| |
|
(This post gets a bit rambly, sorry -- a lot of this is cribbing from my current work, posts/emails i've written elsewhere and two papers i'm currently writing, so there's quite a lot of stuff going on here...)
I guess I was thinking more along the lines of P Carroll and the grand theorising of K Wilbur? More the systematic typology of magics and workings than the actual practices I reckon.
I'm imagining something like a comparative anthropology, history and psychology of magics all rolled into one, and I'd rather hear it from a scholar-practitioner than a non-practicing scholar.
Hehe. Big ask. I think there's a lot of stuff that exists in this area, and the categorical, semi-systematic study of magic as a distinct ontology / epistemology has made something of a transition from the domain of the practitioner to the academic, and there exists an interesting conversation taking place these days between academics and practitioners. Of interest to me is Alex Owen's analysis of Crowley's deconstruction of the self as a modernist phenomenon (pp215-220 of The Place of Enchantment, the final chapter of which articulates an interesting theoretical model, using - IIRC - Lyotard as the basis to articulate a theoretical basis for the stdy of esotericism). A lot of the doctorates supervised by Ronald Hutton seem to be aiming to pioneer in this area, but the problem with crossover fields is that they tend to be subject to a lot of problems: emerging fields often attract second or third rate scholars at first, and practitioners often play fast and loose with academic methodology and frequently lack the framework for truly incisive analysis. Conversely academia still finds it difficult to engage with the accounts and experiences of practitioners entirely seriously - there tends to be a myopia that affects the ability to understand that the aims of the academic and the mystic are different.
I'd say, before the rest of this answer, that I'm both an academic and a practitioner, so I *do* think the two can cross over, though I think there *are* certain issues that arise.
I think looking at Carroll's models of magic is probably something of a dead end as far as this goes, as Carroll's system of thinking doesn't really engage with the long history of western magic before and up to the Golden Dawn - valuable though Chaos Magic was, I think it represented the first intimations of a postmodern turn on magic that actually sort of fails to make the leap to engage with the real problems postmodernism presents, as well as relying on a strawman caricature of its direct antecedents. W.B. Crow's History of Magic represents a sort of attempted systematisation of western magical history, which probably says more about Crow's ideology than the history of the magic in the west. Interesting read, though.
But I think there is a constant instinct in the intellectual history of magic to rcome to terms with those who have gone before, whether it's in terms of the catena aurea - the mythical chain of initiatic predecessors - or more frequently a synthesis of one's *textual* predecessors. I think it's important to realise there *has* been a more-or-less continuous magico-intellectual tradition that has been transmitted through texts, manuscripts, bound up in the history of Christianity and early science.
It is true that the WMT writers – and I think particularly of the matrix of thought and dogma descended through Dion Fortune and those organisations that arose from her – would frequently give one the impression that everything started with a shadowy Rosicrucian cipher in the late 19th century. Certainly the GD’s mania for syncretism seems to betoken a need for the *creation* of a system rather than a continuation of something already existing. I would, however, argue that it demonstrates a couple of key trends: the continuation of a tradition of re-reading and the creation of a framework into which to bring various traditions together.
Something that perhaps gets lost in contemporary books on magic is that the western tradition of magic (and there is a western tradition) hasn’t always been predominantly about self-illumination and the various solitary and solipsistic activities that concept suggests; historically, western magic has largely been balanced between communication and action on the one hand, and the illumination of man on the other. It is only in the Victorian era that these twin functions get severed
The sources and roots of the Western tradition are diverse. There is the obvious Hermetic stream, coming from 1st-3rd century Alexandria, through the Greek Magical Papyri, and the various texts attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. Ficino, the Florentine Renaissance magician-scholar wrote, in his introduction to his translation of the Corpus Hermeticum, that Trismegistus was the first among philosophers to turn “… from physical and mathematical topics to contemplation of things divine, and the first to discuss with great wisdom the majesty of God, the orders of demons and the transformation of souls.” (Ficino 1576, cf translation and commentary in Copenhaver 1992)
Though the majority of the philosophical Hermetica do not concern themselves explicitly with magic, there are passages which do allude to practice, in particular the famous and explicitly magical ‘god-making’ passage in the Asclepius (Ascl. 23-24, see also Plotinus, Enneads IV.3.11); the text also contains the celebrated passage beginning “Propter haec, o Asclepi…” (Ascl 6), which was immensely influential on the renaissance magicians’ understanding of man.
Though the Greek Magical Papyri have only been rediscovered and made accessible relatively recently, a great deal of the technical hermetica were preserved by Arab authors who alluded to Hermes, such as Geber, Al-Kindi and Abu Mashar, and their writings were influential in Europe during the middle ages, and, more explicitly, versions of the Emerald Tablet and the manuscripts of the Picatrix and its astrological magic were circulating alongside other more obscure tracts attributed to Hermes from the eleventh century onwards (cf Thorndike II 214-229). (One might speculate about the origins of the rosicrucian myth, as it has obvious and demonstrable parallels with Arabic myths about Iamblichus.)
I should also point out that the Western tradition has its roots in neoplatonic pagan Theurgy as expressed in particular by Iamblichus and Proclus. Iamblichus’ Theurgia was particularly influential on later magicians, as it is the first articulation of a philosophy that puts magic (a magic of communication with spirits and Gods, no less) at its centre, and discusses the hierarchy of spirits, the effects of possession and the invocation of spirits in the most enthusiastic terms:
“A god, an angel, and a good daemon instruct man in what their proper essence consists… Angels and daemons always receive truth from the Gods, so that they never assert anything contrary to this.” (Iamblichus II.10)
Proclus sounds strikingly modern when he writes as follows:
“…there are men who are possessed and who receive a divine spirit. Some receive it spontaneously, like those who are said to be ‘seized by God’ […] There are others who work themselves into a state of inspiration by deliberate action. In order for a Theagogy and an inspiration to take effect, they must be accompanied by a change in consciousness.” (quoted by Psellus, published in des Places’ Oracles Chaldaïques)
and he also notes that “…by observing such things and connecting them to the appropriate heavenly beings, the ancient wise men brought divine powers into the region of mortals, attracting them through likeness. For likeness is sufficient to join beings to one another.”
Copenhaver (1988) has demonstrated that Proclus and Iamblichus both had influence on later magicians, especially Ficino and Agrippa. However, beyond cosmology and philosophy, there seems to have been scanty practical experiments in magic that come down to us outside of the PGM. Though the astrological magic of the Picatrix was to have a significant influence on the Renaissance magicians, it is to the medieval period that we owe much of our tradition’s history of practical magic.
The medieval period sees the continuation of the pseudepigraphic tradition (ie, attributing authorship to legendary figures – Enoch, Noah, Hermes) and the emergence of a new magical figure – King Solomon. From the thirteenth to the seventeenth century, a variety of books of ritual magic proliferated, all attributed to the Biblical King. These were condemned in no uncertain terms by various scholastic writers, including (ironically, given his reputation) Albertus Magnus, Guillaume d’Auvergne and Roger Bacon. The famous Keys of Solomon represent the preoccupation of magicians until the 19th century – communication with spirits, and getting things done, largely through the evocation of spirits and the construction of talismans. The spiritual exaltation of the magician is not neglected, but it is complemented by action. For a better picture of this stream of thought see Clare Fanger’s Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic.
Particular mention should again be made of the Picatrix here, which seems to have been the link between the preserved hermetic traditions and astrological magic of the Arabic system of thought and the Neoplatonic magical revival of the Renaissance.
There is not space to explain in depth the rebirth of magic in the Renaissance, and a large number of books have been written on the subject, in particular by D.P. Walker and Frances Yates. There are relatively few works which examine the complex magical thought of Pico della Mirandola and Marsilio Ficino in real depth, but the magic proposed by Ficino is primarily sympathetic and astrological, involving the making of talismans and the use of sympathetic substances. His magic involves the freeing and exaltation of the human soul through the use of supernatural forces, essentially a Christianised form of Hermetic thought (See in particular De Vita… 3.26)
Pico is largely responsible for the introduction of Cabala to the western tradition, and in his 26 Conclusiones Magicae, he argues that there is nothing more powerful to prove the divinity of Christ than Cabala and magic (CM 9), and distinguishes between lawful natural magic and unlawful, diabolic magic. (An act of intellectual prestidigitation originally carried out by Ficino). In his Oration on the Dignity of Man, Pico creates a great, heterodox synthesis, stretching from the Cabala to Zoroaster, and is responsible for the image of the exalted magus in ecstasy: “As the farmer weds the elm to the vines, even so does the magus wed earth to heaven, that is, he weds lower things to the endowments and powers of higher things.”
We should also take in the influx of texts on Angelic magic in the Renaissance. Though angelic magic had always been a theme of medieval magical literature, it is the renaissance that sees the great flourishing of Angelic and celestial magic, from Trithemius through Agrippa and onwards. Agrippa, of course, is the great synthesiser of the diverse medieval traditions of magical thought and cosmology, and his three books give the data of the magical tradition, but not its method. The notorious ‘fourth Book’, not written by Agrippa, but attributed to him, demonstrates how the traditional method of evocation suggested in the Solomonic manuscripts as well as other sources (particularly Abano) could be used to make Agrippa’s static data operative.
The conclusion should not be drawn that because the historical published books on magic are tables of correspondence, catalogues or systems of cosmology, little in the way of practical magic was carried out. The risks of committing method to paper should be obvious; it is only in the manuscript traditions, Solomonic and otherwise, that we have evidence that magic was performed. Interestingly, though the philosophy and forms change, the core of this tradition remains the same, the use of sympathetic materials in talismanic magic and the evocation of spirits. With regard to the latter, we come to Dee and his angelic conversations. I do not propose to examine Dee at length, but it should be observed that he unites the desire for spiritual illumination, insight into the universe and similar aims with a magical system that includes catalogues of angels to help discover treasure and cure sickness.
Through examination of the prolific manuscript trail, it becomes quite clear that throughout the Renaissance and through to the present day, there have been groups of magicians working with the evocation of Angels and demons, and this, I suspect, is where the historical core of the Western tradition of magic lie, suspended between magic as a process of illumination, magic as a process of communication and magic as a process of action within a community with its associated needs and desires - Ashmole relates having met an old woman who was a girl when Dee was an old man, and she noted that members of the community used to go to him for advice and the resolution of disputes.
Note that Skinner and Rankine have published some manuscripts from this tradition, though the claims made for them are not necessarily justifiable. They remain moderately interesting as the documents of a previously unknown working group of magicians. Crowley wrote in a letter to Karl Germer in June 1947, “Magick is the process of getting into communication with individuals who are on a higher plane than ours. Mysticism is the raising of oneself to their level.” -- which seems to be his own way of coming to terms with his particular understanding of the history of western magic. Typical Crowley in that there is no thought given to one's responsibilitiesto those on the same plane as oneself.
I mentioned above that the tradition of Western magic is one of re-reading. The notion of individual ‘systems of magic’ is a relatively novel one, and really comes in to occult thought with the Theosophical Society. Prior to the advent of Madam Blavatsky and her crew of secret yogic masters, the habit of most western magicians was to read all the various texts that came down to them as representatives of a single prisca theologia, an ancient revelation. Pico’s thought is an excellent example of this process.
While it cannot be said that each magician is part of a tradition of systematised knowledge passed from mouth to ear, it can be discerned that central to the thought-process of each magician I have mentioned is an attempt to synthesise what they had received from various texts. The scope of the Golden Dawn’s synthesis – pretty much everything they could get their hands on – tends to obscure that there is a tradition from which it descends. However, to a certain extent it could be argued that the Golden Dawn also reintroduced into magic something that had been missing in the magic of the Renaissance and Enlightenment – in its reclamation of the notion of the Mysteries (using the titles of the officers of Eleusis and inspired by its complex initiatory rituals) it placed the magician in a communal, ethical and spiritual context that had been missing. Its reintroduction of the classical gods of Greece and Egypt and use of the Chaldean Oracles and similar texts reclaimed the (explicitly pagan) Theurgy of Iamblichus and Proclus, and perhaps unintentionally set the trajectory for 20th century magic.
What is the mode of re-reading today? It seems that (or one would at least hope that) the dogmatic claims of Peter Carroll-style chaos magic have been booted to one side to give way to something less like mass cultural rape, and that magic is being approached with a new emphasis on the body and especially possession and communication. Do I feel at the end of a long chain of tradition, doing something ancient when performing the pentagram ritual, or meditating on the form of the four elements, or calling on one of the spirits of the seven planets? Emphatically yes, though I may not be meditating as did Iamblichus on the reflection of light on water, nor calling on the spirits in the same way as Ficino did, what we call on is the same. New things occur too: Babalon perhaps qualifies as a new goddess, but then Marinette never saw Guinea.
It's simply a personal thing, to some extent. I sympathise with the feeling that the tedious Victorian gliding and elaborate speeches are rather a case of digging in the rubble. But the things on which we call, the stuff we actually do... that's when I feel that sense of being one in a long line. It ain't in the colour scales, baby, it ain't in the numbers or the papers, the lineages or the histories. It's in the mysteries. Voodoo has it right when it calls the loa 'les mystères' - it's in the voice with which we speak, the nature of our communication, the things to which we talk and what arises out of that.
The scope of this post has been limited by considerations of space and my relative laziness. I have not discussed ‘folk magic’ or alchemy, nor has my history been exhaustive. Folk Magic is particularly interesting, in that it develops in an intellectual climate less affected by the anxieties associated with literacy, the word and the theological 'rightness' of what's being done, while still participating in the same cultural stream. I personally find it particularly interesting when the 'shiny' bits of occult texts - sigils from Aggripa, or magical names - turn up on bits of tin or parchment in old farmhouse roofs.
More to be said on this, I think, particular in terms of the 20th century recension (a better term than metamodel, I think) of magic and what I see as developing trends in the field, in particular an awareness and response to the magician as powerful solipsist which I see happening all around me. As well as the reemergence of tikkun ha-olam as the centre of magical practice (I've articulated this in my own practice as the re-membering of Dionysus).
Meanwhile some interesting books to read:
-Alex Owen: The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern
-Tanya Luhrmann: Persuasions of the Witch's Craft
-Richard Kieckhefer: Magic in the Middle Ages
-Nikki Bado-Fralick: Coming to the Edge of the Circle: A Wiccan Initiation Ritual
-Edward Peters: The Magician, the Witch, and the Law
-Gabor Klaniczay: The Uses of Supernatural Power: The Transformation of Popular Religion in Medieval and Early-Modern Europe
-Georg Luck: Ancient Pathways and Hidden Pursuits: Religion, Morals, and Magic in the Ancient World
That reading list is pretty heavily biased to my interests, but there's a lot of good stuff in there, treading the boundaryline between anthropology, history and evidence of practice. There are a number of theoretical conflicts going on in some of the books above, mostly an insurrection against Frazer or Durkheim but I think it could be interesting to read Bourdieu alongside Luhrmann or Luck. |
|
|
