[UA] Postmodern Thaumaturgy

[Nick Wedig]

>Traditionally thaumaturgy was a semi-clueless attempt to cash in on the 
>"occult revival" at the turn of the last century.  The flavor of the month 
>then was QBL so all the "thaumatugy masters" went on an on about how they 
>were privvy to some ancient secrects, even though what they got was third 
>hand at best and none of them behaved like a real rabbi.
>
>Now, the Naked Goddess tape has created quite a bit of a stir.  Everyone 
>knows about it and knows someone who knows someone who had a copy of the 
>tape once.  The "thaumaturgists" are jumping on the milk train.
>
>Because, at its core thaumatugy is all about exploiting the work and culture 
>of other people for personal gain.  They never seem to take credit for 
>anything (a possible taboo) but claim to be privvy to ancient secrets and 
>communing with wise spirits.

Somehow this reminds me of a group I once imagined for UA called the Numbermen, who had an entire view of how the world works that was at odds with the IC, adepts, etc, and was drawn from random debris of a bunch of other occult beliefs.  Kind of like taking a small occult library (primarily kabbalism and such) and running it through the cutups machine, with little or no coherence or any attempt towards such.  More or less, the founders read some occultism and completely misinterpreted what it was about, and went from there.  I imagined it working somewhat, but nothing as big or effective as real adept stuff.

Mr. Teapot
numberman

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