Causal/acausal magick

[DiLoco_DelEted]

Can someone explain the concepts to me, and relate it to RHP and LHP schools of magick rituals?

 

[Jadugar]

"Acausal magic"? I've never heard of such a term, colour me interested. Where did you come across it, if I may ask? Googling only seems to turn up video game sites. Although, by its name, I assume it refers to a form of magic that produces its results irrespective of the rules of cause and effect; would I be correct in that?

 

[DiLoco_DelEted]

There was a magical group who apparently were engaged in things that gave them a bad rep.
I have some of their documents that were publicly available before the bad rep.
Acausal appears to be related to Causal, perhaps cause and effect chains that can be screed; acausal appears to be outside space and time. Let me reference their document real quick ...

0 - A THEORY OF MAGICK
Fundamental to magick is a belief that the phenomenal world of the five senses is in- complete. Magickians believe that we live in a world quite different from the one our five senses show to us – they believe that every living thing possesses, because it is living, certain energies which we as individuals can sense and ‘see’ if we become re- ceptive to them. This receptiveness is one of the aims of magickal or Occult Initiation – and may be said to involve the individual in becoming aware of the essence of things that is hidden by their outward appearance (and this applies to other individu- als, as well as ‘things’).
According to the Septenary tradition, these “magickal energies” possessed by things and ‘life’ derive from what it is convenient to describe the acausal – that is, every liv- ing entity is a point or region where acausal energies manifest in our causal, phe- nomenal, universe, the amount and type of this energy being dependant on the type of entity. These acausal energies (which science because it at present deals only with causal entities and energies, cannot describe) may be said to derive from a parallel acausal universe which intersects our causal universe at certain places.
We as individuals, because we possess the faculty of consciousness, re ‘gates’ to this acausal universe. We possess the (mostly latent) ability to ‘open the gate’ to the acau- sal which exists within our own psyche to draw from the acausal certain energies, and these energies can and do alter in some way both our own consciousness or other enti- ties/energies which exist in the causal. This “drawing of energies”, and their use, is magick. External magick is the use of such energies, directed by individual desire, to bring about changes in the causal; Internal Magick is the use of these energies to bring psychic, internal change.
To draw upon such energies it is usually necessary for the individual to use some form of framework or symbolism, and techniques of external magick use such sym- bolism to bring both apprehension of the energies and their control. Various systems of symbolism exist – most denoting types of energy by gods, goddesses, spirits or demons. In reality, the actual symbols are of only secondary importance, and a Magickian who is following the path to Adeptship will soon discard such sym- bols/names/descriptions (and thus External Magick itself) in favor of apprehending such energies as those energies are in themselves. In the Septenary tradition this is done first via the ‘Tree of Wyrd’ (the seven spheres and the pathways connecting them – see Appendix I) and then through the ‘Star Game’. The Tree of Wyrd may b seen as a map of consciousness: both individual (of the psyche) and of those regions other than the individual where the acausal and causal meet. The symbolism of the spheres and the pathways (the Tarot cards, planets, incenses, ‘god-forms’ and so on) are the first or Initiated stage of apprehension of the Star Game.
External magick is divided into two forms or types: hermetic, and ceremonial. Her- metic magick is basically that involving only one or two individuals whereas ceremo- nial magick involves more and may be said to be ‘formal’ magick involving specific rituals or rites (usually written down and followed exactly) and an organized Tem- ple/coven or group. (Part Two of the present work deals only with hermetic magick of the Septenary tradition - the ceremonial side being covered in such works as ‘The Black Book’.) Internal magick is always individual.

From NAOS, A Practical Guide to Modern Magick

 

[Jarhyn]

Ok, so, my own experience:

There seem to be two kinds of magic, "causal" magic, which is 'a materially caused result of phenomena instigated by the mage' and "causal adjacency", which you call "acausal" which is itself 'a result of what can, on the basis of observation of material reality, merely be attributed to coincidence'.

Causal magic revolves around the management of intent, the maintaining of the garden of the mind. Most magic of any path tends towards causal mechanisms. This is arguably not just "most" but all.

The second form of magic amounts to a relationship the mage has with "outside". This magic tends not to exist except in conjunction with causal magic: the ritual to manifest/evoke causal adjacency itself creates "Tinkerbell Effect" of subconscious fulfillment that obscures observability of direct causal adjacency with an ambiguity.

I'm unsure if it's even possible to evoke a manifestation of causal adjacency without generating these kinds of ambiguities short of doing magic for someone who does not know you nor what you are doing and recording the effects in a statistical manner. This is why "most, if not all". But doing this is not likely to work either...

That said, my best observations tend towards the idea that the expectation of "causal adjacency" rather than "causality" is the clearest way to prevent causal adjacencies from happening and to even generate causal adjacencies that thwart the intended causality.

I have in my life observed TWO major causal adjacencies: one involving gold which was found maybe a day or two after crafting a prosperity charm using gold as a binder of intent; and a second involving the appearance of copper.

Even so, these events are "merely coincidence, experienced thankfully."

 

[DiLoco_DelEted]

Ok, so, my own experience:

There seem to be two kinds of magic, "causal" magic, which is 'a materially caused result of phenomena instigated by the mage' and "causal adjacency", which you call "acausal" which is itself 'a result of what can, on the basis of observation of material reality, merely be attributed to coincidence'.

Causal magic revolves around the management of intent, the maintaining of the garden of the mind. Most magic of any path tends towards causal mechanisms. This is arguably not just "most" but all.

The second form of magic amounts to a relationship the mage has with "outside". This magic tends not to exist except in conjunction with causal magic: the ritual to manifest/evoke causal adjacency itself creates "Tinkerbell Effect" of subconscious fulfillment that obscures observability of direct causal adjacency with an ambiguity.

I'm unsure if it's even possible to evoke a manifestation of causal adjacency without generating these kinds of ambiguities short of doing magic for someone who does not know you nor what you are doing and recording the effects in a statistical manner. This is why "most, if not all". But doing this is not likely to work either...

That said, my best observations tend towards the idea that the expectation of "causal adjacency" rather than "causality" is the clearest way to prevent causal adjacencies from happening and to even generate causal adjacencies that thwart the intended causality.

I have in my life observed TWO major causal adjacencies: one involving gold which was found maybe a day or two after crafting a prosperity charm using gold as a binder of intent; and a second involving the appearance of copper.

Even so, these events are "merely coincidence, experienced thankfully."

Okay,

So causal could be like witchcraft, where I did a money spell and days later a 100 dollar bill appeared at my feet. Acausal would be like my petition spells that are not specific enough to lap over coincidences?
Cool. Thank you for the explanation.

 

[Jarhyn]

Okay,

So causal could be like witchcraft, where I did a money spell and days later a 100 dollar bill appeared at my feet. Acausal would be like my petition spells that are not specific enough to lap over coincidences?
Cool. Thank you for the explanation.

Well, nonspecific petition spells are more open to "causal interpretation":

A petitioner speaks a petition for more success in meeting people. The causal mechanism is the spoken intent and memory of petition goading the mind to do the work to be interesting enough to meet (or figure out that's what makes people interested in knowing you) or perhaps to do the things that put you out there, essentially interpreted as "hey brain, get to fucking work and figure out subconsciously what I'm fucking up and stop fucking it up!"

This will causally drive the result.

Acausal magic is more like... A wizard casts a petition for 125 dollars and then the next day an anonymous (unclaimable) money clip with 125 in mixed bills is in the middle of a crosswalk somewhere on a mile long commute by foot, or while they are downtown hitting the bars.

A causal adjacency like that generally requires some other form of work to be given up, and if you don't give of suitable value to the petition, and it is answered, the more causally adjacent, the more that may be asked of you. Usually, you will know the extent of what you may give up when you are giving it.

 

[DiLoco_DelEted]

Well, nonspecific petition spells are more open to "causal interpretation":

A petitioner speaks a petition for more success in meeting people. The causal mechanism is the spoken intent and memory of petition goading the mind to do the work to be interesting enough to meet (or figure out that's what makes people interested in knowing you) or perhaps to do the things that put you out there, essentially interpreted as "hey brain, get to fucking work and figure out subconsciously what I'm fucking up and stop fucking it up!"

This will causally drive the result.

Acausal magic is more like... A wizard casts a petition for 125 dollars and then the next day an anonymous (unclaimable) money clip with 125 in mixed bills is in the middle of a crosswalk somewhere on a mile long commute by foot, or while they are downtown hitting the bars.

Cool, seems I had my understanding reverse there. Thank you

 

[DiLoco_DelEted]

So then, are there specific magic systems that work causal and acausal magic, and what sort of ritual activity is involved?

 

[Jarhyn]

So then, are there specific magic systems that work causal and acausal magic, and what sort of ritual activity is involved?

Well, I don't often ascribe to ritual magic. Usually for a causal adjacency, a proper narrative force must be applied. For my copper, my petition was of a wand found, given by nature thus freely offered thrice and after use given in love, freely, in turn.

It needed no more than this.

It seems if there are outsiders so as to fulfill such intents, the best of them like a good story more than pomp.