[Tutorial] One Into Another

[Xingtian]

This is a game devised by the surrealists for exercising analogical thought. Below are the rules and examples as printed in Alastair Brotchie’s Book of Surrealist Games. The game is easily adapted for online forum play so if anyone is interested let me know and I can start something in the lounge.

For a minimum of three players, although a larger number is preferable.
One player withdraws from the room, and chooses for himself an object (or a person, an idea, etc.). While he is absent the rest of the players also choose an object. When the first player returns he is told what object they have chosen. He must now describe his own object in terms of the properties of the object chosen by the others, until they are able to guess its identity.
The first player should be gin with a sentence such as ‘I am an (object)…’

I am a very beautiful female BREAST, particularly long and serpentine. The woman bearing it agrees to display it only on certain nights. From its innumerable nipples spurts a luminous milk. Few people, poets excepted, are able to appreciate its curve.

Benjamin Péret (The Milky Way)

I am a CHRISTMAS TREE seen several days after the festivities. My top is triangular like all christmas trees. Like them I hold some surprises in store for children, but also continue to affect a certain category of adults in that I participate simultaneously in times past and present.

Elisa Breton (Attic)

I am a hardened SUNBEAM that revolves around the sun so as to release a dark and fragrant rainfall each morning, a little after midday and even once night has fallen.

Jean Schuster (Coffee-grinder)

I am a gleaming NECKTIE knotted around the hand so as to run across those throats at which I’m placed.

Toyen (Sword)

 

[HoldAll]

I am not sure what the occult relevance is... analogical thought, ok, but I find it hard to place this tutorial even in a chaos magick / discordian context.

 

[Xingtian]

I am not sure what the occult relevance is... analogical thought, ok, but I find it hard to place this tutorial even in a chaos magick / discordian context.

Alan Chapman's summary from Advanced Magick for Beginners. Making and applying analogies is at the heart of magick.

 

[Taudefindi]

He must now describe his own object in terms of the properties of the object chosen by the others, until they are able to guess its identity.

While I understand this game's rules, the execution seems poorly done.Never that from those descriptions that people would be able to guess what the other had chosen.

It seems more like an exercise in flowery poetry than an exercise into guessing.

I am not sure what the occult relevance is... analogical thought, ok, but I find it hard to place this tutorial even in a chaos magick / discordian context.

I was wondering the same.
While doing guess work might help with something like divination, the act of this game itself doesn't feel like it has an occult purpose.
This post could've actually worked better on the lounge area.

 

[Xingtian]

While I understand this game's rules, the execution seems poorly done.Never that from those descriptions that people would be able to guess what the other had chosen.

It seems more like an exercise in flowery poetry than an exercise into guessing.


I was wondering the same.
While doing guess work might help with something like divination, the act of this game itself doesn't feel like it has an occult purpose.
This post could've actually worked better on the lounge area.

Guessing is a key part of the game. Having played the game several times I am struck by the ability of different people who've never met, when they get into the spirit of the game, to accurately guess from the most mutated and obscure analogies. It really does work when the mind is attuned sufficiently. And the whole purpose of this exercise is to change perception, to create or discover deep connections in the universe between seemingly unlike things. Each thing contains the seed of everything else- this is alchemy, this is Proclus' symbology, this is Indra's net in Hua Yan Buddhism.

For those who would say, "it's poetry but it's not magic," well, a quote from Alan Moore:

There is some confusion as to what magic actually is. I think this can be cleared up if you just look at the very earliest descriptions of magic. Magic in its earliest form is often referred to as “the art”. I believe this is completely literal. I believe that magic is art and that art, whether it be writing, music, sculpture, or any other form is literally magic. Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words, or images, to achieve changes in consciousness. The very language about magic seems to be talking as much about writing or art as it is about supernatural events. A grimmoir for example, the book of spells is simply a fancy way of saying grammar. Indeed, to cast a spell, is simply to spell, to manipulate words, to change people's consciousness. And I believe that this is why an artist or writer is the closest thing in the contemporary world that you are likely to see to a Shaman.​

 

[Taudefindi]

to accurately guess from the most mutated and obscure analogies

I think this is the biggest issue with such a game.Someone can make an analogy that to them might seem obvious what they're talking about, but to others it may not even make sense.

To guess is like finding your way in the ocean through the stars, but when the night is bare of them you're literally blind to any path you can take.A single ship adrift between heaven and earth.

the whole purpose of this exercise is to change perception, to create or discover deep connections in the universe between seemingly unlike things

I can see how trying to solve an intricate poem might help one go outside the box in their thinking patterns.
But this seems more like an interesting thought exercise rather than a game.Because "game" implies fun and I've seen my fair share of people getting frustrated for not being able to even decipher what someone doing mimic was trying to tell them.

For those who would say, "it's poetry but it's not magic,"

Poetry can have magic in it but I don't consider it magic.Same way that a play can have occult themes in it(that might even awaken something or give you an insight), but by itself it isn't magic either.

The arts might work as vehicles for the non-mundane, but they by themselves are very mundane things.It's the ones behind the arts that turn the mundane into somehting magical.

 

[HoldAll]

Guessing is a key part of the game. Having played the game several times I am struck by the ability of different people who've never met, when they get into the spirit of the game, to accurately guess from the most mutated and obscure analogies. It really does work when the mind is attuned sufficiently. And the whole purpose of this exercise is to change perception, to create or discover deep connections in the universe between seemingly unlike things. Each thing contains the seed of everything else- this is alchemy, this is Proclus' symbology, this is Indra's net in Hua Yan Buddhism.

For those who would say, "it's poetry but it's not magic," well, a quote from Alan Moore:

There is some confusion as to what magic actually is. I think this can be cleared up if you just look at the very earliest descriptions of magic. Magic in its earliest form is often referred to as “the art”. I believe this is completely literal. I believe that magic is art and that art, whether it be writing, music, sculpture, or any other form is literally magic. Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words, or images, to achieve changes in consciousness. The very language about magic seems to be talking as much about writing or art as it is about supernatural events. A grimmoir for example, the book of spells is simply a fancy way of saying grammar. Indeed, to cast a spell, is simply to spell, to manipulate words, to change people's consciousness. And I believe that this is why an artist or writer is the closest thing in the contemporary world that you are likely to see to a Shaman.​

It's a description of a parlour game, not a tutorial. That game may expand your consciousness but so does flower arrangement or action painting. So I've seen 'Kim's Game' recommended in an occult book as a magical exercise, for example - but do I want to read about it here or have somebody upload Kipling's novel? No. And you can fill this thread with quotes about magic being like art, or science for that matter, all you want, your post is still off-topic. Besides, a tutorial should be an original contribution, not just copypasta from a book. So go play your game in the Lounge but an occult tutorial it ain't.

 

[KjEno186]

Analogous thinking is important to magic. The rather dry lists of correspondences in tables that are often used by magicians lack the poetic nature of metaphors and similes which the song writer uses to convey her art...

I can understand the nature of the game. My suggestion is that the exercise could be framed in a way to make its use for a small group of magicians more readily apparent. As it is, I tend to agree with @HoldAll in that it appears to be made for non-occultists. I think similar objections would be made if, for example, I posted exercises from popular books on psychology that I thought were useful to magicians without making the application clear from the start.

 

[SkullTraill]

Moved to Psychology section because while this may be a useful part of occult practice, it in and of itself is not an occult tutorial.

 

[Xingtian]

And you can fill this thread with quotes about magic being like art

I provided a quote, by a magician, arguing that magic is art. Not merely "like". I believe that magic is art and that art, whether it be writing, music, sculpture, or any other form is literally magic.

Moore is hardly some obscure personage in modern occultism. I am not saying he is automatically right about anything but he makes what I consider cogent arguments for this position. And in this point Moore is in good company with not only the surrealists but the likes of William Blake and Novalis, and, indeed, a persistent vein in western esotericism that goes far back. So I have to admit I am surprised by the resistance this viewpoint is encountering here.

 

[SkullTraill]

I provided a quote, by a magician, arguing that magic is art. Not merely "like". I believe that magic is art and that art, whether it be writing, music, sculpture, or any other form is literally magic.

Moore is hardly some obscure personage in modern occultism. I am not saying he is automatically right about anything but he makes what I consider cogent arguments for this position. And in this point Moore is in good company with not only the surrealists but the likes of William Blake and Novalis, and, indeed, a persistent vein in western esotericism that goes far back. So I have to admit I am surprised by the resistance this viewpoint is encountering here.

I guess my personal viewpoint is that just because an occultist created a game/method that could be useful in occultism, doesn't mean it was specifically designed for magick or is an occult tutorial per se.

Either way, we should stop with the meta discussion, the thread is already moved to a reasonably better suited section, there's no point in discussing it. We should keep the discussions focused on the topic.

If necessary, we can move the meta discussion to PMs.

 

[Xenophon]

Personally, the game reminds me of pretty much every standardized test from the ETS (the purveyors of GRE, LSAT, MCAT, et. al.) It's an exercise in "Can you think like the guy making up the question?" This can have magickal implications, I guess. It can also just be a more arcane variety of playing charades. If it benefits youse, go for it. My sociopathic loner self finds it annoying.

 

[HoldAll]

Moved to Psychology section because while this may be a useful part of occult practice, it in and of itself is not an occult tutorial.

Good call, I forgot that we had a psychology section for such experimental methods. Tutorials should be exclusively about practical esoteric know-how, in my opinion, not about games that may or may not have occult relevance.