"Sorcery has been
called Magic: but Magic is Wisdom, and
there is no wisdom in Sorcery" PARACELSUS.
Sorcery at times gets a bad wrap. But
these days the term is pretty popular with some of the best magicians
out there.
In my personal experience as a little
kid, the Sorceress in He-Man and She-Ra definitely had wisdom; that
was kind of the whole point of her character.
As I reached middle school and began
exploring comparative religion and studying magic I got a new concept
of sorcery: magic based in talismans and rituals that commanded
spirits but didn't involve any divine presence. It took on a kind of
non-religious shamanism image in my mind.
All in all, it wasn't a bad thing. I
interpreted it as magic focused on being effective and nothing else.
I can see why Paracelsus might say it
doesn't involve Wisdom though, if one interprets the Wisdom of magic
to be the return to a divine source for greater understanding of
ourselves, our world and our magic. Something wholly practical
wouldn't be about that. But that position certainly suggests a sort
of classism. Elite intellectuals get to do the real magic because
they have time to focus on the alchemy of rotting dung, while poor
cunning folk do evil magic not driven by wisdom, because they need to
eat. Normally I'm not so populist in my position, but there's a
definite sort of disenfranchisement. I'm not sure that sorcery is
even accurately described as something which ignores that search for
Wisdom. It's a narrative that isn't really meaningful anymore.
Anyway, as I kept getting older, and
kept studying magic, I began to see the negative connotations
associated with the word sorcery, and major writers from the magical
revival treating sorcery as black magic.
Studying mysticism and magic in an
academic context in college provided a similar definition of sorcery
to the one I held, and without the negative implications. I figured
college professors were right and Mathers and Crowley were wrong.
The system of magic into which I was
initiated at the time even used the term sorcery to describe one of
its grades, but I admitted feeling silly saying “I'm a Sorcerer in
the Order of Draco.” In our case sorcery referred to magic using
tactile implements such as dolls, and images, and links via
contagion, as well as physical objects in sympathy to a symbol of a
magical force or very basic sorts of talismans and fetishes.
Still, I felt silly, and I would look
at IGOS and think “hmm, why'd they go with sorcery...”
Even with feeling silly with the word,
I thought the negativity about it was stupid and I wrote at length
about how Mathers's use of the word to equate to black magic was
ignorant of the development of various terms, the histories of
various types of magic, and just kind of the world at large. But I
think I wanted to defend the word Goetia more than Sorcery.
In fact, the only thing that probably
would have led me to crap on sorcery was my limited appreciation of
Chaos magic. I considered Chaos magic to be largely a very modern
approach to a very simple sort of sorcery. I wasn't a huge fan.
Now, about 15 years later, I'm pretty
cool with most words for magic and magic users, and actually find that the most down to
earth and visceral terms seem to be the best. Some of these words
have a certain power to them due to cultural impacts much bigger than
our limited magical community. What seems neat though is, as I've
said, a lot of the best magicians have embraced the term sorcery to
describe their work, despite a lot of earlier late 20th century magicians rejecting the term.
I would think part of this may be
because “magic” carries with it so much these days that is not
magic. Ritualized therapy, religion restructured as magical ritual,
and things along those lines are not implied at all by the word
sorcery.
Sorcery still implies magic focused on
results. Magic which explores various technologies and uses them
appropriately. Magic with spirits and talismans. And, despite certain
prejudices, usually magic with some sort of divine or quasi divine
figures. Wisdom plus Results, this is probably why many of the best
magicians these days describe much of their work as sorcery.
Growing up I had a hugely ranging
interest in magic and have tried to study as many approaches and
methods as I could. Being able to work with the Merkavah one night,
Hoodoo another, the PGM the next, and then rounding it out with a
grimoire, or a modern technique the next night is appealing because
you have a wide and ranging tool box. I can work with the Black Man
in the Forest when appropriate, toss a rosary by my pillow when
needed, and conjure spirits of the second heaven as needed, all with
no contradiction, and without assuming that I am adopting paradigms
without their own reality. I can truly embrace them all as real.
Many modern sorcerers seem to have
spent time becoming an expert in their chosen method, but have also
spent significant time studying and exploring several others and can
approach them separately or work them together. The prevalence of
Afro-Caribbean systems amongst the community of grimoire magicians is
sort of puzzling and first glance but makes a lot of sense and is
pretty interesting as you think about it.
I think to some degree there is a
generational element to this. It isn't the old eclecticism and it
isn't appropriation. It's more like the tendency to multitask and
interlink things. For people who grew up in a hypermedia inspired
world there is not simply an idea that we can explore with depth
multiple discreet things and understand them individually and also as
part of a whole – that is simply how one approaches the world. In
fact, it is puzzling to us seeing people who do not approach the
world on the basis of interconnectivity.
So to close with a recollection that
amuses me. I was once speaking with someone about a sorcery class
series being offered at a local magic shop. I didn't anticipate the
person offering it to have anything of value but it was possible he
was simply sponsoring it, and so I was curious. The person with whom
I was speaking chuckled and said something to the effect of “Well,
no serious magicians would be calling what they do sorcery, so it
probably won't be good.” I thought to myself that it was much more
likely for a more advanced magician to call his work sorcery than
your average person to do so, but still felt the class was probably
not what I was looking for so it wasn't worth pointing out that these
days, the kids aren't talking about MacGregor Mathers's sorcery.
Anyway, I leave you with this...
http://www.brandstories.net/2012/08/10/gms-classic-storytelling-fail-not-your-fathers-oldsmobile/
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