Here is an interesting idea to make magic a little less chauvinistic. But watch out - if you are a somewhat like me it might result in a spark of disillusionment initially...
In a newspaper I recently stumbled across an article reflecting on the nature of heroes. The idea and fixed story pattern of a hero obviously is one of the most famous Topos in all cultures. However, the author's reflection on these basic pattern of any classical hero story struck me as quite new and compelling. Here is my English translation:
“From Odysseus to John Wayne the hero has always been the one without a home - or the one who found his way back through a long journey only. His adventures always took place beyond the borders, in the open wild not yet subjugated to any law or civilization. However, open spaces like these have almost completely disappeared in modern times. All seas have been mapped, all mountains have been conquered and all wilderness has been explored before. The classical hero, the one who brought law and order to places that still used to be in a state of raw natural wilderness slowly but surely has become unemployed.”
Now, let’s replace the word ‘hero’ with the word 'magician' and make another few adjustments to the quote. And then read it again:
“From Odysseus to Aleister Crowley the magician has always been the one without a home - or the one who found his way back home through a long journey only. His adventures always took place beyond the borders, in the open wild not yet subjugated to any law or civilization. However, open spaces like these have almost completely disappeared in modern times. All inner realms have been mapped, all demons have been conquered and all magical wilderness has been explored before. The classical magician, the one who discovered keys to places that still used to be in a state of raw natural wilderness slowly but surely has become unemployed.”
Pause for a second and watch your emotional reaction... How does this feel? No spiritual wilderness left to be explored, no new tribes of demons or spirits to be discovered, all magical paths mapped in neatly pocket-sized glossy books for us?
Well, I can tell you how it feels for me. It's a total nightmare! And I immidiaterly have to admit: I really hadn’t been aware about this. But a big part of my fascination for magic seems to be exactly that: the adventures of the hero passing through the unknown (inner) wilderness....
Let’s think about it: despite the deep sea maybe the inner realms are the last open space left in our sphere of existence? Maybe the worlds we travel and explore as magicians, the relationships we create and the things we bring back home from our quests - maybe that is the closest thing we have left these days to the journeys of Odysseus or Marc O'Polo?
And another thought struck me immidiately: Let's stop trying to bring the 'law' to places that have been beautiful for millennia without us. I guess that's the attitude that started all the trouble we are in today: trying to civilize the wilderness, rather than accepting it for what it is and embracing its mesmerizing ambiguity.
But what will it take from us? How does the story of a hero need to change? What type of heroism will it take to traverse the wilderness without trying to change it? Without trying to impose our way of being and fulfillment of our desires, our needs and wishes on the world around us?
Well, I guess the one quality heroes never really stood for is humility. And that's exactly what it will take. If we want the last spots of wilderness to remain wild, if we want to expand rather than erase the last open spaces on this planet our journey needs to stop revolving around ourselves and our greedy egos... We need to stop trying to write history.
The times of the magician as a hero are over. Our times, however, as keepers of the threshold between confined and open spaces might just about to begin...? Let's read another quote and change it again slightly. Here is what Wikipedia tells us about the term dragoman:
A dragoman was an interpreter, translator and official guide between Turkish, Arabic, and Persian-speaking countries and polities of the Middle East and European embassies, consulates, vice-consulates and trading posts. A dragoman had to have a knowledge of Arabic, Turkish, and European languages.
And here is what it could mean for us as magicians:
A dragoman was an interpreter, translator and official guide between the outer and inner realms, between the spheres of humans, angels and demons keeping various interests in fine balance. A dragoman had to have a knowledge of human, angelic and demonic languages.
Maybe when our journey stops being about us, about our achievements, our fears and wishes, we can restart allover again and achieve something really meaningful.
::
Did I ever mention that the wonderful Virignia Satir held the opinion that all conflicts arise from a lack of self-worth? Maybe that does the trick? Once we don't feel challenged by the wilderness in our own self-worth anymore, we can stop trying to change it into something similar to ourselves...
What I have, what I have
Is nothing that you want
What I lack, what I lack
Nothing but your love
(It's easy)
Don't try, don't try so hard
My love is easy
Don't be the afterglow
These drugs won't leave me
All we have, all we have
Is nothing but our love
(It's easy)
It's easy, your love is easy
And I get more than I deserve
I get more than I deserve
Baby everyone some worth
And we get more than we deserve
Don't try, don't try so hard
My love is easy
Don't be the afterglow
These drugs don't leave me
Don't try so hard
My love is easy
Don't be the afterglow
Your drugs don't leave me
And I get more than I deserve.
Wonderful post! Now, I agree that we should leave some wildness alone in the world (I personally, would vote for MOST wildness), but we do have to keep in mind for most of our history as human beings the wilderness was an intensely dangerous place, and those who called it home were double dangerous. Magicians and other Workers have been very much on the fringe of society by nature, even those of us who lived in cities and advised kings. There was always, by necessity, an "otherness" to us. Something that came naturally with the work, recognized as valuable to a society, but still kept at arms length.
ReplyDeleteAll of our paths have been far from mapped, I would argue. The terrain is always changing. If you are really moving forward, there will come an inevitable time when you are thrust into a place uncharted.
Most real heroes do not think of themselves as heroes. They are not trying to be famous, but simply doing what needs, in their minds, to be done for their family/society/world. It's part of that humility that you talked about. John Wayne wasn't often a hero because he set out to be a shining beacon of hope to the oppressed in the Old West. His character's heroism arose from him first not allowing injustice, and oppression of the weak, and then he LATER became a beacon of hope, yadda yadda.
Becoming a hero is always filled with adventure, because the world is always changing, and heroes are those who work without regard to self or safety for the greater good.
Sadly many villains also work for those same ends, just with different considerations of what "The Greater Good" is. See the non silver screen wild west for heaps of examples.
For magicians we are still problem solvers, advice givers, bridges between worlds, and teachers of wisdom. Same as always. Terrain keeps changing, job is more or less the same. If we're doing it right.
You bring to mind Edward Abbey:
ReplyDelete"You cannot see wilderness from a road. What you see from a road is something different- a scene, a panorama, a picture; but you do not feel anything."
"We can have wilderness without freedom; we can have wilderness without human life at all, but we cannot have freedom without wilderness, we cannot have freedom without leagues of open space beyond the cities, where boys and girls, men and women, can live at least part of their lives under no control but their own desires and abilities, free from any and all direct administration by their fellow men."
@ Jow: wonderful comment - agree completely to what you say!
ReplyDeleteOne thing I didn't write about and you picked it up is that an individual's inner experience will always remain an adventure - irrespective of how many people have taken a similar path before...
E.g. our first elementary ritual at night out in the woods will always be a fond and important memory of our magical lives.
The term Hagazussa is pretty in line with what you say about the nature of the magician as living on the border of society. It translates as "fence rider" and thus depicts the witch as someone who is inhabiting the "fence" between the confined and open space, between civilization and wilderness or material and astral realm...
You are spot on with this comment... but I am not sure if in reality today we truly bring our magic to life in such a social way already? I wish we all did...
"For magicians we are still problem solvers, advice givers, bridges between worlds, and teachers of wisdom. Same as always. Terrain keeps changing, job is more or less the same. If we're doing it right."
@ Oroboros: these are great quotes - thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI need to look up Eward Abbey - he might have been a magician without knowing it! Or at even better, maybe a hero... :-)
From Lenormand, Chaldean Magic, p.31: "The habitual residence of these evil beings (i.e. demons, - Acher) was in uncultivated wilds and deserts, from whence they wandered into inhabited places to torment mankind." -- Interesting in light of the above? So magicians as well as heroes tend to take the same path but in the other direction: they go out into the wilderness to engage with th demons...
ReplyDelete