Model this

Jack Faust brought to my attention the plethora of posts on magickal models lately surfacing. It seems to have cheesed him a bit.

After writing an earlier post for Rending the Veil,¹ I was asked to explain about how a someone could possibly be both a magickian and an atheist and so wrote this piece in the fall of 2009, intending it for the Yule issue. I understand it got lost for a bit somehow over at RtV HQ, but it’s up now.

Frater U.:D.:’s “Models of Magic” essay has been floating around online for a long time,² and was further expanded in his 2005 occult primer High Magic: Theory & Practice. It seemed a straightforward place to start,  coupled with another book I’ve been delving into off and on for the past two years, Jordan Peterson’s superb Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief.³

It was intended as a short and sweet recap for those who were unfamiliar with other ways of modelling magick. I thought it would be especially useful to those magickians who insisted that gods must play a part as, from the feedback I received, the theists seem to be under the impression that without gods and spirits, one cannot have magick. (Weird, I know.)

Frater U.:D.:’s Five Models theory has held for the past two decades simply because it’s the first and – as far as I know – only theory that encompasses all kinds of magickal practice, regardless of aim. Almost no-one subscribes to a single model to the exclusion of all others, most flip between them as required. As I state in my brief essay, it’s not important which model is “correct”, only that one has a framework with which to practice.

In “What is it with models?” Jason Miller seems upset at the very idea of magickians modelling their belief systems, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. A later post, “Models – It’s not the models, it’s how you handle them” clarifies things a little, but he still seems to be conflating maps and territory and to not quite get why one ought to bother in the first place.

It is not enough to simply have experiences and be done with it. If there’s no purpose, no greater aim than “oh, that was kinda nifty”, then why bother?  As Socrates is supposed to have said, “the unexamined life is not worth living”. Modelling is an attempt to place experiences within a framework one can understand, to contextualize experience, and learn from it.

In his second post, Miller writes:

One of the reasons that models are less valuable in magic than they are in science is that we are dealing with things that:

A: Cannot be measured as objectively as the phenomena that science measures

B: Often, belief or our own mental activity plays a larger role in the art.

But…that’s exactly why it’s important to frame one’s understanding of what’s going on.

Let’s tackle A first: Of course magickal results can be measured. That’s what a magickal diary is for. If you’re still homeless, living in your mother’s basement at 48, unloved and fat – then your magick isn’t working. If you’re enchanting clearly defined results, if you’re going to the gym, if you’re happy with your friends and who you are – and you’ve been documenting it for years – I’d call that success.⁴

Now for B. It’s a bit ambiguous, but I’m going to take the more difficult “what if I’m wrong?” or “what if it’s all in my head?”.⁵ Again, clearly documenting intention and result will clear this up and allow for a certain measure of objectivity. If what you’re doing isn’t working…try something else. Take a different approach. You know, the kind of thing any scientist might do.

If a model proves flawed, or no longer viable for whatever reason, new models are postulated and tested.  As Uncle Al says, “the method of science; the aim of religion”.

For more see Gordon White’s “Sorcery’s Next Top Model” on Rune Soup, a couple of posts by Frater Barrabbas on Talking About Ritual Magick, and Scott Michael Stenwick’s post “It’s only a model…” on his blog Augoeides.

Edit: Also found this one, titled “I’ve arrived“, by Patrick Dunn on Postmodern Magic.

Do you consciously model when you approach a new subject? When you reflect back on what you’ve read and are about to perform, do you think about what’s “really” happening (whatever that means)? How does modelling influence your practice?

Footnotes:

1. See “Ignorance – The Real Enemy“. [back]
2. Since at least 1992. It’s also been archived on our sister site, SpiralNature.com for the better part of a decade. See “Models of Magic“. [back]
3. If you’re unfamiliar with either the essay or the books, I recommend checking them out. They’re excellent, and each offer a broader view of what it means to practice magick, and what this crazy thing we call magick “is”. [back]
4. Darlings, please note, comments attacking these cliches will be utterly an completely missing the point and will not be responded to. I’m sure you understand. [back]
5. Though the second is perfectly valid under the psychological model and not actually a problem unless you’re pretending there are gods lurking about. [back]

Psyche is the editor of Plutonica.net and the curator for the occult resource SpiralNature.com, Psyche also operates a tarot consultation business, Psyche Tarot. She has been published in The Cauldron, Konton, Tarot World Magazine, among other magazines, and her essay “Strategic Magick” appeared in Manifesting Prosperity (Megalithica, 2008).

Psyche's website is http://www.plutonica.net.