Surrealist Composition as Blogging Technique

Written Surrealist Composition or First and Last Draft.
Having settled down in some spot most conducive to the mind's concentration upon itself, order writing material to be brought to you. Let your state of mind be as passive and receptive as possible. Forget your genius, talents, as well as the genius and talents of others. Repeat to yourself that literature is pretty well the sorriest road that leads to everywhere. Write quickly without any previously chosen subject, quickly enough not to dwell on, and not to be tempted to read over, what you have written. The first sentence will come of itself; and this is self-evidently true, because there is never a moment but some sentence alien to our conscious thought clamors for outward expression. It is rather difficult to speak of the sentence to follow, since it doubtless comes in for a share of our conscious activity and so the other sentences, if it is conceded that the writing of the first sentence must have involved even a minimum of consciousness. But that should in the long run matter little, because therein precisely lies the greatest interest in the surrealist exercise. Punctuation of course necessarily hinders the stream of absolute continuity which preoccupies us. But you should particularly distrust the prompting whisper. If through a fault ever so trifling there is a forewarning of silence to come, a fault let us say, of inattention, break off unhesitatingly the line that has become too lucid. After the word whose origin seems suspect you should place a letter, any letter, l for example, always the letter l, and restore the arbitrary flux by making that letter the initial of the word to follow.

From: What is Surrealism? an essay by Andre Breton

Plane Speaking

Planes.  Whether you subscribe to the theory that there are Seven Planes of existence, or Fourteen (seven plus a second set of opposite shadowy planes), or Thirty-One Planes (ala Buddha: Check out this handy reference at Buddha-Net), or some other configuration based upon Nineteenth Century esotericists, Theosophists, Science fiction, Enochian magic, Neo-Platonism, quantum mechanics, Gnosticism, newage quackery, or whatever else floats your particular boat.  Seriously, you can pretty much pick a number at random and find a system out there that will support your spontaneous channeling of higher wisdom in regards to how many Planes of Existence there might be out there. 

That last sentence in particular works best if you say it all breathless and as if it were supremely meaningful, like Shatner reciting from the Yellow Pages.  It'll help you keep a healthy dose of skepticism when treading into this particular territory.  Worse than any religious components or deprecated philosophies struggling to regain prominence, this area has money attached to it, and where there be money, there be pirates (both operative and speculative), intellectual sharks out to make a buck from the gullible & vulnerable, and rentable prophets of spurious dogmas as well.  It's quite the cavalcade of human frailties, foibles and follies.  Just remember that an open mind does not mean that you need to be a suggestible moron.  As always, when exploring the realms of philosophies and related pursuits, question authorities, demand proof or at least a receipt, keep your hands inside the car at all times and Caveat Emptor!

Pointless Confession Number One: I have never liked, nor have I ever used the so-called 'standard cosmology' first promulgated by Gygax and then peddled like pseudo-esoteric crack by those who came after.  It's rubbish, pure and simple (in my personal opinion).  If you like it and have had wonderful experiences with it, that's cool, but not of any interest to me.  When I speak of Planes of Existence, I'm referring to concepts derived from sources far older than an RPG and in some cases even older than Shatner, comic books or the Yellow Pages.  Not that those sources are necessarily more credible, just more interesting to me.  It is my blog after all.

Ahem.  Back to the Planes. 

 One of my favorite phrases used to describe the nature of Planes is "...a fractal ontological spectrum of innumerable divisions..." that a wonderfully helpful author/scholar named Kheper uses on his website discussing the correlations of Blavatsky's model of the planes to Max Theon's model (and includes Gurdjieff as well).  Blavatsky is heady stuff and best taken in small doses.  Her use of Sanskrit confuses Sanskrit scholars, her references to various Eastern concepts often diverge substantially from the supposedly quoted sources so that it confuses the experts of those traditions being quoted.  This is not to say that she was any sort of a fraud, not at all. I am not inclined to judge her but rather much like H. P. Lovecraft and a number of authors before me, I like to wander about the various constructs and conundrums that good old Madame HPB tossed out there and see where they can take a story--or a game.  Kheper's analysis of the Seven Terrestrial Planes at the link above will give you a wealth of information to sift through.  Oh, and there are diagrams.  Lots of diagrams.  Gotta love weird, esoteric diagrams.  Once I get the chakra-to-attribute diagrams I am working on finished, I'll be able to expand upon them to show the next level of complexity in terms of chakra-to-planar level correlations.  Then I can plot out the portions and parts of the astral-body and some other cool stuff.  That'll be fun.  Really.  I promise.  It'll be in color, too.

Any how.  Before getting too much farther down this particular maze of madness and mysticism, we need a good definition of what a 'plane' actually is, otherwise this is all rather pointless and not of much use to anyone.  Okay.  So a 'Plane of Existence' is best summed up, at least for our purposes, as being both a location and a state of consciousness simultaneously.  Mind and matter are interconnected, just as space and time are intertwined, and as a person dwells upon certain concepts or acts out various irrational desires or rational principles, they are already aligning themselves with various and sundry planes both positive and negative.  The more 'evil' one acts/thinks, the more evil that begins to harmonize with them on the subtle levels and they become attuned to those sorts of expressions, they sink to those levels, they literally already are living on those planes in some respects.  Likewise with 'good,' however you care to define it.  One's state of mind determines which planes they have access to, and where they are drawing energy from.  There is an implicit, intrinsic moral geography or topography that comes along part and parcel with the notion of planes of existence.  Planes are states of Consciousness as well as places that can be traveled to or visited.  That makes them freaky on so many levels.  As soon as you even touch the concept you are confronted with Freewill, Meaning, Perception, Souls, Spirits, and the deep waters of philosophy, religion and the emergent doctrines of quantum psychology and so on.  The beauty is that there are no right or wrong answers aside from matters of personal conviction, established faith and a lot of conjecture that frankly amounts to so much fiction.  What it all boils down to is we really don't know all that much about Planes beyond the various (often conflicting) notions that we've inherited from (almost always) apochryphal/dubious sources.
(Philosophers are still debating just what the hell COLOR is or is not.  Check out this paper on 'Color Primitivism.')

A better question might be: "What do we want planes to be like in our setting?"  Approaching the material from that angle will convert all of the perplexing, convoluted crapulous creeds and spurious claims into grist for our respective mills.  We can pick and choose whatever sounds appropriate and cool and leave the rest for other folks to play around with later. 

For my Riskail setting, I am approaching the concept of Planes as being layered around each world-core like the sections of an onion.  Each level outwards shifts a bit farther away from the central nexus in terms of how it relates to time, space, energy and consciousness.  Each planar layer has a particular vibrational rate or frequency that can be tuned-into like with a crystal radio set, or that can have an influence upon areas or persons sensitized to its particular vibration via rituals or mechanisms.  And, as I alluded to above, I am making the Chakras as well as Attributes integral aspects of the Planar Layers which are directly related to specific chakras which can then be further refined or attuned to these energies for various sorcerous applications.  Likewise Consciousness has serious ramifications in regards to the planes, not just in terms of which ones your character has access to, but by configuring consciousness in specific ways one gains access or blocks access to / from a variety of planes, unlocking both oneiric and etheogenic approaches to exploration of realities behind / beyond the conventional, accepted facade -- and that is so frikkin' Lovecraftian it hurts.  But in a good way.  I'm also building a set of diagrams, not quite so clunky as Blavatsky's or Theon's multitude of sub-planes, at least not right off.  Pictures make things easier to understand, and hurt the brain less than an over-abundance of cryptic, obscure and polysyllabic words that quickly slide into meaninglessness due to their inherent level of abstraction. (What?)

What makes the whole thing hang together in a useful way is that it serves as a terrestrial-style system of correspondences that facilitates comparison, description and manipulation.  For example, the various layers of a character's Aura are effectively membraneous interference layers between their chakra and the plane(s) that are aligned / attuned / resonant (cognate?) with their chakras.  Thus, as a character does things to themself, or suffers various effects, their connection to various planes will shift and change, allowing for all sorts of mechanics such as invisibility, clouding people's minds, glamoury, illusions, phantasms, communing with elders of another time and pace (Kashmir), and much, much more.  On a related note, I had thought that I could jettison that hoary old chestnut Alignment, instead it appears that I might have to re-think alignment as an attribute akin to Strength, Wisdom, etc. Maybe. This idea of a moral component to space-time is not just for fantasy role-playing any more.  Scientists and other authors writing about quantum mechanics are talking a bit about this sort of thing as well.  Books are being written, fist-fights have broken out; it's fascinating stuff, and I neither accept it nor decry it, I'm just here for the free beer.  It's weird. But I like weird.  Watch your step if you decide to go exploring in those caves and waters.  It gets pretty treacherous fairly quickly.  Beware the Wandering Opinion Table.

What do I mean by 'terrestrial' which I mentioned above?  Good question.  Sometimes it is better to begin with what is known before diving into the unknown.  We awaken into an awareness of our selves, our bodies and our surroundings.  Usually in that order, but that could be debated ad nauseum as well.  When we awaken into sentience, becoming thinking / feeling personalities who can answer questions on a Myers-briggs test Instrument in order to discover our personality-type, then we are becoming cognizant of our non-physical / abstract attributes (what OD&D would refer to as WIS, INT, maybe CHAR--that one likewise gets a bit of a debate going).  When we become aware of our bodies, we start dealing with breathing, eating, pooping and the physical attributes (STR, DEX, CON...).  Then we start to figure out that there is a world beyond our own asshole, unless we're a born politician sociopath or are crippled with an acute form of narcissism (which really is its own reward when you think about it).  The world around us, our environment, affects us in numerous ways.  Think burning stove, running water, and barking dogs and you'll be on the right track.  Those three developmental steps form the basis of how we perceive, relate and express our understanding of ourselves, each other, and the immediate world.  It is also the basic set of concepts that then leads into such stuff as chakras (attributes again), auras (chakra-planar interfaces), ectoplasm / phantasm (the sticky-gooey media in-between chakras and planes), and the terrestrial forms of divination, geomancy, interior decorating, and coping with ley-lines, etc.  Then there are the celestial / astral influences such as astrology, luminiferous aethyr / astral light, the ethereal zones, and so on.  It all stacks one upon the other like a bunch of weird Legos (tm) , and it all inter-locks just like the little Danish plastic blocks.

You start out small and simple and then slowly build up the complexity as things progress.  Now the notion of seven planes tied to the colors of a rainbow sounds pretty appealing, over the thirty-one bizarre-sounding ones with all the sub-levels and crap, huh?

Nah.

Go big, or go home.

But whether there is only one plane or a billion, the scheme for explaining these things needs to be accessible, readable, something that can be grasped both conceptually and figuratively so that they can be used in a setting, story or adventure.  They make lovely furniture / backgrounds if you want to get all Zelazny-like, which is a great way to handle an infinite number of planes swirling between two primary poles, one of which is Chaos.  (scroll down to 7: Mike Says.)   Zelazny also pioneered the conceptual conceit of having physical laws shift in smallish increments from adjacent plane to adjacent plane so that what worked for gunpowder in on place might only be good for polishing shiny rocks in another.  That alone can spawn numerous random tables for handling a wide range of planar effects, or serve as a plot-twist worthy of the worst groaner of a Star Trek plot in which the PCs gain a massive load of fire-power (personal-scale Vulcan Gatling Guns ala Predator anyone?) only to find out that the dirt in their bullets isn't particularly flammable despite having gained some seriously intoxicating effects.  Of course, that only works if you're not a dick and let them find some other substance to re-load their ammo with, or you let them discover an alternative like trees that produce pods that have strange bio-crystalline cores that focus a wielder's WIS into a blade of shimmering force that cuts through titanium like a Ginsu, or something like that only actually cool.  Taking an Amber-style approach gives you those kinds of off-the-wall opportunities.

Moorcock has been developing his version of the Multiverse for decades and anyone not immediately familiar with Elric or Moorcock should probably stop reading this stuff and go read a book.  Even if you don't like the guy or his work, his fiction is very influential and worth taking a look at just to see how he handles planes if nothing else.  Consider the Vadhagh ability to shift from one to another of the Fifteen Planes: "Once it was easy to move through the Five Planes at will.  With a little more effort the Ten Planes could be contacted, though, as you know, few could visit them physically.  Now I am unable to do more than see and occasionally hear those other four planes which, with ours, form the spectrum through which our planet directly passes in its astral cycle." Corum from The Knight of Swords.

Now we're getting someplace.  A set number of basic, common-access planes (directly tied to the chakras to facilitate various forms of clairvoyance / clairaudience, etc.), that are all arranged into a spectrum (shades of Ken Wilbur!), and all part of a vast planetary-level astral cycle (HPB again).  I like this approach.  It is clean and a good place to start from, without getting too bogged down in endless reams of useless details.  It also presents a nice way to integrate mechanics into the underpinings of the setting, which makes things more integral, to borrow a Wilbur-ism.

Another fictional approach to Planes is Farmer's World of Tiers series.  This time though, the planes are synthetic and the work of super-science, not mystical mumbo-jumbo, and we all know that weird science and rocketships always trumps magic and unicorns, except when the scientists start creating unicorns like in Stasheff's stories, but that's a digression for another day.  Farmer did some fun stuff with his artificial planes, and it's too good an idea to waste, so I'm bringing my friends the Temjurri, a faction from the old Bazra campaign / stories from way back into Riskail.  The Temjurri are plane-makers, hardcore scientists every bit as weird and powerful as any wizard.  So now we have artificial planes in Riskail, planes that are designed, built and made-to-order by an elite cadre of technologists and engineers from an obscure secret society who are reputed to lock away their enemies in pocket-spaces the way that Montresor walled-away Fortunato in Poe's classic tale.  Cool.  Weird science, artificial planes, secret societies of engineers who hold the secrets to forgotten or forbidden technologies, a wonderful tie-back to Poe for the sake of atmosphere, and we're in business.

Another approach to the subject of Planes is Rudolf Steiner, not known for fiction but rather an intriguing guy in his own right. Steiner was an old school occultist who literally and truly did have run-ins with the Nazis who both feared him and hated him like no other metaphysical adept.  He was like an Austrian George Washington Carver only he was more ignored and his work tended to be less commercially applicable, except for his unique form of agriculture still in use, his unique approach to music (Eurythmy), architecture, education (ever hear of Waldorf?) -- oh just go take a look at the guy.  He wrote more books than just about anyone and when he got bored with that he started whole new schools, founded alternative economic systems, got entangled in politics and started his own band of not-secret society called Anthroposophy.  This guy's life reads like he was a real-life Doc Savage and The Shadow rolled into one, only more academically inclined and less likely to punch you or pull a Colt .45 from under his cape and blast you into kingdom come...but then again, I won't take that bet.  Maybe he donned a mask, fedora and opera cape and did just that and never got caught.  If anyone could do it, he'd be the one to pull it off.

Handy Link: Forgottenbooks.org is a good place to go snooping for weird, old out-of-print books that can be mined for all sorts of ideas and Steiner's Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment can be downloaded as a free e-book here.  Be Warned: Anyone interested in this stuff could lose many hours of their life digging through the many obscure treasures gathered at this site.  I am a big fan of this site.  Highly recommended.

Steiner offers up a lot of intriguing concepts that many a less talented and often times more venally-motivated author has gone on to present as their own revelation from the ethers.  He firmly and devoutly espoused the doctrine that any human being willing to do the work could reap the benefits of the spiritual sciences.  He was one of the earliest proponents of self-development, and in many ways could be seen as a godfather to the whole self-help movement.  The Guardian on the Threshold is one of those cool bits of esoteric lore that keeps turning up all over the place, from Alice Bailey to Joseph Campbell and on to hordes of earnest newage gurus trying to sell you on their cosmique revelations channelled directly from Sirius or wherever.  (sphincter?)

Despite the snake-oil peddlers, the Guardian of the Threshold is too good an idea to not use it, especially when planes are directly tied to both consciousness and locality.  PCs will need to learn techniques and / or rites for gaining the permission / means to cross the threshold(s) between them and the other planes, perhaps a pilgrimage to other planes is required in order to activate Arbitrary Powers or one needs to contact a plane to arrange for a sponsor on the otherside in order to gain access to the plane or planes in question.  Ancient secret societies guard antiquated devices said to awaken dormant powers of perception within a subject (victim), allowing them to negotiate with the Guardians directly and possibly giving them a way to go get strange cool powers as a result.  Sacred sites might facilitate this sort of experience, especially certain ley-line junctures / nodes, or one of those stock ruined temples with the vaguely pre-Columbian motif and cyclopean (non-Steiner) architecture could have literal thresholds constructed within them that are activated by rituals and sacrifices of silly-putty so as to allow a dedicant to shift across into other planes.  Assuming they get past the three-headed parakeet that guards the mauve portal to Ygulix, or whatever other dread form the Guardian takes.

Steiner is awesome.  You could spend decades just reading his stuff, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you're prone to insomnia.  A genius, yes, but a popularizer of his concepts suited to today's reading public?  Not hardly.  Thankfully there are scads of hacks authors who rip-off re-discover his works and foist share them with the world, or at least those enlightened souls with credit cards.

Steiner is also a good example of how something as seemingly simple at first blush as Planes can get way out there in three or less clicks.  Planes are an integral part of the magic system, at least in my setting.  They also tie directly into the core mechanics of attributes which makes the whole process of developing a ton of spell-effects and Arbitrary Powers incredibly simple and straightforward, which I will cover in a future post.

The idea is to make the magic / sorcery coherent.  I refrain from the use of a word such as 'authentic,' because after decades of intense personal study, I can tell you that there is very little of any actual authenticity in these areas beyond stuff that has lingered long after the expiration date has lapsed.  If it wasn't for inspired forgeries, conceited frauds, or conniving mountebanks a lot of this weird and wonderful stuff would never have happened in the first place.  But that doesn't discredit it any more than applying the same standards to religion would produce any other results.  We're dealing with the geography of imagination and the mechanics of mythologies.  Authenticity stems from an opinion, a particular point of view, and frankly the magic of a made-up setting either in fiction or in an RPG needs be no more authentic than the systems used to handle quasi-medieval combat, and no less.  Mayhem is an abstract thing in the OD&D-derived corpus, for the most part.  Attempts to make it more realistic are of limited utility, in my experience, as they tend to be promoted most vigorously by those who wish to super-turbo-charge their characters and who do not wish to see anything even close to what they are promulgating being done for the magic system of the game.  Somehow some schmuck waving a length of steel is supposed to be superior to someone who wields the powers of a hundred planes and can cast lightning bolts.  Sure, it's a common enough conceit in a great many of the old Sword & Sorcery stories.  Plenty of times you read about some illiterate git in a fur kilt laying the bloodiest of smack-downs on the massed ranks of the local members of the Conjurors, Sorcerers and Wizards Local 113 (a special sub-section of the union of electrical workers possibly).  Maybe that works for you, and that's wonderful if it does.  It doesn't work for me.  I want magic to be fun, usable, and not a bogus weeny-copout kind of train wreck that just makes wizards top dog.  Fighters and others get their due just as well, and the basic mechanics coming together from all this can serve the less wizardly-inclined and even the anti-psychic null-zone-emitting types as well.  But I want more than just fireballs and a list of boring spells for my magic-users.  If thieves get special skills, then so should sorcerers (and fighters, but that's another post).

There needs to be some way to prevent magic-users from taking over everything.  Just like there needs to be a way to keep the fighters from taking over everything, or any of the other classes.  No problem.  As they develop their powers (just like a warrior develops techniques with weapons, or styles of fighting...), they have to deal with repercussions and consequences that come with their decisions, initiations, attunements and actions.  Every time they resort to certain proscribed rites of nastiness, that affects their aura, contaminates their chakras, and affects which planes they have access to. In some cases they can lose the ability to contact certain planes altogether.  The other-planar entities that they decide to contact or consort with likewise affect them on this deep level.  Entering into the service of higher-order entities, be they mythic angels, synthetic archetypes, obscure demigods or the embodiment of abstract principles has a direct and very powerful effect on the character that goes beyond just what color underwear they wear or what brand of sword they prefer when looting a castle.  It closes some options off even as it opens others up.  And that is exactly the sort of approach I want in Riskail.  Your choices as a player matter, not in a punitive sense, though some actions carry penalties just like hacking off an arm might impair one's ability to play piano, but in an empowering sense.  I want options, not restrictions.  Player skill can (and should) have a direct and dramatic effect on character attributes, giving the best of both approaches in one fell swoop.  Maybe.  Depending on how well I can get the diagrams all colored in, I guess.  We'll see.

Planes.  Getting back on track.  Planes are an opportunity to provide forms of experience, adventure and even some excitement that can really enrich a game.  Being able to project psychically into a realm of strange creatures on a vision quest, or stepping across a threshold into a realm where the rules of physics are off-kilter, or learning the secret art of drawing forth the dreaded Purple Flames of Kumashton and single-handedly wiping-out the voracious swarm of link-beetles about to devour the party body and soul--that's what I want from Planes in Riskail.

Make Your Own Magical Orders (Table)

I have uploaded a Table to make it easier to generate the names of Random Magical Orders to Scribd.  You can find it here, or down below.  It's free and it's yours to use, if you have a use for it, I just ask that you give me a mention if you do use it.  I'd also like some feedback, if anyone is inclined to offer any.

How To Use the Table:
Roll 2D6.  The first result is how many columns of the top table you get to select from, the second result is how many columns of the bottom table you get to select from.

Roll as many D20 as you got results for the Top and then the Bottom tables.  You get to pick whether you go with the ascending or descending order: or you can flip a coin.

Toss the words together, move them around as you see fit and experiment with swapping them around.  The idea is to generate the seed kernel of a decent name for a magical order.   You can slip a "The" and sometimes a well-placed "of the" can make all the difference.  If it comes out sounding pretentious, hubristic or over-the-top ridiculous...that might just be exactly what is called for.  Trust the dice, but use your imagination.  If you don't like your results, change some of the words or pick from different columns.  There is plenty of room for expanding the current double-matrix into something far more complex and filled with half a million sub-tables...but that's a lot of work for a little pay-off.

Let me know if it is useful or if it sucks.  I'm already working on a different approach that's a bit more formalized.

RiskailMagicalOrderTable_Mk1

Underlying Principles for Riskail: Sorcery and Magic, Part One

Note: This is Excerpted from an ongoing Work-in-Progress, much like the entire blog.  It is only intended to illustrate the specifics of the Riskail setting, nothing more, nothing less.

On Confronting the Cadeuceus
Sorcery and Magic are two intertwining pursuits that criss-cross and overlap one another in myriads of ways and yet are fundamentally quite different from one another for all their similarities, parallels and points of resonant congruence.  How so?  Let me explain...

Sorcery is the inspired, intuitive response to the irrational, rooted in perception, mired in personal perspective, and anchored deeply within the peculiar convolutions and topology of the very core-identity of the sorcerer.  It is a sometimes ecstatic, othertimes tragic, always idiosyncratic process of direct, personal and transformative revelation, metamorphosis, and transformation that partakes of the imagination and experience of individuals who dare to become other than they were, those who seek to experience and express genius through their transgressive arts that place them into communion with a super-reality both beyond and beneath the confined and constrained frame of reference we share as a common-property inheritance of tropes, symbols and archetypes that are all available for the edification, modification, and transmorgrification as they so choose.

Sorcery is a liberal, organic and hallucinatory sort of liberating process.  It embraces enigmas, promulgates paradox, and answers only to passions and drives unleashed from the depths of the unconscious and even then it is a fickle mistress, with a will and a volition of its own.  One does not command sorcery, nor is there any established authority save the personal accomplishments of those who have struggled with the madness and the alienation as they have navigated the infinite territories betwixt the ever-shifting poles of desire, delirium, the ever-fecund and erotic attraction of creation and the nihilistic and egoic revulsion of destruction.

Sorcery is by its very nature transgressive, dangerous, unstable and quixotic.  It is a personal path with few peers and many rivals, it can bring admirers and imitators, but in the end it requires personal sacrifice, your own unique take on the mythos you choose to guide your efforts, and your own interpretations of the vast panoply of spells that make up the vulgar apparatus, social cantrips and public domain corpus that is part and parcel of all sorcerer's heritage and the collective ground from which they all start.

A sorcerer learns principles, concepts and allegories, and they focus upon techniques, they explore established styles and join Movements based upon Manifestos, or they form short-term collaborations or covens with like-minded fellow-travelers until the inherent stesses and pressures of their respective explorations and the demands of their unique and personal visions tear such associations apart.  They gain skill, invest their experience, and gain or lose prestige and notoriety based upon what they produce, the clever re-interpretation of common spells or the hard work of creating a body of new spells leading up to their Masterpiece which sums up the totality of their experience, acts as a talismanic conduit of Power connected to some source that only they could reach or that they approached in an entirely new manner.

Hacks and lesser-talents brood upon the works of the Masters, frequenting museums and private collections in order to find some way to tap into the Power and the sources of inspiration behind the works of those who have passed before them, imitators and copy-cats, some create exquisite forgeries while others become so immersed in the style and idiom of their chosen guides that they become living extensions of the sorcery of the Great Masters, some going on to surpass those they imitated, others becoming so ensnared in the intimate details of another's vision that they lose themselves and sometimes become possessed by the very identity they sought to emulate.  There are those unscrupulous curators of run-down collections of obscure works who deliberately encourage this sort of thing in the hopes of cashing-in on the rebirth of formerly celebrated geniuses, but for the most part this sort of thing is considered tacky and distasteful by the mainstream of Polite Society.  But of course there are the occasional notable exceptions.

Sorcerers assemble their personal arsenal and repertoire from the fragmentary and sometimes conflicting bits and pieces of vaguely disreputable arts such as psychism, animism, spiritism, and the thoroughly uncanny techniques of trance, hypnosis, mesmerism, meditation, and psychoanalysis amongst other antique and often obscure forms of esoterica and the occult.  They study art as it was applied and the critical-lies of how it was interpreted, making no distinction between Truth or Fiction as it all dissolves into personal interpretation within the vast cultural ecology of phantasmagoria, psychology and divination.  All the fetishes and charms, Visceral Runes and Abstract Glyphs derived from all of human experience and expression are theirs to explore and experiement with and to expand upon.  Oneirism and somnambulism, amongst the other techniques of dream-work form the basis of most sorcerer's beginning explorations, quite a few of them will go on to locate and acquire their first spell-book at the Open Market that only exists as a shared-dream many have visited before and many more will experience afterwards.

Sorcery is an art.  First and foremost it is based upon first-hand experience.  It is personal, immediate, and intoxicating even to the point of becoming deadly addictive.  The primary media is the Self, the main avenue of expression is one's own life and the works they produce.  One does sorcery, one is not a sorcerer by any title or position held; it is an active pursuit that is both improvisational and open to personal interpretation, indeed it requires creativity and invention to even exist.  A sorcerer seeks attunements to gain access to media to employ within their spells, often traveling far and wide to gain personal contact with specific locales in order to connect with them on some level allowing the sorcerer to call upon that particular frame of reference to empower and influence their spells in a sympathetic synchronization that is both demanding and rewarding should they make good choices.  Likewise some sorcerers explore the fine art of unlocking the secret powers lurking within randomly found objects or the parts of animals, plants or structures.  They employ divination, create their own tarots, and hunt out their own sets (or forgotten forms) of runes.  It is a dangerous path fraught with intellectual violence, deliberate misinterpretations and wild accusations that prowl the sensoria of those engaged with it like feral beasts scenting out vulnerable and gullible prey to corrupt, twist and destroy through their insidious, corrosive influence. 

Sorcery is the province of witches, shamans, mystics, visionaries, mediums, dowsers, geomancers, soothsayers, enchanters, wild talents, rune-carvers, mechanical animists, tricksters, illusionists, fantomists, binders, prophets and above all artists.  It is the ultimate open-source community involved in reality-hacking as an artform.

So much for Sorcery.

Magic is the science of consciousness, formulaic and founded upon repeatable results, hard-won collated masses of data, the accumulated body of research and experiment over generations by a hierarchical and balkanized community of secretive and conservative custodians of rituals and legacies only accessible by way of rites of initiation and the study of doctrine, dogma and laws only revealed after dire oaths and terrible vows which carry unthinkable consequences should one break their promise or seek to go back on their duly given and recorded word.  Magic, beyond the simplest Outer Court rituals cheaply available on any newstand or by way of any scroll-peddler or bookseller,  is a body of work available only to those who receive an invitation, after they have proven themselves worthy in the eyes of some Order, Lodge, or School. 

Magic is walled-off, deliberately hidden and preserved for the properly prepared whilst held in reserve and obscured from the sight and knowledge of those not ready for its challenges, burdens or responsibilities.  One must appreciate the context of magic, the traditions of the groups that preserve it and promulgate it, and deliver the initiations that open one's way into it.  Each step, every level along the great pyramid of initiation brings with it a new challenge as well as a renewed, often strengthened connection to the particular Powers that serve or guide the group.  Power comes in time, in response to proven effort, diligent study, and repetitious application.  Each candidate will have at least made some progress working through the Seven Classical Grimoires, or else they will not get far along the path of magic as each successive step is dependent upon the one before it.

Guides, mentors, and challengers, hierophants, chancellors, marshalls, and very honored fraters and sorores, your brothers and sisters within the Order, Lodge or Circle will help you, test you, challenge, provoke and assess your worthiness even as they instruct you, educate you and assign various tasks to you.  It's all part of the process of becoming a wizard, a mage or philosopher with great knowledge, power and responsibility.

Magic is a form of technology, and it is highly proprietary in its dissemination and application.  Memories, dreams and reflections are the stock in trade of a candidate who is expected to earn their place at the threshold to the mandala-esque boundaries of their chosen Order.  Once initiated, brought across the threshold and plugged-into the accumulated lore, specific Power and particular legacies of their group, they are commited to the path.  Most find it a fair bargain.  The others are rarely ever heard from again.

One gains access to the teachings of their group, learning the fundamentals and receiving training in the work of assembling egregores, conjuration of the spirits and other entities aligned to their group, the doctrines underlying all magical practice, and the requisite rituals and spells only available from the group.  They are connected into the collective energy of the organization, their aura primed and bound and set with seals that identify it as belonging to the Order.  They are granted the right to access the shared metaconscious groupmind that informs the group, serves as their commonly-shared point of access and reference, and the repository of all their memories, knowledge and learning.  Perhaps at one time these things were in some form artificial, but they are quite valid and real and dynamically active and involved in the affairs of their respective groups as could be expected of any living organism, collective or singular.

The private histories of the various Orders are built up over generations by all the diaries, journals, records and reports submitted by each member over the course of their involvement with the Order.  By its nature it contains controversies, conflicts and the failings of all forms of communication.  But amidst all that, there are secrets, insights, revelations and often neglected theories or lines of reasoning that can lead to whole new areas of research and experimentation, buried spells, forgotten or deprecated forms of rituals, even the keys to sub-sets of the Order that operate as clandestine cells of even more secret societies within the already esoteric and arcane Orders.  And the more one digs, the more one uncovers the politics, dealings, and truth of the past and the previous generations even as they get co-opted, recruited, and drafted into the lingering conspiracies, simmering rivalries and sometimes explosive disputes that are going on all around them.  They will be asked to choose a side eventually.  Perhaps they will choose wisely, but they will choose none the less.

Magic is a mass of consequences, implications and knowledge both undefiled and thoroughly bastardized, bowdlerized and corrupted.  It is a powerful modality for effecting change both in terms of one's inner conscious-landscape and in the world at large.  Secret knowledge such as the geometry of mythology, the mechanics of planes and resonant spaces, the topology of emanatory spheres, metaphorical and practical astrology, hyper-mathematics, reformed hermeticism and more.  If it is esoteric, bound by secrecy, and best not left to the uneducated, the ignorant or the profane then it is encapsulated, shrouded and held in trust by the Orders lest it be cast like dangerous pearls before pigs.  Consider the implications of psychoactive nuclear weapons, or the ancient secrets of constructing timebombs or the horrendous machines capable of mindlessly devouring entire planets.  Those things are replicatable, repeatable, the product of arcane sciences, and they must never fall into the hands of those who do not clearly appreciate their natures or the consequences of their use.  Thus the Orders remain silent, guardians of things best not left in the hands of the uninitiated.

So much for magic.