38 replies to this topic

[occultistaustin]

Well he says it so confidently and nonchalantly i just assumed......

[Kuroyagi]

Without wanting to be too explicit, I second the obvious answer to the question above: of 'how can you take him seriously?'

Also some of those numbers are magical entities, and concepts that I recognize...all could be made such by various means like for example reduction (their digit-sums), exploration, imagination or communication with them.

[occultistaustin]

This is kind of embarrassing I gues I had a blonde momment

[Kuroyagi]

Great. And now you even offended Christina Applegate and me. But don't worry, it's actually all arbitrary and irrelevant, anyway.

[occultistaustin]

Well I am blonde so I can say blonde moment

[Alice]

I've learned never to assume anyone is lying, or that anyone is telling the truth. There's no tone in text, so I'm not sure it was intended as a joke. If it was, sorry Nalyd, but it's not a very good one. It's a reasonable guess the numbers are intended to be fictional, and even more reasonable to believe they're wrong, but maybe Nalyd can prove it.

May you find what you seek,
Alice

[Kuroyagi]

Oh...*Lying*! ...Sorry to disturb your teenage ramblings there but what kind of magical practitioner wouldn't have recognized the 418? I mean comm'on why not admit to simply haven't known.

[Nalyd Khezr Bey]

Shadow-Gnostikoi, on 04 April 2012 - 09:04 PM, said:

In any case Nalyd, how come you didn't count the Meditators of various ilk? (yogis, Qigong masters, etc...)

Because I was trying to stick to the groups named in the first post to keep it simple. Do you know how hard it was just to count all of them? It took me all night and half the morning. If you want to count the rest from all the various other groups out there, be my guest. That goes the same for naming them as someone else asked. Too much trouble. Just be glad I took the time to count. .

As a sidenote, the 418 total for Thelemites actually includes the 42 practicing ceremonial-style magicians. Sorry for the confusion. There are 376 diehard Thelemites that are not ceremonialists but have discovered their true will by other means.

Edited by Nalyd Khezr Bey, 05 April 2012 - 02:51 AM.

[Kuroyagi]

Ah I see in that case-sorry Alice I did wrong by you- I thought it to have been 418 practitioners and now I saw that I was wrong...I'll pray to the ancestor Lords of Death I really will cause again have failed them. Nanmandabu nanmandabu!
Aaargh what shalt I do?

Edited by Kuroyagi, 05 April 2012 - 12:55 PM.

[Orlando]

Things might be quite different in America, but in Britain there aren’t many Satanist, if we are talking about Setians, and Church of Satan.
The people that take up the Dennis Wheatley kind of Satanism in Britain are usually bored school kids.

The Druids are very big in Britain compared to the USA.

Edited by Orlando, 05 April 2012 - 07:00 AM.

[Shadow-Gnostikoi]

Kuroyagi, on 05 April 2012 - 01:33 AM, said:

Oh...*Lying*! ...Sorry to disturb your teenage ramblings there but what kind of magical practitioner wouldn't have recognized the 418? I mean comm'on why not admit to simply haven't known.

Uhm.... I don't recognize it... But I don't practice magic after all, or at least, none of the kind mentionned above, so....

And Nalyd, well, I'll get right to it. I'll count the Buddhists, Taoists, and Hindus. Then I'll have a separate category for Qigong practitionners, although they will certainly overlap into some of the Buddhists and Taoists.

Seems like I have a lot of work ahead of me....

[Alice]

Nalyd, that still seems quite an extraordinary claim. Frankly why should anyone believe you have the ability to provide these numbers accurately? You are most certainly talented, but this would make you one of the greatest clairvoyants of all time, and I have very serious doubts. My standard has always been "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".

May you find what you seek,
Alice

[Curious Cat]

I think that most people will not openly admit to being occult practitioners. The best information you can find would be from the U.S. Census. The information is on the second page. Here is the report: http://www.census.go...les/12s0075.pdf

[Brennan]

I don't know about you guys, but I understood Nalyd's post as a demonstrative response.. ..with the majority of responses to Nalyd being the part he didn't write (the demonstrative aspect of it.) .. y'know, in the sense of "don't look at the finger which points to the moon .. whereas Nalyd's written words were the finger, pointing .. and that .. when y'get what I'm saying by this, y'might just end up pulling a face-palm.. yep.

Edited by Brennan, 06 April 2012 - 04:49 AM.

[Alice]

Quote

I don't know about you guys, but I understood Nalyd's post as a demonstrative response.. ..with the majority of responses to Nalyd being the part he didn't write (the demonstrative aspect of it.) .. y'know, in the sense of "don't look at the finger which points to the moon .. whereas Nalyd's written words were the finger, pointing .. and that .. when y'get what I'm saying by this, y'might just end up pulling a face-palm.. yep.

Nope. still don't get it. Would you believe I've been tired and busy lately? Hehehe. I really am renovating a message board this week.

May you find what you seek,
Alice

[Brennan]

Alice: I would believe that.


The way I understood is that it's like a parable followed by a returning of the question back to the asker.

"How many people practice what?"

- "well, this many."

"How could you know that?!"

- "Exactly."

[Atridr]

In my opinion, much more important thing to consider would be: "How big percentange of those claiming to practice magic or spirituality are actually doing anything else than indulging in their own fantasies or scraping at the very surface of the mysteries of existence". My gut feeling is that of all groups of people claiming to be pagans, yogis, witches, magicians etc. only a very small amount can actually work magic at all. For example, in the modern world there are hundreds of thousands of people claiming to be worshippers of pagan gods or practicing witches. Of those, perhaps the 2000-3000 most fanatical, devoted and strong-willed can actually affect reality magickally, and the same goes for all different traditions. If the relative number would be any higher, we would be living in a very different kind of society.

[Nalyd Khezr Bey]

Atridr, on 31 January 2013 - 03:28 PM, said:

My gut feeling is that of all groups of people claiming to be pagans, yogis, witches, magicians etc. only a very small amount can actually work magic at all.

The number here is 5%. And it's not just magick it's everything. If you put any amount of people together there is always going to be a "dominant 5%".

[Atridr]

Nalyd Khezr Bey, on 31 January 2013 - 04:09 PM, said:

The number here is 5%. And it's not just magick it's everything. If you put any amount of people together there is always going to be a "dominant 5%".

That's quite optimistic regarding magick. I once made an estimate that of every hundred people interested in occultism or spirituality, one has enough willpower and spiritual capacity to even start seeking truth. And of every hundred seekers out there one "sees the light" and learns even the rudiments of real magick.