1.
Honourable companions,
One feature of Druids that almost all classical comme
ntators agree about is that they were philosophers. Greek and Roman writers alike praised them for their practical knowledge and rarified wisdom. Yet, oddly, this is one feature of the ancient Druidic office that is never revived. Or, at any rate, I am
not aware of any Druid today who has attempted to establish herself in a pagan community as its primary consulting philosopher. Why not?
Druids today can not be all of what they once were to their tribes, at least not at this time, for two important
reasons. First, the social conditions in which Druids discharged their social obligations no longer exist. Second, what the Druid stands for, intellectual authority, is fundamentally inconsistant with the values of liberal democracy. Ancient Druids were not just anybody-- they were a select group, they were tested and trained. They were made special by this education, they became "above" the common folk, especially through their power to operate "pan-tribally". Nobody who believes in liberal democracy likes being subordinated under an institution. This is especially true of the pagan community, which tends to emphasise the individual's power to touch the Divine, and the rejection of "intercessors" as nonfunctional impediments to the individual spiritual progress, however positive to community values pagans purport to be (and, to a large degree, actually are). In other words, today's Druids are in a double bind: they can't be what we once were, and people don't want them to be what we once were either.
So, what have Druids made made of themselves today? They have made themselves "Celtic Reconstructionist Pagans", the term made popular on internet discussion groups, such as the Nemeton, in the late 1990's. I think this category best explains the origin and purpose of Druidism as it is done in the United States, although there is also a division between people who are interested in becoming Druids, and people who wish 'merely' to practice some variety of celtic religious folklore. Some of the
Druids that I meet in Canada, where I live, are interested in culture revival as well, as the revival of celtic culture in Canada includes a large component of what might be called "the immigration experience".
A "game" is any activity that challenges
participants to achieve a certain goal within a certain set of rules. It need not be an activity undertaken purely for leisure; if that were so, one could not say that professional atheletes are engaging in games. Games can be serious as well as entertaining. The game goal and rule, or "golden rule", of Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism, or any culture-revival breed of Paganism (Kemeticism, Asatru, Romuva, and so forth), is to legitimise itself by reproduction of ancient religious ritual, practice and
custom as exactly as can be done within contemporary social organisation. This is, after all, what is meant by "reconstructionist": to research history, archaeology, folklore, language, and so on, as carefully as can be, in order to produce an "authenti
c" religion. However, I doubt that would serve to make Paganism more respectable in the end. Paganism as a form of the strict revival of ancient religious ideas, merely employs history as a storage-space for costumes. This opens it to the charge that
modern Celtic Paganism is a game, "the SCA of Paganism". Even Wicca is not immune to this criticism, since so many of its adherents emotionally identify themselves with the (somewhat mythic) witches of medaeval and pre-Christian Europe.
The emphasis
on scholarship demanded by the game-rule of american Druidism does allow it to evade categorisation together with the morass of undisciplined wierdness that is the "new age", or the "Aquarian Frontier". Unfortunetly, it lands american druidism in a diffe
rent, equally undesirable trap: it confuses meticulous attention to historical scholarship with genuine spiritual culture and experience. The two are not the same, however much they may help each other. Insofar as american druidism emphasises the rigour
ous scholarship, it opens itself to the charge of being an elabourate role-play game, a cultural dress-up so deeply ingrained in the consciousness of the practicioner that the very validity and authenticity of the religion is measured by the accuracy of i
ts scholarship. Indeed, the illusion of spirituality may become so elabourate that it starts to produce mystical experiences for people! But such experiences cannot contradict the parameters of the illusion. They must remain within the range of what th
e game-rule deems acceptable, or be interpretable by recourse to the game-rule, or else it is no longer a part of the game. In the end such experiences are traps, serving to further imprison the visionary in her illusion.
Another result of this illus
ion is that in their earnestness to reproduce the ancient ways, they ignore the modern ways, the Celtic culture that is still alive and well in the Celtic nations. There is a thriving Celtic cultural awareness today, evidenced by the popularity of Celtic
arts and the proliferation of Celtic music and culture festivals. Ireland, Scotland, and Canada's maritimes in particular export their music all around the world. But in my experience, the large majority of Celtic Pagans do not know much about Celtic c
ulture or history. They ought to know the difference between a jig and a reel, how to make colcannon or haggis, what year Ireland achieved political independance from England, what a "Welsh Not" looks like and what it was used for, and what the Highland
Clearances were, just to name a few cultural and historical facts. They ought to know how to passingly speak a Celtic language. "Owning" these items of cultural and political history is what makes a person a Celt. It is a contradiction to say "I am a C
elt", and yet have no bearings in Celtic culture.1
No Reconstructionist Pagan I know would agree that her religion is tantamount to an elabourate role-play game-- it has always been vehemently denied by everyone I have ever suggested it to, on the int
ernet or in person. But indeed that is what it is, and the evidence is abundantly clear. Consider the mission statement of "IMBAS" (yes, the capitalisation is part of the name), a prominent celtic pagan organisation in the United States.
"IMBAS is an organization that promotes the spiritual path of Senistrognata2 and traditional Celtic culture. The Celts are recognized as the tribal Celts of Iron Age Europe and the modern peoples of Alba (Scotland), Breizh (Brittany), Cymru (Wales), Eire (Ireland), Kernow (Cornwall), and Mannin (Isle of Man). Senistrognata is based around the home, the family, and the community/tribe in honoring the land, the ancestors, and the traditional Celtic Gods and Goddesses. We do not practice our spirituality,
we live it."
Aside from the last sentence, there is not one mention of spirituality. It is an explication of historical origin and context. It might be equally at home in a textbook as in a religious manifesto. The final sentence, the
only part of the mission statement that identifies IMBAS as a religious group instead of an anthropologists' society, practically hangs in space: there is no explanation of why the preceding text entails 'spirituality', no explanation of what it means to
'live' that spirituality, nor why that is different from 'practicing' it.
Worse, by far, is the mission statement of America's largest Druidic organisation, ADF. The opening paragraph of the "Vision of ADF" reads:
"In ADF we believe
that excellence in scholarship is vitally important. The Goddesses and Gods do not need us to tell lies on their behalf, nor can we understand the ways of our Paleopagan predecessors by indulging in romantic fantasies, no matter how "politically correct"
or emotionally satisfying they might be. So we promote no tall tales of universal matriarchies, of Stonehenge being built by Druid magic, nor of the ancient Druids originally having been shamanic crystal-masters from Atlantis. We do not whitewash the occ
asional barbarism of our predecessors, nor exaggerate it. We use real archeology, real history and real comparative mythology -- and we're willing to change our opinions when new information becomes available, even if it destroys our pet theories. This ap
proach is rare in the history of Druidic revivals and the Neopagan community."
This approach was rare and daring at the time that this text was written by Isaac Bonewitz. Now it has become the standard to which new american druidic and celtic groups measure themselves. It achieved its original purpose, which was to prevent ADF from becoming yet one more wishy-washy new age club, of the sort that was reproducing like mad across America at the time.
But they exchanged this advantage for
the drawback of becoming an institution. Its institutional incapacity to handle certain spiritual needs among its members, as well as other problems, led to the split that formed the Henge of Keltra. One recalls, also, that one reason Keltria was formed
was because of a culture-research issue: there was a disagreement over whether the followers of non-celtic gods could call themselves Druids!
I attended a public ritual presented by a contemporary Druid, trained by a prominent american Druidic group.
It was explained to me that the rite followed the pattern laid out in a Sanskrit text called the Brahamana, and various arguments were offered as to why it is appropriate to use a Sanskrit text for a Celtic ritual. Ancient Celtic and Vedic cultures bor
e many similarities, I was told, therefore we may suppose that their religious forms were similar too. I have no reason to doubt this; in fact no less a Celtic scholar than Miles Dillon wrote on the similarities3. However, the carefully organised ritual
that I attended bore little resemblence to any contemporary Hindu ritual I have witnessed, with its mood of joyous celebration.4 Hindu musicians laugh together delighfully as they urge each other to increase the speed and complexity of the music. All of the mantra-chanting, dancing, offerings of flowers and incense, are done in such a way as to be conducive to fun. One departs such events with the sort of emotional "high" that one gets from particularly good music, a delicious meal, an invigorating argument, or satisfying lovemaking. These events are expressive of the "lila", the play, of the Gods, which initially created the universe, and which participants are invited to join. The dancing that takes place at outdoor pagan festivals, around the nightly bonfires, bears a stronger resemblance to Hindu religious celebration than the carefully scripted American Druidic public rite. Moreover, there is every reason to suppose that Hindu ritual has been this way for a very long time, perhaps as long ago
as Vedic times.
The largest Druidic and Celtic organisations in the United States are all captured by a programme of values that elevates research and scholarship to the highest level, higher even than spirituality. The practical results of this prog
ramme of values have been many. There has been an anachronistic "living in the past". Differences in opinion and interpretation of research sources has divided, and not united, the community. Some have made their scholarly knowledge a basis for acclaiming superiority for themselves and/or their tradition. And finally, there has been a tendency to obscure the principles of the spirituality in a mist of scholarly jargon and technical terms with non-obvious meanings.
Most seriously, there has been an over-riding emphasis on scholarship at the expense of spirituality. This is dangerous because academic knowledge is no substitute for, and not interchangeable with, spiritual awareness. As I see it, and as an academic myself, academic knowledge is only an aid, or tool, for reaching spiritual awareness; and as such it is one aid among many, including the physical senses, one's own intuition and/or reason, perhaps also one's magickal senses, and certainly also one's access to community life. There may
even be more.
2.
Wicca may also be regarded as an elabourate role play game although for different reasons. A cursory look in any large bookstore reveals a startlingly large selection on occultism, that perhaps would not have been there fifty
years ago. The titles are indicative of what appears to be a large scale "awakening", composed of ancient ideas recently revived, and ideas imported from Asia or from aboriginal peoples.
It would be wrong, however, to suppose that the "awakening" represents a purely introverted, inner transformation, however much it appears to be so, and also claims to be so. The back covers of numerous paperback texts on Wicca and Magic, promise its reader that through diligent practice of the exercises outlined within its pages, increased control is possible over one's self, other people, and such ephemera as "luck". The personal benefits promised to students of pulp-fiction magic grimoires, such as freedom from compulsions, or improved health, are nonetheless worldly benefits, because they are benefits having to do with one's embodied, worldly being. Some of these embodied benefits appeal to our sense of ego, such as the spells designed to give a headache to one's teacher or supervisor at work. Some of these embodied benefits are worth having, such as improved health or control of one's temper, but popular-press books on magic advocate a means to achieve them that are not indicative of a purely inward transformation.
The purpose of magic is to achieve power over the world.5 It is an outwardly directed activity. Its basic structure is a structure of causality: if certain spells are recited or rituals performed, then an expected result will occur. This is thought to be a non-sequitor by logically or scientifically minded persons because there is no obvious, direct relation or inference between the spells and rituals, and the expected result, except perhaps a symbolic one. The rejoinder that "magic is the Pagan style of prayer" redeems it somewhat of its
pejorative flair, by not expecting that magic actually "work". But nonetheless, prayer is also an outward directed activity. Prayer is the petitioning of a deity for a service or a boon, for which gifts, service, or worship is offered as a kind of payment. If there is no God, or if the Gods are disinterested, then prayer commits the same non-sequitor as magic.
Both prayer and magic are indicative of deep committments to worldly life, and acceptance of externally-recieved standards of excellence, because of the expectation that they will lead to worldly results, although they appear to be committed to extraworldly realities. If we suppose that magic is a property of nature, and not extraworldly, because of its function it would still bear a worldly
interest. A truly inward religious transformation would be a transformation of one's own values, attitude, emotion, intentionality, and consciousness. This inward transformation can be thought of as 'magic' only in the most broad and loose definitions
of magic, such as that offered by Alistair Crowley.6
3.
Being committed to worldly life is not by itself a bad thing. The embodied world is, after all, the world we live in, and there's nothing immoral about seeking its improvement. Indeed we
may have positive moral obligations to seek such improvement. Magic and prayer can become a role play game if we loose ourselves in the tools, trappings, and details of it all, or let the practice of magic substitute for the inward thought and outward action that leads to worldly transformation in a very real, nonsymbolic way. In the details of magic one finds a great deal of complicated information: tables of elemental correspondences; associations of Hebrew letters with Vedic gods; laws of sympathy, resonance, and contagion that supposedly govern the behavoir of magical energy; and so on. The complexity of such details can be hypnotic. For someone lost in it, every day is Hallowe'en (not Samhain), and every random rustle of leaves portents a destined event and confirms his place at the center of a divine design.
The same hypnotic complexity of the details of magic can stimulate thought, much like a long drawn-out koan, and that is the reason the details were developed in the first place. But it
is the thought and not the details that leads to the results. It is thought that motivates, and informs with purpose and direction, our actions. The associations and correspondances of magic theory are in the mind, and they are as real as the mind that
envisions them. If we think of them as part of the nature of the universe, and external to the mind, then we are guilty of the charges leveled against religion by the likes of Feuerbach, Nietzsche, and Sir James Fraser: that religion commits the fallacy
of mistaking the order of human thought for the order of the universe.
This logical difficulty can be sorted out by an acute intelligence committed to letting the details inspire deeper meanings. Spirituality consists in meaning, and the inner activity of informing all of one's thinking, perception, and action with meaning. The details of magic can supply a sense of meaning when they are treated as a kind of riddle, or as a symbolic code, by which meanings may be represented and communicated. The
salient wisdom that one learns from contemplating the Cabbalistic Tree of Life, for instance, is that the Tree is a speculative "trackway" for the transmission of ontological force from Kether ("The Crown"; Godhead, Pure Spirit, or unmanifest possibility)
down to Malkuth ("The Kingdom"; manifestation, worldly-embodied being) as well as the aspiration of Malkuth to transcend worldliness and aspire to Kether. The other eight Sephiroth between the top and bottom represent stages along the journey. Phrased
this way, Cabbala is remarkably Platonic, and deeply philosophical.
There exists, unfortunetly, a class of popular books on magic which have as their purpose not the stimulation of meaning, but instead the "worldy" preoccupation with achieving "results". Again, worldly interest is not inherintly bad, but when it does not emerge from, nor is grounded in, a coherent sense of inner meaning, it is not spirituality. Instead, it is a game. This result-oriented practice of magic circumvents altogether the
meditative and contemplative aspect, and becomes a matter of theatrical performance. By teaching the readers how to appear and behave, ("the costume"), what spells to recite and what motions to repeat ("the script"), how to decorate their homes and ritual spaces ("the set"), and select their tools ("props") such books encourage the readers to immerse themselves deeper in the empty role play. Twenty-one short instructions qualifies someone to identify herself as a Druid by learning to project the superficial appearance of the Druid. One gains a fleeting aesthetic satisfaction, and perhaps the admiration of gullible friends, but little else.
Most popular-press books on Magic and the Craft are bereft of philosophical content. This should come as no
surprise. All I have done is articulate exactly why that is. It is highly unlikely that one would become the magnum opus to effect the massive transformation of the social order that western culture desperately needs, to heal its poverty, racism and sexism, environmental destruction, political corruption, and other diseases. Instead, writers on the subject of wiccan or druid magic restrict themselves to the personal level, and moreover they plagarise each other unforgiveably as they reap large money-profits for their authors and publishers. Most such books are destined to become just one more title on the neverending, pretentious, self-absorbed, superfluous, and forgettable Pagan circus side show.
4.
There is a style of meditation called "Visualisation" that seems to be popular among Pagan practitioners of magic. In this style, one settles into a comfortable position, tunes out sensory distractions, and concentrates on controlling the imagination. The meditator imagines herself travelling
through the spirit world, passing the typical trials of shaman flight (narrow bridges, guardians at the gate, etc.), and conversing with gods. With this style, it is easy to mistake one's visualisation for fantasy. To avoid this, one tries to allow the
fantasy to take on a life of its own, by allowing a free imaginative improvisation, while harbouring no expectations and exercising no power over what is encountered in it. It is believed that what emerges from free spontaneity comes from a spiritual source deeper than the level of the conscious, individual self; this is an idea that I believe is not entirely disrespectable since free spontaneity is the activity from which emerges new, creative, intellectual or artistic vision. Visualisation creates the
interesting paradoxical situation in which one both controls and also releases control of one's own imagination. The goal is to attain a lucid dream-like trance state. Many traditions perscribe certain physical aids to help achieve trance-state such as
rhythmic music and dance, darkness and silence, sex, and consumption of hallucinogens. This style is is said to produce results by means of manipulating energy flows, or by the supplication of Gods encountered in the flight.
In this style of meditation it is possible to "fail", although failure here is to be interpreted non-judgementally. One fails at this style of meditation when distractions such as noises, itches, and disconnected thoughts render the meditator unable to focus the imagination upon
the visualisation. But there is a different, deeper kind of failure: it is possible to fool yourself with the fantasy, and hence become trapped in it, in which case even meditation becomes an empty display of the superficial appearance of spirituality.
In this case, the act is played out not before the world, but within one's own mind. One could become 'addicted' to one's own fantasy life, in much the same way that for some people, movies and television form a surrogate reality.
5.
All this may appear as the crankiness of an embittered cynic. And to my friends in the Pagan community, this may seem like an unforgiveable betrayal. I fondly recall being criticised by other Druids for my "negative attitude". I am actually optimistic about the future of Paganism and its ability to produce spiritual experiences and also earn respect. But these problems that I have described are serious, and have been a direct result of the misplaced use of the tools. The role-play aspect of magic and Paganism gives critics and religious bigots more reason to regard Paganism as a toy for the spiritually childish, and so dismiss it.
If the problem arose from improper use of the tools, then we avoid this problem by understanding exactly what the tools are
for. Academic knowledge must be regarded as a good servant but a bad master. To control it, to keep it in its place in our spirituality, we must send it away once in a while, along with the presuppositions and habitual skepticism that education tends to
cultivate. Then we must revitalise our sense of place, and of wonder, by taking a fresh look at the world with our other tools, especially the intuitions and the senses.
What I have called "the details of magic", the elabourate correspondances and
laws, serve two purposes. One is as a meditative device: they are the mantras and mandalas that facilitate and stimulate thought. The other use is as a common language by which Pagans may communicate their religious ideas and experiences. We need to have a common language: it is the medium by which we exchange vital thought and feeling. It is the property of community participation that makes it a wellspring of spiritual refreshment.
Another non-obvious solution to the problem is revealed by understanding the nature of the game. For any reconstructionist Pagan faith, the goal of the game is the accurate revival of historic religious custom and practice, and the rule is to achieve that revival with a minimum of imaginative invention and eclectic
borrowing. The goal of reconstructionist Paganism is thought to lead to the higher-order payoff of transforming the practicioner into a more highly evolved spiritual being; a "Real" Druid. For any system of magic, the goal is to achieve power over the world, often including power over one's own self, and the rule is to do so using the methods perscribed by the details. Again, the knowledge and practice of magic is thought to transform the practicioner; there is much talk of "awakening", "enlightenment", and "salvation" as the ultimate goal wherein magic power over the world is a kind of insturmental aid, or perhaps ephemeral by-product.
In either case, the rules of the game, and the nature of the goal itself, lends to the goal a pervasive sense of
obligation and necessity to strive and to compete for success (to "play"), to count how often the goal was achieved or measure how close the player is to the goal (the "score"), to regard with antagonism any other players (the "competition"), and to measure one's worthiness by one's success rate compared to that of others (the "winner"). Adherance to the rules is enforced by the approval or dissaproval of the other players, as well as by the supposition that only by adherance to the rules can the goal be achieved. Pursuit of the goal becomes an activity more noble and wise than the "base" pursuit of other "lesser" goals. This is, of course, partly a result of the culturally-indoctrinated supposition that religion is a deeply serious matter, in fact matter of life and death if its consequences are extended to their furthest limit, and therefore a matter that must be approached with special reverence. Therefore we dress up in our "Sunday best" when we go to church.
In fact, the matters about which
religions are concerned are indeed matters of life and death. Religion supplies the meaning which we attribute to life and death, and to other things. However, this is no reason to treat them as untouchable immensities. Any spiritual matter is of ultimate scope and universal affection and therefore touches every aspect and detail of our lives; hence there is no real division between the sacred and the mundane. The sacred is the mundane, and the mundane sacred. Mundane activities are uplifted and transformed into sacred activities by nothing more than undertaking them with a spiritual attitude. This is revealed particularly well in the 'crafty' character of a witch's magic, in which ordinary activities such as sewing, cooking, gardening, and sweeping
the floor, are said to be means for the transmission of purpose-laden energy. To refer to magic as a 'craft' at all, aligns it with other skilled trades like baking, carpentry, and masonry. When the boundries between the sacred and the mundane are blurred, it is possible to grant to these ordinary activities additional layers of meaning, and thereby spiritualise them.
If we think of spirituality as a serious pursuit, the final goal which we are striving to attain becomes somehow lofty and profound,
an end in itself or an achievement that results in special payoff. This high-minded approach is indicative of the attitude that the spiritual and the ordinary are sharply divided, an attitude which can be dangerous to one's spirituality. It can have the detrimental effect of making spirituality into an obliged routine, a custom or tradition that must be dutifully conserved against liberal incursions, and certainly not something to be enjoyed. One can be said to "rejoice" at a religious ritual, but such rejoicing would lack the gennuinely playful and celebratory quality of rejoicings not attached to rules of form, such as the celebration that occurs at New Year's Eve. Games are played because they are fun to play. The final goal of any game, and the
rules constraining our means to reach that goal, is to have a good time playing it. A game can become an activity undertaken with enthusiastic abandon, by simply understanding the game to be a nothing but a game. The structure of a game is that of a goal-oriented activity wherein rules constrain the method to achieve the goal, however the purpose of a game is to promote fun. When the goal of the game is known to be trivial and yet we happily enter the game anyway, we are released from the obligation to
win, which the game, if understood as a non-game, appears to impose upon us. When the game is seen as a game, suddenly we may approach the game with a sense of humour. The challenge of the rules ceases to be intimidating. The compulsion to break the rules to overcome their difficulty likewise ceases. At the same time breaking them becomes an open possibility because there is no inner committment to enforce them. Any stress or anxiety we may have experienced due to failure or the difficulty of the rules, utterly dissappears; both losing and winning are no longer relevant categories. They are all unneccesary complications of our own invention. With this re-arrangement of meaning, Paganism may be understood as a game, treated as a game, and nevertheless remain a fertile source of spiritual fulfillment.
6.
But there is another game, which we have been required to play with seriousness, in which the goal is not a religious experience but is nonetheless a matter of life and death. In this game, the ultimate goal is survival, and for our competitors we have the natural environment, with its predators and hostile weather and hard-to-access resources, as well as other players. It is a game haunted by self-contradictory properties. The goal of
the game is for the individual to survive and prosper with measurably greater success than the other competitors, and yet this is not possible unless one throws in his lot with others in collaborative enterprises. The rule of the game, or the means to achieve the goal, is to exercise power over the hostile elements of nature, although they are the very resources which make winning possible. Success at this game is measured by the degree to which a person accumulates more material wealth than others. In
this game there is no level playing field, for some of the competitors begin the game with more resources and equipment than others; this is equivalent to a "head start". It is a game which we are taught to play from childhood on, and taught to treat not as a game but as the inevitable structure of reality. We all know its rallying cries: "Only the strong survive", "you must work for a living", "you must buy this product or service to be happy". Yet this is exactly the same game that teaches that we are all "free", "individual", "posessors of a boundless liberty". Winners emerge from the field of play as the very things which made their victory possible fall dead at their feet. There may yet come a day when the field of play shall be littered with corpses: clearcut forests, unbalanced ecosystems, extinct species, exploited workers, impoverished communities, overflowing dumps and landfills, unbreathable air, undrinkable water, and infertile earth. It is a game doomed to failure not only because of its inability to take itself as a game, but also because of its self-negating foundations.
7.
But there is another game, a deeper game, a dramatic role-play game of cosmic proportions in which God divides herself, and her fragments forget their origin.7 It is a game in which God puts on the costume of you and I, and the birds in the sky, so that She may come to know herself and experience the bliss of both recognition and reunion.
Cathbad
From the Grove,
And in the season of
Lughnasad, the year 2000.
Notes.
1. I have had the fortune of exposure to Irish music and folklore as a child, since my Dad was born in Portlaoise, but I know it is not the same as being raised in an Irish community in Ireland, or speaking Irish as my first language.
2. the word for traditional celtic religion, coined by IMBAS.
3 Miles Dillon, The Osborne-Bergen Memorial Lecture III: Celt and Hindu (University College, Dublin, 1973)
4. I should clarify that my experience was of Hindus celebrating Hindu ritual. Western converts to Hindu religion, especially to the bhakti (devotional) traditions, tend to approach the rituals with the same dour seriousness as Catholics approach an High Mass.
5. Many occultists would sharply disagree here. There is traditionally a division between three categories of magic: "white" which seeks for knowledge and wisdom, "grey" which seeks for practical results generally, and "black" which seeks to cause harm, or other morally objectionable result.
By these parameters, my discussion is applicable only to "grey" or "black" magic; however, with the Foucaulean maxim that "knowledge is power", even white magic is not immune to the charges I lay upon magicians today.
6. "The science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will" Alistair Crowley, Magick (NY: Samuel Weiser Inc., 1973) pg. 131.
7. This paragraph is a (somewhat flippant) description of the central premise of Vedanta, the religious philosophy of the Upanisads. The Upanisads do not describe this activity as a game, of course.
