UA-digest Digest V99 #28

[Michael Daisey]

While very interesting, I hasten to point out that the wording issue is
addressed in the main rulebook.  In the UnAverse, most adepts don't give
a hoot, or else can't agree, on what to define things as.

Not trying to squelch informative posts--just trying to emphasize that
this is a game of postmodern magick and not definitions.

m.daisey



Clint Staples wrote:
> 
> Re: Earl Wajenburg's '-mancy vs. -urgy' debate. A little background on
> 'Theurgy'.
> 
> Before we get started, I think Urbanomancy works just fine. Within the
> world of UA, who named the school? A classics scholar, fully versed in
> Greek and Latin? Maybe. Or someone who, like most of us (me worsat of
> all), knows just enough Greek and Latin to get myself into trouble. And
> once the name is applied, it'll stick no matter what get's done (short
> of a Grammaturge changing the name as a power play against the
> city-mages. Although I guess a Grammaturge would have to change his/her
> own name or risk reprisals from the Geriaturgists. Sorry).
> 
> Theurgy
> 
> The term 'Theurgy' as I understand it is not what you could really call
> 'White magic'. Theurgy referred originally to the experiential cults of
> a number of the mystery religions of the Hellenistic and
> post-Hellenistic world. The best known is probably that of Mithras, but
> the cults if Isis and Osiris, Attis and Cybele, the Dionysiacs and a
> bunch of lesser ones all revolved around the use of various
> magico-religious formulae that allowed the initiate to directly contact
> the divine. The cults were often ecstatic, allowing the contacted deity
> to enter the body of the initiate, but at the very least focusing on the
> 'rush' of immediate contact with the divine. The experience was  often
> heightened through the use of drugs and hallucingens.
> 
> Having said that, I take your use of the term 'white magic' to refer to
> some sort of ethical orientation on the part of the worshippers that we
> can see as essentially positive and beneficial. This is not really the
> case for most of the recorded mystery cults and their members. The
> experience seems to have been a very personal one and ultimately a
> private one as well. With very few exceptions the point of the
> initiation experience was to curry the favour of the god, or perhaps to
> seek knowlege of the future for personal benefit. Ultimately, the goal
> of the various mystery religions was personal salvation through
> initiation.
> 
> If you are using 'white magic' to refer to the ritual practices of the
> mystery cults, say in opposition to the 'unclean rites' traditionally
> associated with demon worship, it should be remembered that many of the
> practices so associated with devil worship are common to the mystery
> cults. For example, Mithraic initiation involved the slaughter of bulls
> and goats, and in all likelihood the bathing in and consumption of their
> blood.  Initiates of Attis and Cybele symbolically, and often actually,
> castrated themselves. Many of these cults were directly opposed by
> Christian theologians of the time because they were thought to pervert
> the sacrament. Several of the rituals that have been preserved in these
> cults involve a ceremony very much like the bread and wine of Christan
> worship. Idols of the god or goddess in question were found in just
> about every mystery temple known, as many of the rituals were intended
> to animate an idol with the presence of the diety.
> 
> Finally, The OED states that Theurgy did become associated with 'white
> magic', but only in late medieval times. The OED also has the term for
> 'black magic' in this context as 'Goety' (medieval Latin - 'to wail,
> cry', but it became an epithet for sorcery).
> 
> Sorry, that post got away on me a bit.
> 
> Clint Staples
> 
> >
> > While we're on the subject of etymology in the names of
> > magic schools, here's a nit: "-mancy" is for forms of divination,
> > so that "necromancy" is primarily getting information from
> > the dead.  If a school of magic is primarily for DOING stuff,
> > the ending root should probably be "-urgy," from "ergos," work.
> > "Theurgy" is "god-work," a fancy name for "white magic," and
> > "thaumaturgy" is "wonder-working," a fancy synonynm for magic
> > in general.  "Demonurgy" is "devil-work," black magic.

-- 
Michael Daisey
----
"It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the
oath." Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.), Greek dramatist. Fragments, no. 385.