Ebony's Pearls

Keegan Talking
Originally uploaded by nodigio

John Michael Greer A Magical Education http://www.necronomi.com/projects/manifesto/

I read Mr. Greer’s Manifesto on magical education, and while I find much of merit in it, after all, we Numenists have been teaching and requiring a grounding in philosophy, logic, mythology, science, and other languages for decades; I find that he skirts the most important questions of all – why study or practice magic, and what can you really do with magic. He tucks partial answers about “why” here and there; that we study and learn magic so we can “bend the universe of human experience to your will more effectively than others” but he never describes why we would want to do that or what it means to be able to do that. The closest he comes to that is when he says “magic can be used for many things other than acting out a social role” and when he says magic is used to “make any circumstances the right circumstances for the lightning to strike.” Perhaps he’s being deliberately vague.

That’s not the Numenous Way. We don’t drop teasers – poetic or otherwise – and then move on to other matters. We expect those who seek to be more than a Celebrant to ponder their reasons for learning magic and we will spend what time is necessary working with a priest or minister in training to reach those answers. We don’t go any further until the student understands why they are doing this.

There’s more to “why” than “bend the universe to your will” and I think far too many teachers of magic – good ones and bad ones – rarely go beyond this. Much more time needs to be dedicated to the “why” than many traditions offer. Knowing “why” before you start to learn magic can help you learn and use magic easier and better than if you go into it with just vague notions of controlling the universe.

As for what you can do with magic – this question needs to be answered forthrightly and up front so students can find within themselves the answers to “why”. Before we learn to drive a car, we know “why” we want to do that – so we can get to work, earn money, visit friends, travel, or shop – when we want or need to and not at the whim and availability of others. We learn to play a guitar for many reasons – we like music, we like how the guitar sounds, we like the admiration we will get from friends who listen to us, or we can earn money from playing the guitar if we’re really good. We know before we learn to drive or play a guitar what the final outcome is, and we know (sometimes vaguely) how to get there. Magic is no different. To learn magic, we have to know what we can expect from it, what the final outcomes are, and (at least vaguely) what to do to get there. When we know that, we can reason through to why we want to do this.

What can magic do?

To reach the answer to this we must first answer “What is magic?”

Magic, in its broadest definition, is the ability to “bend the universe”. Even people who don’t actively learn magic use magic randomly and without control, creating static and patterns that are unpredictable, changing the world around them. We are all constantly bending the universe. A mage or magic user is someone who knows this, has a few reliable techniques to purposely bend the universe, can predict to some degree what those changes will do, and has a reason for doing so other than ego. Therefore, a good working definition of magic (for Numenists, anyway), is “A collection of reliable techniques that allow a trained mage to make informed changes to the universe.”

A recent example of magic in use is the 2008 Presidential campaign. Both sides wielded magic, one more effectively than the other because they had a greater understanding of patterns and the zeitgeist and began working much earlier towards the goal of becoming president. Any time a person or group of people attempt to make societal changes, they are working magic. The better magic users are the ones who apply solid magical techniques to the process and achieve the results for which they aimed.

Under the Numenist definition of magic, the magic isn’t spectacular, speedy, or special. It’s actually quite ordinary. Look at the recent Presidential campaign and you can’t point to a single “oogity-boogity” act, yet, magic still happened. A collection of people started the presidential race, and through the use of self-control, knowledge, practice, and well-placed words and actions either dropped out of the race or progressed forward until we had a clear winner. But it wasn’t fast, it wasn’t spectacular. It took a lot of research, study, and hard work to make it happen. It took years of dedicated training to reach the point of even being able to run for President. Some people stumble through achieving their goals, and even stumble and bumble along and become President through what appear to be a series of happenstances. This is what we consider uncontrolled magic – the person becomes President but can’t clearly mark how it happened. Successful people who shrug and say they just had good luck are using uncontrolled magic. Most successful people can tell you precisely how they became successful – the things they studied, the techniques they learned or created, the knowledge they acquired to help them achieve their goals, the constant awareness of ksana – the right moment and the ability to bring their training and knowledge to bear in the ksana to make the change. The Obama/McCain Presidential race is going to become one of our better training tools for teaching magic because the techniques and trigger points are very clear.

Real magic works. It works very, very well. Using magic takes a lot of study, practice, and hard work and it never stops. Real magic is available to all of us if we are willing to do the work. Magic is an inherent attribute of Dea Nutrix (God, the gods, the Creator, the generative force, whatever you care to call it or personify it as). Since we believe we are all part of Dea Nutrix (individuated, corporeal beings, but nonetheless part), magic is therefore an inherent part of us and we all use it in the same way we breathe or our heart beats. All we need to do is learn how to use it effectively to become mages.

Now that we’ve defined magic and discussed some of the reasons why we would want to use magic (I’m sure you can find many more reasons than the few we explored here), we can speak of what magic does.

If you followed the Obama/McCain Presidential campaign, you saw a lot of magic in action – and the end result was that one of the candidates became president. Not all of us want to become President of the United States of America, but that’s definitely one use of magic. Other uses are to buy a house, get a job, get healthy, help friends, become successful (whatever your definition of success is), live an abundant life, develop your connections with divinity, create new things, learn new things, meet interesting people, and be happy. Magic is ordinary. Magic is common. Magic is about the small, trivial things and the big awesome things. Magic is everything.

Now. Learning magic is a whole other ballgame. We can muddle through life and occasionally have flashes of awareness of using magic (some call it being “in the zone”), or we can learn some solid techniques that allow us to actually experience and control magic, to set seeds that will grow and ripen into the results we want, to bend that universe to our will to greater or lesser degree, according to our desires, training, and strength.

There is no oogity-boogity stuff about it. I will second Mr. Greer by saying fictional magic systems are just that – fictional. They don’t work in this world, no matter how much we want them to. We aren’t Deryni, or Terukkan, or Gandalf, or Elven, or Fae. We’re humans. And we have our own magic, human magic, that works when we wield it as humans. Personally, I see no reason why we should seek magic from fiction when what we have works so well for us.

I agree with Mr. Greer that mastering the human system of magic is time consuming and sometimes tedious. It involves real, dedicated work. And yes, it does indeed take 8 – 10 years of regular and thoughtful practice to get a good grounding in magic working. It’s not mastery, at 10 years, but it’s certainly a good start. I’ve consciously been working magic for more than 40 years. I’m decent enough at it, but the more I learn, the more there is to learn. It’s a lifetime study and you can always improve.

Numenism requires our co-religionists who wish to become priests or ministers to have a well-rounded education. It doesn’t have to be a formal education, but it does have to be solid. Students must be literate in at least 2 languages (my own students must be literate in at least 2 verbal and one non-verbal language), intimately familiar with the scientific method, deeply and widely read on a variety of topics outside of fiction, familiar with folklore, myths, and fairytales of at least 3 different cultures, knowledgeable about the history of their country and at least 2 other countries, familiar with current affairs, capable of critical thinking, familiar with chemistry, botany, astronomy, mathematics, comparative religion, psychology and symbology, first aid and human biology, occult history, memory enhancement, and applied philosophy (ontology, epistemology, ethics, logic). More is better. All knowledge is worth having and we encourage our co-religionists to learn as much as possible and to think about it and apply what they learn.

Like Mr. Greer (and most other teachers of magical systems) we require our members to keep a journal. The journal is an important tool and anyone who wants to shirk this isn’t really willing to learn magic. We don’t require that it be handwritten, although that is by far the simplest and most reliable method. It can be a spoken record, typed, kept in a word processor, or even tallied in knotted ropes. As long as you are capable of accessing it reliably and studying past entries, what works for you works for us. Me, I still keep a magical journal. I seem to go through 2 or even 3 journals a year. I don’t have any particular type of journal I consistently use. I’ve used Blue Books (those who have attended college know what I mean), spiral bound notebooks, pages stapled together, blank bound books (not my favorite), loose leaf binders, composition books, and even 3x5 index cards, napkins, and paper menus. Recent ones have been transcribed into Word files and saved in several locations online, on disk, and in hard copy. Whatever method works for you is what works.

What isn’t acceptable is trying to keep all of this in your memory. We encourage and teach memory enhancement skills as part of our magical training, and we know from experience that human memory can be faulty until it is well-trained – and even then, it can experience lapses. Injuries can deprive you of your memory, as can illnesses, medications, and misuse of controlled substances. Keep a record, and you’ll have a tool you can use to regain damaged memories and restore your reduced abilities.

Therefore, a magical journal is essential to becoming a trained magic user.

Mr. Greer’s article has a sample one day journal entry. That’s really about as skimpy an entry as you can have and still have an entry that is useful to you. You aren’t going to be graded on the journal; it’s your tool for improving your magical abilities.

Now, you’re probably wondering what those magical abilities are. Forget shooting flames out of your fingertips (unless you develop a micro flameshooter you can strap on – a distinct possibility and really awesome to think about), twitching your nose and having the room right itself, saying a spell and watching the broom sweep your floor, setting Deryni style wards, or walking through Witch World style gates. Those aren’t part of human magic.

What is human magic is the ability to collect information, spot trends and patterns, and then formulate and execute plans for enhancing or disrupting those patterns, thus affecting things and changing the universe. What is human magic is the ability to imagine and extrapolate into the future what will happen - and you don’t need yarrow stalks, Tarot cards, or dice. What is human magic is the ability to shape sounds – through music or words – that can have a profound effect on other humans, animals, plants, and objects. What is human magic is the ability to discern trigger points in patterns of activity – and the complementary ability to use that knowledge to tweak it through words or deeds to make it change, to tilt it in a manner you choose. What is human magic is the ability to create something new that never existed before. What is human is the ability to imagine a 4th or 10th way to accomplish something – and then to do it. What is human magic is the ability to transcend limits, overcome obstacles, and forge new paths to reach desired goals. What is human magic is the ability to adapt, learn, and grow. What is human magic is the ability to record the past and to build on it, taking it further than our ancestors ever thought possible. What is human magic is the ability to empathize with others, to match resonances, and to experience life as another experiences it – whether that other is another human being, an animal, a plant a piece of metal, or a rock. Human magic is awesome.

We have so much magic in us that the flashy fantasy magic is best relegated to the minds of scientists, who will, using human magic, create tools and devices that will give us the flashy stuff.

We who are striving to be mages are beyond mere fictional magic; we are the path makers, the keepers, the creators, the dreamers, the workers. We are humans, wielding human magic skillfully, reliably, and effectively. It takes years of study, of practice, and of hard work to be competent in human magic, but that magic is accessible to all of us.