Part 1: Belief

I have a question for you. How can someone scrutinize the world scientifically and think through the world logically, while also actively practicing the magic only seen in fiction? These things should be counterproductive, or at least counterintuitive. However, when you realize that beliefs from knowledge and experiential beliefs can co-exist, I hope you will see that the opposite could not be further from the truth. 

To explain what I mean, lets explore how the average person creates knowledge. Logically, one would use the explanation that takes the least assumptions into account. To see this in action, lets use a scenario. Lets say for example you order delivery and the food is colder than you expect. Now you could assume that the delivery car went through the artic to get to you, but that would be making many assumptions (the driver would somehow make it to the artic, find a way to drive through the intense snow and ice, would think to go there to get to your house, would not stop to pet the penguins, etc.). Using deductive reasoning however, one would narrow down the assumptions as to what happened to more educated guesses (the driver left the window open, it sat in the restaurant for too long, etc.). This is how most people make conclusions. They take the beliefs they have and interrogate them with proven facts about their world. Putting it simply, belief + proven facts = knowledge. More often then not, they are correct to use this method, at least on some levels. However, what if this explanation is not enough?  

I saw no point in school as a child. I did not understand why I had to spend every day filling out papers, listening while adults talked at me, and be judged based on how well i preformed. However, it made the adults around me happy when I did do this, so I justified it to myself in the only way I knew how. I reframed school as a video game of sorts, where I was the hero making friends, fighting monsters, and saving the world again and again. This is what I will call experiential beliefs. Beliefs you choose to take on for any reason other than factual evidence. This is what happens when you believe in something because it advances your personal narrative, you just enjoy it, or any other reason. Now, I can see how someone would find these beliefs useless. After all, what use is a belief if it cannot be justified by the world around you? However, these are some of the most practical beliefs one can have, because they are the most empowering. By making your beliefs, and LARPing them into existence, as it were, you become inherently magical. You don't need evidence from objective reality to power your beliefs, because they don't come from objective reality to begin with. Most freeing of all, knowing the truth of these beliefs can keep yourself scientifically minded and skeptical, while also retaining your magic. 

Before I move on to my next point, Lets give a magical example with both frameworks. In particular, lets say a tarot card reading that you got was scarily accurate. Using the first framework, the evidence that we currently know about the world states that the accuracy was nothing more than our natural pattern seeking brains, and the archetypical nature of tarot relating to almost any situation. However, an experiential framework would state that the spirit of the cards/a deity/etc is using the cards to tell you a message. One framework is not inherently better than the other, and most important of all, they do not contradict each other. 

In terms of the experiential framework, it is also important to address any internal biases that may be influencing them. I believe that these narrative based frameworks are a work of art, and as with any art, the artist should review them for any of their personal biases leaking in. These biases are not inherently bad, as long as they are not hateful, or bigoted in nature. By realizing the truth of the experiential framework, I hope you can make your practice more inclusive and considerate of the world around you. As well, it is important that your experiential framework does not eclipse your physical safety (this is not to say it has to be "realistic", nor that you have to cater to societal standards to fit in, just  make sure that your experiential belief that you have wings does not convince you to jump off of any cliffs, etc.). 

That being said, It is one thing to know how to believe in something magically, but it is something completely different to know how to practice this magic. 

Part 2: Intention

Lets take two situations, both alike in many ways but with one very important difference. The first situation is as follows: following a power outage, someone lights a red candle with a match, in order to light the room around them.  The second situation is very similar: the red candle is still lit, but it is lit with the intention to cast a spell of protection. Both cases involve the same effort from the caster, and using proven knowledge, achieve the same result. The difference however, is simple: intention. 

Intention alone is what separates a mundane activity from a magical one. This is the key to your practice. You do not need any specific ritual, or to put in any extra effort to preform magic. All that is required is that you decide, in the moment, to make what your doing magical. Another example is this: your daydreaming can become travel to the astral realm without putting in effort to make it more immersive, or using meditation, etc. to amplify your mental world. You simply just have to decide that you are entering the astral realm, begin to daydream as normal, and Voila! You are there! As well, try not to worry that your belief isn't "strong enough", just saying the words "this is a ritual/astral travel/etc" or any variation of that is more powerful than you may think!

and defend Paris of Troy (well... sort of... he's still a dick, fuck that guy... but like... also in a very unenviable position)

reminder, there isn't really a mythological "canon", I do not intend to deliver to you the 100% canon accurate interpretation of the story of Paris, because there is no such thing.

Moving on, Paris' situation was kinda fucked, and I think there's some interesting things to be said

let us first explain who Paris is for those unaware, most of what I'm about to say is recounted in PseudoApollodorus' Bibliotheca

Paris was born to Hecuba and Priam, queen and king of the city of Troy

before he was born his mother had a nightmare that she would birth a torch that consumed the city in flame, and it was decided that this meant her son would bring the downfall of Troy

they wanted to kill him, but the guy they had kill him chickened out and chose the human option... of leaving him in the wilderness to die, as one does. You know what they say, if can't use Plan B, Plan C it is.

now luckily (or rather unluckily) he survived, and came to be raised as a shepherd. Interestingly according to Ovid, and I believe nobody else, Paris actually was a slave during this period of his life, though it makes sense, many abandoned children did get enslaved, to my knowledge, this was especially common in Rome, so this may be Ovid viewing this through a particularly Roman lens here.

According to PseudoApollodorus, Paris was pretty cool in his childhood, getting the name Alexandros, "defender of men" for being cool, and fighting off bandits and shit.

Eventually, through details we sadly lack to my knowledge, Paris fell in love with a nymph, Oenone. Sadly, there's not a ton attested about her, but what we do have seems to portray a genuinely positive relationship, though Oenone prophesied its eventually end due to the love he would develop for a foreign princess which would be his undoing.

moving on to the famous Judgement of Paris. Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena appear before the young Paris, and ask him which goddess is the most beautiful, and each offered him something in return for his answer being them. I want to note... there was no good answer here, I've seen people say "well [insert answer] would've been better." there wasn't a good answer, it would always have pissed off two of these goddesses, and also most certainly lead to Paris' and Troy's downfall, because that is what the Fates foretold, you can't just get out of a prophesy, any action would just lead you back to it.

In many ways, his choice of Aphrodite for the hand of Helen is actually a really genre-savvy answer from one perspective. He's promised power, glory, or love, and he chooses love. In many stories this would be the right answer, forsaking those other things for what really matters, love. Of course, this ends up being bad because... well first of he's cheating on Oenone, and, oopsies, Helen is married, and anyone who kidnaps her is going to be invaded by basically every Greek!

Thing is... did Paris know this? Did the shepherd/maybe slave know who tf Helen was? Realistically no. It's very possible in this situation to with no context, think, "Oh the last one seems like the least likely to blow up in my face."

as for the cheating thing, let me remind you... Aphrodite is the goddess of love, her retinue, the Erotes were generally believed to be able to overcome people with immense romantic feelings

In the Fall of Troy by Quintus Smyrnaeus, Paris tells Oenone as he dies, that it was not of his will that he abandoned her

now, the easiest way to take this is Paris is begging for his life, and is trying to present himself as a victim to evoke empathy to convince her to help him

however... considering the gods involved... yeah no it's possible he's being genuine here

In Ovid's Heroides, Oenone says this "Your tears fell as you left me – this, at least, deny not! We mingled our weeping, each a prey to grief; the elm is not so closely clasped by the clinging vine as was my neck by your embracing arms." which certainly strengthens the idea that Paris was heavily conflicted but moved by divine will

admittedly, I don't have much else to say, but idk, just some interesting things I don't see mentioned that often in reference to Paris (I also learned that Ovid called him a slave once? I did not know this, I learned this while looking for sources, oddly I've never seen anyone talk about this, I'm more interested in this now than anything else, like, I know it's just one line, but damn now I'm really curious what stories Ovid had access to that are today lost that made him say that.)

I know a bit about some myths from school, we read versions of Pandora's box, the Minotaur, Heracules, and the Odyssey. This was Year 4 so I was around 8-9, so there all probably a version for a child to read and understand. I also listened to Epic the Musical. I am fully aware of the inaccuracies of it from the original.

I'm just so overwhelmed on where do I start? Also I want to read the Iliad and Odyssey do have any recommendations for any versions?

hi! thank you for the ask, i'm gonna try my best to be helpful

disclaimer: i'm not a classicist nor a professional, this is just a passion of mine, so if anyone who has more credentials than me wants to chime in i'd be more than happy!

so! im gonna be listing some texts to look into, most of them i think are easily found on the internet, since they are so ancient and iconic. but before getting into that, i've found some helpful sites:

this site is a collection of classical texts: of course i'm not gonna be able to list every classical text here, i'm gonna recommend a few, so this is a good place to look if you want more, but i don't necessarily recommend reading them directly from here, since i know some of the translations are a bit outdated

this site, part of the same project, serves as a guide to gods, creatures, and heroes: again, some information may be a bit outdated, but it's a good place if you want to get a general idea

now, onto the texts themselves, there are a few i would recommend:

-the theogony by hesiod tells the origin of the gods and their genealogy

-works and days also by hesiod might be a little harder to get through, since it's mostly hesiod telling his brother how to work a farm, but it also contains the story of prometheus and pandora, and the myth of five ages

-the bibliotheca by pseudo-apollodorus is a collection of myths from the events of the theogony to odysseus, and it contains many famous myths, like those of the argonauts, perseus, heracles, theseus and various others

-the homeric hymns are useful it you want to know more about the gods, they are 33 and tell the stories of the birth of some gods or the establishment of their cult. they are 33, but some of the most famous are the hymn to demeter (the story of persephone's abduction), the hymn to athena (her birth from zeus' head) and the hymn to hermes (him stealing apollo's cows and creating the lyre)

-of course, the iliad and the odyssey by homer. the iliad comes chronologically before the odyssey and, contrary to popular belief, it isn't the story of the trojan war, but it covers a part of the last year of the war. the odyssey also isn't the linear journey of odysseus, it's mostly told in flashbacks

-the iliad and the odyssey are part of the epic cycle, a collection of works that tells a story that spans from the events leading up to the trojan war, the war itself, and the aftermath. apart from the iliad and the odyssey, the other works only survive in fragments, but they're worth looking into if you're curious about the trojan war

-finally, i also recommend reading some theatrical plays

from euridipus i recommend: medea, iphigenia in aulis, the trojan women

from sophocles i recommend: oedipus rex, antigone

from aeschylus i recommend: prometheus bound, the oresteia

now, as for what translation/version to read for the iliad and the odyssey, i'm afraid i can't be of much help because english isn't my first language, so i haven't read them in english and i can't offer firsthand advice, i've searched online and this is what i've found:

this is a collection of translations of the iliad and this is a collection of translations of the odyssey. overall, i've seen that the three translations that are most commonly suggested are by robert fagles, emily wilson and e.v. rieu. again, i haven't read these translations firsthand so if i'm mistaken, let me know!

Starting with Demeter, the first parallel shows up between the Homeric hymn to Demeter, where Demeter, grieving the kidnapping of Persephone, attempts to make Demophoon immortal by burning away his mortality with fire but is interrupted before the process is complete. Likewise, Thetis, fearing and (in a way) preemptively grieving the loss of her child to Hades (death, more literally) attempts to burn away Achilles' mortality in Argonautica, but is interrupted by Peleus. In most modern pop culture, they are both known from their myths of motherhood and loss of a rather famous child. In both cases we can also largely associate the loss of this child with Zeus, who persued each goddess, and who has sway over the outcomes of each child's life. He orchestrates the division of Persephone's time, and tilts the war in Achilles' favor. Throughout the Iliad we see Thetis operating in multiple maternal roles (advises Achilles, raised Hephaestus, comforted Dionysus and let him flee to the sea) so she's a foster parent of sorts to at least two others, while also having a child of her own, in a way it is like Demeter looking after Demophoon for a short time.

But she also paralells Persephone, for starters, she is given away to Peleus in marriage by a ruler of Olympus (though it is Hera who orchestrates it in the Iliad, and Zeus and Poseidon together in Bibliotheca). Much like how Persephone was given away by Zeus. When Ovid writes of how exactly they came to be together, it is brutal and disturbing. Peleus essentially kidnaps her, taking her from her realm to his. It is entirely without her consent and nothing short of sexual assault. Given that her dolphins are described in a way that almost implies companionship in both Metamorphoses and Achilleid, it creates a slightly weaker but still present parallel between Persephone and the nymphs playing, and Thetis spending her time with her dolphins.

Furthermore her presence in Phthia almost mirrors that of Persephone's time in the underworld, in the sense that the underworld is obviously a place of death and suffering, and those are two things which became present in Thetis' life following her marriage. And her time on land is inconsistent. Argonautica says she fled and never returned after failing to make Achilles immortal. But the Iliad mentions her being present and ruling in Phthia alongside Peleus in book sixteen. Statius adds to the complexity by having her appear to take Achilles to Skyros, and writes that she is aware of the events of his life. She also spends the Iliad traveling between land and sea. So, in a way (and a reach, honestly) her going back and forth between sea and land parallels Persephone going back and forth between the underworld and her home.

tiresias in the odyssey: listen, ur gonna find an island covered with cows, those are helios' cows. dont kill them. here are the exact directions to ithaca