Tag Archives: specific

Charisma, the projection of an aura of self confidence, is based on a simple trick. After a short while there is no difference at all between the pretence and the actuality of self confidence. Anyone wishing to remedy a lack of confidence and charisma, and uncertain as to how to begin pretending to these qualities, may find that a day or two spent pretending to absolute zero self confidence will quickly reveal both the effectiveness of pretence and the specific thoughts, words, gestures and postures required to project either pretence.

Pete Carroll, Rituals and Spell Objectives and Design in Eight Magics

Hermetic quote Carroll Rituals and Spell Objectives and Design in Eight Magics charisma self confidence trick pretence actuality

The past (the tradition that leads to our electronic present) is, for the Web user, irrelevant, since all that counts is what is currently displayed. Compared to a book that betrays its age in its physical aspect, a text called up on the screen has no history. Electronic space is frontierless. Sites-that is to say, specific, self-defined homelands-are founded on it but neither limit nor possess it, like water on water. The Web is quasi-instantaneous; it occupies no time except the nightmare of a constant present. All surface and no volume, all present and no past, the Web aspires to be (advertises itself as) every user’s home, in which communication is possible with every other user at the speed of thought. That is its main characteristic: speed.

Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]

Hermetic quote Manguel The Lbrary at Night web quasi-instantaneous occupies no time except a nightmare of a constant present