Low-Tech: Magic?

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

(...) I'll add I would strong suggest avoiding a vast majority of "New Age" type books on "magic". Despite people drawing sincere religious and spiritual belief from them they are by and large works of fiction with little to no basis in historical fact.

I fully agree with that. And theosophical authors are in the same vein. Not in vain the current "New Age" (with its many unessential trends) is a spin-off from the classic theosophism, spiritualism, and occultism (all them modern creations of westerners), mixed with some bits of scientific divulgation and modern day popular political notions.

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

Just for full discourse, I consider myself a "Heathen" or a Norse Reconstruction Pagan and have read quite a few of the types of books I just mentioned. The main thing I've learned over the years of being a Pagan is to assume everything you read about it is false unless you (or the author) has an authoritative second source, which ideally would be a contemporary historical source or a well respected modern source.

I understand your point, sure, but the problem with this is that not all is documented, and many things were handled by oral transmission. This means that huge amounts of knowledge bring as references or sources for it . . . just persons, usually true spiritual masters -extremely and more and more hard to find, and even more difficult each day.

In the case of the Norse world and other European "paganisms", that's about a destroyed, dissapeared or dead knowledge, like the own of the Ancient Egypt . . . like the one own of the Templar Order.

It would be needed a kind of miracle for recovering such things lost to peoples in ancient times! (BTW, the Grail Quest, the Ark of the Covenant, the lost of the true pronunciation of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, the Soma -all them are "lost items" or "things"- symbolize this loss, between many other things). So it's wise to assume that there aren't true sources for this, even if it's possible to assemble some partial data, but this is always completely insufficient.

[gilbertocarlos]

Originally Posted by Greg 1

Not all mythology. My interest is in magic, as something actually used by humans in the real world.

Sorry to be the bad news carrier, but probably there aren't any real magic in our world. If you think there is, James Randi is willing to give you a million bucks if you proves it.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by gilbertocarlos

Sorry to be the bad news carrier, but probably there aren't any real magic in our world. If you think there is, James Randi is willing to give you a million bucks if you proves it.

I believe he means just the beliefs, the way people act on those beliefs, and what actually happens when those beliefs hit reality.

As an example, we might say that a particular Norse pagan belief in "battle frenzy" meant that the disciples of this magical thinking could will themselves into a GURPS Berserker state.

One could then say that Norse shamans knew how to trigger that state and could use it to affect dying warriors and temporarily pull them out of a coma, or similar death spiral, which would then necessitate new HT rolls which might keep the wounded warriors from spiraling down into death.

In this situation we'd give the Shaman a Herb Lore roll at skill -4 to trigger Berserk in a dying warrior in a coma, the warrior would then get a roll at HT+4 to snap out of his coma for success seconds, and then have to make a normal HT roll to see if he remains conscious and alive.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

I believe he means just the beliefs, the way people act on those beliefs, and what actually happens when those beliefs hit reality.

As an example, we might say that a particular Norse pagan belief in "battle frenzy" meant that the disciples of this magical thinking could will themselves into a GURPS Berserker state.

One could then say that Norse shamans knew how to trigger that state and could use it to affect dying warriors and temporarily pull them out of a coma, or similar death spiral, which would then necessitate new HT rolls which might keep the wounded warriors from spiraling down into death.

In this situation we'd give the Shaman a Herb Lore roll at skill -4 to trigger Berserk in a dying warrior in a coma, the warrior would then get a roll at HT+4 to snap out of his coma for success seconds, and then have to make a normal HT roll to see if he remains conscious and alive.

By my estimation, even that is really stretching the "power" of spiritual beliefs. A more likely occurrence would be a warrior, believing himself to be a berserker, charges naked into the fray, to be promptly skewered by his opponents' spear and dying in cold agony.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

By my estimation, even that is really stretching the "power" of spiritual beliefs. A more likely occurrence would be a warrior, believing himself to be a berserker, charges naked into the fray, to be promptly skewered by his opponents' spear and dying in cold agony.

You can do a lot with psychosomatic effects, Berserk itself is just a psychosomatic effect, so having 'magic' induce such effects would be in line with the base effect.

[panton41]

Originally Posted by demonsbane

I understand your point, sure, but the problem with this is that not all is documented, and many things were handled by oral transmission. This means that huge amounts of knowledge bring as references or sources for it . . . just persons, usually true spiritual masters -extremely and more and more hard to find, and even more difficult each day.

In the case of the Norse world and other European "paganisms", that's about a destroyed, dissapeared or dead knowledge, like the own of the Ancient Egypt . . . like the one own of the Templar Order.

It would be needed a kind of miracle for recovering such things lost to peoples in ancient times! (BTW, the Grail Quest, the Ark of the Covenant, the lost of the true pronunciation of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, the Soma -all them are "lost items" or "things"- symbolize this loss, between many other things). So it's wise to assume that there aren't true sources for this, even if it's possible to assemble some partial data, but this is always completely insufficient.

What I mean is there's a difference between "based on what IS known and accepted by the historical and archeological community" and "my crystals told me this so it must be true". In the case of the Norse (and the Greeks, Romans and to a lesser extent the Celts) much of the oral tradition was recorded at some point. Now the actual processes of worship are mostly lost, but at least some the underlying lore is known.

Let's remember there's a difference between a holy text and "here is the process of a worship service". The Bible is a holy text but the differences between a Greek Orthodox Mass, a Catholic Mass, a Presbyterian service and snake handlers in the hills of West Virginia each claiming to be the word of God and each denomination's service are so alien to each other that one might call the others "Satanic" and not "Christian" according to their definition.


The point I was making is that based on my experience being a skeptic toward non-gaming works depicting "Low Tech Magic" (namely Paganism and mysticism) will be better than taking everything on face value.

[demonsbane]

Yes. I mostly agree with your attitude.

[Greg 1]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

I believe he means just the beliefs, the way people act on those beliefs, and what actually happens when those beliefs hit reality.

Indeed! Magic may be a dud technology, but as an element of human civilization, it is amazing.

Even if I'm using a setting where magic works, knowing more about real magicians would be helpful.

(BTW, I don't particularly care if the book is classed as "Low-Tech" or not, if it covers what interests me)

[Gudiomen]

I suggest anthropology then, there are several authors that adress magical rituals and practices. Marcel Mauss has an anthropological theory on magic, if memory serves me. Authors of this period did a lot of investigation. Modern magic with traditional roots like Voodoo and Umbanda (brazilian version). Kardecists employ psychic healing techniques that are pretty much what we call "magic".

GURPS Cabal (3e), I'm told, and GURPS (3e) Voodoo have a lot of references to real world magic, as does GURPS Thaumatology (4e). But sometimes it's hard to tell what's real-world reference and what's game material.

In the real world most of this can probably be explained by the placebo and nocebo* effects.

*one example of this was the aborigine punishment of having a knee pierced by a "spiritual" spear, with the punished limping across the desert from the belief that his knee was pierced by the invisible spear. So hostile "magic" is possible too.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Gudiomen

In the real world most of this can probably be explained by the placebo and nocebo* effects.

*one example of this was the aborigine punishment of having a knee pierced by a "spiritual" spear, with the punished limping across the desert from the belief that his knee was pierced by the invisible spear. So hostile "magic" is possible too.

Yeah, nocebo is amazing, just tell someone what the side-effects of x-medication is and watch them start developing those side-effects, this is especially telling when you read them the wrong side-effects.