Orientation at AIWA (American Institute of Wizard Arts)

[Marksman45]

<i>I sometimes dream that I am attending a college that teaches magic. It is called the American Institute of Wizard Arts. It is located in a City that contains parts of New York, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, and a few other cities, in the timeframe 191X (pronounced Nineteen Ecks-teen). The following is a lecture given at orientation for new students. As I said, this was a dream, and as such is composed partly of my own ideas and partly of things I have experienced and read (particularly, there's a lot of Castaneda in it), with a healthy, hefty dose of the caprice and bizarrity of dreams. That being said, I don't necessarily believe any of it. In fact, I can't afford to believe anything. Too risky. But I like the way this stuff sounds.</i>

“First things first. What is magic?

“Magic is the manipulation of energy through the use of intent. As things which exist, we are at our most basic core nothing but energy. And really, the word ‘energy’ is misleading in this. ‘Spirit’ is close, but still misleading. You will soon discover that words get in the way more than they pave it.

“We are energy acting on energy. All action is energy acting on energy. Therefore, all action is magic. When you move your arm, your intent manipulates the energy accordingly to move your arm. That’s magic. Most people don’t consider it magic because it’s the magic that everyone knows how to do. But it’s still magic.

“When we manifest as humans, we agree to certain rules. These rules are the mold and form that define a human.

“The mold is that humans are physical beings. This means we interact primarily with the physical planes. But, as energetic beings, we exist on all planes – or, rather, no planes, the null plane. The word plane here is also misleading; world is closer but has perhaps more potential to mislead.

“The form is that humans are trained from birth to, A) behave horribly, full of self-importance, self-pity, indulgence, violence, and so on; and, B) believe that rational thought is the only real magic at a human’s disposal, all else is delusion.

“Although this is called the human form, it is not a natural condition, but is unavoidable in society, for a human with this form will raise his children to have the same. Humans have been stewed in this for so long it has become next-to-natural for them – but it is still an aberration, a waste, a horrific network of chains that humans place themselves in for no good reason.

“A great deal of our energy is tied up in being human. Huge amounts are invested in our human mold. It is invested in the strength and healthiness of our bodies, the sharpness of our senses, our bodily appearance, our flexibility, our resilience, our nerve. Even larger amounts are usually invested in our human form, wasted on indulgence in self-pity, self-importance, and the occlusion to rational thought. Whatever is leftover is free energy. I prefer the term mana to refer to this. From your mana comes your intuition, your talents, your luck. Your mana is the bank of energy that fuels whatever magic is not already packaged in your mold and form.

“So, in order to increase your magic, you must increase your mana, and to do that you must create an energy surplus. There are two ways to do this: gain more energy, and free up energy that is already deployed.

“When a human acquires more energy, he tends to invest it right away, either in strengthening his human mold, or wasting it on his human form. Unfortunately, the latter is the common case. Wasting newly acquired energy on the human form must be thoroughly avoided. It is difficult to resist, but can be accomplished through discipline. When I say discipline, I do not mean routine and regimen. The four keys to discipline are having a calm sobriety, maintaining a keen insight, taking responsibility for your actions, and knowing your own worth.

“The sobriety I speak of is known to Buddhists as shamatha, abiding calm. I like the term reckless calm. It is the sort of calm that your human form will tell you is reckless. A calm that does not back down in the face of the unknown. A calm that enables you to soberly acquiesce and to refrain from indulging in fear or excitement.

“The insight I speak of also has a parallel in Buddhism, vipassana. You will need this insight to distinguish bullshit and avoid it, and your human form will throw all kinds of bullshit at you when you stop feeding it energy.

“Responsibility is all about response. Take responsibility for all your actions, including your mistakes. Especially your mistakes. If you make a mistake, deal with it. Respond. And remember, a wizard treats everything as a mortal battle; in a mortal battle you can afford to respond in only one way: impeccably.

“Knowing your own worth is easy to talk about but difficult to realize. Realize is a word which here means to make real. I can tell you all your worth right now, but even if you accept it as a concept you cannot realize it until you experience it. Who would like to know their own worth? Anyone in the room.”

A student stands and raises his hand. The professor points to him.

“Your worth is zero.”

The student sits down sheepishly. Some of the students begin laughing at him.

“Yes, your worth is zero.” He draws an enormous zero on the chalkboard, adding the diagonal slash with great flair. The laughter spreads among the students. “I repeat, your worth is zero – the same as everything else in the universe.”

The laughter ceases immediately.

“When you know your worth,” the professor continues, “discipline becomes easy because you conquer self-pity, and you become ruthless with yourself.

“Reclaiming invested energy is a bit more difficult, because it is spent on what makes us human and what we are raised to think makes us human. We like being human. We cling to being human. We resist any change to our humanity.

“Now, the human mold actually does make us human, and it can be dangerous to re-deploy energy away from our human mold. The scary thing is that people do it every day, but sadly don’t re-allocate it to their mana but to their human form. You’ve probably all done it a few times. When people can’t get new energy to spend on their human form, they commit self-destructive acts, acts that weaken their mold to feed their form. Again, discipline is the key to preventing this.

“If you become a true master wizard, you will be able to move energy to and from your mold at will, because you will be ready to transcend your human form. However, at this current stage in your magical growth, attempting such feats is dangerous and should be avoided.

“I have watched countless students fall into such a path, the path of morbidity. The path of morbidity leads one to neglect their mold in exchange for other magical powers. This leads to an atrophied body, failing health, dulled senses and mind, odious appearance, and a general loss of humanity, i.e. corruption. The overall change in power from following the path of morbidity is at best zero, an even trade, but this best-case-scenario is not the usual case. A morbid wizard throws away a gift that was given to him; a real wizard accepts it gratefully and uses it, like all his resources, in the best way possible but without depending upon them.

“Now, about reclaiming energy from the human form… The human form, despite what we have been raised to believe, does not make us human, has nothing at all to do with being human. It is an aberration to be convinced that the human form is part of a human’s nature. So, the math is simple. You need energy to increase your mana, and huge amounts are needlessly invested in your ‘human’ form. However, before you can re-deploy this energy, you must recognize that the ‘human’ form is not human at all, which is easy to think about, difficult to accomplish. Once this is done, you must work to break the attachment you have developed to this form. Attachments are chains.

“Think of this attachment as a tree. A demon tree, if that makes the conceit more palatable. Now, to destroy this demon tree, you must remove every single leaf from it. There are three ways to do this. The first is to pluck off every leaf, one-by-one – but don’t let them grow back. The second is to starve the tree, through sustained discipline, until the leaves wither and fall off on their own. The third is to blast every leaf from the branches all at once in an immense explosion of power. Such an explosion is such an immense task that it requires the wizard to die a symbolic – but very real – death. None of these three methods is intrinsically superior to the others, but for each individual person, only one will do the trick. Which one depends on what kind of person you are.

“Once you have cast off once-and-for-all your ‘human’ form, nothing stands in the way of accumulating mana; it need only be done. Anyone who has mana is already a magician. I can’t teach you magic because there is nothing to be taught. Store mana and it will happen.

“What we teach here at the American Institute of Wizard Arts is just what our name implies: wizard arts. In learning the wizard arts you are learning a new form: the wizard form. The wizard form is, like the ‘human’ form, an inventory of magic – however, the wizard form is useful. This inventory includes reason, because reason is useful in certain areas, but does not depend on reason. It depends on wisdom. The term wizard is derived from the word wise. Now, what is wisdom?” He chalks up Wizard -> Wise -> Ways. “The word wise is directly related to the word ways. Knowledge is accumulated knowing, wisdom is accumulated waying. A wizard seeks out, discovers, and collects ways to do things: wizard arts.

“When your wizard form is properly constructed, you will be a master wizard. The form will also be as easy to detach from yourself as a piece of clothing, otherwise it would become just as bad as the ‘human’ form.

“When the fool learns, he adds to the inventory of his ‘human’ form. A clever human creates a new form. If learning carpentry, he creates a carpenter form; medicine, a doctor form; art, an artist form. He puts on these forms when he needs them and takes them off when he doesn’t. This is the core of wizardry – to collect ways in a form so that they may be activated with volition just like the functions of our human mold, in contrast to the automatic – yet still active – functions of raw mana. The art of wizardry is temporarily deploying mana to create a form that we can use easily.

“Your wizard form will also simplify the task of losing your ‘human’ form.

“Why learn wizardry? Frankly, because it’s cool. The wizard arts are indeed arts, and to a pure artist creating pure art, only one thing matters about any given work: that it can be accomplished. Wizardry also helps us accumulate energy while remaining human, preparing us for the ultimate work of magic: ultimate freedom; to transcend all boundaries freely and sail undaunted into the black unknown Nameless Sea.”

[tinkerjack]

Remember Headburner from litkicks. Eating Ghosts?

There are magicians in water and stones,
Who can make a man ill
By stabbing his silhouette with with a word.
Trample upon, struck, stabb

,

http://www.litkicks.com/BeatPages/msgAr ... &parent=-1

[Marksman45]

Oh yeah, I miss that guy

Does anyone know how to get a hold of him? We should invite him to the Studio. Or is he already here, under a different name? Or is he a she? Who knows... Well, I guess he does. That would stand to reason.

[jimboloco]

sailing on easy when young
anchored down now
yet sailing on as well

[tinkerjack]

practical magic
statistical reality
unyoung
time and chance
long overdue
and yet
starting tomorrow
the days grow longer

ps
jimboloco I got your card
much appreciated
arrived just in time

[jimboloco]

ho ho ho
hare krishna
we wish you a merry juana
and glad you are near!