Magick Without Tears (2nd Attempt)
So, I've written a bit on magic for my Leverage.meets-occult-horror thing. To be honest I don't see the player characters as conjurers, but a bit of background is always handy, yeah?
Well, your fingers weave quick minarets
Speak in secret alphabets
I light another cigarette
Learn to forget
The Doors - Soul Kitchen
As said previously, magic comes from inside the conjurer, from rituals, and from, well, darker powers. However, the person must first be ready to use their own power, there must be some form of personal epiphany. The road to Damascus shit, as it were.
Remember one important fact: There are no hard rules when it comes to magic. The stuff below are guidelines at best.
One would think that religion would be rife with conjurers, right? After all there is spirituality and ritual. It doesn't seem to be the case, or rather it limits the scope of what the conjurer can do.
If you have attended high mass, or been present in the Candomblé tent as the gods are invoked, it is undeniable that there is an energy. It is with this energy that the religious person's encounter with the world of magic begins and ends.
There is an obvious social and cultural power in these ritual situations, a feeling of community, shared purpose and sometimes even idolation of the ritual leader. With this power, the potential conjurer is often stuck in a rut. The purpose of the religious situation becomes the adoration or authority of the crowd, or the collective effervescence, and the ritual simply the means to reliving this experience. The conjurer becomes content, and won't transcend to the next step.
The step that opens the conjurer up to magic is one that must transcends routine, or exaggerate some facet of it. This is by no means a safe or certain process. Many search, but few find, and few things in this world are as dangerous as the seekers after wisdom.
Here are a few examples of paths and rumors about how one opens oneself to magic.
The Brotherhood of Humanity: This is a pamphlet that circulates in occult bookstores, New Age retreats and university campuses. Most people consider it rank bs.
Leave behind the hoary writings of Plato and the dubious scholarship of von Däniken. End your fruitless seaches at Santorini and Sipylus. Atlantis is a metaphor. It is Mind.
We are separated from the clarity of the Supernal only by our clinging to the Self. The Self which breeds monsters to fill the Abyss which seperates soul from soul. Yet it is through the Self we emerge at our destination. We must seek physical fulfilment, and then step beyond it.
Sex is only the first step upon the road of true intimacy. You must lose yourself in the lust and joy of another, regardless of societal boundaries. Clad only in beast perfume we must step beyond shame. Each hot breath we take in each others embrace is a diamond, endlessly reflecting the Self and the Other, until they become interchangable.
The adept's next step is the secret of shared thoughts, shared emotions. From the first stumbling telepathic steps, ever greater intimacy is gained, and a more erotic possibility emerges: If we could become each other. Here an ineffable leap is needed, before we step into the City that is Mind, that is We. As we walk its streets We know Ourselves.
You may take my hand. It is your own.
The Heavenly Machinery: Beneath the pleasant streets of Cranston, Rhode Island a machine is humming impatiently. Some say it was built from schematics left behind by spiritualist John Murray Spear. Others claim that it is part of a UFO, or a great machine-god, bent on recreating the world.
Whatever it is, it's a vast thing, full of cogwheels, pistons and smoke. Scattered about the underground chamber where it sits are the preserved corpses of those found wanting. Exactly what the criteria are, no one knows (or maybe they are not telling).
The process itself is by all accounts gruelling. The prospective adept must subject himself to the machinery, its heat, tearing blades and cruel grinding wheels. What emerges from this gruesome experience is a human being rebuilt, humming with relentless power and energy.
The Seventh Proof: St. Thomas Aquinas enumerates five proofs of God's existence, and Kant adds another one. The idea of the Seventh Proof is found in Mikhail Bulgakov's novel, The Master and Margarita. One might say that it is the final and experiential proof: an encounter with the Devil. Several religious or stupid seekers of wisdom have tried to provoke a meeting with the Devil, in order to cement their conviction and thus their inner strength.
The erudute reader will of course remember that the character in Bulgakov's book only realized the truth of the Seventh Proof as he was being decapitated by a tram.
Thögal: This technique is not unique to Tibetan Buddhists, but I'll use their term as a catch-all term for meditative techniques that send the adept into a state virtually indistinguisable from death. Those who manage to master the art of courting death become capable of some very dark feats of magic.
Stark raving: There is a persistent rumor that madness may open the mind to power, that profound truth can be found at the bottom of a breakdown. Try this at your peril.
Mentor: It certainly is possible to learn magic from someone who already has wisdom. Of course it is hard to find such a person, let alone one willing to teach. Conjurers are self-centered, paranoid and antisocial as a rule. Learning magic from a mentor will be hard work at the best of times.
Splash: Encountering the supernatural, whether it be a creature, or spillover from a spell, can often awaken something in a person. The stronger the magic, the higher the likelihood.
Black books: People talk of The Key of Solomon, the Voynich Manuscript, the lost chapters of Kircher's Mundus Subterraneus, the secret diary of Charles Manson, even. Books so potent that they will imbue the reader with supernatural wisdom and vision.
Such books certainly do exist, but they are often not the ones you'd imagine.
A further caveat: searching for the secrets scribbled on Harry Houdini's skin will often bring you into contact with people of the darkest sort. No, not conjurers, usually. Bibliophiles.
Darkest powers: That's another classic of course. Getting into bed with something powerful and inhuman. Here follows a snippet from a long-abandoned blog:
The scholars tell us that warlock is a word that means 'deceiver' or 'oath-breaker', an it is an apt term. The warlock has given himself to darkness in a very fundamental sense. He may not work to do its bidding (but many do), or feel any sympathy for its causes and urges, but he belongs to it nonetheless.
Has a warlock then sold his soul? Only in a figurative manner of speaking. What the warlock has sold is his destiny. Humans grow, we hurt, we love, we die. The warlock has set himself apart from all this. He may rise to greatness, but always know that he is raised on the back of lies. He can no longer discern the difference between his own accomplishments and those of his benefactors, and while the power he accumulates may be heady, he has become a stranger to himself, and to the world.
Beware the warlock, for he has left his humanity behind. In his search to feel the joys that he thinks he ought, he is capable of the most blood-curdling atrocities.
Furthermore, a warlock's destiny seems to be contagious. Happenstance is askew in the places that warlocks call theirs. Good fortune may come your way, often spectacularly so, but it will be poisonous to you. Like the warlock himself, you may gain the world by losing it.
Next time I'll talk a bit about rules.
Well, your fingers weave quick minarets
Speak in secret alphabets
I light another cigarette
Learn to forget
The Doors - Soul Kitchen
As said previously, magic comes from inside the conjurer, from rituals, and from, well, darker powers. However, the person must first be ready to use their own power, there must be some form of personal epiphany. The road to Damascus shit, as it were.
Remember one important fact: There are no hard rules when it comes to magic. The stuff below are guidelines at best.
One would think that religion would be rife with conjurers, right? After all there is spirituality and ritual. It doesn't seem to be the case, or rather it limits the scope of what the conjurer can do.
If you have attended high mass, or been present in the Candomblé tent as the gods are invoked, it is undeniable that there is an energy. It is with this energy that the religious person's encounter with the world of magic begins and ends.
There is an obvious social and cultural power in these ritual situations, a feeling of community, shared purpose and sometimes even idolation of the ritual leader. With this power, the potential conjurer is often stuck in a rut. The purpose of the religious situation becomes the adoration or authority of the crowd, or the collective effervescence, and the ritual simply the means to reliving this experience. The conjurer becomes content, and won't transcend to the next step.
The step that opens the conjurer up to magic is one that must transcends routine, or exaggerate some facet of it. This is by no means a safe or certain process. Many search, but few find, and few things in this world are as dangerous as the seekers after wisdom.
Here are a few examples of paths and rumors about how one opens oneself to magic.
The Brotherhood of Humanity: This is a pamphlet that circulates in occult bookstores, New Age retreats and university campuses. Most people consider it rank bs.
Leave behind the hoary writings of Plato and the dubious scholarship of von Däniken. End your fruitless seaches at Santorini and Sipylus. Atlantis is a metaphor. It is Mind.
We are separated from the clarity of the Supernal only by our clinging to the Self. The Self which breeds monsters to fill the Abyss which seperates soul from soul. Yet it is through the Self we emerge at our destination. We must seek physical fulfilment, and then step beyond it.
Sex is only the first step upon the road of true intimacy. You must lose yourself in the lust and joy of another, regardless of societal boundaries. Clad only in beast perfume we must step beyond shame. Each hot breath we take in each others embrace is a diamond, endlessly reflecting the Self and the Other, until they become interchangable.
The adept's next step is the secret of shared thoughts, shared emotions. From the first stumbling telepathic steps, ever greater intimacy is gained, and a more erotic possibility emerges: If we could become each other. Here an ineffable leap is needed, before we step into the City that is Mind, that is We. As we walk its streets We know Ourselves.
You may take my hand. It is your own.
The Heavenly Machinery: Beneath the pleasant streets of Cranston, Rhode Island a machine is humming impatiently. Some say it was built from schematics left behind by spiritualist John Murray Spear. Others claim that it is part of a UFO, or a great machine-god, bent on recreating the world.
Whatever it is, it's a vast thing, full of cogwheels, pistons and smoke. Scattered about the underground chamber where it sits are the preserved corpses of those found wanting. Exactly what the criteria are, no one knows (or maybe they are not telling).
The process itself is by all accounts gruelling. The prospective adept must subject himself to the machinery, its heat, tearing blades and cruel grinding wheels. What emerges from this gruesome experience is a human being rebuilt, humming with relentless power and energy.
The Seventh Proof: St. Thomas Aquinas enumerates five proofs of God's existence, and Kant adds another one. The idea of the Seventh Proof is found in Mikhail Bulgakov's novel, The Master and Margarita. One might say that it is the final and experiential proof: an encounter with the Devil. Several religious or stupid seekers of wisdom have tried to provoke a meeting with the Devil, in order to cement their conviction and thus their inner strength.
The erudute reader will of course remember that the character in Bulgakov's book only realized the truth of the Seventh Proof as he was being decapitated by a tram.
Thögal: This technique is not unique to Tibetan Buddhists, but I'll use their term as a catch-all term for meditative techniques that send the adept into a state virtually indistinguisable from death. Those who manage to master the art of courting death become capable of some very dark feats of magic.
Stark raving: There is a persistent rumor that madness may open the mind to power, that profound truth can be found at the bottom of a breakdown. Try this at your peril.
Mentor: It certainly is possible to learn magic from someone who already has wisdom. Of course it is hard to find such a person, let alone one willing to teach. Conjurers are self-centered, paranoid and antisocial as a rule. Learning magic from a mentor will be hard work at the best of times.
Splash: Encountering the supernatural, whether it be a creature, or spillover from a spell, can often awaken something in a person. The stronger the magic, the higher the likelihood.
Black books: People talk of The Key of Solomon, the Voynich Manuscript, the lost chapters of Kircher's Mundus Subterraneus, the secret diary of Charles Manson, even. Books so potent that they will imbue the reader with supernatural wisdom and vision.
Such books certainly do exist, but they are often not the ones you'd imagine.
A further caveat: searching for the secrets scribbled on Harry Houdini's skin will often bring you into contact with people of the darkest sort. No, not conjurers, usually. Bibliophiles.
Darkest powers: That's another classic of course. Getting into bed with something powerful and inhuman. Here follows a snippet from a long-abandoned blog:
The scholars tell us that warlock is a word that means 'deceiver' or 'oath-breaker', an it is an apt term. The warlock has given himself to darkness in a very fundamental sense. He may not work to do its bidding (but many do), or feel any sympathy for its causes and urges, but he belongs to it nonetheless.
Has a warlock then sold his soul? Only in a figurative manner of speaking. What the warlock has sold is his destiny. Humans grow, we hurt, we love, we die. The warlock has set himself apart from all this. He may rise to greatness, but always know that he is raised on the back of lies. He can no longer discern the difference between his own accomplishments and those of his benefactors, and while the power he accumulates may be heady, he has become a stranger to himself, and to the world.
Beware the warlock, for he has left his humanity behind. In his search to feel the joys that he thinks he ought, he is capable of the most blood-curdling atrocities.
Furthermore, a warlock's destiny seems to be contagious. Happenstance is askew in the places that warlocks call theirs. Good fortune may come your way, often spectacularly so, but it will be poisonous to you. Like the warlock himself, you may gain the world by losing it.
Next time I'll talk a bit about rules.