{"id":6309,"date":"2012-01-01T01:10:32","date_gmt":"2012-01-01T06:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paganpages.org\/content\/?p=6489"},"modified":"2011-12-31T13:34:32","modified_gmt":"2011-12-31T18:34:32","slug":"pagan-theology-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2012\/01\/01\/pagan-theology-30\/","title":{"rendered":"Pagan Theology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coincidence and magic <\/strong><\/p>\n

The young boy loved camping, particularly the fire building parts.\u00a0 Tonight they were deep in the woods, staying under the stars in tents with families from the circle.\u00a0 The adults knew that he loved fire making and had asked him to tend the ritual bonfire.\u00a0 All during the ritual he\u2019d been seeing shadows coming and going from the edge of the circle.\u00a0 The Old Gods seemed to be out tonight, but that wasn\u2019t something he worried about.\u00a0 That stuff was for his mom.\u00a0 He just liked the camping.\u00a0 The circle was just opened and he turned to go get some more wood for the fire.\u00a0 There, staring back at him from under a tree was a rattlesnake.\u00a0 He stepped back, but the adults knew, the Old Gods really were out tonight.<\/p>\n

Coincidence, fate, happenstance, or synchronicity, it seems to haunt us.\u00a0 Things we do in magic or ritual seem somehow connected to other things that happen, shall we say, \u201cin the real world.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 We achieve something we really want, but we lose our favorite ring within minutes of learning of our achievement.\u00a0 We scry and find our predictions match perfectly with those of another worker who worked the scrying two days ago, a hundred miles away.<\/p>\n

All of these things can easily be dismissed as simple coincidence.\u00a0\u00a0 Look at it this way: it is very improbable that you will finish a ritual and then see a rattlesnake outside the circle.\u00a0 How many times has that happened?\u00a0 But there are an infinite number of things that could occur, you just happen to be seeing the one that did occur.\u00a0 You could have seen a deer, a badger, a friend, or a shooting star.\u00a0 You didn\u2019t, you saw a rattlesnake.\u00a0 \u00a0You are what creates the implausibility in the events, through your interpretation and attribution of meaning to them.\u00a0 You connect the rattlesnake with the shadows, with the circle, and with the fact that Cernunnos was just called.\u00a0 Had you simply been hiking it would have been just a spot of excitement.<\/p>\n

This idea that we create relationships between objects and ideas in the world was terms \u201csynchronicity\u201d by Jung.\u00a0 By giving meaning to these relationships we create a \u201ccause and effect\u201d relationship that is similar to, but certainly different than the cause and effect relationship of physics.\u00a0 We interpret the universe and tie it together in a great story.\u00a0 The story spans our lives and incorporates the past and the stories of others.\u00a0 It is our ability to give things meaning that makes us different from anything else in the universe.\u00a0 And those meanings bind us to the world and to each other.<\/p>\n

For Pagan\u2019s the idea of coincidence is always open for debate.\u00a0 It can be coincidence, or it can be a meaningful part of our lives.\u00a0 In a magical or ritual context there are no coincidences.\u00a0 Through ritual the magical act assigns meaning to any coincidence that we notice.\u00a0 \u00a0Thus magic is another way in which we give things meanings that they would otherwise not have, and tie together disparate things across time and space.\u00a0 Stories do this, but so does our magic or ritual.<\/p>\n

Magical narrative banishes the coincidental and replaces it with relationships.\u00a0 Success or failure is related to our will, our knowledge of magic, and the Gods and Goddesses.\u00a0 A future occurrence is related to our past action in ritual.\u00a0 Our knowing what we have done binds things together makes our magic, and prayer, \u201cwork.\u201d\u00a0 Without that knowledge, there would be no relationship, and any synchronistic occurrences would go unobserved.<\/p>\n

One of the principles of magic that I really believe in is \u201cmagic spoken is magic spoiled.\u201d\u00a0 If you talk about your spell, then it will not come about.\u00a0 In my opinion there are two reasons for this.\u00a0 First, it is a good rule that some clever High Priestess probably made up back in the day to keep her charges from bragging around about all their powers and maybe bringing down trouble on the coven.\u00a0\u00a0 If you talk about what you have done, the spell can be avoided one way or another.\u00a0 Someone could counter it, or they could come and drag you away.<\/p>\n

But speaking of the spell also divides knowledge of the working between the worker and those who they tell.\u00a0 Dividing the attention to the spell creates multiple meanings and dilutes the original meaning and attention of the worker.\u00a0 If only you know of your work, the consequences and connections you make allow you to create your own magical narrative.\u00a0 They allow you to see what is happening in the world through the story you have created in your spell.<\/p>\n

Telling someone else is like inviting your relatives over for dinner.\u00a0 Everyone will have an opinion, and often will feel free to provide those opinions.\u00a0 The more opinions you get, the more observation you have, the more dilute and disrupted your attention becomes.\u00a0 It is the same effect that some people who lack self-confidence feel when they are about to try something risky that puts them out for public judgment.\u00a0 Any sense of judgment, or criticism, particularly from those who are close to them can have a negative effect on their performance.\u00a0 It hits them right where it hurts, in their self-confidence.<\/p>\n

Spells work in much the same way.\u00a0 Your confidence as a practitioner, the belief or faith that you have, and your ability to construct a meaningful working all come together to make the magical working effective.\u00a0 The more kibitzing that you get the more likely it is that you, and your working will get disrupted.<\/p>\n

We can also extend this creation of narrative into other practices.\u00a0 Ritual provides a way to connect disparate objects and concepts through implied meaning.\u00a0 The creation of sacred space by casting the circle is a way to create a magical and religious narrative through time, space, and our collective relationships.\u00a0 Because the circle casting is something we have done in all our rituals, it connects us meaningfully through time.\u00a0 We have come to accept that once the circle is cast we are in sacred space.\u00a0 (The idea of the magical circle goes back at least to the Greeks, so it is quite a time narrative that we create when we cast!)<\/p>\n

These associations and meanings that we give things create a sacred space between us, because they are shared narratives amongst those in circle, and within ourselves.\u00a0 We react to the narrative of the circle, the story we tell ourselves about what is happening, and it changes us.\u00a0 We become more centered, more thoughtful, more magical.\u00a0 Work in circle long enough and a lot of our life takes on the form of magic.\u00a0 We begin to tell our own story as a magical one.\u00a0 We are magical, our lives are special, and we are connected to the Gods and Goddesses.<\/p>\n

Our challenge is to tell our story in a way that moves us forward toward the divine.\u00a0 Making it about ourselves, our ego and our power, drives us away from the divine and keeps us in the present.\u00a0\u00a0 It breaks the association between divinity and what we do in the same way talking about magic creates a distraction for us and for the spell.<\/p>\n

The circle itself, not the calls or casts or workings or trappings or fuss, is sufficient to establish a connection between past and future, between those in the circle now and those who will come, between us and the sacred, between us and the world where the Gods and Goddesses exist.\u00a0 Our world.\u00a0 Our stories.\u00a0 Told through ritual and magic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coincidence and magic The young boy loved camping, particularly the fire building parts.\u00a0 Tonight they were deep in the woods, staying under the stars in tents with families from the circle.\u00a0 The adults knew that he loved fire making and had asked him to tend the ritual bonfire.\u00a0 All during the ritual he\u2019d been seeing shadows coming and going from the edge of the circle.\u00a0 The Old Gods seemed to be out tonight, but that wasn\u2019t something he worried about.\u00a0 That stuff was for his mom.\u00a0 He just liked the camping.\u00a0 The circle was just opened and he turned to go get some more wood for the fire.\u00a0 There, staring back at him from under a tree was a rattlesnake.\u00a0 He stepped back, but the adults knew, the Old Gods really were out tonight. Coincidence, fate, happenstance, or synchronicity, it seems to haunt us.\u00a0 Things we do in magic or ritual seem somehow connected to other things that happen, shall we say, \u201cin the real world.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 We achieve something we really want, but we lose our favorite ring within minutes of learning of our achievement.\u00a0 We scry and find our predictions match perfectly with those of another worker who worked the scrying two days ago, a hundred miles away. All of these things can easily be dismissed as simple coincidence.\u00a0\u00a0 Look at it this way: it is very improbable that you will finish a ritual and then see a rattlesnake outside the circle.\u00a0 How many times has that happened?\u00a0 But there are an infinite number of things that could occur, you just happen to be seeing the one that did occur.\u00a0 You could have seen a deer, a badger, a friend, or a shooting star.\u00a0 You didn\u2019t, you saw a rattlesnake.\u00a0 \u00a0You are what creates the implausibility in the events, through your interpretation and attribution of meaning to them.\u00a0 You connect the rattlesnake with the shadows, with the circle, and with the fact that Cernunnos was just called.\u00a0 Had you simply been hiking it would have been just a spot of excitement. This idea that we create relationships between objects and ideas in the world was terms \u201csynchronicity\u201d by Jung.\u00a0 By giving meaning to these relationships we create a \u201ccause and effect\u201d relationship that is similar to, but certainly different than the cause and effect relationship of physics.\u00a0 We interpret the universe and tie it together in a great story.\u00a0 The story spans our lives and incorporates the past and the stories of others.\u00a0 It is our ability to give things meaning that makes us different from anything else in the universe.\u00a0 And those meanings bind us to the world and to each other. For Pagan\u2019s the idea of coincidence is always open for debate.\u00a0 It can be coincidence, or it can be a meaningful part of our lives.\u00a0 In a magical or ritual context there are no coincidences.\u00a0 Through ritual the magical act assigns meaning to any coincidence that we notice.\u00a0 \u00a0Thus magic is another way in which we give things meanings that they would otherwise not have, and tie together disparate things across time and space.\u00a0 Stories do this, but so does our magic or ritual. Magical narrative banishes the coincidental and replaces it with relationships.\u00a0 Success or failure is related to our will, our knowledge of magic, and the Gods and Goddesses.\u00a0 A future occurrence is related to our past action in ritual.\u00a0 Our knowing what we have done binds things together makes our magic, and prayer, \u201cwork.\u201d\u00a0 Without that knowledge, there would be no relationship, and any synchronistic occurrences would go unobserved. One of the principles of magic that I really believe in is \u201cmagic spoken is magic spoiled.\u201d\u00a0 If you talk about your spell, then it will not come about.\u00a0 In my opinion there are two reasons for this.\u00a0 First, it is a good rule that some clever High Priestess probably made up back in the day to keep her charges from bragging around about all their powers and maybe bringing down trouble on the coven.\u00a0\u00a0 If you talk about what you have done, the spell can be avoided one way or another.\u00a0 Someone could counter it, or they could come and drag you away. But speaking of the spell also divides knowledge of the working between the worker and those who they tell.\u00a0 Dividing the attention to the spell creates multiple meanings and dilutes the original meaning and attention of the worker.\u00a0 If only you know of your work, the consequences and connections you make allow you to create your own magical narrative.\u00a0 They allow you to see what is happening in the world through the story you have created in your spell. Telling someone else is like inviting your relatives over for dinner.\u00a0 Everyone will have an opinion, and often will feel free to provide those opinions.\u00a0 The more opinions you get, the more observation you have, the more dilute and disrupted your attention becomes.\u00a0 It is the same effect that some people who lack self-confidence feel when they are about to try something risky that puts them out for public judgment.\u00a0 Any sense of judgment, or criticism, particularly from those who are close to them can have a negative effect on their performance.\u00a0 It hits them right where it hurts, in their self-confidence. Spells work in much the same way.\u00a0 Your confidence as a practitioner, the belief or faith that you have, and your ability to construct a meaningful working all come together to make the magical working effective.\u00a0 The more kibitzing that you get the more likely it is that you, and your working will get disrupted. We can also extend this creation of narrative into other practices.\u00a0 Ritual provides a way to connect disparate objects and concepts through implied meaning.\u00a0 The creation of sacred space by casting the circle is a way to create a magical and religious narrative through time, space, and our collective relationships.\u00a0 Because the circle casting is something we have done in all our rituals, it connects us meaningfully through time.\u00a0 We have come to accept that once the circle is cast we are in sacred space.\u00a0 (The idea of the magical circle goes back at least to the Greeks, so it is quite a time narrative that we create when we cast!) These associations and meanings that we give things create a sacred space between us, because they are shared narratives amongst those in circle, and within ourselves.\u00a0 We react to the narrative of the circle, the story we tell ourselves about what is happening, and it changes us.\u00a0 We become more centered, more thoughtful, more magical.\u00a0 Work in circle long enough and a lot of our life takes on the form of magic.\u00a0 We begin to tell our own story as a magical one.\u00a0 We are magical, our lives are special, and we are connected to the Gods and Goddesses. Our challenge is to tell our story in a way that moves us forward toward the divine.\u00a0 Making it about ourselves, our ego and our power, drives us away from the divine and keeps us in the present.\u00a0\u00a0 It breaks the association between divinity and what we do in the same way talking about magic creates a distraction for us and for the spell. The circle itself, not the calls or casts or workings or trappings or fuss, is sufficient to establish a connection between past and future, between those in the circle now and those who will come, between us and the sacred, between us and the world where the Gods and Goddesses exist.\u00a0 Our world.\u00a0 Our stories.\u00a0 Told through ritual and magic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}