Description
This article is from the Spell/Hex
FAQ, by cat cat@luckymojo.com with numerous contributions by
others.
11 Why do you some people spell magick with a K?
The reason for the two spellings -- on the internet --
is that computers need differing spelling to distinguish
between two files. Some time back in the early 1990s,
the usage of "magic" for stage magic and "magick" for
mystical-ritual-supernatural practices was adopted by
general consensus.
This newsgroup, alt.paranormal.spells.hexes.magic, is one of
the older in usenet and was created BEFORE the
magic-with-a-k spelling rule was agreed upon. Later,
alt.magick and its derivatives were created with a 'k' to
avoid confusion with stage magic. *01
"Magick" is a spelling popularly associated with Aleister
Crowley, yet the spelling precedes him by hundreds of
years. As he used it, however, the word did not relate
to magic, but rather to Crowley's own personal form of
spirituality. *02
Tom Schuler (duo@teleport.com) supplied this quotation
from Crowley's writing that explains why Crowleyan
"magick" is actually about spirituality, not "magic":
"In my third year at Cambridge, I devoted myself
consciously to the Great Work, understanding thereby
the Work of becoming a Spiritual Being, free from
the constraints, accidents, and deceptions of
material existence. I found myself at a loss for
a name to designate my work, just as H. P. Blavatsky
some years earlier. "Theosophy", "Spiritualism",
"Occultism", "Mysticism", all involved undesirable
connotations. I chose therefore the name "MAGICK"
as essentially the most sublime, and actually the
most discredited, of all the available terms. I
swore to rehabilitate MAGICK, to identify it with
my own career; and to compel mankind to respect,
love, and trust that which they scorned, hated and
feared. I have kept my Word."
-- "Magick in Theory and Practice"
by Aleister Crowley (pages XI-XII) *03
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new-age, paranormal, spiritual, spell, hex, magick, magic
