Gnosis and magic

We live in a world that strives to rid itself of any enchantment, any magic... and any wonder.

Some of that might be dated back to Christian missionaries in Europe. Please take note that I do not want to offend the Christian belief, for it has contributed a lot to a better world. If you get punished in the afterlife for killing and stealing and have no opportunity to solve yourself out by simply paying "Wergild" for the dead, you tend to think about that a little more. But it was the church that, in a principially righteous move against superstition, weeded out any magic... and thusly the sense of wonder and sensibility neccesary to feel something like Eucharist itself or, in another and deeper sense, "kairos" or "metakairos". This, in turn, is necessary to agnize a divine presence.  It would be a laughing matter, were it not as grave and sad a process responsible for many modern-day grievances.

Then the death blow to wonder and sensibility to actually feel it was dealt by the enlightement movement led by Descartes. Neither the Christian belief nor the enlightement movement was "evil" in any way, but they started a process that in turn started the current state of desensibilization and numbing of post-modern-day minds.

It is not a rant I want to utter, however. We all know how it is. We all search for something to cling to. We know we will die, and live in doubt and fear. Those, by the way, are exploited by the new spiritual leaders of our society, the economists. We buy to compensate for a deep sense of loss. We do not buy a car that actually IS better, but one that is advertised as one that is better. We do not buy things we NEED, but what we are made to believe we need, presumably partly because we try to fill a gap that formerly was filled by a feeling of sense we now think we lost.

Another factor leads to our numbing and desensibilization. Human perception can process about 5.000.000 bit / second. That´s five Megabit. Everything else is stored in the virtual bin in our heads and gets stored in a subconscious area of our minds. And the process works similar to an email programme: Everything not immediately necessary for the survival of the individual and its psyche is stored only a certain period of time and then is discarded ever so much deeper into the subconscious areas of our mind. We are confronted with an informational flow of far, far more than the capacity of our mind, especially in modern society. When an email-programme is close to the limit of its storage capacity, it does not work properly anymore. In analogy to that, our minds close down, and since metaphysics are partly socially banned from everyday life, they belong to a kind of information we do not need for our immediate survival. Even worse, metaphysics are often seen as a hindrance to function properly.

The price-not for the loss of metaphysical questions, but for the loss of sensibility for psychological needs- is grave. All over Western society there is a boom of psychological diseases formerly unknown. Burn-out syndrome and many other sicknesses of the human psyche are spreading far and wide.

Now to our topic, gnosis and magic. We say there is no magic.

But, things being as they are, we lack the sensibility even to agnize our own psychological needs. Magic is commonly defined as a range of paranormal, parapsychological activity. In the cliché, a magician can, for instance, move objects with the power of his mind. I think most people seriously wanting to investigate the case of magical possibilities can agree on this feat being quite difficult to achieve, if at all possible, and requiring an abnormal consciousness, sensibility and psychic strength.

If we now are agreed on the fact that we-commonly speaking- commonly lack the ability to develop our psyche, and it being socially not accepted (daydreaming and the like), we can postulate that we can not even feel "magic", let alone agnize it. Agnition of the principle that is commonly referred to as magical is no longer possible for a post-modern-mindset. Then it can be stated that the ascertainment "magic is not possible" cannot be made. On the other hand, since any proof or diagnosis of the principle of "magic" is either corrupted by the Christian church or the enlightement movement, we cannot state "Magic is possible", either.

This leaves us with a blank sheet, and a question.

Why would I want to prove this? I asked myself the question over and over again.

I can say for myself, and myself alone, that I suspect that agnition, while individuation might never be achieved whole, is a process bringing the student closer to the concept of the divine. It is a dangerous path, however, for there can be no real guidance on the path of individuation. Individual Gnosis can only be achieved by the individual itself.

And why agnize the Deity at all? Is there no Bible? No Koran? No Mahabharata, Rigveda, Ramayana, no mythological compendium? No scrollworks of magic? No books of economy? Did not Marx write his book? What with Descartes and the others?The esoteric authors?

I daresay I have read a lot of them. I have followed many paths of them, but ever so reluctantly.

Look at the news. They fight over a name. It is words they fight over.

I realized, if I really want to find the peace to die a peaceful death and, if possible at all, a peaceful afterlife, I had to walk another path. I had to ask the universe. I am but a licce bugger, and I do not have a clue if I am on the right path at all.

But I have felt it, many times now. You cannot talk intelligently about this feeling. What you can talk about, however, is how it is being generated.