| From: | Mike Elkins <MikeE@*********.COM> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Shaman vs Hermetic |
| Date: | Fri, 7 Feb 1997 13:51:00 -0500 |
>Hmm.
>I wonder what would be the thing ..
>
>Oh well.
The point I think is that Dragons don't necessarily have a totem, it's just that they
are more likely than not to use magic intuitively rather than systematically. This,
_IMHO_ is the true difference between the hermetic and shamanistic approaches
to magic, one is intuitive and emotion/spirit based, and the other is analytical and
forces/energy based.
And to the pro-hermetic posters from before I say this:
As stated in all FASA comments on the subject: BOTH traditions have BLIND
SPOTS and limitations. Shaman may not benefit from the scientific method, and
the abilities that sustained study provide, but Hermetics don't really understand the
deeper mysteries of magic _either_ AND NEVER WILL. Even after 40 years,
magic is still an art, not a science. Hermetic magic may be scientific in
terminology and methodology, but it still defies instrumentation and therefore
measurement. All magical experiments depend on the introspective perceptions
of the experiementor. Any 20th century scientist knows this is DISASTROUSLY
unreliable. Hermetic mages expect magic to be predictable and to follow
discoverable laws, and therefore the magic they discover does. They deduce
laws and rules, teach them to their apprentices, and then a shaman walks in and
does three unreproduceable, impossible, against-the-rules things before
breakfast. Does the shaman understand what he does? No. Both traditions are
looking at different sides of an elephant through a keyhole and coming to very
different conclusions about the nature of magic.
How can magic be both hermetic and shamanistic? How can it be rule based,
with forces, energies and detailed cause-and-effect chains, but simultaneously be
simply the half awake will of the universe, the collective unconscious, full of spirits
to be apeased, raw emotions embeded in inanimate objects, souls, with molecules
of quartz crystals "remembering" whether they were harvested by hand or
back-hoe.
It is the same problem that stumped Newtonian optics: how can light be both a
particle and a wave? How can photons exist and cause the photovoltaic effect
and still be in two places at the same time?
There are deeper rules to magic than have appeared yet to man, and perhaps in
a century there will be a new tradition that combines the known ones and solves
this problem. Until then, just keep in mind that magic is both and we don't
understand why.
Double-Domed Mike
