Stephen Skinner and magic

[Cornfed]

I've been listening to him recently and he seems to think magic in the Western ceremonial tradition is a fairly simple matter. When you have set up your magic circle you call the appropriate spirit, bind it, precisely tell it what you want and then dismiss it. If you have gone through the right procedures and asked the spirit something within its skill set then you should get a good outcome. Simple. I lack the equipment necessary, but it would be an interesting thing to try some time.

[gsjackson]

Do you consider him someone worth paying attention to?

[Cornfed]

Do you consider him someone worth paying attention to?

He seems to have his head screwed on right.

[Cornfed]

It seems like you would need a magical solution to live a normal life in modern dystopias, so perhaps that is exactly what we should turn to. So for example you could give otherwise impossible requirements for a wife to the appropriate spirit and let it select the appropriate female in conjunction with Internet dating. The old Greco-Egyptian texts say to make her not be able to eat or sleep before she becomes engaged to you, so you would leave that in place permanently and hopefully if she left you she would just die.