from the notebook
The magican; 'wizard', right, he 'casts spells', right, he can turn you into a frog; what the hell is this? To what does the magican here connect to? What does 'magican' mean, anyway? It means 'One who knows'. Is this an innate knowledge? Surely the description of every wizard mage and sorceror in fiction and history is better termed as 'shaman'. Magic isn't something unreal, something illusory. It's something more real. It's a connection to the axis mundi, link between higher and lower planes, earth and skies, life and other-life. Because the Shaman knows things, the Shaman can do things. A stick will do as well as a wand. A crude drawing as well as an ancient artifact. It's all symbols, isn't it, it's all reality hacking, it's all playing with what you got. It ain't goddamn magic missile.