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Joined: Apr 2008
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|  | History of Magic
« Thread Started on Apr 27, 2008, 9:00pm » | |
Shamans are the oldest of all magic users.
From the dawn of our species, humans have gathered in closely-knit groups, usually related to family ties of kinship. The rise of strong leaders to guide the clan/tribe was only a natural development. Usually, these leaders were individuals with either the brute strength to subdue other challengers to their privilege position in the tribe, or with the wits to lead everyone effectively and preserve their own power.
In time, the primitive minds of humans "awakened" to the world around them in ways hard to describe. Suddenly there was art, music, story-telling and growing mythologies. Suddenly, there was the trademarks of religious behavior. A few individuals out of the group gained the ability to sense another world aside from the material one of everyday, mundane life. Though it has since been called by many different names, this was was the Shadowlight. Their imaginations hooked, these early individuals became what we today call shamans (though this is a term for the Siberian spiritual leader of the community, different parts of the world called them according to each culture's language and customs).
Though the oldest, and the most common of all practices, shamans remain a separate group of magic users. Their practices remain distinct and often tribal. From this group (or shall we say: these groups) of individuals (perhaps around fifty to forty thousand years ago), all other types of magic arose. You can see evidence of this in the similarities across cultures and times in the types of magics being used.
Shamans use herbs, stones, woods, animal parts/products and their spirits, as well as the spirits of the ancestors. All for the welfare of the tribe, whatever that may come to be defined. Generally speaking, their main goal is to enter trances in order to communicate with the "sentient" spirits of all things, and thus gain their magical aid in healing, weather working, love spells, good harvests, good hunts, and so on. Through these trances they were the first to truly explore and map the Shadowlight, and to this day remain the experts in its territory and spiritual occupants.
During these early times, magic users, and mundane humans alike, begun to populate the Shadowlight with their thought-forms: ideas of beings and beasts, even monsters and demons. The first Divine emerged, first as the Great Mother Goddess and the God of the Hunt, and then splitting off into different gods and goddesses. Generally speaking, though, shamans and their tribal people kept their divine pantheons small and simple. They were far more concerned with the spirits of the ancestors, and other spiritual entities closer to their everyday existence.
With the rise of western civilization, and the successive strife in the magical communities and world, the shamans retreated and sought out peace in loneliness. Now mostly Hermits, they mostly shun the "vile and wicked" world and continue to practice their Craft in solitude.
~*~*~
Witches are the heirs of the shaman's herb and natural lore. But unlike the spirit-oriented shamans, they focus much more on the Earth and the hard and practical matters of survival. Grounded, firm, and unbelievably stubborn, witches hold a very close affinity with the land they live on.
In modern times the witch has become associated with only women--and ugly, old, and warty ones at that. However, that is only a modern misconception. All old women were once young and quite possibly beautiful, too. Witches were, and are, no exception. Much maligned by not only religious fanatics of the Abrahamic faiths emerging out of the Middle East, but also by their "city cousins" the story of witches and witchcraft is one of persecution, misunderstanding, and lament, but also one of quiet survival amidst all these troubles.
Their divergence from shamanism, came about around the time of the Neolithic or Agricultural Revolution (c. 10,000 B.C.), though it is also true that no witch alive today can trace their ancestry that far back. Because of the nature of the Agricultural Revolution, and the societal changes it brought about, much of the witch's Craft is influenced by this.
For example, agriculture made humans more sedentary--which means they roamed across vast areas of land less in search for game, and instead settled in a specific spot to be able to sow and reap the harvest planted. As a result, populations grew and new technologies were invented--sometimes even by magical users themselves.
Instead of "one big family" as in a clan or tribe, groups of people became smaller, centered around mother-father-children nucleus. Because of this, the witch's Craft is often hereditary, passed on from older to child. Magic became, then, a more personal or family oriented affair, whereas before the shaman had belonged to no specific family, but to the entire clan or tribe. And, while it is true that magic ran/runs in families, without being able to pinpoint the precise gene carriers, and due to the unstable nature of family bloodlines, the family magical heritage was sometimes lost as it skipped a few generations, or disappeared all-together. Hence, why no modern witch can claim ancestry so far back.
By the same token, the witch's earthiness and groundedness comes from having to deal directly with a sedentary lifestyle. The land beneath your feet became all-important, as it was the source of your food and every other need. The beyond, the Shadowlight, decreased in importance for those common folks who lived by the fruits of their labors in the soil. That is not to say that the spirit world was completely ignored. Whether they wished to or not, witches were in tune with the goings on of the Shadowlight, which had already become quite populated by the shaman's trances and dreams. The spirits (or collective memories) of their ancestors existed there; disgruntled and sometimes vengeful spirits lurked in its gloom. The gods and goddesses of the shamans begun to play a more active role in the lives of witches and mundane people. For the first time, they begun to be truly worshiped.
Witches remain with us today. Like the shamans, they've adapted and changed their forms and their beliefs and practices time and time again. Like the green life that grows up from the Earth, they've survived even to this day. In fact, it is mostly to witches that the modern re-Awakening of magic is due to. But the Arts and Crafts of the witch have been entirely metamorphosed into a whole new type: the Wiccans (more on that later).
~*~*~
Magicians have a complex and fantastical history. Almost as old as civilization itself, their Craft spans to almost every great culture and kingdom/empire of human history.
Where the shaman and the witch left off, magicians picked up the slack. Their emergence is in part from the spiritualist traditions of the shamans, and the divine worship of the witches. Their unique focus was and is mostly spirit-centered, but with an entirely different attitude. As human wealth accumulated due to the growing success of agriculture, leaders (sometimes political, sometimes spiritual) gained power over their fellows. The power and the authority to rule did much to influence the attitudes of the magicians that emerged just as the first great civilizations emerged.
As opposed to the methods of partnership employed by the shamans, these new type of magic users commanded the forces of nature, and the Shadowlight, to obey their whims. No longer willing to travel into the Shadowlight realms of spirits, but instead seeing themselves as bridges between worlds, the magicians conjured, summoned, and bound spirits to do their bidding. It depended entirely on the will power of the magician, and that of the spirit. Those magicians more successful at commanding spirits became the Masters, those spirits more powerful than the magicians became "higher beings" that eventually demanded worship, sacrifice, and submission of the masses in exchange for favors.
A new epoch of spirituality dawned on the world of humanity, and during this time, as civilizations rose to shining new heights of power and technological innovation, were the first wars of magic fought. Imperceptible to the mundane eye, the Shadowlight, and the temples of the magicians became more like battle grounds than centers of spirituality. Concerned with their own power, drunk with it, in fact, the magicians stopped at nothing until they got it.
(It is worthy of note to make it plainly clear that when we speak of magicians in ancient times we do not always speak of priests of this or that god or goddess. Not all ancient cults and religions of the past had magicians at their center, though it is fair to say that they were somehow involved one way or another. After all, the gods were sources of magical power, who better to act as a bridge between them and the masses?)
That is, until they managed to create the abomination among their own ranks.
The Deadwalkers were merely the last incarnation of these powerful yet malevolent magic users. The first, ancient Dark Magicians were elitists among their own kind, who valued power for power's sake. Their lust for it knew no bounds. Simultaneously, the emergence of these individuals (by many names, in many places) shocked the magicians to their core. Realizing how far they had gone in their quest for power, they vowed to battle the dark magic users, and to contain them as best as possible.
Throughout the recent (the last five thousand years, more or less) history of humanity the precarious balance has been maintained, but only after disastrous and bloody struggles. Light and Dark battling each other and attempting to cancel each other out. And, since neither of them ever bothered to look beyond their struggle, neither gained sufficient enlightenment to finally bring an end to it.
For the most part, both witches and shamans remained largely undisturbed throughout this chaotic period. Shamans remained with their tribal societies, and witches remained in the country where agriculture was still practiced. When tribal societies transitioned to more sedentary and organized ones, the shamans of that culture eventually became witches, and where agriculture allowed for the growth of cities and nations, the witches morphed into magicians. It is true however, that the majority of the cultures and peoples of the world have tended to settle down and become agricultural, either on their own, or through contact from other cultures (sometimes benign as in trade, other times forcefully by conquest).
As if the Shadowlight itself grew tired of this constant struggle, and as if the mundane people of the world themselves sought something other than the corrupt religion of bloodthirsty gods, a new faith eventually emerged. From the cradle of civilization, specifically Judea, the religion inspired by one enigmatic and powerful magician (of sorts) caught on like wild fire and grew throughout the Roman Empire. Eventually, even the Empire became converted by it.
Yet, far from being a new hope, the religion of the Christ merely adopted the struggles that had defined past civilization. In seeking to convert all different faiths and cultures, it unwittingly swallowed up a large part of the animosity that had festered for so long. Even from its conception, this new religion was playing straight into the old dualism of Light and Dark, and this time with a new and dangerous zeal. By adopting the imagery of a Vengeful God and a Trickster Devil, Christianity became infected from within. Now, this monotheistic vision of Divinity, backed by the most powerful military police power of the ancient world, sought to enforce its faith and morality on the largely "pagan" world.
And magic, and the Shadowlight? Utterly forgotten.
Naturally, both the light and dark magic users of the Roman Empire tried to battle it at first, to retain the ability and right to practice their Craft. But they were eventually crushed and converted in tears and blood. Everywhere the new religion spread, the devotees of the old Ways resisted it, but by sublime conversion, or the bloody sword, the Christians succeeded in homogenizing the civilizations of the world under one belief. Without magic, without ecstatic communion with the gods and the Shadowlight, human creativity fled. The hearts and minds of all humans became cold and dark. Those who still clung to the Old Ways were tortured, killed, slaughtered.
It seemed then that the magic of the Old Ways would soon die, perish. And in a very real way, it was. Just as the shamans and the witches had been driven farther and farther away, marginalized in the corners of civilization, now the magicians themselves, Light and Dark, were losing ground. Though many tried to retain their magical identity, no amount of rebellion saved them from the hangings or the pyres of the Church.
And so, in the midst of darkness, a new covenant was created. All the knowledge of the Ways that remained were to be kept the greatest secret. All the magic hidden, but passed down and guarded. This happened mainly among the witches and magicians of Europe, towards the end of the dark and plagued years of the 14th century (1300s). Covens for the witches, Guilds for the magicians. And above them Guardians to maintain control, to keep everyone in line, safe and secret.
Very often these Guardians were powerful, influential members of society, and rumors and legends inevitably floated around them of forbidden magic rituals. Sometimes, unfortunately, the chosen Guardians were Dark magicians. Though no one has yet been able to conclusively prove their existence, there are suspicions that the Deadwalkers were active in shaping the magical and non-magical world of the Dark Ages according to their whims, and that it still goes on today. Regardless, magic survived, though crippled and hidden in the shadows, it survived.
Much of the Old Ways were lost, especially among the country witches. The magicians eventually begun to incorporate the mystic and sacred aspects of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam into their practices, as much to hide them as to replace forgotten bits. But over all, the world forgot of magic, of the Shadowlight. Christianity, itself a magically barren religion, eventually gave way to rationalism and science, which completely denied ALL matters of spirit and magic. The world moved on and forgot all about its magical destiny.
~*~*~
Wicca begun somewhat before the middle of the twentieth century, but it debut was in 1950, when the British laws against witchcraft were formally repealed. Though no witches had burned for at least two centuries, now a new "license" was given to the resurgence of magic, and not only in Britain. Within two decades--merely twenty years--the movement swept throughout most of Europe, and even made its way to America.
A new style of magic was invented (re-invented) from the scraps that had survived of the Old Ways. Revitalized by the passage of time, seemingly fresh yet apparently old, Wicca caught on like wild fire. For about seventeen hundred years Christianity had consistently dried up the well of magic, the Shadowlight was like dry timber awaiting the spark. And once it ignited, it burnt all the brighter. Though slower to shed their habitual secrecy, the magicians and the country witches emerged, too. In Wicca they saw the marriage of their paths, and as it expanded in philosophy and scope, reviving the gods and goddess of Old, it embraced even the oldest of the old: shamanism. Spells were cast, herbs used in potions and incense, runic divinations cast, star lore spoken softly, journeys through the Shadowlight were blazed, and spirits conjured and banished. Almost recklessly.
The upstart, overambitious child of the new century fell outside the age old methods of control and secrecy. The old covens and Guilds (who'd actually morphed into Lodges now), knew all too well that the power this new path would uncover could potentially reignite the destructive battle between Light and Dark magic that had lain dormant for centuries. Old omens, half-remembered prophecies, were coming true. So, quietly, they infiltrated the new magical society, so young and new (mostly Novices without a clue of the Mysteries). Since 1950 they've been guiding the new generations towards Mastery, just as silently and secretively as they've for nearly two millenniums. Their first fruit of their labors, the "first generation," bloomed beautifully and was easily integrated into the old systems. The Guardians retained their power, but only just. The new generation yearns for greater freedom, and though they're bound to the Old Covenant, they see a new one in the horizon.
The year is 2012. Despite its initial fervor, magic has subsided and returned to the privacy it once enjoyed. The Guardians watch over an uneasy world, with youngsters (and quite a few older, seasoned magic users) yearning to slip out of their control and do something big and magnificent for the world. It is the spirit of the times, and they're quite aware that it cannot be held back forever. Magic is no more a secret, but a reality that the world of seven billion strong (as of October 2012) is not interested in. The Internet and iPod rule the masses, comfortably wrapped in their blinking cocoon of technological comforts. Even as the new generation struggles to free itself from the stifling bonds of tradition, among the elite shades of the Old are emerging once more. Whispers of dominance, the seduction of power. Wishes for a King of Magic, though not in so many words, leave the lips of the powerful with astounding ease. And, at the year's ending, the Heavens conspire with the Earth for a galactic alignment.
Is the time of prophecy nigh? Is our human destiny at hand, or merely our destruction?
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