whats life about

<+obli> i am on a search for the gods
<+coelebs> why you wanna search gods?
<+obli> i want awe and wonder and terror
<+obli> strangeness till i die

magical objects

<Otter> <obli> there are elements of reconstruction inherant in even wicca
<obli> i dunno if a rich person could do it...
<Otter> what's the opposing view... that wicca is completely synthetic and hence not reconstructionist?
<obli> they could afford so much stuff it would lose all meaning
<Otter> that's a potential pitfall of wealth
<Otter> but if you stayed focused, you woudln't  have to fall into it
<obli> the opposing view is my prejudice against wiccans... i feel like the majority of them don't really care about anything that isn't in a glossy paperback :P
<obli> i agree Otter
<Otter> if i make a gazillion bucks trading commodities, though, i'll definitely try to remember that less is more
<obli> it would be esspecially hard if you were rich your whole life
<obli> i mean as a novice
<Otter> yeah, that's true.  Wicca got buried in clueless newbies a couple decades ago, and i'm not sure if it will ever dig out
<obli> i do alot of research
<Otter> i tend to differentiate between genuine wiccans and the saw charmed and  skimmed a book by silver ravenwolf set
<obli> it worrys me how little i know
<Otter> the genuine article is much more rare
<Otter> and these days, many of them insist they're not wiccans even though they're clearly more wiccan than your average glossy paperback wiccan
<obli> :P
<Otter> hmmmm.  maybe, maybe not
<Otter> if you were born into wealth, maybe your parents would have taught you how to deal with it
<obli> i doubt your parents will have taught you about aquiring magical artifacts
<Otter> depends on who your parents are
<obli> if it were your parents?
<Otter> wealthy occultists aren't exactly unheard of
<obli> just your parents that you have now.. but rich
<Otter> well, my father was a mystic -- mom too though her focus was elsewhere when i was young
<Otter> neither were much into objects, though, and neither am i
<obli> magic items are wonderful
<obli> thats how you spread the magic
<Tj_> hello obli Otter
<Otter> by giving poeple charms and whatnot?
<Otter> hi Tj
<obli> by making perplexing things

<Otter> LOL
<obli> i don't want to just make charms
<obli> just mass producing charms
<obli> its pretty souless
* Otter nods
<Otter> those woudln't be true charms anyway
<Otter> you've got to enchant it for it to be more than jewelry
<obli> if i were to make charms... i'd want them to be made of the correct materials... and either unique... or made to the correct formula
<Otter> i suppose you might batch enchant things
<obli> you can't just have a 3d printer spitting out charms without being disingenous
<Otter> that's basically what homeopaths do when they make their remedies
<obli> which is part of the reason i have put the breaks on getting a 3d printer
* Otter nods
<obli> i was thinking more of astrological talasmans
<Otter> similar to the problem with using your billions to buy artifacts by the truckload
<Otter> you could use the 3d printer to make things and then charge them magically, though you might have a problem with the material
<obli> well a 3d mill
<obli> that carves into things

<Otter> right, you could CNC it
<Otter> most of what you put into something like that would be done after it was made, though
<obli> i think you'd need alot of mana to batch charm things that weren't extremely iconic/sigil-y
<Otter> or skill.  it takes less energy to do something if you know wtf you're doing
<obli> maybe
<Otter> i've done very little with that kind of magic
<Otter> i do make tools for ritual, but i tend to throw them in the lake when i'm done with the ritual :-)
<obli> or maybe with things like charms its just a numbers game.. those baptist snake oil salesmen seem to manage to convince lots of people

* Otter shrugs
<Otter> there's charms and then therer's charms

<Otter> you're talking about something that has more to it than the belief of the user, i think
<obli> quantity has a quality all of its own
<Otter> but someone could pull a charm out of a ceral box and make it real
<obli> i think theres something to be said for a wide dispersal increasing general beleif

<Otter> if you can do that, though, you don't really need expensive hand-crafted magical art objects
<obli> if you can do that imagine what you can do with something that has a power in and of its self

<Otter> if you can do that, though, you don't really need expensive hand-crafted magical art objects
<obli> if you can do that imagine what you can do with something that has a power in and of its self
<Otter> perhaps a little more
<Otter> as i understand it, though, the power doesn't really come from the object
<Otter> we channel the power from the source, and there is as much of it available to any individual as he can handle
<Otter> the objects aren't so much like batteries or generators as tools to tune your own access to natural power
<obli> idols are mediums for gods though... so its inherantly something at least somewhat outside of yourself
<Otter> but that's just my view.  plenty disagree

<Otter> right, but again, the purpose is to help you connect with the god
<Otter> the idol is like that the pieces of paper people used to keep by the phone in olden times
<Otter> when phones stayed put and had no memory for phone numbers
<Otter> -that
<Otter> i used a jpeg of a reproduction of an old carving of Bel to connect with him, and it worked really well
<Otter> still have the print stuck to the side of my computer tower
<obli> i think that the magical item has the power to reach out to people
<Otter> but that piece of paper didn't really have any power in itself.  it was just a way to find the god in all the noise
* Otter nods
<obli> on some level i would consider it touched by the god whose image is on it
<Otter> the image worked because of what the artist put into it centuries ago
* Otter nods