I love the connections you drew around language. Spell (spelling words and magical spells), curse (bad words, bag magic), so fucking simple but I never even thought about that.
The bit about stories changing our behavior really resonates with me too, as someone who watches a ton of movies. I remember going to the movie theater when I was younger and emerging feeling victorious, as if I'd just completed the heroes journey that I watched on screen. Like I literally *felt it* and I think that one of the benchmarks of a good movie is that it should make you feel some sort of way. I still get this feeling when watching movies, though much less often after attending film school and just becoming all around jaded/too informed. That's movie magic, baby!
Yeah, I think one of the consequences of learning how the magic works is that it doesn't work as well on you. I've definitely noticed that with books as I've gained a more critical eye. The nice flip side of that is that when the magic works after you have an understanding with it, it REALLY works.
By all means! I also forgot to tell you I love the idea of the "black dog" you wrote about, I've been trying to view some of my late winter blues in that light.
i just happened to be writing about my own experiences with the Tarot (in a post coming out tomorrow) so i've been thinking about this quite a bit.
when you write, "The answer the Tarot deck gives is not the universe communicating with you — it is *you* communicating with you"—what would you say is the difference? how can you be sure that it really is "you" you're communicating with—that "your" thoughts are safely locked inside your skull, and nothing else could slip in?
also—why can't we be card-carrying rational adults while still leaving some space for mysteries beyond materialism?
To your first question: to the extent that our brains aren't severed and separate from the rest of the universe there's not actually any difference. (I've got some stuff coming up about Moore's ideas around the collective unconscious that plays with the idea that our thoughts and internal worlds are truly our own.) The point I'm getting at here is that you don't have to believe that Tarot cards are doing anything supernatural to get a benefit from them. In other words, there's no force that's necessarily *external* to your mind picking the cards out to tell you something, you're just employing a cognitive trick to get to something deeper or hidden inside your own mind. For people like me, who value intuition but have a hard time turning off the rational brain to get to it, this is a super useful trick to understand.
To your second question: Depends on what you mean by "beyond materialism," I guess? Moore's worldview is still fundamentally materialist in that it respects science as the ideal way of understanding material reality (he's got some really cool writing about the nature of time that I can't wait to get to), but he recognizes science's limitations in understanding consciousness, which he puts in an adjacent realm. It's a realm that interacts with material reality, but it has much different rules, if there can be said to be any rules at all. In that sense, "being a card-carrying rational adult while still leaving space for the mysteries beyond materialism" is entirely what this series is about. I'd like people to be able to have their cake and eat it, too.
definitely. for me, there's one quote in particular that started to bridge the gap from straight materialism to... wherever i am now, from Lon Milo DuQuette: "it's all in your mind; you just have no idea how big your mind is."
"materialism" would be treating matter as the only really-real thing in existence—the idea that love is nothing more than an amalgam of biological feedback driven by evolution, for example. i think Moore is extending some polite diplomacy to science, but is definitely not a materialist (judging from the end of "Voice of the Fire," if nothing else.)
Oh I love that quote. I'm doing a bit of guesswork here - I don't want to say I can speak for Moore, but I've also read virtually everything about him and by him, so I think I can take an educated stab at his stance. He's said he's committed to the scientific worldview, and not, I would argue, out of polite diplomacy, but because he's genuinely enthusiastic and curious about science -- he constantly reads "New Scientist," appears on science podcasts, etc. He's expressed enthusiasm for works like "Godel, Escher, Bach," and seems to agree with the idea that consciousness arises out of complex systems like the brain. He is also interested in what relativity and quantum mechanics say about the nature of reality (his work Jerusalem is, in one sense, him grappling with the implications of Einstein's theory of spacetime).
I think if your definition of materialism is "matter is the fundamental basis of reality," he's a materialist, but if it's "matter is the only really-real thing" then he's not. He puts a high value on the subjective experience of consciousness, and has regularly argued things that happen in the mind can still be called "real," though in a totally different way and under a different category than that of matter.
you're probably right. i'm just imagining that Moore has Seen Some Shit as a practicing occultist (maybe more than he talks about publicly?) and might find it difficult to take a conciliatory stance toward scientists who would probably treat him as a lunatic if they understood the full scope of his work. while occultists can appreciate the work of scientists—the respect isn't usually reciprocated.
I mean it helps to be Alan Moore, right? People will put up with eccentricity if you’re fun to talk to and wrote Watchmen. I also think — and I may be talking out of my ass here — the British are generally more tolerant of the “insane genius” archetype.
I love the connections you drew around language. Spell (spelling words and magical spells), curse (bad words, bag magic), so fucking simple but I never even thought about that.
The bit about stories changing our behavior really resonates with me too, as someone who watches a ton of movies. I remember going to the movie theater when I was younger and emerging feeling victorious, as if I'd just completed the heroes journey that I watched on screen. Like I literally *felt it* and I think that one of the benchmarks of a good movie is that it should make you feel some sort of way. I still get this feeling when watching movies, though much less often after attending film school and just becoming all around jaded/too informed. That's movie magic, baby!
Yeah, I think one of the consequences of learning how the magic works is that it doesn't work as well on you. I've definitely noticed that with books as I've gained a more critical eye. The nice flip side of that is that when the magic works after you have an understanding with it, it REALLY works.
i hope you'll forgive me for plugging my own work in your space; i think it's adjacent to what you're writing about: https://phasmatopia.substack.com/p/the-science-of-applied-metaphysics-e78
By all means! I also forgot to tell you I love the idea of the "black dog" you wrote about, I've been trying to view some of my late winter blues in that light.
i just happened to be writing about my own experiences with the Tarot (in a post coming out tomorrow) so i've been thinking about this quite a bit.
when you write, "The answer the Tarot deck gives is not the universe communicating with you — it is *you* communicating with you"—what would you say is the difference? how can you be sure that it really is "you" you're communicating with—that "your" thoughts are safely locked inside your skull, and nothing else could slip in?
also—why can't we be card-carrying rational adults while still leaving some space for mysteries beyond materialism?
To your first question: to the extent that our brains aren't severed and separate from the rest of the universe there's not actually any difference. (I've got some stuff coming up about Moore's ideas around the collective unconscious that plays with the idea that our thoughts and internal worlds are truly our own.) The point I'm getting at here is that you don't have to believe that Tarot cards are doing anything supernatural to get a benefit from them. In other words, there's no force that's necessarily *external* to your mind picking the cards out to tell you something, you're just employing a cognitive trick to get to something deeper or hidden inside your own mind. For people like me, who value intuition but have a hard time turning off the rational brain to get to it, this is a super useful trick to understand.
To your second question: Depends on what you mean by "beyond materialism," I guess? Moore's worldview is still fundamentally materialist in that it respects science as the ideal way of understanding material reality (he's got some really cool writing about the nature of time that I can't wait to get to), but he recognizes science's limitations in understanding consciousness, which he puts in an adjacent realm. It's a realm that interacts with material reality, but it has much different rules, if there can be said to be any rules at all. In that sense, "being a card-carrying rational adult while still leaving space for the mysteries beyond materialism" is entirely what this series is about. I'd like people to be able to have their cake and eat it, too.
definitely. for me, there's one quote in particular that started to bridge the gap from straight materialism to... wherever i am now, from Lon Milo DuQuette: "it's all in your mind; you just have no idea how big your mind is."
"materialism" would be treating matter as the only really-real thing in existence—the idea that love is nothing more than an amalgam of biological feedback driven by evolution, for example. i think Moore is extending some polite diplomacy to science, but is definitely not a materialist (judging from the end of "Voice of the Fire," if nothing else.)
Oh I love that quote. I'm doing a bit of guesswork here - I don't want to say I can speak for Moore, but I've also read virtually everything about him and by him, so I think I can take an educated stab at his stance. He's said he's committed to the scientific worldview, and not, I would argue, out of polite diplomacy, but because he's genuinely enthusiastic and curious about science -- he constantly reads "New Scientist," appears on science podcasts, etc. He's expressed enthusiasm for works like "Godel, Escher, Bach," and seems to agree with the idea that consciousness arises out of complex systems like the brain. He is also interested in what relativity and quantum mechanics say about the nature of reality (his work Jerusalem is, in one sense, him grappling with the implications of Einstein's theory of spacetime).
I think if your definition of materialism is "matter is the fundamental basis of reality," he's a materialist, but if it's "matter is the only really-real thing" then he's not. He puts a high value on the subjective experience of consciousness, and has regularly argued things that happen in the mind can still be called "real," though in a totally different way and under a different category than that of matter.
you're probably right. i'm just imagining that Moore has Seen Some Shit as a practicing occultist (maybe more than he talks about publicly?) and might find it difficult to take a conciliatory stance toward scientists who would probably treat him as a lunatic if they understood the full scope of his work. while occultists can appreciate the work of scientists—the respect isn't usually reciprocated.
I mean it helps to be Alan Moore, right? People will put up with eccentricity if you’re fun to talk to and wrote Watchmen. I also think — and I may be talking out of my ass here — the British are generally more tolerant of the “insane genius” archetype.