was not until Parmenides that the Law of Non-contradiction achieved the form we know today. It should come as no surprise, that this is when polytheism started to decline, (remember Aten is a jealous God) and atheism was born. We know that both Plato and Aristotle argued for the use of reason. Which of course would not have been necessary if everyone was already using reason, This is also the time Occult or Hermetic philosophy began to appear. This was the very beginning of the split between exoteric and esoteric philosophy. The Stoics and were working on grammar, and logic; the exoteric philosophers. Hermetic philosophy was being developed in the mystery cults and schools. Christianity tried to heal this split, between mystics and Scholastics, but it seemed to only make things worse. I do not want to spend much time here on the ancient or medieval world. Maybe I shall tackle it in upcoming "Fragments". Human thinking is always a combination of both, but one side predominates when it comes to truth.The battle was on between Mgocal and Logical thinking. So now let us moI believe these six thinkers were the most important. Descartes, Spinoza, and Locke had already dismissed magical thinking in their philosophies, and only regarded Magical thinking as a source of errors. They regarded Magical thinking as superstition. The victory had already been won when they wrote. Calvin was the great foe of superstition, and thought society should be run by Logical thinking. Note, Logical thinking does not imply tolerance. Calvin is the archetype of the reformer in Western history. Make no mistake, all social reformers, activists, social justice warriors have Calvin as their ideal, whether they know it or not. Calvin's vision was of a Christian republic, composed of autonomous citizens. Yes, Calvin could have written the U.S. Constitution. Calvin realized education was the key to realizing his vision. To impose Logical thinking on young children. so much so, that they would think there is no other type of thinking. But, Calvin could not do everything. This is where Peter Ramus entes our story. Ramus was the great educational reformer. He succeeded so well, that we take his works for granted, and so they are seldom read anymore. When Ramus discovered that he and Calvin had the same vision, he converted from Catholicism to Calvinism. Ramus in his books draws up the blueprint on how to teach Logical thinking. With Ramus Logical thinking became compartmentalized thinking. All subjects are to have strong boundaries, and not be allowed to bleed into other subjects. Everything must be kept separate and distinct. In his writings Ramus is constantly warning about subjects bleeding into each other, This can still be observed in academia, where no one is allowed to interfere in another field of study. Every subject, and idea has to be sharply defined with rigid borders. In simple terms, the world was reduced to discrete bits of data, that are combined or classified by function and origin. All relations and definitions must be universalized, the only true knowledge is objective knowledge. Although like Calvin he does make exceptions for religion. As I said before Ramus's triumph was so great that no one reads his books today. His philosophy of education is taken as a given. Mersenne is a little different than the first two members of the triad. He is a cross between the gossip columnist that everyone reads, and the intellectual clearing house of the early 17rh, century. Mersenne was also a fierce advocate for Logical and compartmentalized thinking. Mersenne was a precursor of The " Royal Society." He corresponded with all the major thinkers, and most of the minor thinkers of his time. So when he launched his attack on Magical thinking everyone listened. Let us now turn to the other side of the dispute. Everyone knows the tragic story of Bruno, as a martyr, but few know that he was no martyr for science. Bruno was not burned at the stade because he held the Copernican theory of the Planetary system. Somehow the rumor got started that Bruno had something to do with astronomy, which he did not. Bruno was burned because of his Hermetic philosophy, not because of anything to do with astronomy. Bruno saw himself as a Hermetic messiah, that was going to unify Europe with a new Hermetic religion. Bruno was burned for heresy. not science. We must move along. Bohme is one of the greatest thinkers in history, and the first psychonaut in modern Western history. He voyaged deep into inner space, trying to put the scorched fragments of his psyche back together. He did not come back unscathed. Bohmw proposed a Magical system that is both a reformation of the Kabbalah and the Hermetic philosophy up to his time. A system of chains of correspondences held together in an emotional-informational nexus of his Source Spirits or natural properties. The first five of his Source Spirits are Egregores: the council in the head. Bohme states unequivocally that the only way to understand reality is through Magical thinking. He was also a fierce critic of Calvin, and Calvinism. He compares Calvin and his followers to logic chopping lawyers for the Devil. And now we come to our final champion of Magical thinking: Robert Fludd. The saga of Fludd is the decisive victory of Logical thinking in Western history. When Mersenne launched his attack on Magical thinking, Fludd was the target. It was Mersenne that landed the decisive blow against Magical thinking. Mersenne did not just argue Magical thinking was wrong, but that it was insane. And the world listened. From then on Magical thinking really did become Occult philosophy. Magical thinking was driven underground, and written out of the official history of ideas. This is not to say Occult philosophy, and practice disappeared, the tradition lives under the radar of the official education and history that is taught in academia. Breaking through during times of crisis; like today.

Fragment 23

A strange thing has happened to me, since I started writing the "Fragments" that being people are asking me for advice on magic. Most of the questions boil down to two questions: "Why is my Magic not working?" and "How can I feel closer to my God or Goddess?". There is an answer, probably not the answer that a lot of people are going to like, because it involves work. An analogy with chess should prove illustrative here. Most coffee house players , and club players want to get good enough to challenge Masters and Grandmasters. The problem being they are looking for an easy fix. So they read books on openings, and middle game tactics (Stock sacrifices and such). This will help some, but is not the answer, if one wants to become an elite player. To be in the upper echelons of chess, one must be able to calculate many moves in advance. This of course, involves hard work, much like doing math homework. This is why the great chess teacher. S.Tarrasch and the Russian school of chess start with the endgame. For most people there least favorite part of the game. The endgame is all calculation. Back to magic. The aspirant in magic has to change or develop a way of thinking. This is what J. Bohme calls magical thinking. So what is magical thinking? Humans use predominantly two types of thinking. I will call these types: logical thinking and magical thinking. (In my philosophical writings I refer to "magical thinking" as "mythological thinking". So what is the difference? The short answer is that Logical thinking depends on the Law of noncontradiction (Aten), it connects events, objects, etc. by origin and function. The second type of thinking (Magical thinking) which is also the older way of thinking connects events, objects, etc. by chains of correspondence. We of course use a mixture of the two types of thinking throughout our days. When we are involved in standardized activities such as: driving, working, taking tests, etc. we are using logical thinking. We follow rules that are universalized, and have clarity. Driving is a good example. The rules of the road are the same for everyone, and the connections are made by function. The function of driving is to get safely from one place to another. This is what determines the rules of driving, everything is objective. Biology would be another example, and also shows the contradiction in logical thinking. Animals can be grouped either by function or origin (genetic closeness); producing different sets of categories using the same animals or species depending on whether one used function or origin. So how does one decide which category to use? Well it all comes down to which one works for the goal one wants to achieve. It should be easy to see that Logical thinking depends on pragmatic thinking. The trouble is the pragmatic theory of truth is not logical. Objective thinking is supposed to lead to one absolute Truth. Not a contingent truth based on the goal of an individual. In simpler terms there is no one absolute Truth. Only truths based on the goals of an agent. This is not to say logical thinking is not useful, it is incredibly useful, but does not lead to Truth. The only reliable judge of theories and actions is whether they work.Both types of thinking are subject to the Pragmatic theory of truth. To reiterate the point one more time logical thinking is incredibly useful, but does not have any monopoly on truth. So let us move to Magical thinking. Magical thinking is connecting objects, people, places, events, etc. in chains of correspondences. Instead of using origin, and function to connect things, things are connected by emotional, and physical resemblances. This was the purpose of all those elaborate memory systems from the Renaissance, the Quabblah, Tarot, and Astrology, the system of wheels in Raymond Lull. As I said before in magical thinking things are classified and combined by physical and emotional resemblances. A quote from Aleister Crowley should make this clear:(from Letter F in "Magick without Tears": As I walked about, I made a point of attributing everything I saw to its appropriate idea. I would walk out of the door of my house and reflect that the door is Daleth, and the house Beth; now the word "dob" is Hebrew for "bear", and has the number 6, which refers to the Sun. Then you come to the fence of your property and that is Ceth-number 8, number of Tarot trumps 7, which is the Chariot, so you begin to look about for your car. Then you come to the street and the first house you see is number 86 and that Elohim, and is built of red brick which reminds you of Mars and the Blasted Tower, and so on. As soon as this sort of work which can be done in a quite light hearted spirit, becomes habitual, you will find your mind running naturally in this direction, and will be surprised at your progress. Never let your mind wander from the fact that your Quabalah is not my Quabalah: a good many things which I have noted may be useful to you, but you must construct your own system so that it is a living weapon in your hand." The above quote should clear up what it is to think Magically. I know the next question is "Why does it work?" To be successful one must have both content and visualization. Magical thinking develops these talents. like calculation improves one's chess. I must explain what I mean by content. F. H. Bradley, one of the most subtle thinkers in history, drew a distinction between content and clarity. Logical thinking has clarity; to achieve clarity one must get rid of content. In other words when ideas have strong borderline qualities they keep the thing thought about discrete.(Strong separation of ideas) For Logical thinking knowledge is a series of discrete data. Mathematics is a perfect example. Numbers have almost no content. This is why they can be applied to almost anything.,making math so useful. On the other hand, content is identified with emotion; remember physical and emotional resemblences. These physical and emotional resemblences shoul come together in long chains of correspondences. There should have been no problem in observing this in the above quote from Crowley. Logecal thinking is a search for clearly defined discreet ideas. One should have no problem recognizing this in Descartes' and Spinoza's search for adequate ideas. (For those interested Descartes makes this very clear in "The Objections and Replys") Relation and identification of ideas with emotions is Magical thinking. One sacrifices clarity for content. This type of thinking gives one the feeling and emotional commitment that is needed to practice Magic. In Magic one must feel an object or event, not just know it. This is why women have an initial advantage in Magic; , probably explains why there are so many witches. As Novalis said: "Women demand the intellectual be sensualized, Men demand the sensual be intellectualized." I will offer some advice that can safely be disregarded; start with one system and build on it before adding more. Build on it as you feel ready, don't overwhelm yourself. And you will find like the chess player that learns to calculate your Magic shall get better. To use the chess analogy one more time learn how to calculate 3 moves ahead before trying 10. Next "Fragment I shall continue to examine the two types of thinking.