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Apr. 18th, 2025 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I've been interested in witchcraft from a very agnostic point of view (wouldn't be surprised if there was Something out there but i'm unsure about how effective spiritual practices are so i tend to approach them from a more neutral, psychological view, that's just what works for me). chaos magic sounds interesting, and pop culture magic also sounds very fun and super accesible.
i decided to give shufflemancy (or my version of it) a try and it felt weirdly nice. i've constructed in my head this image of a deity that's communicating these things to me and it gives me comfort, though that's not a genuine belief i hold, it's just a way to conceptualize it, i think about it as me using the songs to self reflect and understand my thought process by seeing how i interpret them. but saying it's my deity talking to me feels really nice :) and who knows, perhaps one day it'll be a more literal representation for me.
this last mental breakdown fucked me up so bad that i've completely neglected my responsibilities ughhhh. time to go back to reality.
i decided to give shufflemancy (or my version of it) a try and it felt weirdly nice. i've constructed in my head this image of a deity that's communicating these things to me and it gives me comfort, though that's not a genuine belief i hold, it's just a way to conceptualize it, i think about it as me using the songs to self reflect and understand my thought process by seeing how i interpret them. but saying it's my deity talking to me feels really nice :) and who knows, perhaps one day it'll be a more literal representation for me.
this last mental breakdown fucked me up so bad that i've completely neglected my responsibilities ughhhh. time to go back to reality.
Thoughts
Date: 2025-04-18 07:29 am (UTC)People often draw a distinction between witchcraft as a magical / psychological practice vs. Wicca or Paganism as a religious pratice. You've probably heard the saying about how magic is just science that isn't widely understood yet.
>> (wouldn't be surprised if there was Something out there but i'm unsure about how effective spiritual practices are so i tend to approach them from a more neutral, psychological view, that's just what works for me). <<
Totally fine. Work with what you can observe.
Some practices within, or crossing over with, witchcraft are really based in psychology. One can think about stones as batteries or as symbols. Colors have symbolism. The Law of Contagion and the Law of Similarity are both quirks of human psychology. Chants appear in numerous traditions because of how they play on the brain's fondness for repetition. Positive affirmations are pretty much pure psychology, but when they work, can look and feel like magic.
>> chaos magic sounds interesting, <<
Chaos magic is mostly math, but like geometry, manifests in ways that can be interacted with other than equations.
>> and pop culture magic also sounds very fun and super accesible. <<
It can be, but like all powerful things, has an element of risk. Look at how wild some of pop culture gets, and think about whether you want that in your head. Using a pop song to psych yourself up for something? Probably safe and helpful. Method acting a murderous character? Has gotten a few people killed.
>> i decided to give shufflemancy (or my version of it) a try and it felt weirdly nice. <<
That's cool.
Touching back on chaos magic, there's an element of that in divination, but also, the universe is holographic -- every little piece contains an aspect of the whole. So while it looks like (from a certain perspective) the cards aren't connected to anything, everything is connected, so they can reflect patterns.
>> i've constructed in my head this image of a deity that's communicating these things to me and it gives me comfort, though that's not a genuine belief i hold, it's just a way to conceptualize it, i think about it as me using the songs to self reflect and understand my thought process by seeing how i interpret them. but saying it's my deity talking to me feels really nice :)
Don't believe everything you think. You can entertain an idea without necessarily believing it. So it's fine to explore the idea of deity without committing to the "isness" of divinity.
>> and who knows, perhaps one day it'll be a more literal representation for me.<<
Do what feels right to you. All the descriptions of deities are just ways that humans have tried to conceptualize something that won't actually fit inside a human brain.
>>this last mental breakdown fucked me up so bad that i've completely neglected my responsibilities ughhhh. time to go back to reality.<<
Bummer. I hope things get better for you.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-20 02:27 pm (UTC)I think there is a lot of value in every religious/spiritual belief system even if you are unwilling to believe in such external powers.
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Date: 2025-04-21 08:49 am (UTC)