Many
modern occultists either base their mission on, or a least have a
great deal of supernatural fiction in their reading lists. It is not
uncommon to see modern occultists perusing the works of Lovecraft,
Chambers, Machen, or Blackwood. This practice leads us to two interested
and related questions. Why would a magician (Machen, Blackwood, Fortune)
write fiction (beyond the obvious reasons of amusement and remuneration)?
Why would other magicians find their inspiration in fictive works?
A third question hidden in the first tow is how is magic similar to
the acts of reading and writing? I would like to take a look at the
nature of magic as a communication system, answer the first two questions,
give a few references for where important magical writing may be found
today, and sound a warning call for its protection. This is a tiny
rivulet, which I hope that others will take up as a new type of criticism.
Like the dark streams that have never seen the light of the sun in
the hills west of Arkham, I hope that this little rivulet may play
an important role in the evolution of Life.
Mauss
and other modernists attempted to reduce the power of magic to a sociological
context -- the power of magic is equivalent to how society feels about
the magician. This dreary attitude is still largely present in popular
culture; however postmodern theorists such as van Baal, Grambo, Flowers,
and Tambiah have provided us with a semiotic theory of magic; which
serves to illustrative both the practice of magic and its symbolic
expression. Basically the semiotic theory of magic is that man is
able to effect communication with his universe, and to think ascriptively
(i.e. hidden meaning is ascribed to the phenomenon of the universe
and it becomes a partner in communication). The semiotic theory postulates
three elements the magician seeking either a change a psychological
change within him/herself or an environmental change, the message
which is cast in the form of cultural coded symbols, and the hidden
"other side" of the universe. This goes beyond Frazier's
notions of "sympathy' by actually elaborating not only a three
fold process of sender-message-receiver but actually proposes a willed
volition to receive communication (in either the form of a revelation
or an environmental change)back from the universe. Summing up this
model of magic (after Flowers, Runes and Magic: Magical Formulaic
Elements in the Older Runic Tradition - Lang 1986 pg.17):
Subject
Direct Object Indirect
Object
(Man)
(Symbol-symbolized) (Other reality)
Indirect Object 
(Phenomenon)
subject
This model suggests
that for the magician the great secret is finding the correct mode
of address -- that method of communication which will produce the
response from the hidden realm. This has always be intuited in the
Mediterranean school of magic, as exemplified by choosing Hermes,
god of communication as its patron. For the magician operating in
a traditional society the method of communication is generally heavily
determined -- people know how to talk to the gods. But in modern and
postmodern societies the quest for the method of communication is
ongoing. The book ranks high as a sufficiently mysterious form of
communication (video, movies, and the computer network are waiting
in the wings). Who among us has not has that mysterious phenomena
of having gleaned something form one's own writings long after it
was written? And who among us has not had that mysterious process
of "finding just the book we need" at a crucial time in
our thought? So keeping in mind your own experiences of the mystery
of the written word consider van Baal's description of the nature
of a magical spell:
"The formula
takes its origin from the discourse between man and his universe,
in the case of a particular formula a discourse concerning a certain
object and the fulfillment of a desire. In this discourse man feels
addressed or singled out by his universe and he endeavor to address
it in turn trying to discover the kind of address to which his universe
will be willing to answer, that is, willing to show itself communicable.
The formulas he finally discovers in answer to his quest is not really
man's discovery but a gift a revelation bestowed upon him by the universe.
The formula is the outcome of an act of communication in which man's
universe reveals to him the secret of how it should be addressed in
this or that circumstance, a secret which is at the same time a revelation
of its hidden essence in that particular field."
(J. van Baal - Symbols for Communication: an introduction to the
anthropological study of religion {Studies of developing Countries
11) Asen: Van Gorrcum 1971 pg. 263)
Given
the above why do magicians write fiction? Not as open communication
of magic, it would be easier simply to write ho-to books. The need
to communicate with the hidden aspects of the universe of discourse
is the magician's motive. Just as an Egyptian would stuff his letters
to the dead in the crumbling tomb walls, the modern magician sends
his or her message into the semiosphere. Dion Fortune didn't create
her novels just as entertainment, but to actively Work the magic.
By performing illustrative magic concerning the nature of initiation,
of secret schools etc. she actually received (from the Hidden parts
of her own psyche) such information. The simple act of visualization
(i.e. daydreaming) is known to produce effects both psychological
and environmental, how much greater an effect can be obtained thought
the writing and publishing of magical work? The precision of writing,
editing, rewriting coupled with the aching wait for publication (with
its inherent travails of lost MSS, marketing mistakes, fraudulent
publishers) creates an unbeatable combination of passion and precision.
These are the elements that effect any magical working. It is easy
to get up passion for a particular end. We have all that experience
of having to get that job, make that meeting, etc. wherein our magical
practice did pay off with the required miracle. But it is frankly
hard to work up the passion required to get at certain desired spiritual
states. However the test of publication will place the magician in
the desire filled mode necessary to achieve his or her spiritual goals.
Of particular interest in this model is a man who would have been
repelled at the mere notion of placing him among magicians, H. P.
Lovecraft. But he illustrates the case perfectly. Lovecraft, with
his passions for astronomy and history longed to be part of the vast
forces of time. He longed to see the hidden essence of history/cosmology
that he felt would dissolve the details of the present like an acid.
With an entirely materialistic outlook, the practice of magic would've
been absurd -- but writing was another matter. His themes and topics
were certainly not commercial (although there has been a good deal
of money minted in his name). The desire to continue producing amateur
fiction, or sticking with such fiction as could be only sold to the
low paying Weird Tales, show that his need was a purely magical
one. And it produces results. The plots of his stories often came
to him in dreams. Particularly noteworthy was the dream that lead
to the production of the prose-poem "Nyarlathotep"
in which he found the Hermes of his pantheon. This particular communicator
form the other side, with his swarthy Egyptian skin, resembles both
the figure of Hermes-Thoth and the preternatural entity that Crowley
contacted in 1904. Lovecraft knew his need for the cosmic feeling
his stories brought him, and throughout his letters and critical writings
we see that need to evoke a mood repeated time and time again. In
fact Lovecraft was sensitive enough to this process (despite the fact
his materialist attitude kept him from ever consciously expressing
it) that many of his stories are "about" the desired result
of receiving communication form the other side. Cthulhu sends dreams.
The Fungi from Yuggoth take the seeker away on a cosmic quest, or
at the very least whisper all the secrets of the cosmos via certain
human appendages. The primordial ones communicate through their vast
murals found in hidden Antarctica. In the most revelatory of all his
work, The Shadow out of Time the hero not only sends a message
to the other side (by actually writing in the library of in the library
of the Great Race), but actually receives a revelation of finding
the message deep below ground (i.e. in the unconscious) "written
in his own hand".
Now
having seen why magicians have a need to use certain hidden or encoded
communications such as fiction writing, we turn to the question of
why magicians need to read fiction. The simple reason of "inspiration'
suffices, but it is to be noted that it is not the same sort of inspiration
that one may glean from say a straightforward biography. Very little
occult fiction provides a step by step account of ritual procedure,
and those that do are amongst the most boring. One doesn't read "the
White people" to find out the step by step ways of doing anything.
Indeed the operant material is generally described under only the
broadest (and there fore most evocative) of terms. One may be tempted
to invent the Aklo language or script out the Mao game, but the actual
use of occult literature is to allow the magician to receive communication
form the "Other side". By the use of imagination and mood,
the nature of that hidden realm is disclosed to us; although most
often in a mysterious way. It would be difficult to provide a description
of the shudder that hearing the caldron spell from Macbeth
first gave us. Crowley choose Macbeth, The Tempest,
and A Midsummer Night's Dream for the reading list of the
A.'. A.'. "as being interesting for the traditions treated".
The objective reality of these tradition were very small, but Crowley
(nobody's fool) knew that the effect they had on the soul allowed
something of that mysterious realm to be communicated. In short reading
works which actually illustrate magic close the diagram above, and
able the discerning magician to be benefit from the others illustrative
work. This is not simple receiving a message from the author, that
simple act of decoding which we all do as readers -- this is receiving
a place of access to the Unknown from the Unknown. The magician who
manages both this feat and the act of fictional creation therefore
achieves in this postmodern society a sets of signs and symbols for
communication with that unknown realm.
The
question facing the modern occultist is where the unknown is most
active, or to put it in literary terms where are the new occult writers
coming from, and in what arenas may they be found. As this quest has
to be an intensely personal one, I can only give a few hints and recommendations.
The works of Thomas Liggoti are universally praiseworthy and should
be sought out. J. G. Ballard, who never once mentions anything overtly
magical, is great place to learn about stasis and rebirth. Cities
of the Red Night by William S. Burroughs with its masterful portrayal
of the chthonic forces should be on every magician's library, and
the magical realism of Jorge Luis Borges and Garcia Marquez is not
to be overlooked. The late Fritz Leiber is likewise a place where
a thing or two can be learned. As for current magazines Elegia
( - 3116 Porter Lane, Ventura Ca 93003) provides a fairly high understanding
of the magical process cast in the current Gothic idiom.
If you
desire to be part of this process, you must create, and you must preserve
by fighting off every attempt to suppress supernatural literature.
The forces that produced writer's block within the self have their
counterparts in the semiosphere. These mindless gray ones who take
books off of school shelves. If you are a knight that seeks the Grail
of inspiration, or the magician who creates its brew -- beware those
gray dragons with dull eyes. There is no compromise with those who
would limit our imagination, to set back and allow them control of
our libraries is a spiritual negligence that will take its toll on
our hearts.
Read! Write! Preserve!
