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In my recent review of Peter Carroll’s book ‘Liber Kaos, the Psychonomicon’, I was prompted to draw a comparison between progress in the understanding of so-called ‘magic’, and the history of the comprehension of electro-magnetic radiation by 19th century science. The Danish physicist Hans Oersted first noticed in 1820 that a high voltage spark generated across a gap in a metallic loop could induce a similar, though smaller, spark to occur across a gap in a similar loop on the other side of his workshop. You can observe the same sort of effect at work today when you are trying to record something off the radio, and your neighbour gets to work with his ancient (unsuppressed) electric drill - sparks cause ‘white noise’ radio emissions across the entire frequency band. It was some twenty years before Faraday began to arrive at some coherent understanding of what was going on, and not until 1865 that James Clark Maxwell put forward his famous wave equations which described the process in precise mathematical terms. After another 30 years Marconi had built the first reliable radio set which could send and receive coherent information carrying signals at discrete wavelengths.
My view is that in terms of magic we are past the ‘Oersted’ stage, in which we can do simple things - the equivalent of undifferentiated spark transmission - on a reasonably consistent quantifiable basis. Now, the first attempts are being made to propose a quantitative model with Carroll’s "Equations of Magic" in ‘Liber Kaos’, and it may be that those equations, in times to come, will assume as much importance in the emerging science and technology of ‘magic’ as those of Maxwell have done in radio engineering.
If we are now, by comparison, only a little further on than being able to send out sparks from a Van Der Graaf generator, think what could be accomplished when the ‘magical’ analogues of separated wavelengths, frequency modulation and/or radar technology come to be understood. I feel it is not unreasonable to assert that we may be on the threshold of some major discoveries, and happily for us all, the scientific/technical establishment is looking the other way because of their slavish belief in a deterministic universe, and their refusal to accept the reality of any phenomena which threaten that belief - and this despite Godel’s Theorems having been published half a century ago!
The key to progress, in my view, is to strive to achieve greater precision in magical actions, with increasingly precise statements of intent, possibly sigilized into systems diagrams mapping detailed effects. For example, if you feel moved to take magical action against a bank for, say deducting bank charges from your account without notice and then bouncing a cheque presented by your lawyers (which can be very embarassing); then you want to ensure that the curse is effective against all the lifts in their head office, and not against all their cash-point machines in a 6.66 mile radius; particularly if the working has been conducted publically. Alternatively, on a more personal level, you want to make sure that it is the offending manager who suffers the fit of projectile vomiting, and not the hapless secretary who chances to open the letter with the runes drawn under the postage stamp.
Whatever happens, never let life get on top of you - always keep the Wand and the Thunderbolt handy in times of crisis.
My view is that in terms of magic we are past the ‘Oersted’ stage, in which we can do simple things - the equivalent of undifferentiated spark transmission - on a reasonably consistent quantifiable basis. Now, the first attempts are being made to propose a quantitative model with Carroll’s "Equations of Magic" in ‘Liber Kaos’, and it may be that those equations, in times to come, will assume as much importance in the emerging science and technology of ‘magic’ as those of Maxwell have done in radio engineering.
If we are now, by comparison, only a little further on than being able to send out sparks from a Van Der Graaf generator, think what could be accomplished when the ‘magical’ analogues of separated wavelengths, frequency modulation and/or radar technology come to be understood. I feel it is not unreasonable to assert that we may be on the threshold of some major discoveries, and happily for us all, the scientific/technical establishment is looking the other way because of their slavish belief in a deterministic universe, and their refusal to accept the reality of any phenomena which threaten that belief - and this despite Godel’s Theorems having been published half a century ago!
The key to progress, in my view, is to strive to achieve greater precision in magical actions, with increasingly precise statements of intent, possibly sigilized into systems diagrams mapping detailed effects. For example, if you feel moved to take magical action against a bank for, say deducting bank charges from your account without notice and then bouncing a cheque presented by your lawyers (which can be very embarassing); then you want to ensure that the curse is effective against all the lifts in their head office, and not against all their cash-point machines in a 6.66 mile radius; particularly if the working has been conducted publically. Alternatively, on a more personal level, you want to make sure that it is the offending manager who suffers the fit of projectile vomiting, and not the hapless secretary who chances to open the letter with the runes drawn under the postage stamp.
Whatever happens, never let life get on top of you - always keep the Wand and the Thunderbolt handy in times of crisis.