Mental Discipline in the WW: A Comparison (long) (was:Snape the Zen Master...)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 130420

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" 
<horridporrid03 at y...> wrote:

> Betsy Hp:
> You knew I was going to bring up resisting the Imperius Curse, 
> right?  Because not only is it *exactly* resisting the penetration 
> of your mind or will (without wand or words), but Snape even tells 
> us (and Harry) that Occlumency calls on similar skills. And I can't 
> resist a certain ironic chuckle at you raising an exceptionalism 
> argument. Because I have to differ.  There's not a single aspect of 
> Occlumency, as described in the books that seems outside of the 
> construct of magic JKR has already given us.   

The difference, again, is that while Imperius resistance depends upon 
the generation of a state of being (Harry hears the little voice, 
etc.), it's then actualized into *a single act of resistance*, 
expelling the invader.

> Betsy Hp:
> And yet, within JKR's world we've seen *tons* of examples of magic 
> without wands and words.  The first magic we witness is wandless 
> and wordless (the disappearing glass).  I would also point out how 
> very mundane the magic actually is.  Wizards and witches don't need 
> to reach a certain spiritual level in order to access their 
> powers. Their magic is as much a part of them as their fingers and 
> toes.  And they use their magic in much the same way, as a simple 
> tool rather than a conduit to another dimension or plane.  The 
> children have magic; they learn to use it.  And if you don't have 
> magic, no matter what sort of mental gymnastics you put yourself 
> through, you will never have magic (hence the tragedy of Filch).

Babies have to learn how to walk, although they have feet to do it 
on.  And no amount of will can make you do a backflip if you don't 
know how and haven't built up the muscles.  (Front flips are so much 
easier... :)  That is to say, while magic is definitely mundane there 
is still a learning process for actualizing one's abilities.  If it 
were so easy, no one would have to go to school.

I'd say there is a certain spiritual (or perhaps better, 
psychological) level to magic, though.  Look at poor Neville.  McG is 
right--what he needs is confidence in himself, getting down with 
himself, to make his magic work.  And if book 5 isn't the story of 
Neville's cultivation of his previously latent and unactualized 
qualities, I don't know what he's doing in the book.  Harry can't 
cast an effective Crucio because he's lacking in the desire to hurt 
people--but Bellatrix's words imply that this can be cultivated.

I wouldn't say there's a ton of wandless magic.  Wandless magic in 
the kids is presented as being uncontrolled (vanishing glass, etc.); 
Dumbledore does things, but he's badass and continually presented as 
exceptional.  Authorial comment via interview (which is so useful for 
mechanics of a world, which is what we're arguing now) tells us that 
wandless magic is unpredictable/etc.

But again, what distinguishes all these things is that they're 
discrete actions.  Dumbledore claps and summons the food.  Snape 
controls the ropes he'd summoned with his wand, with his hand.  Harry 
makes the wand light up.

Occlumency is the least discrete *action* magic we've ever seen.  
Occlumency is not the act of pushing someone out of your mind so that 
they know they've been pushed out, or else it would be utterly 
ineffective for spying.  [This is, of course, making a small 
assumption that Occlumency is being used by Snape for spying--which I 
am under the impression you were a general partisan of.  I can't 
imagine how Occlumency would be useful in a stealth situation if the 
Legilimens it was being used against really could *tell* that it was 
being used.  This is admitted conjecture, but if you have a way 
around it.  Snape had to have some way to keep his ass from getting 
fried iin the first war, and I can't see Voldemort not pulling out 
the big guns if he could tell someone was hiding things, even if he 
couldn't then tell what they were hiding.]  It's a being-thing (I am 
in a condition where my mind is impenetrable, I will not let you in) 
as opposed to a doing-thing (get OUT!).

Now, if you can show me any other magic that seems about getting 
oneself into a condition as opposed to taking a discrete action...  
Patronus is a discrete action, resulting in a summoning.  Imperius 
Resistance is a discrete action, which throws off the curse in a 
concerted act of will.  Effectively resisting the continued 
application of force...stative.

Maybe I'm on the wrong track and making too fine of a philosophical 
distinction (kinesis, kinema, whatever).  But I think there's a 
significant enough thing dissimilar.

> Betsy Hp:
> Wait, what am I ignoring again?  Because if Dumbledore takes over 
> teaching Occlumency to Harry and he says, "Right, now tell me, 
> what's the sound of one hand clapping?" I will be shocked, to say 
> the least.  I'm not "picking and choosing what parts of human 
> psychology" to apply.  JKR has already done that for us.  Wizards 
> and witches can overcome a clinical depression by thinking of one 
> happy thought and using the proper incantation. It flies in the 
> face of our understanding of human psychology, but that's magic.

They can banish a Dementor--which is not depression in and of itself 
(an internal phenomenon) but an external being that JKR was inspired 
to create out of her experience of depression, which induces a state 
thereof.  If depression itself were so easily banished, why was 
Sirius so unhappy all through OotP?  (Fine distinctions, you know.)

If DD teaches Occlumency, I wouldn't be surprised if he takes a far 
more indirect approach than Snape, as opposed to "Clear your mind and 
I'm going to try this on you."  But then he's an altogether much more 
subtle personality and probably has a finer appreciation of how to 
approach something by building up seemingly secondary skills.

-Nora loves words that don't quite work in English like being-thing