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Or perhaps science is Magic. Afterall, magic did exist first, or rather there was a primordial undifferentiated whole out of which diverted science. Science breaking out to define magic as an older 'Other' and thus different. But really not so much. In 'Cosmic Serpent,' Jeremy Narby relates a story of when he went down into the jungles of South America looking to find out the truth in S. American Shamanism. One of the people he encountered was a shaman/painter who, went on DMT trips and painted the results. When the western anthropolpgy team arrived, they were shocked to find a someone painting a map of the human genome. I know DJ's who cast magic through their sets.
Many physicists who reach a certian degree of understanding turn from atheist to theist, of one variety or another. String theory and such really is that sci-fi. Newton as Gravity Shaman, Einstein Nuclear Mage. The lens through which one views reality define the world. Grant wrote 'Invisbles' as a giant sigil cast into reality through the medium of comics. Linguistics is science, but literature is magic. Yet both play with, define, and work through the meaning, significance and structure of language.
Cope, in a talk I saw him give at the British Museum (his face was bright blue and his neck yellow) about Odinistic shamanism, said that being a bardic figure and remembering songs/stories and exactly how they should be performed - even though he might not have done them for twenty years and the intervening time had seen vast amounts of chemicals and at least one breakdown - was an act of shamanic magic. Performance as consensus magic; nobody else knows how the performer is doing their song, story, trick, whatever, and if they do, they are themselves privy to magic.
It's what the masonic tradition is based on, and the Magic Circle.
I think many practicing magickians would be well pleased by your description of the nature of their practice. What is it with you Brit comics writers, anyway, and contemporary magick? If some additional thinking about exorcism is useful fodder for your project, let me highly recommend Michael Cuneo's book American Exorcism: Expelling Demons in the Land of Plenty, which is full of fascinating characters, does some thoughtful discussion of the cultural context, and mantains a cunningly agnostic tone throughout. (You can check out a review from the National Catholic Weekly and an excerpt of the book online.)
Our culture is heading back towards belief in magic, and new technologies, I think, may be why. Our great-grandparents, if they were even averagely intelligent, could understand the most advanced of their culture's technology. Fire in the firebox heats the water in the tank, which makes steam in the boiler, which provides pressure to drive the pistons, which power the wheels and hey presto, Missus! We're off to t'seaside on Thomas the Tank Engine! If everything is explicable and rational, what need do we have for magic?
I haven't the faintest bloody idea how anything works nowadays. When I press the button on this computer anything could be happening. Shamans in Krasnoyarsk may be chanting to keep me online. A troupe of miniaturized Chinese acrobats may be performing depradations inside the case of my computer with their arses painted green. Bluetooth? Is he going to sail his longboat up my connection? You tell me. Even the bloody washing machine has a computer in it these days. You could see how my Mam's mangle worked quite easily, especially if you were cranking the handle.
It might as well be magic. Most of us are as mystified as mediaeval peasants when we press the switch. That's why the new technology druids can rip us off for maintenance contracts and callout charges. Now wonder we're all scrambling back up into the goddess's womb.
Now there's an image to scare you on a fine, spring morning.
I often wondered where you'd gotten 196883. Thanks for the link.
The approach to magic as not-quite-a-science is the central conceit to my proto-novella. I hope this works.
It seems structure often strengthens. And webcomics tend to seem trite. Whether they are or not, they give the impression, perhaps because there are not yet a great many webcomics that leave as lasting and vivid imprint as printed. Seeing something physically before you that's tactile/real somehow makes it numinous. Either way, the magic of science will have(if it has not already) made the print project as obsolete as purchasing an album from a record store, so print it up while you can. You want a voice that will lead your audience to feel, think, react. How important will dramatic structure be?
<< Either way, the magic of science will have(if it has not already) made the print project as obsolete as purchasing an album from a record store, so print it up while you can.>>
Well, yeah. But I already have quite a lot of books in print. So why not also take new avenues when they present themselves?
<< You want a voice that will lead your audience to feel, think, react. How important will dramatic structure be? >>
Horses for courses, of course, but: not as important as I think you think it will be, in the macroscale. Microfictions can easily fire off an idea, touch an emotion, strike a chord, set you to thinking. I think a chain of works like that has just as much value as the traditional Victorial novel structure.
True, that you do, and I trust that you'll be one to (if you do go for webcomic) do it right. It'd change things, though. I, for instance, wouldn't be able to make generalizing statements against webcomics, then, and how they're "not yet on par" with the existing current printeds. It would definately be interesting to see how you use it.
Hence the 'notions,' which I think is the most appropriate description for it, and there's a good chance that once you get enough glimpses of these "notions," they'll build up a general, loose narrative by proximity. In many ways, this approach is more appealing than the traditional, and in some ways, because they leave you satisfied, wanting more, and affected, at the same time. If you want to go with microfictions, webcomics would work rather nicely. I'm just rather greedy and hopeful for one of these works to strike you hard enough to make you want to dig deep into the marrow of it.
"they'll build up a general, loose narrative by proximity"
That would have to be the approach, yes. Agreed. | |
warren_ellis
Magic is science. I've always understood it as a set of tools with which to enter into conversation with the dark matter of your own brain and whatever that is (un)wired to.