Magic and madness

[TelGega]

this is not to be a topic of negativity. but a legitimate question

does it ever seem like some people who turn to magic start to lose their mind or go insane?

I been watching and reading posts form folks (not here) on social media and it looks like these people are bat shit or so filled with anger

 

[stalkinghyena]

does it ever seem like some people who turn to magic start to lose their mind or go insane?

It's relational to the culture. That is, the general definitions of reality are bound to be violated unless the culture is by nature magical, which is not the case in this era in a conventional sense.

I been watching and reading posts form folks (not here) on social media and it looks like these people are bat shit or so filled with anger

There's plenty enough of that in this forum. It comes and goes. But that does not mean magic is the cause of being bat shit or angry. Often one eats what one brings to the table, and then blames the table for making them nauseous.

 

[TelGega]

There's plenty enough of that in this forum. It comes and goes. But that does not mean magic is the cause of being bat shit or angry. Often one eats what one brings to the table, and then blames the table for making them nauseous.

thats a good reply

 

[Morell]

this is not to be a topic of negativity. but a legitimate question

does it ever seem like some people who turn to magic start to lose their mind or go insane?

I been watching and reading posts form folks (not here) on social media and it looks like these people are bat shit or so filled with anger

Good question. I've heard about cases where people got into Satanism and then got mad. Since that included LaVey 's book, it included rituals I suppose. So that gave me food for the thought.

So to start Peterson style: What is insanity? And what causes it?

Insanity I would define as your mind and thinking being programed in a way that is dangerous to yourself and others. It's pretty poor definition, but it's the idea. You've lost the touch with reality and see things the way that they are not.
My favorite example is Reinfield's syndrom - that is just like in the novel when person eats animals (and might even try humans) to preserve his life by eating them and therefore gaining their lives. That is dangerous because by eating animals alive it is dangerous because of diseases and parasites one can get from eating raw flesh. Also makes living in society pretty difficult, if not impossible. For more spiritual examples take messianic complex, or dozen other nonsenses some Christian groups fall into. Just watched a video where people believed in god so much that they lat small gril with diabetes die because the inzulin was witchcraft and God could heal her if they prayed hard enough. Quite out of touch with reality.

And what causes insanity? Reprograming. Both self-inflicted as well as inflicted by others. Self-reprogramming often happens through trauma. You face some truth you cannot handle or wish to erase and your mind makes up a tale that is way more acceptable, one where you are a good person. Human mind and even memory is moldable. Made up example from a book: a man happens to get through tragedy, his wife and daughter killed by murderer and he finds and kills him - then when he is found he thinks himself to be an alien from k-pax.

Reprogramming from others happens too, just look around the cults, there are so many dangerous cults out there that it's relatively easy to watch few dozens and look into studies of them and their mechanics of brainwashing. I recommend finding text "Born Again Brainwashing by Dick Sutphen," that shows pretty interesting info on this matter.

So now to magic and madness. Can practicing magic cause madness? No. If you do things like Channeling or other ways of contacting the spirits for information, it can accelerate already evolving issues, but magic doesn't cause them. But if you use it as a way to reprogram yourself, then you can inflict madness on yourself, because you are the one who breaks your mind or reprograms it into state that is not right.

 

[TelGega]

For more spiritual examples take messianic complex, or dozen other nonsenses some Christian groups fall into. Just watched a video where people believed in god so much that they lat small gril with diabetes die because the inzulin was witchcraft and God could heal her if they prayed hard enough. Quite out of touch with reality.

I am Christian. I have seen this first hand. I have mixed feeling. I wish i could explain more...

I don't think God denies it. I think there is more to what is happening and we simplify it to nonsense

 

[Morell]

I am Christian. I have seen this first hand. I have mixed feeling. I wish i could explain more...

I don't think God denies it. I think there is more to what is happening and we simplify it to nonsense

I can understand those mixed feelings. Actually I understand quite well. As a pagan I feel the same about pagan neo-nazi groups. Unfortunately every religion has good people and bad people, it has good side and practices and it has evil side and practices. No denial there. But also there is pain and sadness because they do give us pretty bad name and since they cause fear, they get the spotlight. I fully believe that some Muslims cry when watching yet another terrorist attack, praying to god that the murderers are not Muslims and then crushing with shame when they are.

Evil people simply are there and they can claim any religion as well as anyone else.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Magic involves 'hacking your own mind'. As someone who once put a screwdriver across the terminals of a transformer, I can attest: "This is dangerous"

 

[Morell]

Magic involves 'hacking your own mind'. As someone who once put a screwdriver across the terminals of a transformer, I can attest: "This is dangerous"

Every tool is dangerous if mishandled.

 

[FireBorn]

What kind of people do you think magick attracts? Super normal ones? Hahaha.

All joking aside, magick draws all sorts, but the ones who stay tend to be intelligent and gritty. It takes serious inner resolve to stick with it over time. Do the crazy ones slip in? Yep. Do they stay? Sometimes. But let’s widen the lens (since you're Christian, and this isn’t a bash, just a mirror): What kind of people go to church? Are they all normal? My mother used to say: Hospitals are for the physically sick. Church is for the spiritually sick. Same with magick. People come carrying unresolved shit. Some alchemize it. Some leak it. Some drown in it. Not all, I want to make that clear.

And madness? Yeah, standing in the presence of an angel or a demon will change you. You don’t walk away from that untouched, unless you’re just LARPing. Worse, you can’t exactly go into work the next day and explain it to your coworkers. It’s all subjective. So yeah, you look crazy. Some manage to integrate it. Some don’t. And the ones who crack usually brought trauma with them that magick only amplified.

That’s why older systems like Golden Dawn had in-person vetting. It wasn’t just elitist gatekeeping, it was also a safety rail. Now? Thanks to the internet and print-on-demand books, anyone can sit in their basement talking to their hands and claim they’ve summoned Azazel to help them file taxes. And let’s be real, our all-inclusive, HR-ified culture has decided every experience is “valid.” So are we really surprised when someone tells us they worked with archangels to invoke a velociraptor for help at the spelling bee?

Magick will survive. The occult will endure.

But will we?

 

[Faria]

does it ever seem like some people who turn to magic start to lose their mind or go insane?

I've known a lot of occulty people of every flavor. In all that time and all those people, I have never once seen it actually drive someone crazy.

What does drive people crazy? Drugs. Bottom line. Every time. If you want to point a big fat finger at what actually makes people crack up, look at their drug habits, whether that's illicit drugs or psychiatric drugs. I have never, ever, found a serious occult practitioner of any type begin as a normal sane person and descend into madness without also being constantly on drugs.

Over the weekend I got to re-set the YouTube searches in my AirBnB with tons of searches for "Satanic Rituals." A lot of those videos are repentance videos of people who attribute their previous bad behaviors to occult activity. Almost all of them show signs of sexual abuse as children, suppressed homosexuality, rampant drug use, and general dissociation from decency. They all blame the occult, because it was the thing that gave them the courage to ignore any kind of higher power that doesn't tolerate that shit. Half of them would have been fine and never bothered with any of it if they had the courage to admit that they were gay.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Every tool is dangerous if mishandled.

Absolutely my point

I would also like to confirm that I only did it once.

 

[Asteriskos]

There is a condition fondly referred to as "Magusitis". It was somewhat common in the GD's RR et AC inner order around the time members reached the "Adeptus Minor" grade. As well as the ceremonial grades above that. It's basically believing you're an Adept or above, when you are really only an armchair wannabe. It's a real psychological and emotional condition. There were relativity few real Adepts, but a Lot of the "Inepti" as Israel Regardie puts it so Well!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[FireBorn]

Absolutely my point

I would also like to confirm that I only did it once.

So what you are saying is that you can learn! Maybe the hard way, but you can learn. That is enough, at least in the circle I run with.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

There is a condition fondly referred to as "Magusitis". It was somewhat common in the GD's RR et AC inner order around the time members reached the "Adeptus Minor" grade. As well as the ceremonial grades above that. It's basically believing you're an Adept or above, when you are really only an armchair wannabe. It's a real psychological and emotional condition. There were relativity few real Adepts, but a Lot of the "Inepti" as Israel Regardie puts it so Well!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

I normally use Robert Anton Wilson's phrase "failing to negotiate Chapel Perilous" but "Magusitis" is a doozy

They're easy to spot, even early on - there's lots of CAPITAL LETTERS and they declaim everything "like fucking Desdemona", to quote Joss Whedon. I encountered one on Bluesky yesterday. Our encounter ended with me saying "I'm going to mute your nonsense now". No idea if he was actually insane, but he certainly was a pompous twat.

 

[Asteriskos]

there's lots of CAPITAL LETTERS

I LIKE CAPITAL LETTERS, if you have an issue with that PM/DM me!

 

[Anziel_Merkaba]

Depends on the type of madness.

If it's the typical "I spend too much time on X/Bluesky and have mental issues from it and I'm learning magic", that's just mental illness. If it's the "I've gotten into magic and now I'm schizophrenic" that means they fried their brains due to not being careful enough with their practice. If it's the "I'm sick of this bullshit, gonna go crazy for a while", that just means it's a practitioner that's been at it too long and doesn't know how to destress properly. If it's the "I can see the universe! All things are before my sight!" that just means they've gone too far into theurgy and became ungrounded. And if it's the "You're annoying, I'm gonna curse your whole family then go fight the angels" that just means they spent too much time listening to EA Koetting and his ilk.

Really, there isn't a "sane person" to exist, everyone has their own mental maladies and neuroses, but the real OGs make it work for them instead of control them.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

there's lots of CAPITAL LETTERS

I LIKE CAPITAL LETTERS, if you have an issue with that PM/DM me!

I like them too - I happen to think they give a nice baroque feel to a continent...

 

[Amadeus]

@Morell I wrote a few stories here on the forum somewhere about what happened to some friends of friends. There was one guy who dealt with satanism, as soon as he started doing it he became different and started acting weird. His behavior changed, nobody could recognize him, completely crazy and unstable. One day he could not handle it anymore and ended everything. A sad story for the family.

Another case is a more recent one. Heard it it in 2024, some dude started dealing with invocations, invoked demons into himself. He could not get rid of them anymore and started going crazy, sought help but nobody could get the thing out. Then finally some practitioner performed an exorcism on him and the thing left.

@TelGega
Alright so you are a Christian. I work a lot with the texts from there and the practices. Even the Christian practice of hesychasm can screw up an untrained mind.

Based on what I have experienced and felt, the good and awfully bad experiences. I'd say there are many dangers with the spiritual practices. The more hardcore you go the bigger threats.

I remember when I did some things wrong and also I became too open. The extreme level of opennness and having something enter you & physically feeling so bad, together with light mind control, disconnected from the reality feeling, symptoms of schizophrenia that you never had before, and knowing something is terribly wrong. Then forcing the things out of yourself and feeling how the whole reality turns normal again.Physical sensations of the spiritual attachment getting burnt and then blasted off.

Some friends also experienced this and had to exorcise the problematic whatever out. They were feeling completely mad and crazy, at least for a while.

Yes you can go crazy, you can lose your mind and if you can't get help...you might end up in a mad house. Through some connections I remember a third case where one person, some woman, ended up in a mad house, after doing some spiritual practices. I don't know exactly what went wrong here.

Very active practices that screw with the spiritual engine, very extreme practices, invocations, screwing with the mind, the chakras. Highly specific spiritual issues might pop out and fixing them can be difficult. Energy overloads, burning tilted chakras that you can sense. Pains that make no sense. Working a lot with energies without being trained enough, the energy and data overloads. Data = too much processing like say reading a mantra 100K times in a short time frame, energy, having it overload you so that you feel like exploding.

 

[SkullTraill]

Honestly, in my personal experience I’ve seen more mad people turn to magick than people who got into magick turn mad…

 

[Morell]

@Morell I wrote a few stories here on the forum somewhere about what happened to some friends of friends. There was one guy who dealt with satanism, as soon as he started doing it he became different and started acting weird. His behavior changed, nobody could recognize him, completely crazy and unstable. One day he could not handle it anymore and ended everything. A sad story for the family.

Another case is a more recent one. Heard it it in 2024, some dude started dealing with invocations, invoked demons into himself. He could not get rid of them anymore and started going crazy, sought help but nobody could get the thing out. Then finally some practitioner performed an exorcism on him and the thing left.

@TelGega
Alright so you are a Christian. I work a lot with the texts from there and the practices. Even the Christian practice of hesychasm can screw up an untrained mind.

Based on what I have experienced and felt, the good and awfully bad experiences. I'd say there are many dangers with the spiritual practices. The more hardcore you go the bigger threats.

I remember when I did some things wrong and also I became too open. The extreme level of opennness and having something enter you & physically feeling so bad, together with light mind control, disconnected from the reality feeling, symptoms of schizophrenia that you never had before, and knowing something is terribly wrong. Then forcing the things out of yourself and feeling how the whole reality turns normal again.Physical sensations of the spiritual attachment getting burnt and then blasted off.

Some friends also experienced this and had to exorcise the problematic whatever out. They were feeling completely mad and crazy, at least for a while.

Yes you can go crazy, you can lose your mind and if you can't get help...you might end up in a mad house. Through some connections I remember a third case where one person, some woman, ended up in a mad house, after doing some spiritual practices. I don't know exactly what went wrong here.

Very active practices that screw with the spiritual engine, very extreme practices, invocations, screwing with the mind, the chakras. Highly specific spiritual issues might pop out and fixing them can be difficult. Energy overloads, burning tilted chakras that you can sense. Pains that make no sense. Working a lot with energies without being trained enough, the energy and data overloads. Data = too much processing like say reading a mantra 100K times in a short time frame, energy, having it overload you so that you feel like exploding.

Thanks for the tales. Truly worth telling.