are writing.
And yet there is a ghetto for lies. The same people who reject homeopathy because it is “scientifically unproven” will go to the theatre and applaud when a man in tights pretends to be the King of Denmark, and that a few square metres of wooden flooring is a battlefield. They will go to an art gallery and see lovingly painted scenes of cruelty and destruction, without automatically assuming the artist loves cruelty and destruction. They will applaud a film portrayal of Nazi fanatics without assuming the director is a Nazi fanatic.
Indeed, the assumption that life, nature and our fellow humans are profound, unfathomable, mysterious and rich in meaning still survives in our culture. It is safely quarantined in a ghetto called “art”, and I am simply proposing to lead it out into the real world in the name of magic.
So, don’t be put off by those tired old gas-bags hired by the so-called “serious” media; the rent-aboffin acamediacs who decry superstition, the New Age, astrology and human gullibility; those dinosaur spokespersons of the Enlightenment who splutter at the least glimpse of shade. This book is about putting meaning back where it belongs and living magically.
Sure, mankind needs certainties in times of terror. There is a place for science and religion when we are living in the trees, or being invaded by Goths, or discovering terrifying new worlds across the ocean. But in a world where cyclists wear hideous helmets, where cars may only be parked at the owner’s risk, where packets of peanuts bear the message “warning—this product may contain nuts” and where teachers can be sued for allowing adventure in an adventure holiday—in such a world we have far greater need for art and magic.
Absolute truth, whether religious or scientific, should be celebrated for what it is—a crutch for epochs of lameness—and not become a burden in times of such agonising comfort as ours. Science and religion are a balm in times of uncertainty, but in an over-regulated world like ours we need art and magic to bring back the life.
In the prosperous nations today we do not seek marriage partners to huddle against the cold, or for mutual support in the battle for survival. Instead we marry for fulfilment, for romantic love. We marry to invite challenge into our lives, not to overcome it. We crave the excitement and will turn up the volume and wallow in films and tales of terror to regain that sense of being alive.
Do you really want to go on clinging to the skirts of science and religion and the flabby certainties of acamedia when you could be dancing naked on the heath by moonlight? Do you need the desperate diet of fake media frenzies—terrorism, paedophilia, cannibalism, murder and mayhem—to keep up the phantasy that we still live in a dangerous world and need religion and science to control it?
Or are you prepared to dance with dangerous ideas for a change?
Let me now introduce you to a different sort of partner—a real slut of an idea.
And be prepared to ride the comet’s tail!
CHAPTER TWO
THE POSITIVE ADVANTAGES OF PERSONIFYING
Let us begin with one near-universal life experience: the way that gadgets and systems let you down just when things are most critical, when you are in a hurry, when an important person is present, or when the deadline is pending.
It does not matter whether it is red traffic lights on the way to a late appointment, or a car that won’t start, or an office copier that grows cantankerous—in every case I recommend recourse to that very obvious question “how does it know I am in a hurry?”
This is such a natural question, and it arises in so many minds, that it is easy to overlook its radical import. It is, in fact, deeply revolutionary, for it betrays a mindset for which one could be burnt at the stake in religious times, or treated as a mental case in scientific times.
The idea that an object could know anything, have any conscious volition, let alone know you are in a hurry, is anathema to religion. It is an idolatry, a pantheistic pagan notion that the church has been fighting since it emerged triumphant at the end of the so-called Dark Ages. The denial of that notion was inherited by science in the second half of the millennium—replacing the term ‘ungodly’ with ‘untruthful’, and seeing those who support the notion as ignorant or insane rather than sinful.
For the official view is still that an office copier cannot possibly know if you are in a hurry, because it has no brain, no mind, no intelligence, no consciousness or will. It is an object, not a being, and should be treated as such.
Despite this revolutionary import, I recommend that one does ask the question “how does it know?”, because it is actually a very sensible question.
Even that word ‘sensible’ can sound like a revolutionary battle cry, because we are led to believe that only science can be sensible, that the only sensible response is to say that the copier cannot possibly ‘know’.
This is because people confuse two very different things: sense and logic. It is certainly not logical to assume the copier has a mind, when there is no evidence of neural activity, of communication, or of the level of complexity associated with mental processes. Logic does have some place in magical thinking, but its role is subservient and it is certainly true that science is far more logical than magic.
On the other hand, magic is far more sensible than science because it is an application of all the senses. When we think of the copier as a conscious being, instead of a mechanical object, we are vastly expanding our sensibilities to embrace mood, purpose, affection, commitment and a multidimensional infinitude of additional factors. The copier could be malfunctioning because it is an undercover agent for arival organisation, it might be a revolutionary fanatic wishing to sabotage the business, it might simply hate me, or it might equally have fallen in love with me and be trying to attract my attention...
The possibilities are endless, they are highly illogical, but they are all simultaneously embraced by that single process of personification.
The tiny trickle of mental activity represented by logical thought has expanded into a torrent of parallel processes as the brain gears up to tackle the most challenging object in the universe—a fellow conscious being.
Next time you approach the copier under pressure you might first kneel before it and bellow out a song of praise for its steadfast support during easy times, or you might beat a drum and dance to placate it. It is then possible that the pent up aggression of working under pressure will be dissipated before you even touch the copier, and thus it may subsequently function just as it would in times of peace. In this case, the problem has been solved by magic.
Too much of such behaviour and you will be sacked—an even better solution because it not only removes you from the irritating presence of the copier but it also relieves you of the very work pressure that instigated the problem. Magic has again triumphed.
It is this effectiveness of magic that is so deeply threatening to science, and the reason that magic is forever under attack. If you are suffering aches and pains and lots of people are finding relief from the latest quack nostrum or New Age therapy, then it is not very logical to put your money and trust into something not endorsed by the medical establishment, but it is jolly sensible so to do. Who cares if the cure is ‘purely psychological’ or based on ‘mere mass hysteria’ when what you want above all is a cure?
If a bandwagon appears at the right time and place—then jump on it and rejoice. The idea that one should refuse to participate in a successful healing process here and now because it fails to satisfy certain tests in some distant laboratory has a certain logic but it is anything
