What do Chi, Orgone, Prana, Lung, Odic Force, Mana, Vril, and Ki all have in common? When you force someone to define them in English it they usually say something like “its a type of spiritual energy…”
The energy wars are still going on over on Patricks blog and making the rounds on many others as well. Patrick has recognized that Information is just as much a junk term as spirits and energy so he is now calling his model of magic “The Semiotic Model”.
Compartmentalization is a funny thing and one that we need to watch out for in magic. As an example outside of magic, most dermatologists insist that products like Proactive do not work to prevent Acne. That product in fact works pretty well for most people. But if it works you wouldnt go see a dermatologist. So the dermatologists opinion is built on the fact that he ONLY sees the failed cases. We all tend to interpret everything through our own lens and experience, which is fine unless we do not keep this in mind and make attempts to see beyond it or expand our experience.
What does this have to do with our debate? Well Patrick is a linguist and an academic. Lo and behold the model that works to explain how all magic works and which we can dicth energy for is SEMIOTICS – a specialist term from the academic study of linguistics.
I still havent seen ANYONE talk about the serious work that people do with Chi-Gung, Accupuncture, Tsa Lung, Orgone accumulators, Reiki, or any type of putative energy that is used in any number of therapies, and workings be explained with out it. Such examples get routinely avoided by the anti-energy people because they do not fit their model, yet cannot be as easily dismissed as the ramblings of a crystal waving yo yo.
When the accupuncturist uses a needle to adjust the flow of chi in a meridian, he must be a total dumb-ass bumpkin despite his years of training. Its clearly all the work of spirits or a symbolic act working on the mind depending upon which model we are using.
Of course the energy people do the same thing. Patrick gave an example just the other day of someone who was using energy to explain a working that really was more on the symbolic/mental level.
In the end I tend to take people at their word about how their system works unless I work with it myself and come up with a different finding. I wonder if Patrick and RO spent a year doing mantak Chia work if they would not come away with a wider world view.
My intellectual flaws and biases are manifold and many. A full list would eat the entire bandwidth of your blog. Nevertheless, I sometimes have ideas and insights arrived at through direct experience and tested by sound reasoning. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to address my ideas on their merits, rather than trying to diagnosis what personal flaws lead me to think such thoughtcrimes.
I’ve had that discussion as well with mutual friends. Since the issue in question is the HOW of the working, and not really the result, just because someone can get result X through their own system or intuition does not disprove or explain result X from another system. The results were the same, but the approaches were still different.
Until a system is tried on its own terms with its own merits and flaws observed directly, a person is only guessing at what they think is going on through their own lens and reasoning. It’s why I am a big fan of starting from the bottom with a new system, and working your way up if you really want to know what is going on there. That way a person can get the full experience, though it is much more time consuming, generally.
I think beyond the superficial level, you would fully agree with his hypothesis. Just perhaps not the particular words he used to describe it.
Good Doctors (and dermatologists) don’t generally build their expertise only upon their own empirical experience. They will read and study cross disciplines. You are assuming this dermatologists decision is based on a personal bias rather than forming his opinion from sources of scientific inquiry.
Also, don’t you think that the influence of study works both ways? You seem to be putting forth the presupposition that Mr. Dunn only arrived and began working with magic after he had infused his brain with the framework of linguistics. Have you considered the possibility that Mr. Dunn studied linguistics because he found it to be a useful tool in dealing with magic and reality?
I’ll point out one last thing. You’ve also put forth the causality that since Patrick is ‘now recognizing’ that “information” is also an abstract signifier he is ‘now’ calling it “The Semiotic Model”.
I think you’ll find his ideas did not just pop up recently as a response to dogmatic ‘magii’ taking offense to someone stepping on their narrow and seemingly closed worldview.
He did not say energy work was useless. It is a tool. But as a tool, what value does it have beyond its own usefulness? If it’s the only reality holding your magic system together, I pity you.
You, as many others, have clearly and violently misunderstood on the basis of your dogmas.
@Christopher: You have clearly not read my blog or Patricks for even the length of the discussion before weighing in with your idiotic pronouncements.
To deal with your idiodicy in order:
1. I was quoting an interview with a DERMATOLOGIST talking about compartmentalization.
2. I never put forth the supposition that Patrick began working magic after his academic study. I put forth the idea that his work is miscoloring his view of how other types of magic work that do not fall neatly into his model.
3. You state that he did not say that energy work was useless. If you had been reading his blog you would know that HE SAID EXACTLY THAT YOU TWIT!
You state that energy work is a tool. He is saying that energy work is actually not energy work at all and that to even discuss magic in terms of energy is wrong and backward.
You also seem to think that I am clinging to energy as a single model of magic. If you read anything in this blog, or even knew your ass from a hole in the ground, you would know that I am talking about Spirits, Energy, and Information (and actually I like semiotics better as well) as ALL having their place.
Beyond the superficial level I DO agree more or less with his view. In the end it is mind that creates everything. The problem is whether you think that having that ultimate view negates the more relative levels of working with spirits and energy. I hold that it does not – he seems to hold that it does.
Both he and I are having an intelligent discussion. You however have proven yourself not to be fit to comment on either one of us.
Moron.
@ Patrick: I was not accusing you of thought crimes. I was merely saying that we all tend to compartmentalize and view things through tight lenses at times. I did not mean to give offence. However, when you step forward and start issuing a single model for all magic, and more or less dismiss any work with energy or vital force at all I think its pretty fair to muse on how you came to that conclusion. I do the same with RO and the same to myself.
Dude, this is about specialized communications. The argument isn’t that the “energy model” is bad, it’s that it is actually utterly meaningless when you really look at it.
You’re ok with the gaps in meaning left by the sloppy language of energy. You’re ok with just assuming your definition of the phrase is the one everyone else shares, in spite of the fact that you, AIT, and everyone else have very different definitions of what constitutes energy work when pressed for details. You can make the mental umps and acquiescences necessary to be able to carry on a conversation, but at hte end of the day, without a shared meaning for the term that can stand up to rational scrutiny, you’re just making noises like an infant. You’re talking, but you’re not communicating anything.
What is vril? Prana? Chi? Chiah? What is it? You don’t know, you say “it’s energy” but it’s not. You really mean it’s “like” energy. It’s really, if you get down to brass tacks about it, the force that changes energy, directs energy, but is not measurable itself. It is the consciousness.
But this can’t be talked about and understood, obviously.
@RO: Wow. Infant making noises? Really? Wow. I’m just gonna let that one go.
First of all I have never and will never refer to “The Energy Model”. People are assuming in my defence of using the term energy for some but not all magic that, that is how I think all magic works. I do not advocate an energy model. If anything I advocate a “consciousness model” myself. HOWEVER, that model does not negate the role of spirits of energy within it.
Two: NO ONE EVER FUCKING SAID THAT IT IS LITERALLY ENERGY LIKE ELECTRICITY ANY MORE THAN ANCIENTS THOUGHT IT WAS LITERALLY BREATH. Jumping Jesus on a Pogo Stick can we get past this already. NO ONE is suggesting that when we are talking about moving energy we are talking about volts and amps. IT IS A METAPHOR. IT IS A BETTER METAPHOR THAN BREATH WAS. THAT IS WHY IT GETS USED IN EVERYTHING FROM MARTIAL ARTS, TO PSYCHOLOGY, TO HEALING, TO MAGIC.
I am writing this in all caps in hopes that maybe I wont be confronted with these statements again that do not address any points that are actually up for discussion.
Yes I am ok with the fact that different magicians with different practices have slightly different definitions and have used it in different ways. Are you ok with the fact that people do the same with spirits and god and divinity and logos? I am. Why wouldnt I be. When we discuss things in terms of actual practice all this shit falls away because we get to discuss the actual mechanics of what we do. The communications tend to be very precise in fact.
I never say it IS energy. I ALWAYS say its LIKE energy. YOU SAY I SAY IT IS ENERGY. If I do say it is energy, I clarify it with spiritual, astral, etheric, etc. All of which have much more precise meanings to larger groups of people than you would think.
Consciousness is the root of all things. But simply saying that and using it are different, Its like saying that water is the root of ice. It is, but if you do not melt the ice you will crack your head when you dive in the pool.
When we are talking about practices that involve using the energies and channels of the body, or even collecting the energy from various sources like planets and such, the actual mechanics of the practice are not adequatly described only in terms of consciousness. You can use energy, force, chi or whatever you want but it is still going to mean the same thing, which is not simply a matter of symbol and consciousness.
When we talk about gathering prana in under the navel and stoking the inner heat we are not gathering mind – we are gathering force or energy. YES WE ARE CONTROLLING THE PROCESS WITH THE MIND. THAT DOES NOT MAKE THE MIND THE ONLY THING THAT WE NEED TO DEAL WITH THOUGH. YOU ARE CONTROLING YOUR CAR WITH THE MIND, THAT DOESNT MEAN YOU DONT NEED TO TURN THE KEY AND STEP ON THE GAS.
Hey there Jason. How’s it goin’?
I’ve had coffee, and more importantly, nicotine.
Noises like an infant was just meant to convey that if two people are talking without having meaning, shared definitions, there’s no communication, no meaningful exchange of information. Not that you’re a big baby personally.
We’re having communications breakdowns, arguing against things the other person isn’t saying, failure to understand what the other person is saying. That’s all I mean to say. I think we probably agree about things underneath, but there’s no way to talk about it and hold a decent conversation, because of all these tangents.
I want to talk about what that stuff is underneath the energy. Where it comes from, and what is implied by the fact that different methods of pooling it using different symbol sets, different exercises make it manifest. I’d like to explore the methods we use and the results we get.
I think this is next-level shit, and I wish we could talk about it with meaningful language. It’s consciousness, that force, and the physical too. there’s a blend.
I truly apologize if you took insult from what I had written, as I DO follow your blog, as well as Dr. Dunn’s Granted, I follow Dr. Dunn’s content with a closer eye,. I would point out that it’s really quite childish to start yelling moron and idiot at anyone, even in a situation where it would be true, but I’m sure you’ve heard that before, so I probably shouldn’t waste our time.
I will try to just stick to your points here in this format to keep it simple, as this ‘conversation’ is raging in many places, and I realize that I am not directly involved, so I wont try to take up too much time in belaboring a subconversation. I hope you’ll forgive someone who felt like weighing in with their opinion, in a way that they felt was a reasonable contribution, but if you don’t, there’s no sweat off my back.
1. You quoted absolutely nothing. There were no quotes anywhere near that. Though I consider myself a practitioner and student of the arts in question, I am not a very good psychic over the net. I hadn’t realized your protestation of semantics extended to the use of proper punctuation.
You made blatant assumptions like “most dermatologists”. You also insinuated that: “So the dermatologists opinion is built on the fact that he ONLY sees the failed cases.”
I don’t think I’m anywhere outside of logic in saying that no, you are inaccurate at best in claiming that every medical opinion this doctor has was formed from his biased experiences as a dermatologist, rather than by studying science and medicine.
If I am not privy to the intricacies of this interview, I think that falls on you as someone claiming to be referencing this source that is totally absent.
2. “Well Patrick is a linguist and an academic. Lo and behold the model that works to explain how all magic works and which we can dicth energy for is SEMIOTICS – a specialist term from the academic study of linguistics.”
Patrick, if I remember correctly from an ‘about author’ section I read, does put himself forth as a lifelong magician. You seem to be suggesting that his thought has somehow been fuzzed up by his specialist subjects he also studies.
‘Lo and behold’ is smarmy and is you attempting to make a PRESUPPOSITION that his opinions on energy models are less valid as a magician because he ‘is a linguist and an academic’ and subscribes to that model.
3. “The vast majority of talk about magical energy is bullshit. That which isn’t bullshit is that in which “magical energy” is a metaphor for something that isn’t bullshit.” is the sum total of what Patrick said on the matter that started this particular issue.
I’ve read (or at least understood) more of his arguments than you have, so it seems. Dr. Dunn has put forth for a long time that ANY magical work is not useless. Saying energy work is bullshit is perhaps a crass and broad statement to make, but that does not invalidate any of his points that followed, or indeed, points that have been published and properly referenced for over 6 years. Again, do you have any actual evidence to back up your “HE SAID EXACTLY THAT YOU TWIT!”?
Everything we do as magicians, whether they are ‘bullshit’ or not, we do because they get us results. If they didn’t, we would likely walk away from them. Can you disagree with that? You don’t do energy work because it is sacred, you do it because it works for you. So why care if it is bullshit or not? Are you of the thinking that anything that harvests results can be nothing less than a hard coded physical principle of the universe? I’m not trying to be inflammatory in asking you this, I think it’s an important and logical point.
Can you actually reference your claim that he is saying “energy work is not energy work”? I think this opinion of yours is a matter of misunderstanding.
I don’t think you stick to that single model, and I claimed no such opinion. But in the end, if your power as a magician rests on the things you do being real, then that is where I would feel pity. Though I should disclaim that I know this actually isn’t the case with you and am only using it as an example.
Last point, if you will. Feel free to skip it if you are itching to type out some more insults: “Beyond the superficial level I DO agree more or less with his view. In the end it is mind that creates everything. The problem is whether you think that having that ultimate view negates the more relative levels of working with spirits and energy. I hold that it does not – he seems to hold that it does.”
You’ve now agreed with what he was saying and followed it with a statement attempting to qualify your previous position and your anger. Can you back up your statements and your childish exclamations you’ve babbled at me?
We’ll see if you’re fit enough I suppose. Or not, I really don’t care. I hoping for an adult and (dare I say it!) academic conversation, so if you choose to discontinue it, I’m quite alright with that.
I’ve been following this debate with some interest because I practice a form of magic partially rooted in an “energy model.” While I agree with nearly everything Inominandum has written in this debate, I have no problems asserting that some forms of what might be called magic do indeed deal with actual, measurable energy. Since the term ‘orgone’ was actually used on the Postmodern Magic blog, I’ll note that Wilhelm Reich described orgone as a specific type of observable, measurable energy with distinctive physical properties (such as being negatively entropic, naturally accumulated in living organisms, and attracted to water.) I’ll add that while the word “qi” can be understood in many ways, the one qi gong practitioner I know who is familiar with Reich’s work does think that some forms of qi are synonymous with orgone. One could reject Reich’s findings, obviously, but understood on it’s own terms orgonomics (and I would argue, magical techniques working with that same energy under different names) deals with something quite different than a symbol.
Matthew, I agree with you. There are other examples as well. I will be doing more replying on this matter on Patricks blog.
@Christopher Jolley: When RO said he did not mean offence when he referred to infants, I believed him. When I said I meant no offence at Patrick for pointing out what I believed to be compartmentalization, I think he believed me. When he earlier said he meant no offence by bringing up a straw man argument I also believed him.
You however came on my blog after never commenting before talking about my narrow and closed worldview and accused me of misunderstanding based on my dogmas. You I do not believe, you set out to offend from the start.
Unless of course you are this smarmy and condescending to everyone. In which case I am truly sorry for you.
Is it childish to call someone an idiot and a moron when they act like one? Maybe, but when I am presented with someone writing such an infantile post I occasionally allow myself to stoop to their level.
Lets go back to the numbered points:
1. I did not provide quotes about the dermatologist story because this is a blog, not a thesis. I told it as an anecdote to provide an analogy to the process. Your picking it apart and assuming that I have some personal bias about dermatologists was just ridiculous, but typical of a troll. If you must know the dermatologist in question was Steven Feldman who wrote a book about it entitled “Compartments: How the Brightest, Best Trained, and Most Caring People Can Make Judgments That are Completely and Utterly Wrong”
2. I never said that being an academic and linguist “fuzzed up” his view of magic. I said it effected it. Everything we do effects everything else. I practiced magic for 10 years before I trained as a Ngakpa. Does my training as a Ngakpa effect my views on magic – of course it does. Most of the time this is a huge benefit, sometimes it can mis-color things. Patrick’s training as a linguist is a huge strength. I never said it wasn’t. Pretending that it doesn’t color his views on magic is just asinine. It should color them. One simply has to be aware of how.
3. Your smarmy claim that “I’ve read (or at least understood) more of his arguments than you have” is just another example of your trollishness.
The statement that “The vast majority of talk about magical energy is bullshit. That which isn’t bullshit is that in which “magical energy” is a metaphor for something that isn’t bullshit.” is actually a good one. One that I said was good on this very blog a week or so ago. The issue is that it is the best metaphor for some magical processes. Taoist Alchemy and Tantric Winds and Channel work come immediately to mind. In these practices you are conserving, gathering, moving, and conducting a force that energy is a great metaphor for.
You said that Patrick never said that energy work was useless. I called you a twit and said that he said exactly that. I was wrong. He did not say exactly that. He said that discussing things in terms of energy was useless. There are a lot of quotes that I can use to back that up, but a post entitled “Here’s Why Energy is Silly” will do the trick. In a more recent post he mentions:
” “Energy” as a symbol for power works fine, until and unless you start thinking it offers:
1. Explanatory force for why or how magic works;
2. A one-for-one metaphoric analog to power (complete with slots from the energy domain including “scarcity” and so on, that don’t apply to magical power”
I would debate both of these accounts. Energy as a metaphor for explaining how many types of magic work is better than most other words I have come up with and havent encountered anything better yet. As to the analog to power and scarcity, preserving the generative energy (Chi, Prana, Lung) is a major part of Taoist and Tantric work, both of which are pretty commonly thought of under the umbrella of magic.
You ask me to reference my claim that he is saying energy work is not really energy work. I will point to his comment “Orgone. Which is probably a symbol for well-being to the person sitting in the big metal box.”. There are others, but I have better things to do.
Lastly. I never had anger at Patrick, I have always agreed in part with what he was saying, just not in whole, I have not changed position on anything. Unfortunately understanding that takes a nuance that most people do not possess. Instead they want to see everyone on clearly defined sides.
I threw angry insults at you because you were, and remain rude and condescending. This was compounded by making incorrect assumptions about me and my position on the matter.
1. I didn’t come at your blog bitching about not quoting it until you called me a moron for not knowing what you were talking about.
2. I apologize for reading into this if you genuinely meant no slight by insinuating that his approach to magic is as a linguist rather than as a magician. Maybe I am alone in reading that out of your statements, but if you weren’t insinuating that his view on magic was tainted by science, then why even go out of your way to make sure it is clear that he is a linguist and academic?
3. I wont pretend to know any of Patrick’s motivations in posting examples of people with silly ideas, but I understood what he had said to begin with. You did not, and I think Patrick would agree with that.
Discussing things in terms of energy has value, but only within the magical systems that require that. To extend ‘energy work’ to be an all-encompassing validation and requirement for methods that have survived millennia without it, is absolutely useless, if not detrimental.
________
Sir, I will leave you to your blog. If you have issue with people sharing their opinions, perhaps you should disable commenting or screen them. I assure you my initial post had zero animosity, but that was before I lost absolutely all respect for your opinions and modes because you acted so childish and emotional rather than intelligent and thoughtful. You can say all you want of my opinions, which I’m sure you will, but it doesn’t change the fact that your approach is childish and in the end, doesn’t really prove anything.
Whether or not you believe that I had or showed respect for you also matters very little at this point, and I think you wouldn’t disagree with that. The things that I wrote in my initial post that you took PERSONAL offense to, were not directed at you personally, or were hypotheticals. With respect to your blog and the other blog authors involved, you don’t know me at all, whereas you have established a rapport with these men. Perhaps they initially engaged you on a day you were being less of a baby, leading to them eventually having challenged your knotted logic consistently enough to gain your less-than-self-conscious respect.
Sounds like a lot of people are feeling pretty frustrated because they need to be heard and understood and don’t feel as if they are. Jason has heard me saying that energy work has no place in magic. I’d like him to hear me differently: I’m saying that energy work is not an explanatory model of magic and other models might be more effective for explaining and predicting magical effects. I do not believe that orgone or qi or any other magical energy is really a physical energy, and won’t until I see it proven scientifically in a laboratory. But I do think that the metaphor of energy, when used intelligently and wisely, can be helpful. I see people using it, sometimes, unconsciously and by rote, without thinking about the implications. I would prefer them to think more critically about their models, because I think doing so will help them do better magic. In the main, I think Jason and I agree.
I am a fan of Jason’s work and respect him. I am also pleased, Christopher, that you like my blog and my books.
@Chrsitopher: I called you a moron because you were rude, condescending, out of the gate and were misrepresenting my statements.
You seem not to be able to distinguish being effected by something and being sullied by it. I said that his understanding of magic and the semiotic model were being effected by his backgriound in linguistics, something I think he would not deny. The point was that I thought he was disregarding certain explanations out of hand because of his model. It was not a good/bad thing. It was just a thing. It was certainly not an insult to him.
You claim that you meant no offence to me personally. Tell me how was I supposed to take your last statement in your first post that “you, as others, have violently misunderstood on the basis of your dogmas”.
So yeah. You meant to be offensive.
You still dont grasp what the discussion is.
Patrick,
You write: “Jason has heard me saying that energy work has no place in magic. I’d like him to hear me differently: I’m saying that energy work is not an explanatory model of magic and other models might be more effective for explaining and predicting magical effects.”
I am not hearing you say that energy work has no place. I am hearing you say that the term energy has no place. Here is a sample of quotes:
“But why not just say they are conscious? Why use “energy?” It’s not physical energy by any means…”
“I simply don’t understand why magicians throw up so many barriers and complexity between the idea that we’re dealing with the pervasively conscious nature of matter and mind. Why build all these sandcastles about “energy,” which it is clearly not, when we can talk, instead, about communication, which it clearly and plainly is.”
” “Energy” is physical. Magic is about the metaphysical. What is metaphysical? Whatever is other than matter. What’s other than matter? Consciousness.”
“Energy is matter. That’s my point. Using “energy” is often an excuse to reduce magic to a subset of materialistic ontologies.”
“Orgone. Which is probably a symbol for well-being to the person sitting in the big metal box.”
“It’s not literally true that there is a magical energy and many, many people who practice magic think that there is. This misapprehension limits them.”
You get the idea. You say that energy work has its place, but not to use the word energy because it means something physical. But force or power or any other words also have physical meanings. Instead you want it discussed in terms of symbol and communication.
What I am saying, and what I have been saying all along, is that talking symbols and communication is not adequate to describe the actual process of how most pracrices that rely on a type of putative energy work.
The processes involved in many types of magic involve a conserving, purifying, patterning, moving, concentrating, collecting, distributing, and conducting something that is not quite physical, yet not entirely separate. The reason that people went from “breath” to “Energy” is precisely because it has these connotations. You mention that Spirit might be better, but spirit also means breath which gets us back to square one.
I am all about the Symbiotic Model if thats what you want to call it. I am a Buddhist by training, and I think you will find that your model is headed in that general direction. There does however need to be a recognition of the inseparability between matter and mind and also the differing levels of relative truth that exist for different types of work.
This is what I am trying to get accross to you when I am talking about Orgone and Chi. The minute that you start using symbol and mind only vocabulary, you loose the whole practice.
If I misunderstood, I genuinely apologize.
It appeared to me that the controversy over questioning the validity of the idea (that energy work is essential to successful magic) was because merely implying that energy was not necessary for everyone was offensive to people. It sparked these discussions, and not all of them have been civil. Nor have the arguments used been civil.
Why is such an offensive idea for someone to say that a magic system’s terms and concepts are only valid inside that particular magic system?
Am I misunderstanding that all of this really started with a post titled “If your personal practice doesn’t include energy work, it is bullshit.”? (http://heavenswithinearth.blogspot.com/2011/02/if-your-personal-practice-doesnt.html)
I don’t have to tell you what Dogma is or why it applies to this controversy. If you weren’t defending energy as a ‘real’ and essential thing, then I’m sorry for speaking out of turn, but I was not trying to be inflammatory or contrary.
You are correct that it started with that post, but I neither wrote nor defended that post.
My first post in this discussion was a post noting that while I thought that energy work had its place in many magical systems, and was as viable a term as anything else, it was not an essential part of all or even most magicians practices and that did NOT invalidate their work.
In other words I was defending energy as real, at least as real as anything else is, but not as essential. There are plenty of practices that have no direct correlation to energy work