UNTITLED MAGIC BOOK (excerpt) - 1/28/2022

DEFINING TERMS

Better minds than I have attempted to define magic, with little success. The only scholarly consensus around a definition of magic seems to be that magic cannot be concretely defined. The nature of magic changes depending on the culture it exists in. One man’s religion is another man’s magic. Sometimes magic evolves into science, and sometimes science reaches a frontier that produces magic. That said, for our purposes, we must start with a working definition of magic. It is not a perfect definition, but it is one that should match up with how most people reading this text already understand magic:

Magic: “The force which apparently influences the course of events by supernatural or mysterious means.”

The key words here are “supernatural” and “mysterious.” No matter what culture interacts with magic, it is always othered in some way. Magic is by its nature something strange and ephemeral. There are the things in the world we understand; plants grow, birds fly, the sun shines, etc. And there are the other things; the strange and unexplainable. Even cultures which consider magic to be an ordinary and ever-present force in life tend to relegate its manipulation to a select few experts who are trained in understanding magic.

Additionally, It is important to understand that magic is an ever-shifting thing. What is magic on friday may be science on monday. An herb’s ability to treat burns might be magic until a scientist discovers its chemical effect on the body. A strange experience might be thought of as a haunting until a doctor discovers the source of a carbon monoxide leak. A schizophrenic might see terrifying visions of gods and monsters until they are properly medicated. However, science has a tendency to answer a question, only to raise three more. Can a ghost be caught in a computer? Where does the mind go when we dream? What does it mean to die?

It is important to remember that magic is not rational, but neither is it irrational. The magical mindset can be best described as “non-rational.” Magic does follow a logic, but rather than the empirical logic of science or mathematics, it is the logic of dreams.

There are times in our lives when we come face to face with things that are truly new. While most of us generally try to behave like civilized, rational people, it is the nature of the world that we will be faced with ideas and experiences that we cannot understand on first glance. This is the realm of magic. It could be a new idea, an artistic goal or political ideology that we can’t immediately wrap our heads around. It could be an experience, perhaps a fever dream or a brush with death that changes our perception of the world. It could even be an object, a piece of new technology that feels incomprehensible, or even a tool with an unknown use. There are times when we are called upon to explore the strange and mysterious, to venture into the dark and discover the truth for ourselves.

When most people come across a tool of unknown use, generally their first instinct is not to start drawing up a hypothesis and designing an experiment to determine its design. Most people will take a look at its shape, and make guesses! Maybe the shape of the handle is similar to a pair of pliers, and it could be used for pinching something closed? It has a hook, maybe it's for holding something? Or removing something from something else? You have seen tools before, surely this works in a similar sense. (That is, if the object is a tool at all!)

This process is fundamentally no different than how many of the magicians of history interacted with the world. They found themselves immersed in a world of strange and mysterious things. Herbs that could heal, stones that shone like the sun, men and women who could speak to unseen bodies, and had to make sense of it based on similarities and likenesses. Gold is like the sun for how they shine. They must be connected.

It can be useful to think of magic as the body of knowledge which describes it. The magical properties of herbs and stones, the names and natures of spirits and how to interact with them, folk tales and religious beliefs, all of this creates a vast web of relationships and interactions that makes up what we call magic.

WHO DOES MAGIC?

Those who manipulate magic have had a thousand thousand names. Instead of quibbling over some imagined difference between Warlocks and Sorcerers, I will use the term “Practitioner” as a general, gender-neutral term for those who manipulate magic.

Practitioner: One who manipulates magic.

MAGIC AND RELIGION

The relationship between magic and religion is fluid. Questions of where religion ends and magic begins can vary wildly depending on the religion, the sub-culture within the religion, cultural background, and the individual's relationship to the religion. Some religions may have explicit prohibitions against what they define as magic, however at the same time, it is not uncommon for strict and literalist readings of scripture to produce more magical worldviews. This can be a tough thing to square for practitioners who are interested in magic, but also feel a strong connection to their religion. We will discuss this more as we delve into the history of magic. For now, understand that the relationship between magic and religion is fluid.

IS ANY OF THIS REAL?

An important question! Yes and no. For us to answer that question, we have to discuss the nature of reality for a bit.

Consider astrology. The positions of stars and planets do not have any measurable effect on our daily lives. They are inanimate objects. Yet, humanity has found the sky so wondrous and captivating that we have spent thousands of years telling stories about them. It is the nature of stories that they tend to influence how people think and feel and act. Humanity has defined the magic of the night sky, and is thus defined by the night sky in turn. Does that make astrology real? Maybe, maybe not. I believe it occupies a space between the two, or a superposition of real and not-real at the same time.

Continuing this line of thought, let us consider if astrology was 100% real; an inexorable universal law that can be used for perfect prediction. Would that make it acceptable to deny renters insurance to shifty and unpredictable capricorns? Should romantic relationships be legally mandated by their astrological match? After all, it would certainly cut down on interpersonal drama. These are exaggerations, obviously unjust situations to illustrate a point, but as a practitioner it is paramount that whenever you are introduced to a new magical idea, think to yourself: “If this was truly 100% real, what would that mean?”

ON REALITY

Buckle in dear reader, because we are about to oversimplify some philosophy.

Hold an orange in your hand. What color is it? Most people would say that it is orange. However, our answer can only ever be an educated guess. We rely on our eyes to catch the light bouncing off the orange. We rely on our brain to interpret the nature of the light correctly. We rely on our understanding of the world to interpret the messages from our eyes as the color orange. Every observation of the world is based on a chain of extraordinarily fallible processes. Philosophically speaking, it is nearly impossible to trust our senses, to consider any of our observations “truth.”

Normally speaking, the orange is orange. We all agree the orange is orange. You ask someone who studies color, they’ll say the orange is orange. Most people would be perfectly comfortable betting their life on an orange being orange.

At the other end of the spectrum, how real is an image of an orange? Surely by the simple fact that it is recognizable as an orange, even as a representation of an orange, it exists in some way? It would be perfectly easy to claim that the orange in the image is not real, but what does that mean for Love? Justice? Neither of these things can be depicted, they have no shape to mold, no form to paint, and yet it would be difficult not to consider them real. At a certain point, the word “real” feels like it becomes less and less useful.

Nothing is 100% real or 100% unreal, all of reality exists on a spectrum between the two. If the world exists on a spectrum, then it must exist in flux. The world is a sea. Reality pools heavy and thick in some places, and flows thin in others.

ON THE VEIL

The Veil is the boundary between the mundane and the strange. Between the waking world and the world of dreams lies The Veil. The term has its origins in “On Isis and Osiris,” a philosophical interpretation of ancient Egyptian religion by Plutarch, a Greek writer in the late first and early second centuries CE. In the text, he describes a statue of the goddess Isis which bore the inscription  "I am all that has been and is and shall be; and no mortal has ever lifted my garment” which he translated as “veil” or “mantle.” In this case, The Veil is interpreted to represent the body of hidden knowledge that humanity has yet to discover.

The term saw a resurgence in the romantic era, where it came to mean awe-inspiring knowledge, rather than natural understanding. The term saw further resurgence in contemporary witchcraft circles, where it became associated with terms like “Piercing the Veil” or “Rending the Veil” referring to acts of ceremonial magic which reveal some hidden knowledge or aspect of the world.

For our purposes, The Veil will refer to the boundary between the mundane and the strange. Think of it less like a curtain, and more like the surface of the sea. It flows, it ripples. It can shift and pool and make great waves. It is permeable, and only the beginning.

HOW DOES MAGIC WORK?

Magic is not simply a force, it is something that can be done. The nature of magic is ever-shifting and culturally defined, but over the course of history it begins to rhyme. Patterns emerge. Magic comes in three overarching forms. These archetypes are defined on the overall goals of the practitioner; Transcendent magic, Transactional Magic, and Transformative magic.

Transcendent magic is used when interacting with forces that are beyond human control. The universe is bigger than us. The wheel of fortune is turned by the tide of fate and we humans are here to bear the consequences. Storms level our homes, mysterious relatives die and leave us fortunes, electronics catch spontaneous fire, every moment of every day we are subject to forces that we understand, but are beyond our ability to effect.

An astrologer checks the signs for the betrothed, determining the most auspicious day for marriage. A monk sits in silence, pondering the nature of god. A young woman chooses a green dress for her date, dates always seem to go better when she wears green.

We read the stars, we cast runes, we draw cards, all in an attempt to gain insight into the machinations of the world, to touch something untouchable. For are we not made of the same matter as storms and gold and fire? Are we not pulled by the same gravity? Are we not warmed by the same sun and cooled by the same night? For all its marvellous and ineffable complexity, we are not distinct from the world in any way that matters.

Transactional magic is used for forming, maintaining, and breaking contracts with the universe in its myriad forms. Payment made, bargain kept. A priest offers prayer to god in hopes that a sinner will be pardoned. A shaman bangs a drum as the people dance, offering the sound and frivolity to the spirits in hopes that they will bring rain. Students rub the head of a bronze dog statue for good luck on their finals.

There is often an element of personification to transactional magic, to make a bargain with something implies an intelligence with which a bargain can be made. However, this Other is not necessary for transactional magic. A campfire warms us at the cost of burning through its wooden fuel. The actual mechanitions of the bargain are often irrelevant.

The universe is an easy thing to personify. If there is beauty to be found in the human experience, it is found in our ability to see ourselves in the world. The sky may storm and rage and we ask it what is wrong. Is it upset? Is there anything we can do to help? Perhaps if we cooked some meat and wine over a fire, the smoke would drift up to the sky and it would stop raining.

Transformational magic Is used to turn one thing to another, and to imbue things with special properties. A priest stands over a basin of water, making it holy. A viking warrior kills a bear and brings its bones to the smith, who will burn them in the kiln to turn iron to steel. A mother stares over the counter to her children as she stirs a pot with love.

The wonders of the physical world are endless. Today we understand every chemical reaction that facilitates the fermentation of grape juice into wine, every step has been recorded, cataloged, and fine-tuned with the sharpest tools available to science. None of this has made the transformation any less magical.

Understand that hard distinctions are antithetical to a proper understanding of magic. These three archetypes are not hard categories. They are a triple intersection that mix and blend and overlap. Consider a place where a mountain range, a forest, and a grassland meet. There are no hard borders between the biomes, forest fades into grassland, the woods climb the slopes of the mountain, as do the grasses and flowers.

ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF MAGICAL OBJECTS

ON CRYSTALS

ON WOOD

ON THE ELEMENTS

The four classical elements are foundational to modern magic.

A SHORT HISTORY OF MAGIC

PRE-HISTORY

MESOPOTAMIA

EGYPT

JEWISH MAGIC

GRECO-ROMAN MAGIC

MEDIEVAL MAGIC

RENAISSANCE MAGIC

EARLY MODERN MAGIC

LATE MODERN MAGIC

INFORMATION AGE MAGIC