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Donald Michael Kraig explains the energetic model of magick:
This is the idea that there is a physically unmeasurable energy (the definition of energy is simply “the ability to do work”) which can be empowered with a goal (the desired work) and achieve it. This is similar to the way a radio wave is the energy and the music or words attached to the wave is the “spell” of the radio. Indeed, 150 years ago, turning on a device and hearing music being played in another part of the world would be considered magick of the highest level!
I like this explanation. It’s simple, highlights some big parts of magick, and lets me ask a very important question:
Who’s studying the radio?
I mean, if we’re all doing magick by sending out radio waves (energy with intent somehow attached to it), something has to pick up those waves and play the music (alter events or heal people or whatever), right? So, what part does that, and who’s studying it?
More importantly, who’s building a better radio? That is, not a better way of sending out your intent, but a machine that’s better at implementing those instructions, or a better program for that machine to help it work more effectively.
I think you can see where I’m going with this: Ethereal software is my name for that radio. Sure, we want to study better ways of sending it instructions (and I talk about that a lot), but we also want to study how ethereal software responds to those instructions: How it implements the magick, where it can go wrong, and how to reprogram it to respond better. And I don’t see that reprogramming in other models.
(Chaos Magick programs servitors, but what I’m talking about is closer to reprogramming egrigores, which I don’t think it does.)
So, that’s what I think is missing from magick today: Studying the radio, understanding how it implements our instructions, and building a better one.
If you liked this post, consider visiting my current blog at mikesententia.com.Natural follow-up question: Instead of just reprogramming ethereal software, can we make an entire new one? Yes. I’m doing that to create some training tools to go with my book. Posts on that coming out next month, probably.
Tags: Communication, Ethereal Software, Quick Tips
Hello, I am the guy from Facebook. I will now mail you here since others might be interested in what I have to say.
I read many of your new post here and there but I still haven’t finished the first guides and done all the exercise yet however I have been playing with the sigil on a regular basis.
I read the whole post from Donald Michael Kraig since I already knew this author from “Modern Magick”.
I found interesting is “psychological explanation” which says that rituals are unnecessary:
“There’s no need to do rituals and spells—we can just think about what we want and create it. In practice, using rituals and spells helps in this mental creation, but theoretically they are unnecessary.”
I was wondering if what you call “the radio” is the black box, that thing that affect our world thru rituals? And your software would be a new, easier way of sending command to the black box?
DMK uses the term “the radio” to explain the energy model. Yes, it roughly corresponds to my ethereal software.
I wouldn’t say that ethereal software is a new way of sending messages to the black box, since that suggests the black box is out there beyond the ethereal software. Instead, I’d say that ethereal software is a new way of understanding or modelling the black box.