A while back, Clifford Hartleigh Low published the following axiom on his Facebook page, which started up an interesting dialogue between various practitioners of ritual and ceremonial magic. I have a great deal of respect for Clifford and I have had the occasion of recently meeting and talking with him. He is a solid practitioner of magic, and I have no doubt about that, but he also loves to create controversies, and his statement on Facebook did instill quite a bit of back and forth discussions.
Here is what he said:
“Magic which has no practical aim is not actually mysticism, but performance art.”
Clifford Hartleigh Low - 8/27/2024
We should focus on the word “practical” since it is the key phrase that makes the whole sentence logical and sensible. I think examining the word in an online dictionary might be the place to start in attempting to carefully parse this statement. The reason I am recommending this approach is because there is a semantic trap placed into this sentence that makes it irrefutable.
Here is what the Merriam-Webster online diction has to say about the definition of the word “practical.” You can find it here.
Practical - of, relating to, or manifested in practice or action : not theoretical or ideal. Disposed to action as opposed to speculation or abstraction. Synonyms: useful - virtual - workable.
So the word “practical” is based on action that is useful, purposeful, and workable, as opposed to speculative, abstract or theoretical. We can assume that “practical aim” is anything that has a useful or workable purpose. Since any magic, even the most poorly contrived and badly performed, has some kind of aim or purpose, then it would fit the paradigm. By definition, any kind of magic or ceremony is performed with a purpose, focus, or aim in mind. So, is there such a thing as a magical ritual that has no practical aim? In order to understand this idea, we would need to find the antonym of practical and see how that would fit with the statement.
Antonyms of the word “practical” would be unrealistic, impractical, impracticable, useless, silly, idealistic, visionary, imprudent, and ridiculous. Looking at the antonyms gives us a better place to judge a magical working or ritual. If the aim is unrealistic, useless, silly, or even ridiculous, then it could be rejected as impractical. If someone were to perform magic whose aim was to be silly or even ridiculous then one could argue that it is not magic, but some kind of performance art that is being acted.
Somehow, I can’t imagine someone doing a parody of a magical rite, but then again, I have not seen everything that is being done out there in the world, and my public and online presence is rare these days. However, I have heard that YouTube and other online video shows contain some really idiotic and ridiculous performances that are supposedly being pawned off as legitimate magical workings. Yet I have so little time to go scouring the internet for false magic, and I would hope that a little bit of critical thinking can reveal when someone is selling something that is supposedly magical but actually is a delusion or a deceitful con.
This paradigm could be used as a weapon or tool to judge someone else’s magic as impractical, silly or even ridiculous. However, if the magic someone is performing actually works to any degree at all, then it meets the requirements of the paradigm. I have seen some of the most poorly done rituals and ceremonies, and somehow, they managed to work, although not always as advertised or planned. Magic is a peculiar phenomenon and it doesn’t function in a logical and linear fashion. So, someone can say that another magician’s magical rituals are just performance art and not real magic, but that doesn’t make it true. It is just another way of putting someone down at the expense of elevating oneself, and that kind of dick waving is just pathetic and boring.
The words “idealistic” and “visionary,” although impractical, might be something that we wouldn’t want to reject too quickly. However, the whole idea of the opposite of the word practical brings up the dichotomy of theory vs. practice, and this seems to be one of the conditions for the statement. Still, what we want to further examine are the concepts of ideation, vision, and theory as opposed to practice to fulfill the role of antithesis to the paradigm that Clifford said. I believe that we can dispense with discussing the parody of magic, even though sometimes it is important to laugh at ourselves and shake up our hubris and over-serious preoccupation with magic and the occult. Let us then examine the place that ideals, visions and theories pose in the working of magic, since I believe that this is the creative force that aids and directs what we develop and perform as a magical working.
I have often had dreams, visions or insights of the moment that lead to some really cutting edge breakthroughs in the development of my magical ritual lore. Additionally, I have done research, analyzing various topics in a purely speculative manner that has helped me to develop a new approach to ritual workings. Because I tend to work with themes in the rituals that I write, those characterizations of rituals are developed by doing research and examining hints and speculative insights that I might have at the time.
Categorizing ritual models, methodologies, and generalizing about certain classes of rituals can help me understand my direction, dimly illuminating the magical workings that I have performed in the past and how they impacted later workings, developing a kind of process time line. All of this is, of course, theory and speculation and it plays a critically important part in the building and developing magical systems. Is it part of the magic that I work? I believe that the answer has to be yes, it is a part of the magic that I work. However, this speculation and theorizing sometimes leads to dead-ends, but merely being able to analyze the magic that I develop and perform is important, even if it doesn’t directly lead to a new discovery or something of a practical value.
All of these activities are part of my initiatory process, and I would be narrow minded if I excluded them from my consideration about what is magic, and whether impractical or theoretical approaches are not also magical when in the context of my overall work. I can’t discriminate and judge some things to be inherently magical because they involve my practical work while other activity would be deemed either non-magical or perhaps even performance art? Am I doing this theoretical speculation just to amuse myself? This is where a practical application and a theoretical or speculative approach are both important to the practice of magic, and they cannot be separated. That would make Clifford’s paradigm to be more a kind of tautology than an accurate statement apprizing someone’s approach to magic as valid or invalid.
Mysticism, however, is another whole subject area unto itself, although magic and mysticism can merge in the areas of theurgy and the ultimate goal, which is union with the Godhead. Still, the methods and the approach are completely different. Qabalah in its purest form is a type of mysticism, but when merged with ritual or ceremonial magic, it becomes a very high form of theurgy, and in fact, that was likely the intent of the savants who developed the original Kabbalah in the middle ages. None of these methodologies lack purpose, direction, objectives or precise ritual steps; thus none of them would ever be considered performance art.
There is merit in Clifford’s paradigm, which is to separate the sublime from the ridiculous, and to filter out those who promote types of magic that are not magic at all but forms of entertainment. It is also rewarding to think about magic in different ways and to examine our work in a dialectic conversation. In our online media-saturated world, there are all kinds of posers and con artists, and some of them pretend to be Witches, Pagans, ceremonial or ritual magicians. However, anyone who is seriously seeking to discover the meaning and purpose of their lives in this world through the art and practice of magic, will likely perform rites and ceremonies that have a very sober purpose and an objective.
Frater Barrabbas
