From the fantasy I've read I've gotten the impression that sorceresses tend to be higher class, use a rather 'technical' sort of magic, and have a high probability of being evil. Witches tend to be lower class, use more intuitive, 'natural' magic, and are more likely to be good than sorceresses.
This feels a bit like the moment when someone was like "I think someone in TPOT is in a yoga sex cult" and the rest of us were like "Who are you referring to? I can think of several people that might be."
So we're now about to go all Secret History om TPOT/MIRI/EA/AI risk and hypothesize a magic cult behind it...
“When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”--G.K. Chesteerton
Now if I was playing a character in the Ars Magica role playing game, I would doubtless be advancing an argument that Hermetic Magic is not Satanic, and whatever those scolarly magicians are going when they cast spells they cribbed out of theGreek of the Hermetic Corpus, they are not, strictly speaking, engaging in witchcraft.
This is awesome. I 100% resonate with your direction (meta-rationality, Vajrayana Buddhism, stages of development as a useful-regardless-of-if-true framework, getting society & individuals out of our current malaise), and I'm literally in the process of becoming one of the people attempting to effect change for the better (starting a business teaching combo fitness/meditation classes; hoping to help people to relate to life more empirically).
Right now I'm sitting with a backlog of the last 5 of your posts sitting in my inbox; I feel like I have to be really in the zone to absorb them properly so I keep putting them off. This is a personal problem. But also maybe a data point. I have no suggestions.
starting a business teaching combo fitness/meditation classes
That’s great!
I feel like I have to be really in the zone to absorb them properly
Some of the meta-rationality ones are quite dry, I’m afraid. The others are usually more fun; you might start with one of the podcasts (“steam engine” or maybe).
Oh also, on the sorceress/witch distinction: Sorceresses are more powerful magically and witches are more crafty and less trustworthy. I think sorceresses tend to be more gullible and morally strict; a sorceress can be tricked and controlled while a witch is ungovernable.
I would very much not like to be on a witch’s bad side, but a sorceress sounds like fun if the circumstances were correct 👀
I feel like the difference between a sorceress and a witch is the difference between a someone who is a female magic-user and a user of "female magic." "Sorcery" is a general name for magic/a type of magic which anyone gifted and/or trained has access to, and Sorcerer/Sorceress is just different terms for the presenting gender of the person doing the magic. But "witchcraft," while presumably including a lot of sorcery, would also include magic that can only be done by "women," presumably for biological or "theological" reasons.
I like this schema because I think it would hold even if there is magic that can change your sex. If a sorcerer casts a sex-change spell and then learns witchcraft, "he" has become a witch, and only has access to that magic by embodying "witchness." Or, if sex-changing spells are impossible, then a man doing witchcraft in some sense "proves" the mind/essence powering the magic is female, and that means "he" really is a witch, and presumably doesn't have access to wizardry (being able to do both would imply there is at least one more sex/gender). But, I suspect my desire for there to be "external proof" of a person's internal being is wholly unnecessary; there's probably not a lot of cruelty or misgendering of anyone who has the ability to turn you into a frog!
That’s interesting! And maybe similar to my take, which was that sorcery is an overt show of power, whereas witchcraft is typically obscure and oblique. Yennefer of Vengeberg (sorceress) incinerated an entire army by shooting fire from her hands; Granny Weatherwax (witch) mostly talks people out of idiocy while appearing to be an addled crone herself. (Although in rare emergencies she calls on overt power, and Yennefer sometimes manages to be reasonable.)
Hi David! Just wondering if there is a way to re-enable comments – for somehow registered and known people? – for Meaningness. The "most important knowledge" is welcome as a really helpful index. I like the unwritten promises, too — particularly “The emotional landscape between stages 4 and 5: landmarks in the trackless territory”. My question of ages would be something like: “is there actually any evidence of interventions from which tracks in this trackless territory can emerge, maybe at an individual level?” If there is, let's publish, sooner rather than later; if not, are we really left with a kind of meta-nihilism — like, there is simply no meta-path here?
But, back to the core: stage theory. In recent months I've been musing on a new approach to this, which somehow tips a hat to haters like Nora Bateson, while refuting its vitriolic negativity. It involves viewing stage theory in the context of particular patterns of complexity that are found in a particular society and culture. Sufficiently different natural, societal or cultural foci of complexity → different stage models. Plausible, anyway, and worth a deep reflection? In this context I'm trying to revisit the work of George Kelly on Personal Construct Theory, which to me gives a lead in (even if not obvious) to this reframing of stage theory.
There is, but I probably won't... this is the first time I've posted on one of my own sites in a year or so, and I don't expect to do that often, for a while. Comment spam was being more of a nuisance than it seemed the scarce new comments were worth. Thanks for the suggestion, though!
> “is there actually any evidence of interventions from which tracks in this trackless territory can emerge, maybe at an individual level?”
It depends on what you count as "evidence." There aren't quantified science-like studies (that I know of). There's lots of anecdotes and shared knowledge within the field.
> viewing stage theory in the context of particular patterns of complexity that are found in a particular society and culture
Yes, I think this is the correct answer to Bateson's critique (and other similar ones, going back forty years now). Rational systematicity is a cultural construct, not an inherent product of brain maturation.
> Comment spam was being more of a nuisance than it seemed the scarce new comments were worth.
Totally understood … I was just wondering if there was a way of allowing comments from some class of user? No, I don't know how that would work, technically...
> There aren't quantified science-like studies (that I know of). There's lots of anecdotes and shared knowledge within the field.
My sense is that this may be worth collating, publishing and "mining". Maybe in order to formulate the kind of research questions that could lead to science-like studies?
> My sense is that this may be worth collating, publishing and "mining". Maybe in order to formulate the kind of research questions that could lead to science-like studies?
Yes, definitely! I'm not close enough to the field to do that myself. It would be great if someone did!
i wouldn't be at all surprised if surprised if TPOT membership was correlated with being a self-identified witch.
I would claim that *maleficium* in the witchcraft-trial sense requires doing intentionally doing harm.
Summoning demons in charnel grounds sounds pretty witchy, and chod is fairly female-coded (Vajrayogini self-visualisation; menstrual blood in at least some versions of liturgy ... but is not malefiium.
> I would claim that *maleficium* in the witchcraft-trial sense requires doing intentionally doing harm.
Yes, it's interesting that for both "dakini" and "witch" the original sense implied malevolence by definition, but both got extended to benevolent "good witches" as well.
From the fantasy I've read I've gotten the impression that sorceresses tend to be higher class, use a rather 'technical' sort of magic, and have a high probability of being evil. Witches tend to be lower class, use more intuitive, 'natural' magic, and are more likely to be good than sorceresses.
That seems right, thank you!
This feels a bit like the moment when someone was like "I think someone in TPOT is in a yoga sex cult" and the rest of us were like "Who are you referring to? I can think of several people that might be."
So we're now about to go all Secret History om TPOT/MIRI/EA/AI risk and hypothesize a magic cult behind it...
“When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”--G.K. Chesteerton
Now if I was playing a character in the Ars Magica role playing game, I would doubtless be advancing an argument that Hermetic Magic is not Satanic, and whatever those scolarly magicians are going when they cast spells they cribbed out of theGreek of the Hermetic Corpus, they are not, strictly speaking, engaging in witchcraft.
Maybe my thinking is biblical here, but I think of sorcery as mind altering substance based and witchery as pact with the devil based.
My experience here is limited, instead of that flavor, in my youth, I dated a Thelemite in hiding from the church of scientology.
That’s very funny, thanks!
This is awesome. I 100% resonate with your direction (meta-rationality, Vajrayana Buddhism, stages of development as a useful-regardless-of-if-true framework, getting society & individuals out of our current malaise), and I'm literally in the process of becoming one of the people attempting to effect change for the better (starting a business teaching combo fitness/meditation classes; hoping to help people to relate to life more empirically).
Right now I'm sitting with a backlog of the last 5 of your posts sitting in my inbox; I feel like I have to be really in the zone to absorb them properly so I keep putting them off. This is a personal problem. But also maybe a data point. I have no suggestions.
Thanks for all of your writing!
starting a business teaching combo fitness/meditation classes
That’s great!
I feel like I have to be really in the zone to absorb them properly
Some of the meta-rationality ones are quite dry, I’m afraid. The others are usually more fun; you might start with one of the podcasts (“steam engine” or maybe).
Oh also, on the sorceress/witch distinction: Sorceresses are more powerful magically and witches are more crafty and less trustworthy. I think sorceresses tend to be more gullible and morally strict; a sorceress can be tricked and controlled while a witch is ungovernable.
I would very much not like to be on a witch’s bad side, but a sorceress sounds like fun if the circumstances were correct 👀
Twitter poll on sorceresses vs witches: https://x.com/georgejrjrjr/status/1808731674915844522
I feel like the difference between a sorceress and a witch is the difference between a someone who is a female magic-user and a user of "female magic." "Sorcery" is a general name for magic/a type of magic which anyone gifted and/or trained has access to, and Sorcerer/Sorceress is just different terms for the presenting gender of the person doing the magic. But "witchcraft," while presumably including a lot of sorcery, would also include magic that can only be done by "women," presumably for biological or "theological" reasons.
I like this schema because I think it would hold even if there is magic that can change your sex. If a sorcerer casts a sex-change spell and then learns witchcraft, "he" has become a witch, and only has access to that magic by embodying "witchness." Or, if sex-changing spells are impossible, then a man doing witchcraft in some sense "proves" the mind/essence powering the magic is female, and that means "he" really is a witch, and presumably doesn't have access to wizardry (being able to do both would imply there is at least one more sex/gender). But, I suspect my desire for there to be "external proof" of a person's internal being is wholly unnecessary; there's probably not a lot of cruelty or misgendering of anyone who has the ability to turn you into a frog!
That’s interesting! And maybe similar to my take, which was that sorcery is an overt show of power, whereas witchcraft is typically obscure and oblique. Yennefer of Vengeberg (sorceress) incinerated an entire army by shooting fire from her hands; Granny Weatherwax (witch) mostly talks people out of idiocy while appearing to be an addled crone herself. (Although in rare emergencies she calls on overt power, and Yennefer sometimes manages to be reasonable.)
Hi David! Just wondering if there is a way to re-enable comments – for somehow registered and known people? – for Meaningness. The "most important knowledge" is welcome as a really helpful index. I like the unwritten promises, too — particularly “The emotional landscape between stages 4 and 5: landmarks in the trackless territory”. My question of ages would be something like: “is there actually any evidence of interventions from which tracks in this trackless territory can emerge, maybe at an individual level?” If there is, let's publish, sooner rather than later; if not, are we really left with a kind of meta-nihilism — like, there is simply no meta-path here?
But, back to the core: stage theory. In recent months I've been musing on a new approach to this, which somehow tips a hat to haters like Nora Bateson, while refuting its vitriolic negativity. It involves viewing stage theory in the context of particular patterns of complexity that are found in a particular society and culture. Sufficiently different natural, societal or cultural foci of complexity → different stage models. Plausible, anyway, and worth a deep reflection? In this context I'm trying to revisit the work of George Kelly on Personal Construct Theory, which to me gives a lead in (even if not obvious) to this reframing of stage theory.
> if there is a way to re-enable comments
There is, but I probably won't... this is the first time I've posted on one of my own sites in a year or so, and I don't expect to do that often, for a while. Comment spam was being more of a nuisance than it seemed the scarce new comments were worth. Thanks for the suggestion, though!
> “is there actually any evidence of interventions from which tracks in this trackless territory can emerge, maybe at an individual level?”
It depends on what you count as "evidence." There aren't quantified science-like studies (that I know of). There's lots of anecdotes and shared knowledge within the field.
> viewing stage theory in the context of particular patterns of complexity that are found in a particular society and culture
Yes, I think this is the correct answer to Bateson's critique (and other similar ones, going back forty years now). Rational systematicity is a cultural construct, not an inherent product of brain maturation.
> Comment spam was being more of a nuisance than it seemed the scarce new comments were worth.
Totally understood … I was just wondering if there was a way of allowing comments from some class of user? No, I don't know how that would work, technically...
> There aren't quantified science-like studies (that I know of). There's lots of anecdotes and shared knowledge within the field.
My sense is that this may be worth collating, publishing and "mining". Maybe in order to formulate the kind of research questions that could lead to science-like studies?
> My sense is that this may be worth collating, publishing and "mining". Maybe in order to formulate the kind of research questions that could lead to science-like studies?
Yes, definitely! I'm not close enough to the field to do that myself. It would be great if someone did!
i wouldn't be at all surprised if surprised if TPOT membership was correlated with being a self-identified witch.
I would claim that *maleficium* in the witchcraft-trial sense requires doing intentionally doing harm.
Summoning demons in charnel grounds sounds pretty witchy, and chod is fairly female-coded (Vajrayogini self-visualisation; menstrual blood in at least some versions of liturgy ... but is not malefiium.
> i wouldn't be at all surprised if surprised if TPOT membership was correlated with being a self-identified witch.
That may be consistent with this twitter poll: https://x.com/mimi10v3/status/1808686793472008475
> I would claim that *maleficium* in the witchcraft-trial sense requires doing intentionally doing harm.
Yes, it's interesting that for both "dakini" and "witch" the original sense implied malevolence by definition, but both got extended to benevolent "good witches" as well.