Like, if you make a ritual for whealth and your karma is bad you're going to break your leg or something. Not that I'm convinced about karma or ritual magick, but from a buddhist perspective, what do you think?

I think its because it sounds fun. No need to insult people just because they are curious. If you are not curious how can you ever evolve? Asking questions brings clarity and triggers investigation.

Personally I don't see that at all, or at least no more than any other desire. Working magick in general MAY accelerate experiencing the effects of karma as well as show you a little more the operation of your own mind. Low magick can be beneficial as long as you don't take it too seriously! Then again there are the operations for Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. There are many writings out there comparing that working of High Magick directly to acheiving stream entry and the Paths. It all depends on what you want to do, or as one once put it;

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."
Have fun!

Do you mean paths as the term is used in MCTB or in the ten fetter model?

Well then I'll have to reach stream entry first ;)
could you name some other activity you think cloud the mind as much as low/ritual/sigil magick? 

@Pawel: The basis of an insult is the tone and context of what you're saying, not the truthfulness of it.  Calling a person fat in front of their friends, for example, is insulting even though it may be true.  I thought I'd point this out to you, since your posts are often insulting and maybe you just don't realize it.  I'm guessing it could be a cultural thing.

@Pal: For people who like the idea of perrenialism (that all mystical traditions are describing a similar set of human experiences), Ceremonial Magick shares the same goal as Hinduism and Buddhism - Enlightenment. If you don't agree with perennialism and think the context of the tradition is important, then Buddhism is very different from Magick. The rituals in CM are actually somewhat similar to Tibetian practices - using concentration to create altered states and using visualization to "purify the mind."

Ceremenioal Magick with the goal of enlightenment is called High Magick in the western traditions. CM with "worldly" goals such as making it rain, getting rich and communicating with ghosts is called low magick and that's what I'm talking about. One must master low magick in order to learn High Magick though. HM seems to resemble Guru Yoga and "vipassana meditation", so it doesn't attract me very much. I guess I'm not perrenialist, at least not right now. I'm curious about LM though, but if it is too risky I'll stay away from it or wait till I've reached some degree of enlightenment first. 

The MCTB model generally. To me the 10 fetter model doesn't match up quite as well.

Hm I'm currently too exoteric to accept that model. I think it's a little strange that a book called Mastering the Core Teachings of the BUDDHA, doesn't agree with the teachings of the Buddha and instead presents new definitions of ancient buddhist concepts :/

maybe the new models actually are more useful, but why make it seem like they come from the Buddha? 

No.
There is no Karma and there is no Ritual Magick.
They are stories.

Not sure about karma. But ritual magick or similar practices are a great tool for liberation.

Not just practices wishing for liberation, which is obviously useful. (eg. bodhisattva vows) 

But even magick for acquiring great wealth, lots of lovers, limitless courage, productivity etc. 

It is all useful because insofar as it leads to personal transformation. i.e. if what you seek to attain via magick requires the transformation of deeply held patterns, identities, and compulsions.

The result of the transformation is not the focus, when it comes to liberation.

Given even a modicum of mindfullness while practicing tranformation, various deeply held patterns, identities etc. are seen as impermenant, non-self etc, and liberation is at hand.

I would go so far as to say that unless you put your own 'liberation' to the test via the fire of transformation, it is hard be sure to what extent you are mistaking repression or delusions for liberation. Which any one with some experience with enlightenment stuff will know that it is an all too common trap on the path.

if you've ever watched a movie you probably know that stories can be meaningful, and sometimes even useful. Things that are unreal can still make you experience pleasure or pain and do some good or cause some harm.

I'd love to see a debate between you and Pawel. 

Btw could yhe Eucharist be considered magick? If so, I do magick every now and then.

My understanding of reading MCTB is the idea of "core teachings". There are so many sutta  translations, re-iterations, commentaries, and commentaries on commentaries that on occasion one needs to go back to the root. Not the written teachings even of the Buddha but what he was doing and trying to teach initially. As in martial arts sometimes after generations of teaching the ideas get clouded. You watch a form performed and you say "what was the purpose?". Then a different teacher shows you that done just slightly differently Oh! It's a block, catch, twist and punch, although it didn't look like it originally performed by someone else. My background in that is woefully small but I have seen this. Which one is correct? Same here since we can only communicate ideas and techniques by analogy based on our individual and cultural backgrounds. At least in martial arts a teacher can reach over, tap you on the shoulder and knock you on your butt because you are in horse stance too high (for example). Much harder for a meditation teacher to metaphorically knock you on your butt to demonstrate what you are doing wrong.

On Pal's question about the Eucharist, there's a rather dense but very interesting book by Israel Regardie titled "The Tree of Life" has several good passages describing this. Very good author to read on ceremonial magick is Mr Regardie. If you can find it "The Art of True Healing " is one of the smallest, most practical books I've read about meditation and ceremonial magick. In the similiar line of what Crowley did with his "Book 4" but more readable.

Well it seems to me that MCTB kind of talks against the core teachings of the Buddha (four noble truths, noble eightfold path) and uses lots of terms from the commentaries on the commentaries... 

If the Eucharist is magick, what does it do? I should ask a priest.

Yeah, but I think Pal is winning.  I spend too much time writing small novels for all of mine.

Not in a debating mood. Just sharing a different perspective. 

I consider 'magick' to be something you do to consiously strengthen intention. 

Doing an elaborate ritual to eat a cracker, is not magick in its own right. But if you do it with the intention to become more christ-like then perhaps it can be.

There is no right or wrong method for attaining liberation. There are functional and dysfuncitonal methods. Their effectiveness depends on factors like your own proclivities. So it is not correct to say that a particular method is universally more effective. 

So correct practice shoud always give results straight away? No I don't really get in which way your approach is different. 
Btw you don't like tibetan buddhism either?

So according to you I could awaken through just playing videogames, if I had the right proclivities?

Just got my new wand in today. It is a white wand for white magick. It has a white jade bullet-shaped tip set in sterling silver, a shaft of figured maple, a handle of white American holly and white celluloid, and a handle end of white (rose) quartz. I like it and it feels good in my hand.

We do magick all the time, with every action, every intention, every emotion, every word, every dream, every thought. All is causal.

The question is not the ritual or non-ritual nature of it, the questions are the intentions, methods and effects.

The Buddha was reported to do magick all the time, so did plenty of other realized practitioners back then. Today there is plenty of magick in modern Buddhism. Rituals are routinely performed for healing and crops and the like in plenty of Buddhist countries.

I cast a posting spell here, and, "poof!" my post is posted.

Cast well,

Daniel

I recall a sutta, don't remember what it's called, where the monks are asked by the layity to perform an iddhi trick in order to prove their spiritual superiotity. The Buddha answers that they won't do that on request since powers are not necessarily a sign of spiritual developement, because you might aswell have gotten the power through casting a magical spell and not through meditation. So the Buddha seems to think that all intentional acts aren't magickal. 

I'm not intent on hurting people, so no, not black magic but grey kind of. But hey, if white magic is ok and grey isn't then I could totaly cast spells to help others only just because it's fun to do rituals I sometimes go to church (the most non-dogmatic one you could ever imagine) so I kind of do that anyway. 

The first thing to say is that no one knows how anything works in enough detail to definitely claim if you have 100 Karma points, you can cash it in at the Dharma Store for an A&P experience (65 Karma points), getting laid (45 Karma points), avoiding rush hour (12 Karma points).

The second thing to say is, using Daniel's heuristic which I think gets to the heart of the issue, is like attracts like. (For the record, I don't really do much magic in the sense of 'worldly things'. I'm on the conservative side for temperamant and aesthetic reasons.)

Let's take a classic example of something people get interested in magic for: getting laid, romance, sex, whatever. I think there is a negative and positive, a black or a white magical spell to get laid. A black magical spell to get laid would be something like, "Oh, I have a crush on this person. She sees me as a friend despite my confessing of my feelings for her, so maybe I can use magic to change her mind." Then you do some magical intent to manifest this. It's black because it's imposing on someone's wishes. It's forcing a relationship that probably is best not happening if she is clearly not interested. 

But it a white magical spell to get laid might be something like, "I will cast this spell to get laid/get a relationship with a person who is appropriate for me." Or something like that. In this latter case, no particular people's wills are being imposed on against their knowledge or will. Furthermore, you are intenting, or putting yourself in the line of fire of something sustainable. If this latter spells works, you'll find someone who is compatible with you, who likes you, you could say the spell merely increased the odds two fitting people walk down the same street to the same coffeeshop, whereas the former spell attempts imposing a relationship that isn't mutual. It takes little imagination to suppose that even if it did work, it would probably be a lot more miserable than the latter. So the first one works and makes both parties miserable and the second one works and makes both parties happy, at least for a little while! 

Reality is boundlessly more complex, but I think this example shows that one can magically wish for something most wish for, but in two totally different ways, one that tends to be conflicting and one that tends to be harmonizing.

Seems like your forgetting one little thing in your example: sexual attraction is not a choise. If someone's not attracted to me and I for example change my body language to be more attractive so that they are attracted to me, have I messed with their free will? Similliary, I could cast a spell to make someone attracted to me and the result could be I have better body language around that person. Ever heard of the PUA community?

but I get what you mean. In most cases I think what you call white magick in your example os considered grey magick.
Black: hurt others/impose on free will
grey: Help your self only
white: help others. 

You're right. I wrote at the end of my post that reality is boundlessly complex as a disclaimer that the actual situation is far more complex. I used it as a toy example to say things aren't clear cut, ie, "Magic is always bad!" Anyways, the intent of my example is that the black spell is attempting to override someone's will and forcing a situation that probably shouldn't happen, and thus will cause trouble. Pretend our spell caster doesn't care about long term self-improvement and sees magic as a shortcut to getting laid: directly manipulating people's attraction process. That's what I mean.

For fun, I don't think changing body language will be a game changer for a guy to get laid. What will be a game changer for a guy to get laid is resolve his underlying emotional hangups and getting his life together. Confident body language comes from that. The latter solution will take years. And if we define magic as conscious intention, the culmination of hundreds of thousands of spells. There are no shortcuts to emotional maturity and healthy self-esteem and solid lifestyles, which is the foundation on which drives attraction. I'm saying, I wouldn't cast a spell to make me have more confident body language, I would cast a spell to solve the more fundamental issue leading to lack of confidence that leads to poor body language. It's the difference between a band aid solution and a cure. Band aids do work, but only for a little while. Knowing all this shapes how I would cast a 'getting laid spell'.

I was just reading a different forum where someone claimed to do the black magic spell I gave as an example. That's why I wrote it. It isn't something I made up, someone actually did that and it didn't work out so well in the long run. It would take me 10 pages to flush out a minimally rigorous explanation of why you wouldn't want a quick fix solution to getting laid and do real justice to white, gray, and black magic. I might in a couple of months, so here's a link instead by a former PUA coach nonetheless: http://markmanson.net/vulnerability

Interesting article. He's too good looking for me to believe him completely though, typical direct gamer ;)