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To: Christian Magick Elist
From: tyagi mordred nagasiva 
Subject: Re: Musick
Date: Kali Yuga 49941205

Quoting: |anonymous
         |>tyagi
 
|> I have often used music in my ritual.  Music has always been of importance
|> to me.  I've unconsciously (and laterly intentionally) used it as an 
|> emotional programmer, influencing myself emotionally toward the desired 
|> emotional state.  This was quite effective when coming to understand and
|> apply musical influence within planned rites.
|
|Hmmm . . .  I tend to pick work-music that matches my mood, rather than 
|vice versa.  Do you feel that deliberately modifying your emotional
|state adds to the ritual?  For me it usually detracts from it.

It varies over time and by circumstance.  I used to use music strictly to
attempt to condition my emotional state, engaging ritual when in particular
emotional states and encouraging catharsis during those which I did not like.

Since undertaking studies with my Abyss I have eliminated the use of
music as a consistent tool of this sort (largely because I have taken to a
monastic lifestyle but also because she has shown me that all emotional
experience is important and that I harm myself by shutting some out or
driving it away -- this is an extension of my resistance to banishing and
driving away demons).  

These days in rite I tend to try to encourage my mood also, rather than
modifying it.  Therefore, your comment is important, but only in that my
path is different today than it once was.  When I was attempting to
experience certain emotional states rather than feel deeply that to which
I am moved it was an important tool, yes.


|> For me, ritual is more about a state of mind than some sort of pre-written
|> script of behaviors and words and such.  
|
|Hmmmm . . . that seems to me like a confusion of the process and the 
|result.  Ritual is a way of getting into a state; if there are non-
|scripted ways of getting to the same state I don't think of them as
|ritual.

Only if you think there is just one way to go about it.  I know that most
ceremonial mages learn by engaging the tool and inspiring the mindstate.
My method is largely inductive -- I use psychoactives and art to induce
mindstates and then the rite manifests out of me.  I've begun calling
this 'reverse-engineering' (not knowing if it is accurate) since I am
in effect creating rituals from scratch which might be used by diligent
ceremonial mages (though since I'm not writing them down as recipes they
aren't really available for this usage at present -- I'd have to record
my songs and bodily motions too, which would interrupt the mindstate).

People use the term 'ritual' in different ways.  The most common that I've
heard equates 'ritual' with 'ceremony'.  I don't use the term this way at
all, preferring to associate a certain FEELING, MINDSTATE, with 'ritual
consciousness-space'.  It is an evident state of consciousness for me, a
kind of absorption which I associate with the term 'zen', though perhaps
not necessarily as focussed upon the present.
 

|have you used explicitly religious songs or pieces in these compilations?  

Hehehehe, right.  The way you are using 'religious' I gather you mean to
indicate the more social end of spirituality.  Yes, especially within the
last year.  Sufi music, monastic/Gregorian chant, indigenous songs for 
rite, rhythms for summoning orishas, I've even done a little absorption
of sacred music of African-American Christians, though not via tape.  These
days I'm absorbing it mentally and using my own voice and body for rhythms,
creating a weird mishmash effect, escalating from the depths of Satanic and
Cthonic or Lovecraftian horror to the beauty of repeated and intense
drumming, European chants and to the heights of mantra and love songs,
often as devotionals to the Dark One.

I enjoy greatly callings also, which, I've learned, are different, than
songs.  Specifically calling the names of Allah is a very powerful
practice.  I have a set of flash cards (with information on their backs)
that I made with each of the traditional 99 Names of God.  Arabic is an
incredible aural language, and the prayer chants of _Al Qur'an_ are
beautiful beyond description.


|Explicitly Christian?  Has it added anything you find valuable?

Christian social?  As I said, chants, some Gospel, Bach is a category all
to himself (JS).  Value?  Of assuredly.  I am very very fond of religious
artwork as a whole, including the nominally and/or institutionally Christian.
There is something so pure and perfect about Gregorians, for example, which
sends shivers up my spine as my mind dwells in a geometric peace.


|> Beethoven, Bach (esp. the less known and more complex pieces)
|> Genesis, Yes, Rush, ELP, Kansas, King Crimson (esp. pre-'80s)
|> Laurie Anderson, Kate Bush, Art of Noise, Devo (any)
|
|Tyagi, you're scaring me.  Six or seven of these keep finding their
|way onto my compilations.

Nothing to be frightened about.  They are popular and talented groups
or artists.  The way they've combined modern technology with classical
themes and variations is not to be outdone, though there are comparable
musical complexities and beauties (e.g. the Indian ragas or the various 
(Neo/)African drums).

 
|> Lately I've also been delving (after a rather strident 3 year hiatus 
|> from music, including divesting myself of all musical objects) 
|
|How can you live without music?  That's a serious question.

Discipline. ;> Christ demands that I restrict myself unto perfection.
It is not a matter of strict doing without, either.  I sold/gave my musical
things to my family and friends.  I live with my Abyss, who still has the
equipment and many of the cds/lps/tapes.  I haven't used them very much due
to my discipline, but lately I've been getting back into it slightly, even
though I'll not resume accumulation.

One of the things which doing without electronic musical apparatus has
given me is an appreciation of my own body and talent as a source of
music.  Shower songs have worked their way into my walking rounds or to
work.  Public transportation and walking is conducive, in the urban
environment, to belting out wonderous and completely impromptu arias
and devotionals.  The sounds of pens hitting water glasses and bottles
make lovely music as well.  

Someone said recently that the worship of God is constituted of the
indulgence in art, and I tend to agree, thinking that when engaged with
full appreciation of its transformative value it becomes *magick*.


|May I also suggest They Might Be Giants?

Yes!  Among a number of other quirky groups like the B-52's and the 
Waitresses.

tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (Nocifer)