Hermeticulture

I recently read Lev Grossman's novel "The Magicians," a book that's been on my reading list for quite some time.  It's an engaging story overall, but the most compelling aspect of it to me is that Grossman pulls back the fantasy curtain and creates a world in which magic does not solve the greatest problem:  that of the human condition.  Unlike the world of Harry Potter, there is no central villain to fight, no epic struggle to galvanize the protagonists and give them purpose.  In "The Magicians," the struggle is with oneself, to find meaning.  The students who come to Brakebills to study magic are brilliant, alienated, and often socially challenged.  And magic doesn't fix that.  If anything, it drives home the point all the more sharply:  no matter how much you may try to look for a change in circumstances in order to escape your ennui and give your life meaning, you cannot fix the brokenness within yourself by looking for a change in the out...

Occult blogger (and fellow Minneapolitan)  Scott Stenwick  recently posted an  article  weighing in on the curious disdain that some people in the esoteric community seem to have toward magicians holding down day jobs.  For those who haven't encountered this phenomenon, the argument goes that if a person were really a good magician, they would be able to magic themselves into enough riches that they don't need to work for a living. As Scott points out, the idea that an author can make a full-time living from publishing in a niche market such as esotericism is a relatively naive one.  Since he skillfully debunks the idea from a feasibility standpoint, I'd like to focus instead on where the idea comes from in the first place and why it's wrong-headed in its foundational assumptions. The core feature of this viewpoint appears to be that a good magician should be able to focus on his or her magic, make a living at it, and not have to work a boring "mug...

In part one of this article, I examined the difficulties inherent in defining magic, and asked whether we really need define it at all.  I then proceeded to evaluate the definitions of magic given by Aleister Crowley, Aaron Leitch, and Kathy McDonald, and pointed out the definitional challenges that were present in each of the three. While the preceding critique may be enlightening, however, it is ultimately worth relatively little unless it propels us toward a more helpful definition of magic.  It is easy to critique the work of others, but far more difficult to create a compelling offering of one’s own.  So in that spirit, I’ll go ahead and put myself on the chopping block as well.  As I mentioned in my last post, my own previous attempts to define magic have been just as problematic as others I’ve seen, and I expect that this attempt will be no different.  But I’m both stubborn and optimistic, so I’m going to try nonetheless. Laying the Foundation Whe...

Recently on Aaron Leitch’s Solomonic group , there’s been an extremely active conversation about defining magic.  In fact, Aaron has himself recently chimed in on the subject with a guest post on the late Donald Michael Kraig’s Llewellyn blog.  It seems that this topic crops up time and time again on various forums, and that every book on the subject must necessarily begin by providing its own definition of terms.  Yet these definitions so often seem to circle around the subject without striking at the heart of it.  What is so difficult about defining magic, and why should it serve as such an ongoing source of consternation to those who study and practice it?