THE PRESTIGE (2006)

[luka]

i spend every second im on the street eyes peeled hoping i run into corpsey. hyper vigilance.

 

[sus]

Who is Sus in that post?

I am Sus. Gus is what people call me who want to be disrespectful

 

[sus]

I see the "flattening" but I've always been sympathetic to that sort of criticism because especially in the age of the internet it's probably a good thing to have as many articulate people as possible helping young people attain and understand these heuristics. I read this post as basically a sparknotes of The Birth of Tragedy, but it might help a zoomer who's never even heard of Nietzsche come to an understanding of the concept. And it's ridiculous to act as if this flattening isn't the basic practice and ideal form of criticism. If everyone on substack and medium were writing like this I'd chalk that up as a net positive.

What chapter of Birth of Tragedy should I read

 

[sus]

when i was in london, i felt that everyone i passed on the street had a .1% chance at being version

Version doesnt go out

 

[kid charlemagne]

especially when im walking his streets

 

[sus]

Let's talk more about magic

What us the fascination with magic its the apparent violation of physics. It is the experience of wonder

 

[sus]

What do we know about wonder

IN ONE SENSE, THE purpose of science is to do away with wonders: science is a discourse of explanation, and one definition of a “wonder” is a thing not yet explained. Science is said to “enlighten” us because it allows us to understand and master phenomena, instead of wondering about them. Thus, as scientific knowledge advances, the world grows less and less “wonder-full,” and more and more wonder-empty.

 

[pattycakes_]

In some sciences they are discovering things that can't be scienced.

 

[luka]

Let's talk more about magic

What us the fascination with magic its the apparent violation of physics. It is the experience of wonder

@other_life he said you have to talk about magic

 

[sus]

In some sciences they are discovering things that can't be scienced.

You will have to say more about this it is very ambiguously worded

 

[luka]

its also about the mind reaching out to touch and transform things. shape them with an act of imagination. not operating on the material world through the clumsy body suit apparatus. but working as god does.

 

[other_life]

@other_life he said you have to talk about magic

but i no longer practice!

 

[luka]

just say something to keep the wheels turning

 

[other_life]

its also about the mind reaching out to touch and transform things. shape them with an act of imagination. not operating on the material world through the clumsy body suit apparatus. but working as god does.

this speaks to a view of magic as implicitly/prototypically materialist and atheist. because the emphasis is on shortcutting causal networks in order to align effect with desire; align desire with causality-as is-already the case, where both or either element is crucially 'occulted' before the pathworker makes their wonder

 

[other_life]

idk, i was raised in a neopagan milieu. i have notes on marcel mauss's book on magic at home i can blog about here when i'm off work?

 

[luka]

this speaks to a view of magic as implicitly/prototypically materialist and atheist. because the emphasis is on shortcutting causal networks in order to align effect with desire; align desire with causality-as is-already the case, where both or either element is crucially 'occulted' before the pathworker makes their wonder

i dunno whaT that means sorry

 

[other_life]

this speaks to a view of magic as implicitly/prototypically materialist and atheist. because the emphasis is on shortcutting causal networks in order to align effect with desire; align desire with causality-as is-already the case, where both or either element is crucially 'occulted' before the pathworker makes their wonder

(should have elaborated in original post) this is what places magic both at odds with and in discomfitting proximity to priestcraft, right. because that kind of occultation (*'what do i desire' 'what is determining the world') there is referred to a personal will and set of plans which dwarves yours infinitely, which is then propitiated (*for desired effect; through specialised knowledge; this is the point of proximity). whereas, as you said, a sorcerer aims to "work as the God does"

 

[other_life]

i dunno whaT that means sorry

i'm clumsily plagiarising Spare lol

 

[other_life]

is a poet a wonderworker, luke?

 

[luka]

um, a poet can be a heirophant. that's how it worked for me. introducing me to larger and more intense modes of experience and increasing degrees of intergration. and eventually inculcating the notion of there being an actual invisible college in which lessons are conveyed and progreesion and regression through that stepped system of learning happens