Magic and Mysticism in Postmodern Romantic Theology

Orignally written March 2004
Updated July 2006

The difference between magic and prayer has traditionally been, in my view, a subtle one. It is my contention as a panentheist that everything in this world is part and particle of the body of the divine. Furthermore, as someone who doesn’t believe in an anthropomorphic deity except as a poetic expression, I don’t believe that communication has to enter the Divine eyes or ears in order to be received. In my reality, a walk along the beach, a hummed lullaby, a just war – it’s all potential communication with the Divine. It is all interaction with the world, and thus potential interaction with the divine presence. I say “potential” because communication has to work both ways. We cannot be Emerson’s “transparent eyeball”, nor can we be so consumed with our own lives and being that we cannot hear or see what is happening around us if we are seeking genuine dialogue with God. Genuine communication means not only speaking or relating but listening and interpreting as well. If we interact with the world mindfully and with the intent of sacred communication, we are, in fact, praying.

But is prayer, in whatever form it is offered, the totality of magic? Is there nothing that we find in the kind of magic practiced by so many cultures all over the world than is not found in the simplest prayer?

We are gifted with a soul, a will, something that is unique for each of us alone, and yet common to us all. With that will we make decisions, we strive for goals, we make changes in ourselves and in the world around us. And as we couple our daily prayer, our actions intended as communication with the Divine, with this will, magic is born. Magic, therefore, is willful communication, willful action. It is more than action coupled with desire; it is action, being and communication infused with personal essence, the thumbprint of the soul.

From this point of view, an important aspect of magic is the awareness of the divine presence in the everyday, and awareness of ourselves as sacred beings. If we take either out of the equation, then this view of magic doesn’t work. However, if we are able to keep an awareness of the ethereal, then we have the potential to live every moment as magical.

Of course, the difficulty here is one of perception. Few of us are capable of perceiving every moment as sacred. Life simply “gets in the way”. It is for this reason that many people the world over turn to mysticism as a way to become intimate with the Holy. Mysticism, as I use the term, is the conscious and willful practice of fording the chasm that separates humanity from the “Ein Sof”, or the “First Cause”, or the “transcendent Divine” — whatever term floats your boat. But more than fording the chasm, mysticism involves “ascent“ – not bringing Deity “down to us“, but rather elevating the individual consciousness toward the Divine.

Divine consciousness is, of course, not unique to postmodern romantic theology. Yet its place within this spiritual practice is unique. The panentheistic viewpoint is sometimes problematic, because the questions often persist — where and how, and to what extent, is Deity to be experienced? Although theoretically, Deity is found everywhere, the individual may not necessarily be ablt to experience God just anywhere. Many individuals, even deeply spiritual people, complain of knowing God, but of never having had an experience of God. And for the individuals who are not able to experience God in the material world for whatever reason, is there a way to connect with the aspects of Deity that are completely and totally removed from the environment in which we live?

Strictly speaking, no. The very definition of transcendence prevents this; we can’t skirt around the issue. If we can only hope to attune to an immanent Deity, do we ever have full contact with the Divine, and is “enlightenment” possible? If we can’t ever know the Divine that exists outside of this world, and all we can know comes directly from our own world and experiences, how do we transcend our personal status quo, our own inertia, and move upward?

These are the fundamental questions of mysticism from my point of view. It’s little surprise, then, that most neo–pagans and pantheists don’t call themselves mystics— the assumptions are too great, and are based on, if not a denial of the physical world, the idea that this world isn’t good enough, and that the God/s we can know are similarly not good enough. I find it difficult to reconcile traditional mysticism with deep spiritual ecology, simply because I find that the way for any individual to seek out God is to place him – or herself firmly and primarily in his or her environment and build community. It is my contention that God is found not in “things”, but in “the relationships between things”. (See Introduction to Lyric Kabbalah) To attempt to move beyond the web of relationships provided by community and culture is to do a disservice to the self. In true postmodern form, of course, one has every right (and perhaps even the obligation) to change culture as it needs changing, and to challenge the communities of which we find ourselves a part. But we do not change the world by setting our sights beyond it, as the mystic is wont to do. We begin to change the world by working from within.

To that end, I’ve been working with a Jewish-inspired definition of magic and have found it suits my purposes and my vision, as its practice yields the same results as traditional magic and mysticism have set out to accomplish.

Part of the theology of postmodern romanticism involves the notion of a magical life — living life in such a way that each action is willful, devoted to the Divine and devoted to bettering ourselves. Magic, rather than seen as a supernatural force that we somehow inflict upon the universe, is seen as a way of navigating the Web of Life, leaving behind traces of ourselves and our wills such that the Web responds to those traces, weaving new patterns and thus new possibilities for the future.

In my studies, I managed to stumble across another definition of magic, one that really made me think, and that tied various loose ends together in my head. In Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, Moshe Idel defines magic as “the drawing down of the divine effluence for the benefit of the community.” (1)

Judaism as a whole, and perhaps Hasidism especially, is not particularly pantheistic. I have run across several pagans who have pointed to the concept of the Shechinah as proof that Judaism was, at one time, a pantheistic system. However, I think that this stems from a basic misunderstanding of where the Shechinah was to be found. The Shechinah didn’t dwell in the Earth or in nature, but rather with the tribes of Israel themselves. Abraham Heschel described the Shechina as the Sabbath bride, and the nation of Israel as the groom. (2) This distinction is made all the more important in Hasidism, where the concept of the ’Shechinah in exile’ becomes paramount. The Shechinah, God’s presence (personified as female), turned away from God each time Israel sinned. In order to encourage the Shechina to embrace the Lord and become united with Him again, the Hasidim perform certain prayers and rites which are intended to draw the Divine couple together, allowing the presence of God within the community to once again be whole. (3)

This, at its heart, is magic.

This is not to say that in postmodern romantic theology there is a belief that some aspect of God is corrupted or has willfully separated from us. However, I would assert that there is something of God that we have pushed out of our communities due to reckless behavior, thoughtlessness, cruelty, and arrogance. In the United States, there seems to be a growing need not necessarily for “freedom of religion” but “freedom for religion”. Religion has become dangerous, suspect, even dirty. Along with that, it has gone out of vogue to mention God or to mention one’s relationship with God. This is debilitating to one’s spiritual life, and I think debilitating to community in general. When people are forced to deny very integral pieces of themselves and live half – lives in public, this is hardly conducive to a fully functioning, healthy community. Communities are comprised of individuals, and the whole cannot function at maximum capacity if its parts are suffering. This is true in both mechanistic and holistic systems.

Magic, under the definition I am working with for this paper, seeks to draw God out of exile and into the community in order to benefit it. This can happen in any number of ways, whether it is a Wiccan priestess performing a drawing down of the moon, a choir performing sacred music, or something more mundane like giving help and hope to those who are suffering and in need. The effect is the same: the ethereal is brought into the community.

However, the semantics of this view of magic does present us with some fundamental theological problems. We can’t ever really draw the transcendent down into the material plane. The most we can hope to do is heighten our awareness of the fact that there is something more “out there”. Additionally, the notion of “drawing down” implies a kind of spiritual hierarchy, and while I am definitely to be counted amongst those who will joyfully sing that God is great, I cringe at the idea of God sitting on high looking down upon his peons. Instead of “drawing down”, then, can we be said to be “drawing in”? If we define our communities as the center of our respective lives, and if we consider that something of God has been pushed out of the community, perhaps a more congruent way to think about magic is the drawing in of the divine effluence, infusing the community with divine energy found both above and below.

Looking at magic from this point of view, there is little need for true mysticism within the postmodern romantic paradigm. Rather than desiring to transcend our communities, we focus on “manifesting energy”, on saturating our communities in sacredness. Once we do this, once we sense God in our immediacy, it becomes easier to see the sacred in our lives, and to see our actions and our stories as sacred. Manifesting energy releases us from the bonds which tie us to a past condition, and allows us to create sacred histories now, rather than clinging to the histories of others. Mythmaking, ritual, community service all become magical acts; they each become deeply meaningful ways to connect with the Divine. When individual people are made aware of their worth, of their power, they become capable of developing their own “starlight vision” (4) , that way of looking at the world that allows us to see many possible futures, many possible outcomes. Rather than becoming slaves to fate, the magical person is truly capable of navigating the Web, of deciding where and how her life will grow and change. When all individual people are empowered, the community benefits.

Idel’s vision of magic is life changing, and world changing. It requires one to think in terms of networks and deep ecology. It requires us to remember that there is no such thing as “me” and “not me”. Placing the focus of magical intent on the community instead of the individual is quite a change for those of us who grew up with the laissez faire, ’look out for number one’ mindset of the Western capitalist world. Adopting Idel’s vision of magic requires us to think globally, and it is this kind of thought, this kind of paradigm shift that may actually have an effect on the rest of our world.

Endnotes:
(1) Idel, Moshe, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic. New York, State University of New York Press, 1995. p 1
(2) Heschel, Abraham Joshua. The Sabbath. New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
(3) Patai, Raphael. The Hebrew Goddess. Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1990. p 159
(4) From Gael Baudino’s fiction novel, Strands of Starlight.

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