I'll hold out my hands, and spread my claws, and hook the moon and stars.

[wolven7]

Einstürzende Neubauten - [Gastarbeiterdub]--- I've come to realise that I use a lot of the imagery of cutting, of blades and claws and tearing, and peeling, when I talk about the things that matter, to me. I'm a fan of flaying the skin, of dissecting the layers, of analyzing the components. (Wolf Eyes - [Noise Not Music]). Everything I do has to have some kind of hands-on, bladed, up close and personal, elbows (yours or mine) deep in the gore (mine or yours) kind of feel and meaning to it, or it doesn't feel like i'm doing anything, at all. (The Blood Brothers - [Rat Rider]). When I place my hands on your head, my driving wish is to sink my fingers into your mind and feel what you're thinking. When I hug and hold you, tight, I want to absorb you and be absorbed into you, so we can connect for ever, for a moment. (Jarboe - [To Forget (w/ Iva Davies)]). When we talk, I want to fuck you, but that isn't the kind of closeness this is, I think, that's not what this communication means, but is often how it is symbolized or approximated...

I sent an inquiry letter, today, to The University of Exeter, as my mother has provided me with a link to their overseas student funding options. Just had a conversation with unknownbinaries regarding the question of Why Western Esotericism? Because It's the closest thing academia has to a modern study of the theories and methods of magical and occult practices. Which led to the question of how can I stand working in Academia? (Depeche Mode - [It's No Good]). "With great force of will not to bash my head into a wall and then cut someone with the shards of skull" was, I believe, my exact answer. More fully, I remind myself that, ultimately, I want to convince a large portion of the world that the perspectives, tools, and operations of magical thought and practice are important and useful, and that academic study, politcal public speaking, and educational systems are often the most effective ways of going about that. But I have to be subtle, I have to show one faculty at a time, apparently, and move outward, onward. It is slow, and difficult, and I am angry, much of the time. But that anger keeps me from becoming complacent. It keeps me from turning into what I hate.

V.A. - [cdatakill / la sinistra]--- So, today, I e-mail people. Today I ask questions, and find out about England. Today I find more PhD programs, and more work. Today I march on.

Suzanne Vega - [Calypso]--- Rice, and Boston, to go.

In other news, photographer and emotional sorceress Katie West teaches us the very important lessons of knowing your motivations and goals, in the face of what others may think or want of you. It's the kind of thing I need to hear, right now, and you should check it out.

Lovesliescrushing - [Charm]--- I need to go ask for Letters of Recommendation, from people who may not want to hear from me, right now. People who may think my request an imposition, rather than an honour.

Pop Will Eat Itself - [RSVP]--- Wish me luck.

Comments

[mrvi.livejournal.com]

Got a mate who's doing an MA in WE at Exeter. He seems to be finding it fruitful.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

That is definitely encouraging, but there are a number of factors, there. Such as, without being a student, would unknownbinaries be able to come with me?

[mrvi.livejournal.com]

In my experience, depends on the Uni. I have a friend who was studying at Lancaster who met his then gf who was Finnish. She moved over and they lived together in his campus accommodation. You might have to push the 'partner' bit, but I've seen it done.

Re:Academia and magic - you know Thomas Karlsson, founder of Dragon Rouge teaches WE at Stockholm right?

[wolven.livejournal.com]

I didn't know he'd started a program, there, no. That's really good to know.

That makes Stockholm, France, Amsterdam, England, and Texas

[teididh.livejournal.com]

The UK is quite progressive (compared to, say, us) about the unmarried partners thing. There's a lot of documentation involved, but you two have been living together long enough that it might be feasible. If you do end up needing immigration info, shoot me an email and I can load you up with resources.

You may want to make sure you double check your own eligibility, though, immigration-wise. There's been a bit of back and forth recently about reciprocity in higher education visas between the UK and the US.

[necrophonic.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about this idea of magic in academia, and it occurred to me that part of the problem you're having is not just getting past the initial reaction that people have of "so you want to study harry potter?" it's the notion that there's not really a *method* of studying it. Pretty much everything in academia has a method of study that has a system of some sort. Even Philosophy has Logic, and psychology still has observation and theoretical frameworks.

But how can someone actually study half of the things that go into making what you call magic? What method would actually be used to do most of those things? Beyond the portions of it that are essentially just manipulating people's emotions or interactions (the psychological portions) the stuff that's entirely subjective emotional output through ritual even in the loosest sense could only have a METHODICAL study akin to psychological observation and neurological study, which I'm betting totally "misses the point" you're trying to get at with magic in the first place.

And when it comes to things like astrology or tarot cards, again, since you reject scientific methodology then there's not a set framework that you can actually build into a curriculum that can actually be judged as anything other than entirely subjective.

Even if I were to completely agree with everything you said 100% and believed magic was the bees knees, I'd be lying if I said I thought it was easy to see how it would fit into Academia at all, let alone the current system. And I'd be uneasy about changing the system that exists in Academia right now, because the kinds of things you'd have to change to allow for Magic would end up severely undermining other classes.

This isn't to discourage you from pursuing Western Esotericism or magic, but I think it might be some food for thought. If you really want to get people in Academia to embrace magic, then there has to be some sort of TANGIBLE methodology, and I haven't seen that laid out by any person, website, book, or seminar that I've ever observed.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

And this is why, as unknownbinaries and I discussed, the closest thing that's been accepted is Western Esotericism, which is, essentially the Academic Study of Formulaic Hermetic Mysticism. There are rules and formulas and set prescriptions, there, which are supposed to have particular effects on the practitioner and the world around him or her, and so it is more easily accepted.

The key, here, is recognising that almost all things called "magical" have representational, symbolic, emotional, linguistic, and communicative components, as well as many others, and understanding that the combination of those components into a worldview which is then called "magical" has benefits for operating, in the world, and lends a useeful understanding to things which are already existent and done, in the world.

[necrophonic.livejournal.com]

You're still running into the problem of overlapping where you say that magic explains different things, and has to be judged under its own system of verification, and where you say that it has direct effects on the physical world. Even if I were to agree that it has benefit in the world, that apparent or perceived contradiction, real or imagined, makes it hard to accept as a field of "study" regardless of whether or not it is an actually useful field of practice.

Not trying to nitpick, honestly.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Most who study magic, who use it, wouldn't see it as a contradiction, but would say that the effects of its own system can be fit into the wider universe. It's hard to say, without starting to sound New-Age-y, or Hamlet-like, but basically, the argument is that there are more things in heaven &c., and that includes the multiplicity of means by which to explain and explore those things.

[necrophonic.livejournal.com]

Well, like I said, perceived contradiction or real contradiction, there is no methodology for actually DEMONSTRATING that it is or isn't one. To say it just fits into the wider universe is just a rhetorical statement, and rhetorical statements aren't proof.

And the "more things in heaven and earth" is a perfect example of rhetoric with no substance, because nobody has seen heaven to know what's in it, so you're essentially saying "completely baseless blind faith statement is greater than observable statement," so that's probably the last analogy you'd want to use.

And as you said above, the key may be recognizing that these things are useful for the materialists, or that it's not new agey, but there's no way to recognize that this is the case without demonstrating it unless you DO want people to operate on blind faith alone, and if blind faith alone is enough to substantiate something then there's no way whatsoever to differentiate it from new age BS (such as the "charlatans" [According to Sammaelhain] like Deepak Chopra) or Westboro Baptist Church.

I know you don't think it's blind faith and I know you have more convincing YOU of it, but so far that's all you've presented ME with, and all I've been presented with by your colleagues as well as the various other documentary sources and lectures by like minded individuals.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

None of which is to think that it will be Easy, by any stretch, but that it Can be done, without undermining the ability to work in and gain information from the intersubjective or "objective" reality we use, every day.

[necrophonic.livejournal.com]

Oh I don't think it would undermine day to day anything, I mean that if you start blurring the lines between testable data and subjective data being acceptable fields of study in academia, it could hurt fields that use testability as the cornerstone of the research. I mean, that kind of thinking could set psychology back 100 years.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

I think that it could work fine, as long as it's understood that testability and falsifiability still work just fine and are in fact the best methods for certain fields, but not necessarily all fields.

[triskelmoon.livejournal.com]

In some ways it seems like the inverse (or corollary) or physics where the act of observation effects the experiment.

The act of experimentation creates the experiment/observation.

[triskelmoon.livejournal.com]

Err, *of physics.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

I figured ;)

[wolven.livejournal.com]

I think I like that. I'll have to roll that one around, in my head, a bit, and see what it can do...

[necrophonic.livejournal.com]

That's only true of the method of observation interferes with the thing being observed. This is usually brought up solely because of the double-slit experiments with waves and particles because the method of observing the particles was to bombard them with other particles, which was the equivalent of "observing" a bowling ball going down a lane by hitting it with other bowling balls, whereas observing a bowling ball by bombarding it with light photons which bounce off and hit our eyes has an effect somewhere between "none" and "pretty negligible", as could be confirmed by running the experiment with no lights on and recording the point of impact on the target/wall, thus determining whether or not it has a similar trajectory.

Hate to barge in and argue, but the point you brought up is largely misunderstood by society as a whole, and brought up incorrectly the majority of the time in discussions of both physics and philosophy.

[triskelmoon.livejournal.com]

No, thank you for the information. I confess that I mostly come at the knowledge from fiction and the like. I was always hopeless at physics in the sciences, but was great at chemistry. Which is likely why I'm an accountant instead of a math theorist (like a friend of mine). I always think of chemistry as the accounting of the science branch.

[necrophonic.livejournal.com]

I have no gift for chemistry (or physics for that matter) but it never ceases to amaze me the way atoms collect into different compounds with entirely different properties. I mean, the idea that two gases can make up a liquid that is integral to pretty much all life on earth? Or that two poisons like chlorine and sodium can form salt necessary for life?

Mind boggling and awesome. If that's accounting, then accounting is damned sexah.

[triskelmoon.livejournal.com]

That analogy is not far from the truth, particularly multiple funding sources each with differing regulatory, compliance, and mission requirements.

...

Also, now I want a "Sexah Accountant" icon.

Blood Brothers Tickets

[(Anonymous)]

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