Magic: Made up Explanations
Before I got busy and started to talk about other things I was working on a series of columns devoted to understanding magic. The question that I am trying to answer is “how does magic work?” In a previous column I developed a typology for how you might go about answering that question, with explanations dividing up into three categories: systematic, individual, and theistic. Systematic explanations develop some sort of system that, if followed, results in magic. This ranges from science, to sort of science, to just plain made up systems. Individual and theistic explanations appeal to something other than a system, like yourself or your Gods, to explain how magic works. Of course most real-world magical practices syncretically combine all three approaches. I guess they assume that if you throw enough stuff at the problem you will solve it through the sheer number of arguments.
In the last few columns on this subject I talked about scientific and sort-of-scientific explanations. Neither of those systems are sufficient to explain why magic works. At the most basic level you cannot take the structure and methods of science and use it to describe something that does not follow the same laws of evidence and cause and affect that science requires. Fuzzing up science as a way to explaining magic just results in bad science, and no really effective explanation. If we are serious about explaining magic we’re going to have to do better than misapplying science, or applying misunderstood science.
The most common way to explain how magic works gets around this problem completely. You just make up a new system, and new set of “supernatural laws” that you must conform to in order for science to work. Magic doesn’t have to worry about science and its requirements because it does not follow the laws of nature. Supernatural systems incorporate their own set of rules for cause and effect, rules that don’t apply in normal situations. Because these rules are separate from the natural systems that science deals with, the whole problem of rules of evidence and consensus can be avoided. Of course the temptation still exists to start making empirical claims using supernatural laws, which inevitably runs afoul of the traffic cops of science who are just waiting to bust you when you make claims that can be objectively validated.
In order to understand what I will call, for lack of a better term, supernatural systems, you have to understand the long history of magic in the Western Occult tradition. To be honest I don’t have the knowledge, skills, or time to review the long trajectory of magic in the West. Nor do you probably have the time to read it all. Instead I’ll make some broad generalizations and historical summaries.
Magic in the western tradition can be divided up into several interconnected systems. Broadly speaking these are the Hermetic, grimoire or Kabala influenced magic, and angelic or deistic magic. The oldest [1] attributed system is Hermeticism. Hermetic magic is based on the writings of Hermes Trismegistrus, a notional mage of Egyptian origin [2]. The Corpus Heremeticum lays out the basic ideas of the elements (earth, air, fire, water), “as above, so below” or the idea that the macrocosm is reflected in the microcosm [3]. This has formed the basis of much of the Western magical practice, and has followed through to today in many of our magical practices.
In the Middle Ages the Hermetic system combined with the Jewish mystical system, the Kabala, and various other varieties of magic [4] to establish a set of procedures, correspondences, and theories that formed the grimoire tradition. Grimoires were all the rage in the Middle Ages and slightly thereafter, and they have had a profound affect on modern Witchcraft and folk magical practices. Grimoires were books created by magicians or those associated with the Church and contained a variety of activities involving invoking angels and daemons, correspondences, astrological information, and charms and spells. At a time when books were rare, and reading mostly controlled by a few, the idea of a special book that could hold the secrets to control of fate was a powerful tool. Grimoires were used by court and other magicians affiliated with the church (many of whom were not prosecuted by the church due to their standing in the community) and by local Cunning Men and other folk-magicians. A Cunning Man could make a good living with a Grimoire and a rudimentary reading ability [5]. The concepts and correspondences in the grimoires eventually made their way into folk traditions of witchcraft, and come down to us through Gardner and others in our modern magical systems.
During and after the Renaissance there were a variety of individuals that attempted to bring together material from the Hermetic, folk, and grimoire traditions into comprehensive systems. Examples include Eliphas Levi’s willpower focused system, Waite’s Golden Dawn system, Crowley’s Thelema, and others. Underlying all of these systems is the desire for a unified, complete, magical system that brings together past information into a more effective and comprehensive practice. In addition these systems represent a migration away from the more practical folk and grimoire systems where the primary goal was to change the world, and now the focus was increasingly on inner change within the practitioner.
The two key things I want to highlight in all this rather gratuitous historical discussion is that two themes in the history of ritual magic stand out. The first is a desire for a system, something that provides an overall construct that explains how you do the magic and why it works (angels, celestial mechanics, or individual will). This movement from magic’s origins as a folk and philosophical explanation of the world to a formalized system of rules and ideas occurred over the entire history of Western civilization. But it really got started in the Renaissance and 18th century Enlightenment as science began threatening both magic and religion as a way of understanding the world. Eventually this trend peaked in the modern day Golden Dawn and Thelema traditions.
The second theme is the tension between “low” or folk magic and “high” ritual magic. Ritual magic with its origins in neo-Platonism and Hermetics was historically an intellectual pursuit of the elite. Folk magic was more of an everyday practice, related to blessings and curses well removed from the high-minded philosophy of the ritualists. This tension was present in the earliest practice of magic. Greek and Roman Hermetic and neo-Platonic forms of magic focused on enlightenment, while at the same time ordinary citizens were scripting spells and curses on tablets to drop into wells.
Both of these trends are really about the distinction between the metaphysical and the empirical. Folk magic tends to be focused on the practical, with the spiritual intruding simply through the use of religious imagery [6]. Ritual magic tends to be the opposite, with great emphasis placed on the spiritual progress of the magician, with the practical effects as secondary outcomes. Likewise the desire for a system has taken magical practice away from the more empirical place it occupied during the Middle Ages, into a more Platonic practice that is focused on systems of progressive magical enlightenment.
This, of course, does not mean that practical systems don’t exist, what we are talking about are general trends and paths, not every byway and cul-de-sac that is out there. In fact neo-Pagan Witchcraft often combines both enlightenment and practice, and is a representation of a modern, practical, magical system. We are ignoring modern neo-Pagan magical practices mainly because their theoretical underpinnings are either derived from ritual magic, or fall into one of the other categories we have discussed or will discuss in other columns.
What this means is that explanations also follow this same trend, with a division between explanations having either a practical, empirical, basis, or a metaphysical one. When it comes to explaining why magic works these two trends can be seen as either assuming some sort of casual equation (this then that) or providing an allegorical path to enlightenment.
The casual proposition is pretty straightforward: if something happens then it causes another result. The simplest casual rule is the Hermetic “as above, so below” or that the microcosm is related to the macrocosm. Ignoring for a minute exactly how you would empirically verify this, what is important is the fact that an empirical claim is made. The law of magic as laid down implies something will happen in the physical world as a result of my relation to the unseen work and the actions I take to establish that relationship.
This, of course, opens the entire argument to empirical verification. This has been the bane of astrology where astrological claims have been attacked several different ways by astronomy and the scientific community [7]. I choose astrology because there is a straightforward application of “this then that” when it comes to astrology, and astrological correspondences make up an important component of some forms of ritual magic. In this case making up a rule set is kind of like creating an alternative science. Unfortunately because the original science does a pretty good job of evaluating evidence and describing how the world works, you end up with having to play by the same set of rules that science does. Again, if you claim that your system actually works in the real world, you set yourself up for empirical verification, which almost always results in tears.
Because of the problem of empirical verification, the allegorical interpretation of the systems is superficially attractive. If what is really happening when you follow the rules of magic is spiritual progress, then empirical verification becomes moot (unless you’re a psychologist). This focus on internal transformation has led to a strong link between magic and psychology in Jung and others. If “as above, so below” really refers to spiritual enlightenment, then the work done through the magical system is really designed to draw down the enlightenment that exists “above” into the human spirit that is practicing the magic.
Just as astrology is the poster child for the empirical approach, alchemy is a good example of the allegorical approach. While alchemy started off as a quasi-philosophical pursuit with the Greeks, it quickly became divided between those who pursued the practical application (i.e. chemists) and those that pursued the inner transformation. It is not surprising that the practical application of transmutation and change in matter branched off and became an accepted science; after all it worked in a reproducible, empirical, sense and could be codified into a scientific discipline. The mystical and occult aspects of alchemy retained the inner work, because that was less susceptible to being adopted by science. In the inner work of alchemy it is not the materials that are being changed, but rather the practitioner who is seeking to refine their inner essence or soul. Just like the Masonic tradition, the perfection and purification of the individual is the end objective, not a practical working in the world.
There are many systems in addition to alchemy that pursue the inner path toward occult enlightenment. The Golden Dawn and Thelema (OTO and A:A:) traditions all practice different versions of the inner path, or theurgy, the uniting of the magician with the divine [8]. The argument that the primary focus of magic is inner enlightenment or unification of the magician with a supernatural power or spirit is the first example we have seen that avoids the problem of empirical verification. If magic only has effects on the individual and their inner psychology and spiritual development then no one can challenge its validity. Except perhaps those who try it and fail to seen any improvement in their condition.
Now I am setting up a bit of an extreme argument here, claiming that the inner working is the only purpose of magic is not a claim made by most magical traditions, even the decidedly Gnostic ones. As I said at the beginning of the article most traditions are syncretic, using a wide range of arguments and justifications for their magical workings. However figuring out how magic works when all of the arguments are being made at the same time is like trying to figure out your favorite color from a bucket of black paint. They’re all in there, but it’s hard to see any one of them.
The problem that I have with an exclusively inner argument is that it is unsatisfying in its lack of distinction between magic and religion. If magic becomes a system of practice, particularly group practice, which brings about gnosis or the realization of a higher reality, then it begins to look a lot like many religions. Only with better stuff, fancier rituals, and the threat that some of the practical stuff might actually work. This argument also leads along the lines of magic being a type of prayer, or a way to connect with the divine.
The loss of distinction between magic and religion begins to make magic a meaningless appendage to religion. If magical practice is wholly theurgic, or linked to a union with the divine, then magic becomes particular to the Gods and Goddesses, or spirits, involved in its practice. No longer is magic a universal practice independent of religion: the practical craft to religion’s high art. Rather it in itself becomes dependent on spirits or the divine for its success. Thus magic becomes more or less a narcissistic, self-focused, brand of religion. I say “narcissistic” because the focus of the workings tends to be on gnosis, not social justice or charity [9].
This line of magical working is not wrong or somehow invalid. Rather I am claiming that any argument that does not somehow tie magic to practical outcomes loses what it is that makes magic unique. Magic is not only connection with the divine, but also the affect of our actions, will, and intentions on the world. Without a claim that the world has changed, magic loses its unique character. It simply becomes yet another path to enlightenment like Yoga, Kabala, or Christian spiritual practices [10].
No matter how you look at it, systemic explanations for magic working boil down to “because I said so.” The ones that establish practical laws of magic that parallel science fail in their explanation because scientific laws actually do explain how things work, and magical ones don’t. Indeed in the past magical laws that actually did work, like alchemy, went on to be adopted by science and transitioned from a magical practice to a scientific one. Systematic explanations of inner change in the magician amount to either a slightly different type of religion, or a set of rules for enhanced mental and psychological functioning. These make magic into something else, either a religion or a mental discipline, cutting magic off from its relationship to the real world.
All of the explanations that we have covered so far have been rules based. Either using the rule set we call science to explain how magic works, or some form of hybrid or constructed rules set. None of these explanations have been satisfying, they have not given us something that cannot either be attacked from an empiricist or theological viewpoint. They haven’t really explained anything, only asked us to trust that the rules we are using do apply, and that they do what the practitioners claim that they do. There must be something better. But finding it means we must thread our way between the rocks of science and the shoals of religion. However unless we are able to do that, magic will simply disappear into one or the other practice.
In the next couple of columns on this subject we will move from rules based explanations to those that claim magic works by either tying into to the divine powers, or our own internal will. We will abandon our focus on systems as a way for magic to work, instead looking at things like the intent and focus of the practitioner as ways to find firm footing for magical practice away from either religion or science.
[1] One thing you have to be very careful about is confusing attribution with reality in the history of magic. While there may be many claims for ancestry going back to the “original” sorcerer King Solomon, in reality the idea of Solomon as occult magician may have been introduced at a much later date. Just like you can’t really use scientific analysis to understand magic, its difficult to use historical analysis to explain how magic has developed. Also, I’m interested in systems here, not necessarily the history of magic.
[2] He is also seen as the combination of the Greek and Egyptian Gods Hermes and Thoth.
[3] And thus establishing one of the first and most essential rules for magic.
[4] For example Arabic, folk and traditional, and angelic magic. There are few really good histories of ritual magic. They either focus on individuals, or they focus on academic issues such as the relationship between the development of science and magic. There are few that actually focus on magic as an object in itself, tracing the ideas and concepts in a serious scholarly way. In fact the best, and shortest, description of magical history as a history of magical ideas, is the introductions to Stephen Skinner’s books. While he is focused on ritual magic, the history of ritual magic is really the history of magic theory up till modern times. Stephen Skinner. The Complete Magician’s Tables, Llewellyn, 2006 and Stephen Skinner and David Rankine. Practical Angel Magic of Dr. John Dee’s Enochian Tables, Golden Hoard, 2006. If you have any interest in magic the Complete Magician’s Tables is a must-have.
[5] See, for example, Owen Davies. Cunning-Folk Popular Magic in English History, Hambledon and London, 2003.
[6] Remember the vast majority of magical practitioners in the West, for the vast majority of recorded history, have been Christian and practicing a magic steeped in Christian metaphor and culture. Invoking Pagan deities in a magical context either occurs in ancient or modern neo-Pagan practice. Unless you count the use of Pagan deities as stand-ins for Christian daemons.
[7] In addition to the straightforward attack of “you predict this, it doesn’t happen” it can also be attacked through the calculation of forces and influences on individuals and systems. It turns out the overall force exerted by planets and other bodies is miniscule (other than the moon where there is some evidence for influence on behavior), so the burden is places on astrologers to come up with a way in which planets and other objects could actually influence behavior. Something they have not been able to do without making something up. While this doesn’t mean that astrology is invalid, it does mean that they have not been able to prove it is valid to the satisfaction of the scientific community.
[8] Golden Dawn: http://www.hermeticgoldendawn.org/ OTO: http://www.oto-usa.org/ Thelema (A:A:): http://www.ordoaa.org/
[9] Nothing wrong with that, but I will point out that the most popular religious teachings very much focus on issues of poverty, social justice, charity, and how we treat others. While enlightenment and justice may be separated, there are a whole lot of religious teachings that suggest they shouldn’t.
[10] Which goes a long way to explaining why various Gnostic or mystical practices became increasingly popular as science began to assert itself in the Renaissance and Enlightenment.
