Freeday 27 July 2001

Pic of the day: Yet another screenshot from Master of Magic. Trust me, it beats the picture of my fridge that I originally intended to use...

Weekend magic

If there is no magic in this world, how could there possibly be ten liters of water in my fridge? (2.5 gallons in tribal measures.) The whole fridge is barely chest high on me, and there was certainly no water in the actual fridge part. In fact, it was barely even cold, even though I had defrosted it two years ago. Well, de-iced it. True enough, I hadn't been able to open the door to the ice box for the last few months, as it was frozen over. But ten liters? Come on. Still, the water has been just running from the thing for the last three days, until finally it stopped today. Between the water and the chunks of ice I lifted out with my bare hands, there must have been approximately ten liters. Creeeepy. But it works fine now.

***

As I mentioned yesterday, I am deepening my knowledge of GURPS, the role playing system I like best. Since I am foraying into the realm of magic this time, I have read the basic rules of GURPS magic in the Basic Set handbook. I decided to search a bit on the Net, to get a feeling for how a person with magical aptitude would go about learning magic in a world like ours. In a world filled with trolls and elves he would obviously contact the Mages Guild or something such, but what would he do in a technological world like ours? What I found really killed my mood.

Believe this or not, but there seems to be people out there who actually believe that magic is real. Actually the magic they talk about seems not very different from prayer. I know I have written before about how some people treat prayer as if it were magic, but I have never looked at it from the other side. These people don't cast Light spells instead of bringing a flashlight. Rather they generate mana by rituals, varying from ritual fasting to ritual intercourse. (And there is definitely a lot inbetween there.) And then they use various laws of magic, such as the Law of Contagion and the Law of Similarity, to carefully craft a connection between their intent and the object. Then they cast a spell, by performing yet some ritual, such as an Evocation, enlisting the service of personal or impersonal energies to amplify their intent. Then they leave a reasonable time for the magic to do its work.

It is not strikingly different from all the pious grandparents out there who pray for their grandchildren while looking at a picture of them. Yes, I have known about this before, but it kind of grew clearer this time as I saw it from the other side.

Sometimes I wonder if the main difference between christians and neopagans isn't in the sexuality rather than the actual religion. For reasons that lie way beyond the scope of a Friday musing, monotheist religions are generally very wary of sexuality. People should not even think about sex except with their wife (or husband, but women are not supposed to think about this anyway). In contrast, polytheists also tend toward polyamory, that is, to make love to quite a number of people. In a society where people can choose their own religion without being thrown to the lions or burned at a stake respectively, I wonder how many gravitate to one religion or the other depending on what they feel is ethical sexuality.

Yes indeed, I believe (insane as it may sound) that some people consider it good and right to make love to a number of people, if not exactly on the same night. That they somehow make the world a better place to be. Positive vibrations. Eh. Of course, the rest of us know better, don't we? Hello? Guys?

But when it comes down to the actual religious experience (as separate from certain other types of "experience") I am more and more convinced that most honest believers have strikingly similar experiences and attitudes. I guess that just like you can only make certain types of gloves if they shall fit a human hand, you can also only make certain types of religion if they shall fit a human mind.

***

I have a small office for myself at work, and today I played a couple songs that I had lying about. (Actually I have a few dozen CDs at work, but most of them are rarely used.) From The Cure galore I played their great hit Friday I'm in love. I know I played it a couple years ago too. Somehow it sounded much less convincing this time. Oh, the melody is beautiful. But somehow the magic was gone.

I remember my best friend, the SuperWoman, bought that CD a couple years ago. I did not know The Cure from Judas, and was surprised to hear that there were actually two great songs there, beautiful melodies. Those were Friday and Just like Heaven. There may be other good tracks, I wouldn't know, since I never played through it all. Somehow listening to the songs along with her made them come alive to me. Well, obviously I wasn't in love with her ... but knowing a human made it somehow real to me. If that makes sense.

Now that I am more estranged from humanity, it is harder for me to "get" this kind of songs. I lack a resonance, which I know I did not really have within myself, only borrowed. When she was around, the music was more musical. The blue sky was bluer, the light was brighter, life was more alive. As if she amplified all the things that passed through her mind. I guess that's a kind of magic too.

I don't work that way on people. Oh, I have an aura too. But my presence makes people solve logical problems. At work, I often just have to stand in the same room as a coworker, and she will solve the problems all on her own which seemed so difficult before I came. And not just computer problems, though they are the most obvious. Sometimes stuff I don't really know anything about. Well, it's nice to be useful, sort of. But it is very different from making life seem more alive.

It's Friday, I'm logical. And strangely satisfied with it. We can after all be no one but ourselves. We all need to find our own "magic".