(UA) The Problem With Magick

[Gregory Paul Stolze]

At 01:23 PM 2/11/99 -0500, Markleford Friedman wrote:
>How is it that two people on opposite sides of the globe can learn the same
>"school" of magick, from different mentors even, and yet be bound by the
>same "rules" and know the same exact rituals?  What I'm saying here is that
>while I believe that magick is a very personal thing, the main UA book has
>made it almost cookie-cutter: everyone in your school generates charges in
>the same way, everyone has the same taboo, you have the same Formulas, etc. 
>We do get Customized Blasts, but at 85% it seems a bit "late".

Think of it as a meme.  Someone, somewhere, invented Dipsomancy, and it
worked pretty well.  He taught it to some other people and, each one teach
one, it travelled.  People know the same spells and get changes the same
way because it's much easier to believe something you've been shown than to
just take a leap of faith and say "MY dipsomancy works this way."  Sure,
cultural erosion and alteration occurs, as does individual initiative.
(One thing I'm thinking of wonking up for "Postmodern Magick" is some rules
for making your own rote spells.)  Plus, it seemed easier and more useful
to cover seven schools in a somewhat abbreviated fashion than to covere two
in great depth.  

>So, all Pornomancers follow the Naked Goddess?  I'd say, perhaps, that
>"most" of them do (at best).  But remember, sex-magick has been big in the
>world for centuries, perhaps millennia! 

Pornomancy isn't just about sex.  It's about sex as commodity.  There's the
big difference between it and other schools of sex magick.  I'd think it's
probably more powerful than Tantric sex because more people are familiar
with prositutes and porn than are familiar with holy Tantric mindsets.  

-G.
1899 Phrenologist: Your son has the sloping forehead of a sexual deviant:
better put him in an asylum.
1999 Gene Therapist: Your fetus has the "date rape" gene.  Better abort.