Atheist magic

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veinglory

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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...
 

Kalyke

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I went to (real) Wicca school and I'm pretty much an atheist. It is all about drawing personal power, not asking the gods (or the Christian God) for anything, although there are Christian Witches. I feel, if you have to believe in something, then it doesn't exist, because belief is moving beyond knowledge. You know that sand exists, or that water exists, so you don't need to believe in it because it is not an abstraction. I thought of magic as acting as a conduit for physical properties that exist in nature, and some on a sub-molecular level that science might not account for at this time (maybe never, who knows). I never saw how God had anything to do with this. It is like plugging a wire into an electrical outlet. Does it take God to turn on the lights? I'm pretty sure if God ever existed, It made the place and scrammed (I don't think of God as having a gender). The most unbelievable aspect of God is that "he" is hanging around watching us and has some kind of emotional reaction. Now, that I totally will never believe. But I can see how the manipulation of "forces" could be done by a mortal individual with enough knowledge of how the powers work. I understand my beliefs are in the minority here, and I respect that they may not be yours.

I guess to answer the question I would say "forces," and "emotion," "Knowledge." (ethos, pathos, logos)
 
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Nakhlasmoke

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I have books with a magical culture that has no gods. Funnily enough, their enemies who are tech-savvy and hate magic follow a goddess.

Then again, I've treated magic like an addictive drug. And if you really want to quibble about it, I guess their magic qualifies as a kind of god, only, they don't worship it.
 

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If someone performs some sort of ritual, claims it will have some sort of non-generic effect, and then that effect is seen in a reasonable period of time, one can safely call it either magic or science. If it happens more than once, it is science. If it happens only once, it was magic. :)

The thought processes that yield atheistic beliefs tend to prohibit much of a belief in magic.
 

Roger J Carlson

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The thought processes that yield atheistic beliefs tend to prohibit much of a belief in magic.
I don't think that follows. Certainly, scientific thought process can yield atheistic beliefs, but are those the only ones that do? There were atheists long before the scientific method was developed.

Some people reject the notion of God or gods by thought processes that have nothing to do with science -- a personal tragedy, for instance.

For many indigenous people around the world, magic is their science. They believe it because it works (to all appearances), independent of their belief in gods.

I don't see why atheism automatically precludes a belief in magic.
 

veinglory

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I think there is a fair amount of 'magical thinking' in atheists, but as atheists are typically a minority it might be less obvious. Also it might be framed differently.

For example I would say that belief in psychic powers of various sorts, superstitions related to luck, elaborate beliefs about aliens are magical in nature and do not overtly involve any gods.
 

Ruv Draba

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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.
Keen!

You have some pivotal terms here, VeinG and they're probably worth some definitions. The key terms I picked out are 'high fantasy', 'gods' and 'magic'. Here are my understandings of those terms.

'High Fantasy' may mean different things to different people, but I understand it to mean that:
  • Magic plays a significant part in the story;
  • There is an over-arching moral issue underpinning plot (e.g. good vs evil or a threat to the natural order); and that
  • Some Main Characters are transformed as part of the story - e.g. becoming heroes.
By Gods, I understand you to mean supernatural entities who hold moral authority over the charaters. Without moral authority they may just be spirits or magical entities or fae. With moral authority (i.e. the ability to dictate the values, attitudes and beliefs of their worshippers), they are gods.

By magic I understand you to mean some supernatural means of manipulating the physical world (and possibly the supernatural world too). In other words, the cause of that manipulation is mystified, obscure and inobvious.

Here then are some ideas for how you can have magic but no gods:
  • There were gods, but they've been canniballised by people. This destroyed their moral authority but left their divine magic around to be weilded.
  • There are no gods but there are spirits, some of whom live in hierarchical societies. You can negotiate with these spirits, woo them, seduce them, coerce them and they act as supernatural agents to achieve magical effects. The spirits might be elementals, nymphs, fae, ghosts, or maybe even gods who've lost their memories and moral authority.
  • There are no gods, but the universe is governed by supernatural laws. Magic is powered by supernatural energies that can be located and tapped. There is either some steady state of energy flow (e.g. mana wells, moonlight), or energy cycles (e.g. magic supplied by cycles of nature), or abundant 'free energy' (e.g. released from magic stones).
  • The mystical world is at war and magic is powered by some struggle between opposites or rivals (Yin/Yang; Law/Chaos) or multiples (Earth, Air, Fire, Water; Creation, Preservation, Destruction). There are no gods, but there may be spirits who will grant power to those who help in that war -- or the war itself is simply a struggle of inanimate forces.
  • Magic is an effect of the minds of people - it arises from the operation of collective will, or belief, or emotion. There are no gods simply because not enough people believe the same things - but there might be gods at any time.
  • There were gods but they left or destroyed themseves. All that remains of their magic are in the Creations they made and abandoned.
  • There were no gods, but ancients with godlike powers - now either left, destroyed or in hiding. Their Creations provide the magical power - they're either supernatural or simply incomprehensible to their users.
  • Magic is simply the manifestion of beauty. Song, dance, cooking, crafting can all produce magical effects if they are beautiful enough.
  • Magic is a manifestation of the innate power of nature. All natural things have magical properties that the skilled can harness (e.g. alchemy, herbalism etc...)
  • Magic is inherited through bloodlines (e.g. via mutation). Nobody knows how it works
  • Magic appears through freak accidents with high energy situations (e.g. hit by lightning). Those who survive the accidents inherit some of the energy of the situation
  • The main characters are gods! They're atheistic because they have no moral authorities other than themselves!
For this magic to support High Fantasy, I think it also needs moral issues. These are usually connected to the magic in some way. For example:
  • Amoral people seek control of abandoned artefacts
  • Magic is being threatened due to a threat to natural laws
  • A new, powerful race is invading the reality (perhaps new gods, or a powerful race of mages, or the old gods returning, or decadent Ancients arising, or mutant mages with extraordinary power)
  • An imbalance in natural order threatens people (e.g. Creation outstrips Preservation and Destruction; Earth encroaches on Water and Fire; a rebellion of spirits threatens ancient agreements)
  • The power-source is failing or growing erratic
  • Worlds collide: two magical rationales compete for dominance
  • Persecution: the magical is being eliminated, (or the non-magical being oppressed)
I couldn't think of too many of these and perhaps that's a reflection of my experience of High Fantasy - I haven't really seen that many over-arching moral or world order themes. Or maybe it's my lack of imagination. :tongue

Anyway, hope this helps! :)
 
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veinglory

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My thinking on high fantasy is that is basically fantasy set in its own world, not Earth. Often set on a vaguely Europeany/feudal sort of place. So it can be sword and sandal, without magic--or sword and sorcery, with magic?
 

Ruv Draba

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My thinking on high fantasy is that is basically fantasy set in its own world, not Earth. Often set on a vaguely Europeany/feudal sort of place. So it can be sword and sandal, without magic--or sword and sorcery, with magic?
This probably isn't the forum for a fantasy subgenre definitions discussion, but here are some links to descriptions of high fantasy and sword and sorcery. For practical purposes in this discussion, I don't think that the differences will matter - since the question is a 'how can magic work' question, and that can apply to both.
 

Death Wizard

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Whether there is a god or gods, power exists ... and magic exists. Neither care whether we believe in them or acknowledge them. They simply exist. They are outside and beyond us.

How this fits into good fantasy is up to the writer.
 

Bartholomew

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I think there is a fair amount of 'magical thinking' in atheists, but as atheists are typically a minority it might be less obvious. Also it might be framed differently.

For example I would say that belief in psychic powers of various sorts, superstitions related to luck, elaborate beliefs about aliens are magical in nature and do not overtly involve any gods.

My fiancee and I have tested our psychic abilities a few times.

Basically, in simple tests, with a wall between us, connected only my the internet, we can successfully guess what shape the other is thinking of seven out of ten times, on average, with caffeine seeming to influence our numbers in a good way.

In person, oddly, our numbers are much lower - 2 out of 10 successful guesses, on average, with all manner of mental fidgeting failing to help.

Which leads me to the conclusion that if psychic abilities exist, we ain't got em.

I don't think that follows. Certainly, scientific thought process can yield atheistic beliefs, but are those the only ones that do? There were atheists long before the scientific method was developed.

Some people reject the notion of God or gods by thought processes that have nothing to do with science -- a personal tragedy, for instance.

For many indigenous people around the world, magic is their science. They believe it because it works (to all appearances), independent of their belief in gods.

I don't see why atheism automatically precludes a belief in magic.

Hence, my wording. It is, after all, only my opinion. However, I do find an element of hypocrisy in the sort of person who rejects Christianity on scientific principle, but believes that chanting magic words can help them.
 

PattiTheWicked

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While magic can indeed be practiced within a religious framework, it's not necessary for it to always be so. The problem I see is that people look at magic as something supernatural -- it's not. It's part of the natural world, it's just a part we can't explain. Magic as science allows you to practice it regardless of your spiritual path.
 

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To the credit of people who chant magic words, I've seen variations of this technique accomplish truly amazing things. I've also seen it fail, utterly.

#

I played with runes and symbols for a while, and would put combinations that I considered meaningful or powerful at the top of a test, or near where I was working. I discovered that they didn't impact my performance much, but they seemed to have a noticeable impact on those that noticed what I was doing and asked about it.

I have a friend who insists that I can make her migraines go away by tracing a certain symbol on her forehead.

I have a feeling that many, many psychological issues could be cured by convincing enough magic.

Nothing works at the level where I try to use it; perhaps this is because I am a great skeptic; perhaps it is because nothing works, or perhaps I'm just not gifted in this area.

Magic as science allows you to practice it regardless of your spiritual path.

This fascinates me to no end. Can you give me something easy to test in my apartment?
 

Ruv Draba

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While magic can indeed be practiced within a religious framework, it's not necessary for it to always be so. The problem I see is that people look at magic as something supernatural -- it's not. It's part of the natural world, it's just a part we can't explain. Magic as science allows you to practice it regardless of your spiritual path.
There's certainly no problem in using the scientific method in a world that's heavily metaphysical. You just need to repeat your experiments to test hypotheses. But all that gives you are conclusions. The conclusions themselves might not resemble the feel of the science we have today.

Much of the science we're familiar with demonstrates principles like:
  • Identical circumstances produce identical effects
  • Different observers will see the same effects
  • Only the physical circumstances matter
  • All changes are physical changes
Magic tends to break these principles, e.g.
  • Identical circumstances may produce different effects;
  • What occurs may depend on who's participating or watching;
  • Metaphysical (e.g. symbolic or ceremonial) circumstances may matter;
  • Changes may be metaphysical.
Science copes with such stuff reasonably well. (E.g. it handles bizarre behaviours at the subatomic level), so theoretically it could cope with a volatile, inconsistent magic too, e.g:
As I entered the cavern I saw over a hundred people divided into groups of seven, each with their own pentagram drawn upon the floor. I quickly realised why: even under optimal conditions, published data put the spell's success rate at only one in ten, and time was short so Master Hornswaggle had arranged multiple ceremonies simultaneously just to be sure. I counted fifteen groups and did the math on my slide-rule: the chance of backfire in any ceremony was rated at around one percent, so the odds of seeing backfire somewhere tonight was close to one in six - a Russian roulette number that made me nervous.

Hornswaggle noticed my sweating calculations and gestured toward a buxom redhead in a white hood. I suddenly realised that each group had a similar woman, just watching.

'They damp the backfire effects', he explained. 'We don't know why.'

I nodded, swallowing drily. Hornswaggle had thought of everything - but would it be enough?

Master Hornswaggle tapped the lectern with his conductor's wand, reached over to a large metronome on its stand and set the big pendulum ticking. On the third tick, each group began its chant. This ceremony was too delicate to entrust to a mere human's sense of timing.
Hmm. There might be some fun in doing magic that way -- but it does look scarily like fantasy game-players exploiting spell tables. :tongue
 
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StephanieFox

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Can you define 'magick' in your writing as simply 'mind power'. Trained people can do magick because they have mental focus and this focus cn change the real world around them.
 

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Nitpicking:

I know that practitioners of magic like to add the "k" to differentiate what they do from stage magic, but--please--stop--doing--this. The added K only draws undue attention to the word, which, of itself, describes the action perfectly. Magick makes me think of bad fantasy novels. Magic makes me think of potions and curses.

End rant.
 

kuwisdelu

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I, too, and pretty confused by how one would need any sort of belief in a 'god' to use or believe in magic.

Hence, my wording. It is, after all, only my opinion. However, I do find an element of hypocrisy in the sort of person who rejects Christianity on scientific principle, but believes that chanting magic words can help them.

Well it's all very individual, and the method of thinking that brought one to the conclusion that god doesn't exist. (Or in my case, as an agnostic, recognizing we can't really know one way or the other, and there's no real proof either way.)

If one rejects god because there's no proof of god, but then one has seen magic performed (and there's no other explanation beyond magic), then I see absolutely no contradiction or hypocrisy in believing in magic. As a scientist, I would simply assume the "magic" is a natural process that we don't yet understand, but that there is some scientific explanation for it.

Besides, there's a lot more to atheism than rejection from scientific principle. It's possible to reject the existence of a god for many reasons, such as philosophy, worldview, etc. Many such reasons can certainly allow for magic, but not a god.

For example, I would consider The Force from Star Wars to be a kind of magic, but it doesn't rely on any sort of deity, but rather an "energy field that surrounds all living beings" and microorganisms called midichlorians.
 

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In my WIP, there is an ongoing debate in the world as to whether or not magic requires belief in gods.

It is clear that magic requires use of an internal energy, which then triggers a burst of external energy. The theistic mages believe that this external energy is a gift from a particular god that is providing favor for this event. The scientific mages believe that the external energy is extant in the world and is shaped by the specific characteristics of the energy involved.

The two sides of this debate are not separate factions in the world, rather both types of mages are found within all of the different factions. To an outside observor, they both perform magic exactly the same. The only real difference this makes is that they have different theories on the best ways to research new spells. Both of which work about as well.

As the author, I haven't decided which side of this debate is actually true, and don't feel like I ever need to.
 

veinglory

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Try saying that at a pagan convention as I did, or even the fantasy forum here (here this started), and you may find that there are assumptions out there that all magic is theistic.
 

benbradley

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Here's an interesting article, Martin Caidin's "Fiction This Ain't" from Jim Baen's "New Destinies," defunct quarterly sf magazine in MMPB format:
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/b/james-baen/new-destinies-vol-iv.htm
I read the magazine when it first came out, and the article piqued my interest in ESP. The author talks about making 'propellors', small strips of paper on the points of pins so they rotate with little friction, and that he and others have learned to rotate these things by thinking alone, and that it's fairly easy for anyone to learn to do it. I made one or two of the little things put a pin throuh a pencil erasor so the pin stands straight up with a point at the top, fold a small piece of paper so it balances on the pinpoint and turns easily), but I never got mine to budge.

But as someone with a scientific mind, I could never say for sure that "it doesn't work" but rather maybe it "just hasn't worked so far for me." This finally led to reading Susan Blackmore's book that I've written about before.
 

benbradley

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And there's Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" in which Michael Valentine Smith does things that in most other novels would just be called magic, but in that book I take it to be something more like Clarke's "sufficiently advance technology," or like this:
If one rejects god because there's no proof of god, but then one has seen magic performed (and there's no other explanation beyond magic), then I see absolutely no contradiction or hypocrisy in believing in magic. As a scientist, I would simply assume the "magic" is a natural process that we don't yet understand, but that there is some scientific explanation for it.
 
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