Atheist magic

I'm no more part of the universe than you, the Hope diamond, a kitty, a puppy, a teacup, an auto, or a pile of puppy poop.

I'm not DNAcentric, I'll speak to any section, and/or all parts, of the universe.

Did you hear of the Zen monk whose last teacher was his wooden bowl?
Oh, wait.....or was it the rock that the bowl fell upon, or both?

Stay on groovin' safari,
Tor Hershman

A lot of fantasy readers will assume that the gods in a fictional world are real. In my current work I am acting as if they are not. Magic exists, and is attributed to the gods, the characters all believe in the gods, but there is no evidence that they actually exist.

I think there is plenty of room to have a magic system that is mechanistic or naturalistic, even scientific, that doesn't derive the energy it needs from supernatural beings. The magic system in my world is that way. They have gods and priests (and some cultures only allow priests to use magic), but magic is something that derives from the physical properties of the world. As with the previous poster, the gods in my world are actually rather nebulous, and I really kind of leave it up in the air whether they exist at all, and if they do, what their true nature is. Now the people who believe in the various gods (or profess to) are another matter entirely....

veinglory said:

For tghose of us in the high fantasy game. I would like to see how many scenarios we can come up with that would allow for something society considered magical to occur in the story without writing in a god, or perhaps without even requiring the characters to beleive in one.

#1 Hi Tech
The most obvious and oft used option is that technology beyonds ones comprehension seems magical and even deliberate. Even in the modern world how many of us talk to appliances and other machinery?

next...

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The Tech option actually has many angles. For example, suppose that when people first started using radio receivers they had gotten broadcasts of some kind from somewhere. Suppose these had had some useful information.

This kind of thing could be true of any technology -- ie that there is something else already there.

In a world without say a massive colonializing mess that coincided with Industrialization, things could be very different with technologies and magics.

Suppose there are not just "other worlds" but political operations that encompass many "other worlds" and use high tech/magic to do it. What's magic in one world could be a god or a technology right next door (cosmically, so to speak).

A lot of SF has magic, although they don’t call it that, and I suppose that this is an avenue that is open for “atheist magic”. If you look at a computer game like Mass Effect, they have people capable of biotics, which is basically magic without any divine source.

Thinking about it, isn’t it so that most High Fantasy separate between priestly magic and arcane magic anyway? Arcane magic hasn’t, afaik, often been associated with deities.

RichardGarfinkle said:

It's also possible to have a world with both in which the magic and the gods arise from the same principles (you can do this with Taoism for example) so that there is magic of both kinds with the atheistic parallel in power to the theistic.

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Heh, that's the concept behind a first draft (if you can call it that; it needs a re-write rather than an edit) I finished a few years ago.

Arcane magic is the oldest. Arcane magic wielders used to be a prime political power. It goes back to a time where "magical creatures and gods" still existed (where gods are extremely powerful and not quite physical creatures).

"Divine magic" is newer (and ironically rejects gods as superstition, while engaging in the ancestor-worship equivalent of mono-theism). Their means to power was (a) aggressive military coups and (b) free magical healing.

There are other forms of magic, but they don't hold any politial power.

As the story starts, magic has been disappearing for about a century. The arcane magic users are hit the hardest: the spiritual energy it takes to cast spells has increased so much that they can only cast simple spells anymore, and due to the toll it takes, the effect is no longer worth the cost. They only do it for training and ritual, anymore. Magical artifacts (as mini-circuits) remain.

Divine magic users suffer no decrease in effectivity, but their success rate goes down and down and down. This means that the major source of "healing" is going down, and the formerly illegal class of physicians has gained a new and fragile power of sorts (but they're "disgusting" to the avarage citizen, because they do unspeakable things to dead bodies...).

So basically, the three factions duke it out in a world where the ground rules change. It's been fun writing this. (I'm an atheist, but I haven't actually taken sides, and some of the faction-internal conflicts have turned out to be fiercer than the inter-faction conflicts.) The death-of-magic trope is a literalisation of the allegations I often get as an atheist: a cold and uncaring universe. It's cold and uncaring, because it "died". Basically, magic is a semi-sentient and psycho-reactive substance that thrives on imagination: so both faith and arcane ritual have actually been killing magic, because both types of magic want a reliable effects and that's incompatible with how it works.

Magic, being semi-sentient, tries to resurrect gods in order to survive, but none of the attempts work. The final attempt drives the plot.

It's been fun writing this.

***

Also, I'm reminded of Ted Chiang's interesting distinction between magic and science in the genres by asking whether it can be mass-produced (at least in theory). Magic has practioners that are somewhat special; not everyone can cast spells. Science produces results according to method; if you're capable of following the method you can get a result. (An interview with Ted Chiang on Boing Boing.)

I find this an interesting take, because that would pin the core of magic to the desire to be special.

Funny, I've never considered 'magic' to come from religious beliefs. I've always thought of it as an evolvement of oneself and one's power of suggestion - or manipulation if you will.

I realize that within religious belief-systems and the kind of black-and-white thinking going on there, magic is considered sinister and 'evil', but I personally believe that it comes from the 'religion' being threatened by individual free thinkers that questions the establishment. And in many historical descriptions we have seen proof of the fact that religious leaders have been less than happy with this kind of questioning.

Pasteur was considered a rebel, going against general - and complacent -beliefs within the scientific community of his time. His findings were dismissed as 'magical'.

Jesus's teachings were prosecuted because they went against the traditional jewish codex at the time. His persuit of free thinking was degraded to 'magic' and also ridiculed.

As a crass atheist I have seen magic, and in fact performed magic, that has had no correlation to religion at all. I do not believe in gods. I do, however, believe in the amazing powers of our minds.

George Lucas did it well - "May the force be with you"

No religion, no science to explain it, but yet a whole world quotes this one simple sentence every day, just like I did. Magic!

Use the Force, Veinglory.

Or the Power of Greyskull.

Magic could be an innate talent, like the Force, or a set of arcane laws that dictate an supernatural way of doing things, or both.

It's been acknowledged for at least half a century that "sufficiently advanced technology" can do and replace anything and everything, including God:

In the classic 1956 science fiction film, "Forbidden Planet", the extinct race of advanced beings of the planet Altair IV are known as the "Krell". The Krell had reached a stage of technological and scientific development so advanced that they were able to construct a machine with virtually unlimited power, a machine that turned their thoughts into reality.

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I always like pondering about magic and how it's just something science hasn't figured out yet.

I think it could occur in a universe as a naturally occuring phenomenon like gravity. Gravity rules our Earth, Magic rules the planet in another place and time.

It would be great fun to figure out how magic would work in a world where every person developed their own and in their own way. (One might have superpower type magic while another might be a wizard, for instance.)

I also really like the idea of magic being technology. Might have fun putting myself to sleep thinking about that...surely a steampunk writer somewhere has taken that idea and run with it?

I'm always writing about magic and strange happenings. Since I'm not a religious-y type I usually try to figure out other reasons why it exists other than a god or goddess or pantheon of spoiled, superhuman brats. (I'm talking to you, Aphrodite and Ares.)

Magic exists because of metaphors. Duh.

Sometimes magic can just be magic. There is nothing wrong with that. See: Peter S. Beagle

PattiTheWicked said:

The problem I see is that people look at magic as something supernatural -- it's not.

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Exactly so, and thank you Patty!

: = )

I touch on the subject in my unpublished MS, The Atheist Who Loved God. Even non-believers can be confused in the matter; the skein can be difficult to unwind.

Magic consists of two parts:

A. Some manipulation of the material world.
B. A misdirection of percipient (audience) attention.

Anyone who reads about or practices stage magic understands the statement. When a coin disappears it goes somewhere: behind the fingers, into a pocket, up a sleeve via an elastic pull. For misdirection, the magician waves her now-empty hand: "You see?" the gesture says. "It's gone!"

Every intelligent person knows this. For the sake of amusement, however, disbelief is temporarily suspended: it's fun to be fooled.

Magic in the non-theatrical world is less well-understood, but the same principles apply. a) Something material happens. b) Attention is directed elsewhere, to a non-material cause.

If you are uncertain about the material nature of stage magic, secure a copy of John Northern Hilliard's Greater Magic (1938, 1994), considered the "bible" of magic by those who actually perform.

If you are interested in how magic works beyond the stage, your best single resource will be The Idea of the Holy by Rudolph Otto. (First published 1917 as Das Heilige.) A Lutheran theologian, Otto shows how religion arose from human awe at natural phenomena like lightning, thunder, and volcanic eruptions. Then, a subsequent misdirection away from material cause.

("Hear that thunder? Thor is banging his mighty hammer on the anvil!")

It seems to me the successful fantasy writer will know this material inside-out. See, for example, L. Frank Baum.
.

It took 34 posts for someone to mention The Force from Star Wars?

Then again, they fouled it up with midichlorians thing in the last three movies.

veinglory said:

I was think more of whether an atheist fictional world could have actual magic rather than stage magic.

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I can see no reason why magic should be religion based at all.

My current series has a goddess and a theocracy, but my protag utterly rejects it, and is a vehement atheist. He can still do magic. In fact most of my magic systems have nothing to do with gods (although there may be gods in the world they are not accredited with supplying magic)

An atheist world is not they same as a no magic world. I see no reason why they couldn't exist hand in hand (if magic is perhaps a different state of physics than we have here, it just *is*)

Magic is, after all, something we just don't understand yet. That doesn't mean it has to be sent by the gods (especially if your world HAS no gods!), so I'm not sure the original question really computes? Because I can think of half dozen ways to make that society work without even stretching.

veinglory said:

I was think more of whether an atheist fictional world could have actual magic rather than stage magic.

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Lifelong atheist here; I've made magic on stage all my life. It's called "stagecraft."

As noted, "actual" magic works exactly the same. Frank Baum knew this: why his Wizard operated the machinery of Oz from behind a curtain.

Bottom line: your characters and readers may not know why something is happing, but you must. You're the author, for gosh sakes!

: = )

Most of my magic these days is practiced in short little videos. If you are able to read Flash files, you can see this one, under 2 minutes long:

LOST IN THE VORTEX
http://randomfilm.com/vortex/index.htm

P.S. Stored on my own server and safe to view.

P.P.S. I came to this Group by a circuitous route. Great to be among friends!

veinglory said:

I was think more of whether an atheist fictional world could have actual magic rather than stage magic.

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That's the entire basis of my fictional world, actually. Magic exists; gods do not.

Lance Rocks said:

Lifelong atheist here; I've made magic on stage all my life. It's called "stagecraft."

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Isn't it often called "illusion?" It's not magic, it's a trick.

Stacia Kane said:

Isn't it often called "illusion?" It's not magic, it's a trick.

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So is "actual" or "real" magic. People are misdirected away from the material basis for the phenomenon, i.e. they don't understand how it really works, so they make something up.

Nice to meet you!

: = )

veinglory said:

I was think more of whether an atheist fictional world could have actual magic rather than stage magic.

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Why not? Newton tells us an object at rest will remain at rest until acted upon by an external force. I don't remember him ever excluding magic as that external force.



Nor is there a requirement that, if people *believe* magic is from a god or gods, that it actually *be* from that god or gods.

I don't think that the presence of magic requires gods, or even faith in any way.

Magic is power. Spellcasting is the focusing of that power. Gods have nothing to do with it.

Richard and veinglory, thank you. Richard, nice to meet you!

: = )

One last thought before I shut down my tablet for the morning.

Atheism preceded science and medicine. By this I mean to say that before there could be mathematics, computer science, the setting of broken bones and all the other wonderful fruits of the realist perspective, someone said, "There's got to be a rational way to look at the situation." That realism - the refusal to rely on supernatural explanations for things and events - was atheism.

I wish you all well in your endeavors. If your fantasy writing violates known principles of how the world works - essentially, of physics - this neither robs my purse nor steals from my good name.

Gotta close - take care!

: = ) Lance