From: cozzlab@garnet.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Magick
Date: 16 Apr 92 16:24:03 GMT
Article-I.D.: agate.sk9n3INN5gq
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: garnet.berkeley.edu

As the debate over why Corpora forbids the practice of magic or religion 
at SCA events continues, currently in the form of -"can I have a magician 
as a persona?"- , I thought I had better fill in a bit of history.  It has been 
noted before that laws (in the SCA or elsewhere) do not just spring up out 
of nowhere; they are promulgated as a response to something that has 
happened, to prevent its like happening again.  (Consider how often the 
stop light the neighborhood has been petitioning for for years is installed 
only _after_  someone has been killed at the intersection.)

Way back in AS single-digits, there was a person whom I shall not name, 
who said he was a magician.  He said this not only in the SCA but in real 
life.  He was not a magician; he was a con artist.  He began his con 
artistry by enrolling in the University of California, Berkeley, which had 
just established the "individual major", whereby if no department offered 
the major you wanted, you could put one together yourself and, if it was 
approved, get a degree in it.  This person put together an individual 
major on magic--its historical, literary, and anthropological aspects; it 
was approved, he presumably did the work and got a B.A. for it.  Then he 
got into the SCA.

Now, this guy was not like all the other people we have been discussing.  
He was neither a prestidigitator, nor a simple pagan quietly sacrificing a 
watermelon to Demeter in some flowery dale, nor a court astrologer nor a 
Roger Bacon analog.  He was, as I say, a con artist, and he proceeded to 
take center stage and tell everybody that he was a real magician, that he 
could cast real spells to make things happen--or to make them not 
happen--and that if you weren't nice to him, he could cast a spell to 
make something unfortunate happen to you.  There were a number of 
people who, not knowing any better, believed him and were terrified of 
him.  

He performed magical rituals in the middle of court.  He wrote doggerel 
about the value of magic and tried to get it published in the Page.  He did 
all the things the relevant Corpora section forbids one to do; that is why 
that Corpora section exists.

He was also, mind you, cheerfully willing to lie, cheat, and con in
matters unrelated to magic.  The guy was a champion jerk.

His last fling, more or less, was when he came into Court on Twelfth 
Night (James and Verena had just been crowned for the I-forget-how-
manyth time) and declared that he and his fellow wizards had not been 
getting their proper respect out of the Kingdom officials and populace, 
and therefore they were going on strike.  They were placing the Kingdom 
of the West under magical interdict for the coming year.  No more would 
they cast their spells to assure good weather for tourneys, to ensure that 
there were no injuries on the field, etc., etc., until the Kingdom gave them 
the respect and acknowledgment that were their due.

James didn't bat an eye.  "You are at liberty to do, or not do, anything 
you like," he said, "except that you may not compel anyone else to join 
you.  Is that all you had to say?  Fine; you have Our leave to depart."

So was there a single rainstorm on a tourney weekend, a single sprained 
knee that year, to shadow the minds of the credulous with a "Gee, maybe 
he had something there"?  Not bloody likely.  We had beautiful weather 
and splendid fortune the entire year--of course, we also had William the 
Lucky for Kingdom Seneschal.  It *never* rained on Lucky's events.  The 
con artist sort of faded out of the Society after that, though he hung 
around Berkeley for years afterward.  I don't know what became of him in 
recent decades, and I don't care.

I think this throws a bit of light on the Corpora section under discussion.  
The BoD were not particularly interested in eliminating all reference to 
religion: they wanted to forestall (1) the con artist, (2) anybody else who 
might pull a similar stunt.  But this was also Berkeley in the 1960s, and 
they didn't feel they could speak of magic as a special case, but only by 
lumping it together with religions in general.

Returning to the present, you can see how Corpora would allow you to be 
a generic wizard as easily as a generic monk.  A "real" magician (in the 
sense of a non-con-artist who sincerely believed his powers to be real) 
could cast a spell for good weather or to find a lost cat, just as a priest 
could say Mass, so long as they did it quietly, out of the way, where no 
one could feel he was being compelled to witness it.  A magician who 
made claims in public to powers over his fellow mortals, like a priest who 
told people they would fry in hell unless they came to his church, would 
be quickly shown the door.

As to the person who wanted a "magician" persona that he could wear in 
public, I would suggest picking up on the posting that mentioned how 
Roger Bacon was considered a magician.  Be a scientist and/or an 
astronomer.  Call yourself a "natural philosopher."  Cast horoscopes, but 
only for a fee, and with a few muttered asides about what nonsense it all 
is.  Nervously deny that you have anything to do with the Black Art.   For 
somebody who likes acting out an internally consistent character (which 
is what you are doing when you do a Right-Coast-style persona), it ought 
to be fun.

Or you could be an epic poet.  In the Middle Ages they also thought Virgil
was a magician.


Dorothea of Caer-Myrddin                               Dorothy J. Heydt
Mists/Mists/West                                              Albany CA
Disclaimer: This is the Cozzarelli Lab's account, not mine--but I don't
think anybody else ever reads it.
From: Stephen.Whitis@f4229.n124.z1.fidonet.org (Stephen Whitis)
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