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Magick - Is Magick a science?
BaronSamedhi - Jun 24, 2008 - 12:11 PM
Post subject: Is Magick a science?
In many of Aleister Crowley's writings he states that Magick has "the method of science, the aim of religion". He also goes to great length state that he would not ask any one of his students to believe anything he said on face value, that was not empirically provable.
I'd like to ask the forum: IS MAGIC A SCIENCE? and more importantly DOES MAGICKAL RESEARCH REALLY FOLLOW SCIENTIFIC METHOD?
"Science" can be defined as a body of knowledge based on observation of phenomona which can accurately predict outcomes in the natural world. In that case Magick (or at least some aspect thereof) could be considered a science.
Scientific method, however, is a little more specific. It involves Observation > Hypothesis > Prediction > Experimentation > Conclusion. And all that needs to be reproducable BY ANYONE with exactly the same results. So, to state that Magick follows the "method of science" is a pretty big call. I personally don't know of any documented Magickal experiments which have used this method. If anyone out there knows of any I would love to hear of them.
Chrischibnall - Jun 24, 2008 - 12:53 PM
Post subject: Is Magick a science?
No.
It's an art.
If "alternative therapies" always called themselves "healing arts" they would save themselves a lot of aggravation and accusations of being "pseudoscience" (and art can be healing, can it not?).
It is true that many fields of knowledge that were once regarded as "magic" are now sciences, but let's face it, they are now sciences to the extent that they include scientific rigour and testability, and are not magic any more, so it does not therefore follow that "magic" is science.
It is true that science does not contradict magick, but that is because they occupy different fields. Most members of the public still don't really understand scientific method, and believe in science in the same way as they used to believe in magic. An appeal to science can therefore be used as a "convincer" to allay their scepticism or bolster their belief, but it won't be true to science. This ploy might possibly be less effective now than it was in Crowley's time, with many people being more skeptical (not always in an informed way) about the "benefits" of science. Crowley followed many freethinkers of his time in welcoming science as a great "liberator" from the "superstitions" of the past: it is interesting to compare this attitude with that of Austin Osman Spare, who described science as a "vice" and pure art as a "virtue". He saw the limitations of science and realised that it, too, could lead to enslavement and a fettering of the spirit: in this sense, he was more a man ahead of his time than Crowley.
Nehushtan - Jun 24, 2008 - 01:34 PM
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In my opinion, and contrary to what a lot of the members here will think, the answer is a large resounding NO! (...for the most part, by far). I'd reluctantly affirm that magick and mysticism as encountered in Crowley's brand of occultism is far more scientific than the rituals of exoteric religion, but they're a pseudo-science at best (personally I wouldn't use the word 'science' at all, leaving Crowley's cunning catch-phrases well alone). The problem here is that all results obtained are completely subjective, and left to the individual's interpretation and understanding. There isn't anything remotely objective and empirical about it, as far as classical scientific empiricism is concerned. In my experience, and certainly from looking at Crowley's experiments throughout his diaries, the majority of the results don't ever seem to repeat themselves in exactly the same way twice. This being the case we have to reassess our theories. A theory is only a good theory as long as it holds true, and it has been my experience that magical theories only hold true insofar as they yield varied reults. Results or not, varied reults implies a corrupt theory, and I'm willing to bet that no matter how you modify your magical theories they'll still yield varied and completely subjective results. This isn't scientific at all, and neither does it follow the scientific method. In reality such theories would either be scrapped completely, or modified until they produced objectively verifiable results accurately 100% of the time; something seemingly impossible in the realm of magick and mysticism. ....But then again I may just be a weak magician who's talking out of his ignorant ASh.
The well quoted statement in Liber O is, in my opinion, Crowley's best answer to your question, but when he says certain actions yield certain reults, I wholeheartedly disagree.
"In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things that may or may not exist.
It is immaterial whether they exist or not. By doing certain things, certain reults will follow; students are earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophical validity to any of them."
Lots of people love Crowley for saying that, but I personally think it's a large pile of shisha. If you're going to use language in such a vulgar way as to juxtapose both magick and mysticism into the world of science, you may as well also pretend that a McDonald's cheesburger is really a steam locomotive; the two are so radically different that to apply the same classifying term to both is just silly.
As I said, lots here will disagree, but as far as I'm concerned unverifiable and unreliably varied results, continuous contradictions, subjectivity and a basis of theological metaphysics does not equate with any form of science or scientific method. It's just a propagated maxim of Crowley's to spread his literary ideas and works, and to attract people to A.'.A.'. too.
Uni_Verse - Jun 24, 2008 - 03:59 PM
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I think it is important to point out that it is the 'method of science,' things follow a systematic development. Under 'normal' circumstances you go from Malkuth to Yesod when traveling the Tree, you do not jump from Malkuth to Chesed.
Another point I would like to bring up is that being the object of the experiment each success, failure, attempt etcetera intrinsically changes you and in turn the nature of the experiment.
Every experiment has an objective, else it would not be an experiment.
LuxOrientis - Jun 26, 2008 - 08:46 AM
Post subject:
93
It is my personal opinion that the theory of magick is a science, much like any other scientific theory. The practice of magick, however, is an artform.
93s
גמל - Jun 26, 2008 - 09:28 AM
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93!
Yep I agree mostly with LuxOrientis. The theoretical side of magick is a combination of spiritual experience and science. Doing magick is art and spiritual experience. The theoretical and the practical side combined is artistic science or scientific art, choose what you prefer. And it depends on your definition of art, science, spiritual exercise etc.
93 93/93
גמל
93
Nehushtan - Jun 26, 2008 - 01:31 PM
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Lux,
Quote: › It is my personal opinion that the theory of magick is a science, much like any other scientific theory. The practice of magick, however, is an artform.
Okay. So, let's take other forms of art: Painting, or music composition, or anything else for that matter. We can say they have a scientific basis for a few reasons. Paints have a chemical composition, and the combination of the various chemicals produces new compounds which absorb or reflect light in such a way as to cause shifts in the frequency of light we can visibly see. By this we see different colours. The paints are then woven in various ways on a canvas, maybe in accordance with rules of perspective, again following very basic rules of science (geometry), to end up with a finalised product, a picture. In music we can take various pitches in combination to create chord structures, and using more than one chord we can produce flowing harmonic patterns with their own tension and release, all following a harmonic theory of music. These harmonies, and the tensions they create, will alter the mood of the listener. Regardless of their seemingly scientific basis, they are both artforms, not sciences. The picture or the harmony produce different results depending on the viewer/listener. The scientific elements which they contain do not have to be recognised at all by the artist in any scholastic manner, and neither do the rules have to be followed. They are not considered as sciences at all by the vast majority of people, and neither is magick for the same reason. It's an artform, and nothing more. The idea that magick is a science because it has a backbone of theory is a moot point too. The theories do not conclude verifiably objective results. In a true science anybody could use the same theory and generate the exact same results 100% of the time. This simply isn't the case with magick. The "theory" is all flawed for this very reason. It doesn't follow the scientific method. In fact, the theory of other artforms like music and painting is good. Those theories do follow the scientific method, and do hold true. The theories of magick do not. You could have 100 different people use a specific ritual, with a specific theory and a specific objective, and you'd end up with 100 different results. Whereas if you told a person to mix two different compounds in a specfic ratio, you'd always get the same results.
GML,
Quote: › the theoretical and the practical side combined is artistic science or scientific art, choose what you prefer. And it depends on your definition of art, science, spiritual exercise etc.
I'd choose neither. It's either one or the other: Science or Art. I'm certain that magick has never been (within recent history, at least), and will never be, considered a science by any academic institute, nor is it considered a science by your every day average Joe. Maybe I'm appealing to authority here, but if magick is a science with a solid scientific basis, how come it isn't being used by NASA to expand our understanding of the universe. How come it isn't being used to produce new technologies? How come it's only niche occult groups who attempt to convince people that their spirituality and belief structure has a scientific basis?
Crowley's "Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will," "The Method of Science, the Aim of Religion," etc., are all literary devices in my opinion. Where is the science behind it? You said it depends on your own definition of science and art. What do you mean?
Hopefully I'm not coming across as aggressive and/or bigoted, I just don't agree with Crowley/Fortune on this issue at all. I wont try to defend Crowley's opinions here, because I think he was dead wrong. Using the word science in combination with the word magick just seems silly to me. The two are about as far apart as you could get. I suppose it looks good on paper, and can be a tool to justify such a spiritual system's use in the modern world, but I completely fail to see the scietific connection. By it's very nature it is metaphysics!
9T3
גמל - Jun 26, 2008 - 02:05 PM
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93 Nehushtan!
This is just my personal view. I am a "scientist", I studied history and sociology and also some interdisciplinary (sorry my english sucks) comparative religion. So the scientific approach towards magick and thelema has always been a part of me. When I study thelemic texts I use the techniques learned at University.
It is true that we will never convince all of the scientists that magick is a kind of science. But I know a lot of academic philosophers who would agree with us 
because for them metaphysics can be science as well (never ever tell a philosopher, especially the metaphysic people that they don't do science *g*).
And no, you do not sound agressive. You state your point, I can understand it although I do not share it. And that is one of the main benefits of communication, isn't it?
again sorry for my english
93 93/93
גמל
Nehushtan - Jun 26, 2008 - 02:46 PM
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93 GML,
First of all, your English is perfectly understandable. I don't think you should be worried about this, as I've not had any problems reading your posts at all so far. I'm thankful that I don't have to respond in German, otherwise things would become very problematic indeed! 
Secondly, I'm not sure if I can really say anything else on this point. I think I've made my opinions as clear as they can be (without going overboard and writing a thesis). Although, if I was to sum up what I've already said, I'd still end with a conclusion which stated that the scientific method should be used as far as possible when forming magical theories. I don't think magick's a science, but we should approach magick scientifically. For me this at least ends the rigidity of statements like "Magick is the Science...," etc.
What does strike me is that there wasn't any real need for magick to be labelled scientific. It seems, to me at least, that conjoining science and magick was simply a marketing plan by Crowley. A scientific spiritual system has an appealing quality, whereas if it wasn't termed scientific a lot of readers might have instantly been persuaded to put down their copies of the Equinox as superstitious hogwash. It's full of religious ideas after all. The fact that it was labelled scientific, at the dawn of the modern scientific age, would have attracted a lot more people to the system. In this light it's little more than a literary device.
9T3
LuxOrientis - Jun 26, 2008 - 03:47 PM
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Quote: › I'm certain that magick has never been (within recent history, at least), and will never be, considered a science by any academic institute, nor is it considered a science by your every day average Joe.
Many of the sciences that we take for granted now were considered heresies and black magic back in the past. So who's to say that the magic that is performed today won't be considered a science someday down the road?
OKontrair - Jun 26, 2008 - 04:01 PM
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I am with Crowley on this one, at least I think I am.
Magick and science are both wide fields of endeavour. Nothing can be said about either that applies to every part of each.
However assuming that everyone here knows all there is to know about magick I’d like to say something about science.
Science has an unfairly high reputation principally because only its successes are remembered. This puts it on a par with clairvoyance and it is in the very nature of experiment that most will fail. Because of this high reputation the name of science has been stretched to cover everything from the subjects taught in schools to whole industries that are in any way technical. But the subjects taught in schools are really only the relaying of established facts – or anyway that part of those facts deemed digestible by the immature – and the industries are just technologies that rely on those facts.
NASA is not scientific it is technological. And NASA hasn’t been any good since they stopped people smoking at their desks. Look at the old films. Room full of smokers – Moon and back in record time, retrieve the capsule and have a big cigar. Look at them now – blazing trash falling from the sky and missing Mars by a million miles because they mix up imperial and metric.
So who establishes the facts that we all rely on? Scientists? To be fair once in a while they do. More often than not though humanities’ progress hinges on the tinkering of hobbyists in their bedrooms and garages or the occasional doctor who leaves his half eaten cheese sandwich on a damp windowsill over the weekend. The exploitation of discoveries is not attended to by science; that is left to commerce.
Ultimately science is just a style of thought in the same way that philosophy is. If a drunken bum finds a scrappy book on magick in the gutter – and for the sake of argument let us say that the book is total nonsense thrown together for a joke – if he then goes to graveyard at midnight and raves at the sky in order to see what happens then, as far as I’m concerned, that man is a scientist.
More so than an obedient lab assistant systematically tormenting rabbits in the hope that that one of them will eventually blurt out the cure for cancer.
OK
Paolo_sammut - Jun 26, 2008 - 04:11 PM
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I tend to agree with Nehushtan that magic/k is more an art than a science although perhaps it should be approached scientifically in that we need to be as meticulous as AC when we work magick.
This is really for the same reason. Ask 100 people to do a particular ritual and you will have 100 different results. That is also assuming that its possible to measure things like spiritual attainment. Phenomena such as psychokenenis is perhaps slightly different in that we could measure how high an object can be lifted or how much meaningful information is transmitted telepathically, however there seems to be a massive aversion (often even a denial) to phenomena on the part of modern magickians.
I think that there is a problem with with the scientific study of magick which goes further than this however. A scientist is naturally very skeptical and needs to be in order to do their job because positive proofs are very difficult if not impossible to obtain but negative (sceptical) proofs are often easier. For example I could come out with a hypothesis that "all swans are white". Its very easy to disprove - by producing one black swan but this cannot be proven without checking all swans. In many fields this is no bad thing and has allowed us to narrow down models of the natural world and probe the universe to an incredibly tight degree.
This skepticism very much works against magickal results however andit is one of the reasons why non sceptical parapsychologists produce supporting evidence and sceptical parapsychologists tend to produce unsupporting evidence of psychic phenomena. Even as a separate observer to a magickal experiment the scientist will be part of the group mind formed and this will be enough to null any effects.
Even with belief however any information recieved wraps itself around the magickian and shapes itself to their expectations, practice, magical paradigm etc. This is in fact a trait of a lot of the paranormal and I have often found myself investigating entities and ghosts which wrap themselves the observer/participants mind set and expectations. This is true in other areas too - how many models of the magical universe and the afterlife has humanity come up with over time. Each culture can produce genuine magicians, psychics etc and each see a different "truth"
A lot of information produced magickally (whilst of use to the practitioner or to other magickians) is also only really anecdotal and again because it cannot be backed up cannot really be used scientifically.
Having said that, Crowleys sound scientific approach of trying everything systematically and recording everything cannot really be faulted. Perhaps we could say that as far as one considers ones personal universe then magick is scientific however we cannot study that universe in a scientific manner from outside it (ie from here). This really brings us back full circle to some ideas I suggested further up. No matter how tight ones modelling of physics, using it to probe magic really means one is looking in the wrong universe.
In a sense I do wonder whether it matters. Crowley used terms which were part of the language and focus of the day. Speaking for myself as both a magickian and a psychical explorer I dont feel the need to have science back up my own findings and any successful magickal work is worth a ton of reading. Its more important (and more importantly) more fun to work with it and see how deep the rabbit hole is.
Cheers Paolo
hawthornrussell - Jun 27, 2008 - 06:42 AM
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In my own opinion this is one of the few things that Crowley got seriously wrong. If we take the term "method of science" then it puts all sorts of criteria and restrictions on the practice and use of magick. Science follows a fairly rigid set of rules,laws and observations. Magick tends to break and mock those said scientific rules, laws, and observations. Also to pick up on a good point made by Paolo, that magick lacks consistency that scientific criteria seeks. You get one hundred people to do a ritual and you will get one hundred different results. This is why it would be near impossible for the subjective nature of magick to survive the criteria set by Science. Also from my own point of view , if science was able to replicate the effect and phenonema of magick then we would all be in big trouble. It would be a licence for abuse, and something that the magickal current would seek to "reset" to ensure that irresponsible and dangerous people wouldnt be able to use the "scientific magick" ( an example would be arms manufacturers and the military being able to replicate magick in a lab. Imagine the "fun" they would have with that ability...). A scientific magick would imply a manufactured universal application. But from those involved in Praxis, there is an acceptance that occultism and magick isnt universal. Its not supposed to be. Magick (and its practice) doesnt have all the solutions that science claims to have an answer for. And maybe that is a good thing...
When Crowey used the term "method of science", in my eyes he was putting over that there has to be a certain amount of methodical criteria and intelligence involved in using the techniques of magick.
sethur666 - Jun 27, 2008 - 08:58 AM
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93
There is a difference between "the method of science" and science itself. The other half of the saying, "the aim of religion" seems to guarantee that magic is in fact neither. The scientific method can be applied to non-scientific activity. In meditation, for example, if along the path you aim at keeping the mind blank for a set period, carefully noting afterwards how successful you were, comparing your result with previous attempts and then deducing what seems to allow you the greatest success (how sleepy were you, how recently had you eaten) and you are using the scientific method. However, everything is entirely subjective and unrepeatable - no-one else can say for sure whether you kept your mind blank for 3 minutes, thought about a TV programme for 2 seconds, went blank for another minute etc etc. And even another meditator following your method might come up with different results - they might meditate well immediately after eating, you might do better only an hour or two after a meal.
And I would say that science itself is clearly unable to attain the aim of religion, therefore if Crowley is right, Magick is not a science.
93 93/93
Steve W
hamsolo - Jun 27, 2008 - 11:36 AM
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Quote: And I would say that science itself is clearly unable to attain the aim of religion, therefore if Crowley is right, Magick is not a science.
93 Steve
I don't agree that science is unable to attain the aim of religion. For example, religious states of consciousness can be induced by sending electrical currents into certain parts of the brain. Also by taking certain chemical substances such as LSD. This is scientific, no?
LittleAlickGrewUp - Jun 27, 2008 - 11:41 AM
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Quote: › And all that needs to be reproducable BY ANYONE with exactly the same results.
This is a slightly poor argument against magic.
For example a dsylexic person might follow mathematic procedure to work out the answer to a question and not be able to get the correct answer. yet mths is a branch of science.
A man may see a weightlifter lift a weight in a certain manner, do exactly the same thing and damage his back, and fail to lift to weight.
"Understanding" (the supposed aim of most magickal practice) is hard to define, but most magical practitioners would say after a few years of magical practice they do have a greater understanding, so in that magic does achieve it's aims.
sethur666 - Jun 27, 2008 - 12:46 PM
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hamsolo wrote: › religious states of consciousness can be induced by sending electrical currents into certain parts of the brain. Also by taking certain chemical substances such as LSD. This is scientific, no?
No. All science can do in such cases is compare reports of states of consciousness. Science can state that similarities exist in such reports with reports of religious experience. But if, as is often the case, people find it difficult or impossible to describe, adequately, the experience, science is stuck.
And even in these examples, experiencing religious states of consciousness for a while is not the ultimate aim of religion.
Steve W
Paulus - Jun 27, 2008 - 07:18 PM
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A difficult one here as it depends on one's personal definition of magick.
Magick as a tool for expanding consciousness I would class as a science and could certainly be measured and quantified scientifically (positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging have made considerable in-roads in the neuroscience of meditation and yoga).
Magick as a subjective manipulator of chance (talismans etc) I would class as more of an art.
Regards
Paul
Flagsofscarlet - Jun 28, 2008 - 02:02 PM
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It's the METHOD of science, not wether Magick IS a science, just as it's the AIM of religion, not Thelema as a religion. Crowley used these terms so students would question themselves, and think about their results, rather than blindly believe, (the death of knowledge). So a student could be scientific in their approach to the practical side of Magick, but it is also an Art, in the sense that it depends on the talent of the practitioner. Regards.
Paulus - Jun 28, 2008 - 10:37 PM
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But the original question that was asked when this thread started was " IS MAGIC A SCIENCE? and more importantly DOES MAGICKAL RESEARCH REALLY FOLLOW SCIENTIFIC METHOD?
gurugeorge - Jun 29, 2008 - 12:08 AM
Post subject: Re: Is Magick a science?
BaronSamedhi wrote: › In many of Aleister Crowley's writings he states that Magick has "the method of science, the aim of religion". He also goes to great length state that he would not ask any one of his students to believe anything he said on face value, that was not empirically provable.
I'd like to ask the forum: IS MAGIC A SCIENCE? and more importantly DOES MAGICKAL RESEARCH REALLY FOLLOW SCIENTIFIC METHOD?
"Science" can be defined as a body of knowledge based on observation of phenomona which can accurately predict outcomes in the natural world. In that case Magick (or at least some aspect thereof) could be considered a science.
Scientific method, however, is a little more specific. It involves Observation > Hypothesis > Prediction > Experimentation > Conclusion. And all that needs to be reproducable BY ANYONE with exactly the same results. So, to state that Magick follows the "method of science" is a pretty big call. I personally don't know of any documented Magickal experiments which have used this method. If anyone out there knows of any I would love to hear of them.
Well, if you believe Crowley, he did many actual experiments involving the use of Qabalah in astral travel - like getting someone who'd never done so to travel on an astral plane of Crowley's choice and report the kinds of items, colours, entities, etc., that they saw, and finding that they jibed with what would be expected from the astral realm he'd induced them to travel in. That's quite scientific, not in the full sense of double-blind experiments and all the rest of it, but scientific in the sense of empirical testing. It's a step in the right direction so to speak, and justifies his use of the term "scientific."
So the question is, do we believe him?
Again, there are lots of diary entries by Crowley. Now the thing about the diary entries, say Rex De Arte Regia, is they look a bit of a jumble, and results seem to be all over the place. But has anybody ever done a statistical analysis of them? They're there to be tested in that sort of way.
I dunno, I kind of flip flop on this. The full magickal hypothesis is extremely bold and interesting - that there are discarnate intelligences, astral realms, etc., that have their own character that's not merely subjective fancy. From my own experiments, I didn't get much out of it, but other people seem to have gotten interesting results, which may or may not be objective. Sometimes I think it's a crock, sometimes I think "well, maybe, and really it's too early to say definitively yet."
It's true that science hasn't found anything in "the supernatural", but on the other hand, have any scientific experiments actually been done with true magicians? Western ritualists? Tibetan Vajrayana practitioners? Daoist priests? I don't think so, not really. Most scientific experiments on "psi" have been done with ordinary people, and while it's true that there have been no notable results from such research, one might legitimately wonder whey there should be. Science often looks for the lost keys where the lamppost is, and that's a fine strategy most of the time, but maybe the key is out in the dark.
Flagsofscarlet - Jun 29, 2008 - 01:38 PM
Post subject: RE: Re: Is Magick a science?
Crowley wanted to apply scientific methods to his magical research/experiences, especially to seperate Magick from the mess of the spiritists of his day. If someone regards their Magick as a science, as in evocation of an entity, that can effect another person who has no interest in Magick, then obviously the results are not subjective. There are theories in the conventional sciences, that have not been "proved", so does that make the speculative sciences Magick? Maybe the question should be reversed: "is Science a Magick"? albeit, a very primitive form of Magick!
Azrael193 - Jun 29, 2008 - 11:49 PM
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I find this to be a highly intelligent question. Over the years I have become more and more aware of the fact that there is an ever increasing blurring of the boundaries between what Crowley regarded as art and what he regarded as Science.
Joseph486 - Jun 30, 2008 - 03:53 AM
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The line between art and science are meant to be blurred, as there is no differenc between the two. Science can answer philosophical questions. The method of science in magick is simple to see. the controlled environment is achieved throu the keeping of a magical journal. The experiments and conditions are recorded and the ceremony is performed after which the results are also recorded. There is nothing unscientific about Magick. Science itself leads to illuminism on a limited level unless one hits the nail on the head through the discovery of self-knowledge. the magician is not ignorant of anything above or within. or at least he has the means to fix his ignorance by means of the Spirits and personal many and curious experiments. But the idea is that yes magick is a science, as defined by it premier sponsor the great master therion. Personally I dont see the point of refuting the definition of Magick as it was given by traditionally accepted saints. Perhaps it is that many are not well enough equipped to comprehend the meaning of magick as a science, and this i believe is the source of the confusion. Though it is good to ask questions, so i believe you are all doing the right thing here.
Nehushtan - Jun 30, 2008 - 02:41 PM
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I thought I'd add more to this thread, just to keep it going and to clear up a few things. As I suspected, some people seem to be hell bent on defining magick as a science for one reason or another, and this is completely understandable; it's packaged and sold that way after all, and by the most authoritative exponents of the art to boot. So...
The original question of this thread was "Is Magick a Science?," and the answer is still 'no' regardless of how you look at it. To stoop fairly low, something which I'm going to do again in a minute too, I'm going to appeal to the authority that is Wikipedia. This is both an appeal to authority, and by proxy an appeal to the population - the site being a popular user controlled encyclopedia - but for the purposes of this thread it's a good enough, if not perfect, basis for an argument; it is what the general population defines as factual which ends up being the case, if only temporarily some of the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science
Just to quote the very first sentence of that page to define our terms:
Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is the effort to discover, understand, or to understand better, how the physical world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding.
Now, Magick does not fall under this definition at all. Not the magick I've studied and practiced at least, and I'm fairly certain that what I'm doing can't be so far removed from what the rest of the members here are doing too. We're all participants in a fairly obscure subgenre of a fairly obscure system of spirituality, so the differences between our practices can't be so drastically dissimilar, especially if we're all studying and practicing the same things. I expect this to be the case considering the various reading lists we're all supposed to be working with.
I don't think there is any need for me to clarify what I consider to be the most important aspect of the above quote, or why it leads me to the conclusion that Magick isn't a Science. It should go without saying that the astral is not a physical observation and has no physical evidence towards it; and neither does it, when experimented with, directly aid our understanding or knowledge of how the physical world works. When, in the Liber O quote I originally posted, Crowley says that "students are earnestly warned against attributing objective reality [to magical concepts and constructs]," in my opinion he was instructing people to turn a blind eye to the very basic definition of what science is.
Interestingly, and as a side note on this point, the "Luminiferous Aether" was a scientific term in use prior to Einstein's Special Relativity (1905), but was abolished because the new theory could express the phenomenon mathematically without having to rely on something which couldn't be observed. The time period of its use isn't so far away from the creation of Crowley's A.'.A.'. either. On this point of discovery, it's also interesting to note that it wasn't until the early 1930s that the neutron was first discovered. The very basics of our modern scientific knowledge and understanding wasn't even present at the inception of Crowley's system! The method of science, and the general nature of the sciences, have changed a lot over the last century. Which conveniently leads me on to my second point. What is the scientific method?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
I won't rant on about this, but it is clear from reading the Wiki site that the "scientific method" isn't simply jotting down conditions of experiments and results in some from of diary. This is a part of the scientific method, in a way, but it's not the scientific method in its totality, or indeed the largest aspect of the method. I don't have a bad thing to say about the practice of keeping a diary, if anything it's a positive and well thought out magical endeavour, but I don't look at it as the scientific method. As I said in an earlier post, we should approach magick as scientifically as we can, but it isn't a science and hence can't use the scientific method as we have it today.
Part of the above link shows the method in an eight-fold model:
1. Define the question
2. Gather information and resources (observe)
3. Form hypothesis
4. Perform experiment and collect data
5. Analyze data
6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
7. Publish results
8. Retest (frequently done by other scientists)
In my opinion Magick doesn't follow this scheme. First of all, the keeping of a journal only tackles the 4th, 5th & 6th points of this system, albeit in a completely subjective, unscientific manner. Prior to experimentation, no questions concerning any natural physical phenomenon are asked, there are no observations to be made, and no hypothesis can be arrived at. The experiments and the results derived therefrom are, by the very nature of Magick, completely subjective and not at all related to the objective physical world. And finally, the experiments when retested by other magicians do not yield the same results. Then we have the problem of published results, copyrights, and all of that... hehehe.
I suppose there is a lot of room for debate here, and I am only talking from my own experience and understanding after all, so I'll leave it at that. If anything my argument is against Crowley here, and the definitions of those past generation of magicians. It's an understatement to say that we're living in an entirely different world today, New Aeon or not.
9T3
Iskandar - Jun 30, 2008 - 04:04 PM
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Nehushtan, your arguments are valid but only in a qualified sense. In other words, they address the way science is understood a) with respect to physical universe and b) from the Western point of view. With regards to a), the definition you provide (= the study of physical world) would exclude pretty much all social sciences, and primarily (in my understanding) psychology, not to mention psychoanalysis. But much weightier is my objection to b). In other words, why do we have to assume that history and models of conceptualization of science as done in the West are the only ways of doing so? On several occasions, Robert Thurman has argued that West has focused on the 'external' science (I can't remember his phrase), while India and Tibet (for example), have focused on inner sciences. If you read texts such as "Yoga Sutras" by Patanjali, you have a real and whole science laid out. Buddhists have mapped the mind and its workings to a highly sophisticated degree. That is also science: not in the sense that one particular discipline, which arose in 17 / 18 century, invented its own past and projected its model of reality as the new orthodoxy, would define it and understand it but which those who are interested in the paradigm of the New Aeon should perhaps be more willing to entertain.
So the question is what exactly we mean by this word 'science?' Crowley often suggested looking at the etymology of words in order to come to their original meaning and 'science' comes from the Latin verb 'scire,' which means 'to know.' So science is knowledge and knowledge at its best is gnosis. Our word 'gnosis,' with its Greek root, is etymologically linked to Sanskrit 'jnana' (knowledge) and 'prajna' (wisdom). To give one example, Buddhists claim that the insight into reality of things ('how things really are') leads to the simultaneous birth of both 'prajna' (wisdom) and 'karuna' (compassion). To me that is science or knowledge or wisdom because it is not based on faith or tradition but on the direct perception of 'reality' as it displays itself to the scrutiny of the clear mind. What Buddhists claim is being displayed is the causal connection between aspects of reality and their mutual interpenetration. That the world function based on causality is to me a scientific theory. Now, I am not claiming that other models of 'how things function' are possible. But I do claim that some forms of yoga and some forms of Buddhism and some forms of ..... magick are structured as science, understood as acquisition of knowledge or wisdom (direct experience of the reality of things).
Nehushtan - Jun 30, 2008 - 04:36 PM
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93 Iskandar,
I must make clear that I was only using Wiki links as a common source to provide common definitions. As far as I'm concerned I wasn't providing a biased or personal argument, just a set of defined terms and the rules of how they're applied. As far as those terms are defined science is something based around the physical universe. This isn't my personal view, it's the consensus opinion. Of course we could ditch those definitions and believe whatever other definitions we preferred instead. My point, primarily, is that there is already a firm and established set of definitions and rules, which are true at this current point in time as far as the consensus goes, and which people should abide by for the sake of clarity. The fact that some spiritual systems and philosophies, both east and west, call themselves sciences, is the point of debate. I don't think they should use the term, because they aren't in accordance with the consensus definitions and rules. Why not just call Magick, Magick? Why the need to define it in terms of something else? Magick is the noun, it's a thing in and of itself. It's my opinion that by defining it in terms of something else, we're purposefully misleading people, but not only that, it's also a vulgar use of language. By using the word science to define magick we're muddying our definitions, and that's probably the reason why this confusion spawned itself in the first place!
9T3
Iskandar - Jun 30, 2008 - 06:34 PM
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93 Nehushtan,
first let's just make it clear that I am not arguing anything against you personally. I am sure you understand that point, but I just want to be super clear on that. Moving aside from that, I have to disagree with you on several points. To start with, to say that A is A (science is science, magick is magick) is tautology and as such it does not further pursuit of truth and knowledge. To give one example, nobody will be impressed with the definition "Biology is biology" while to say that "Biology is a science that studies a b c" is quite acceptable. (Your argument is that biology should not call itself a science but only biology - just to be clear.)
Another thing is that we do not have to bow down to the consensus opinions and definitions. Consensus opinion is still that Crowley was a Satanist and magick superstition. My understanding is that people who visit these forums differ from consensus opinions in many ways.
Additional thing is that the scientific claim to veracity of their world picture is as debatable as are the opinions of some spiritual systems East and West. For a very long period there were no separation between science (understood as a pursuit of knowledge), philosophy (pursuit of truth) and religion (pursuit of spirituality). (My definitions are a bit clumsy but I hope they serve the purpose of this discussion.) There are definite historical factors and issues that resulted in science assuming the place of orthodoxy with respect to what is real.
Finally, there is an issue of power involved in all these definitions. If 'the science' says that something else is not a science, that other particular something is assigned a lower place in the social scale of values. To say that something is not a science is an elegant (sometimes blunt) way of dismissing it. And so on and so forth..
If we are really interested in the New Aeon, in new paradigm, it seems to me that we should also have a different scale of values. I agree that a load of what calls itself magic is crap, but I still think that there is something to Crowley's definition of magick as science and art. We do not have to agree what is science and what is art for each one of us, but I think that we also do not need to buy what the consensus opinion says is real.
Nehushtan - Jun 30, 2008 - 07:30 PM
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Quote: › Your argument is that biology should not call itself a science but only biology - just to be clear.
No. My argument, if applied to this case, would be that science and the scentific method, as defined terms and established methods, claims biology as one of its subjects. If you agree with how the terms are defined, then the same can't be said of Magick; unless, of course, you have your own idiosyncratic definitions, in which case you're out on your own. The fact that different people have different understandings of the terms being used doesn't alter the fact that Magick doesn't adhere to the encyclopedia descriptions. Should I accept Crowley's opinions, or the opinions of other users on this site, or the more reliable sources of information like dictionaries and encyclopedias? It isn't just the Wiki site which defines science and the scientific method in such terms either. You're right when you note that saying "Magick is Magick" is a tautology, though. It doesn't advance our knowledge by saying such a thing, but to say that Magick is a Science or follows the scientific method is just a lie.
You bring up the point that "science," as a term, seems to hold some authority, and that unscientific subjects appear to be somehow 'below' it. I'm sure some people think in such a way, but I don't. If anything I'd place the arts and creativity 'above' the sciences, if I had to choose a place to put them on some invisible and unscientific hierarchy. By criticising the way Crowley defined Magick, I'm not criticising Magick itself. I don't place it above or below anything else.
As for your points on definitions being different at different time periods and by different peoples of different locations, it's all irrelevant. We're in the here and now, and there are very well established definitions which are agreed upon and used worldwide. People don't have to bow down to the consensus, but in this case it would be wise to, I think. It's simply false to say that Magick is a Science or that it follows the Scientific Method. To have your own definitions just seems bizarre to me too, especially if they're aimed at defending Crowley's opinions or justifying your own spirituality. Hopefully you don't want Magick to be defined as a Science because you view Science as authoritative?
9T3
blacksabbath - Jun 30, 2008 - 10:53 PM
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"Really, it seems to be a waste of time to answer such ridiculous, ignorant assertions as the one which forced me to take up my pen. Any well-read Spiritualist who finds the statement "that there ever was such a science as magic, has never been proved, nor ever will be," will need no answer from myself, nor anyone else, to cause him to shrug his shoulders and smile, as he probably has smiled, at the wonderful attempt of Mr. Colby’s spirits to reorganize geography by placing the Apennines in Spain..............In India, Magic has never died out, and blossoms there as well as ever. Practised, as in ancient Egypt, only within the secret enclosure of the temples, it was, and still is, called the "Sacred Science." For it is a science, based on the occult forces of Nature; and not merely a blind belief in the poll-parrot talking of crafty elementaries, ready to forcibly prevent real, disembodied spirits from communicating with their loved ones whenever they can do so."
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
(From The Spiritual Scientist.)
Joseph486 - Jun 30, 2008 - 11:24 PM
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hehehe what did i walk into? I think what really is important here is establishing how Aleister Crowley felt about these things. In this way we will know the traditional teachings. ALso, I wanted to say that the guidelines of scientific experimentation given above would be of excellent use to the magician in his practice, infact I saved them. Thank you.
גמל - Jul 01, 2008 - 11:44 AM
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93!
Quote: › I think what really is important here is establishing how Aleister Crowley felt about these things. In this way we will know the traditional teachings.
Although I consider myself a more or less traditional crowleyan Thelemite I think we should also go beyond the prophets understanding of the current 93 because isn't Thelema more about evolving and dynamics than traditional dogmatism (although sometimes conservatism has its good purpose)? On the basis of the holy books which should never be changed? A firm, solid traditional fundament that is stable and deep enough to support a modern house of Thelema 
@Nehushtan:
Quote: › I'd still end with a conclusion which stated that the scientific method should be used as far as possible when forming magical theories
You are totally right with this point. 100% Ack.
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גמל
BaronSamedhi - Jul 03, 2008 - 02:43 AM
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Firstly, I agree with Nehushtan, Iskandar et al who have shown some understanding for the scientific method: No (and I must qualify this) Magick is not a science...YET. The present state of popular Magickal practice does not come near to meeting the requirements of a bone fide science.
Now before I go on I must say that I in no way see this as a threat to the value or integrity of Magick or its practitioners. There have been a few defensive posts who obviously thought this question to be some sort of attack on the system of magick. Not so. In fact I believe that this sort of debate can only further our appreciation of this most wonderfull and mysterious Art.
The failure (or unwillingness) of Magicians of past and present to back up their assertions of scientific validity with credible studies stems, as I see it, from a few reasons.
1. Basic lack of resources. Scientific studies generally take a great deal of time and money and as there are very few professional magickians/magickal institutions out there nothing of significance can ever really get off the ground.
2. The fundamental difficulty inherent in such a subjective process. As the magickian is both the subject and object of most magickal experiments and is himself changed by the operation, accurate and meaningfull measurements of results is very difficult. This is not to say that it is impossible. The 'social sciences' have done much work in this area and could perhaps inform further studies of magick. This is the stickiest part in the argument of science and magick and if it can't be resolved then Magick will forever rest in the realms of Philosophy (not such a bad thing).
3. Limitations on our present understanding of natural (physical) laws. Because Magick uses natural laws (however poorly defined) in order to achieve a result it follows that eventually naturally sciences (particularly physics in my opinion) will be able to explain and accruately predict Magickal outcomes.
So don't write magick off as a science just yet. It may be a loooong time before science and Magick meet but I sure hope that I'm around to see it.
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