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ReReadable Books

December 2009

"The Mystery of Magic Part V: Master Magician"

By

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

 

 

 To send books for review in this column email Jacqueline Lichtenberg,jl@simegen.com  for snailing instructions or send an attached RTF file.  
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The Mystery of Magic: Part V Master Magician

As usual in December I’m not going to review any new titles to refrain from fueling the commercialization of the season. So let’s contemplate what we’ve learned.

In August we looked at some Mystery genre novels and correlated the detective’s role with puzzle solving in the training of the Magician, jumping off from a diagram posted in the May issue of Wired – the Tree of Life on its side.

http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2009/mf_enigmatrix

That diagram is about how Hard Science encounters Magic, though most people won’t see that right away.

In September we examined how Magic has impacted SF and spawned Hard and Soft Fantasy genres. In October we observed how The Magician’s Apprentice, and the life-stage of Apprenticeship is being handled in Fantasy. Then in November we analyzed the role of the Journeyman archetype in forming the Science Fiction genre.

The Apprentice and Journeyman stories are all familiar territory to readers of SF/F, but I wonder how many ever consider what the Master Craftsman (of Magic, Carpentry, Storytelling) does with his time, day to day.

Young people start out trying to gain position and authority, possibly power, in the world, and some are willing to submit to being educated, trained, shaped, honed, and specialized to fit the niche they aspire to. Starting out, everyone has a fair idea of what the Apprentice does – sweep floors, pay his dues – while the Journeyman gets freedom and adventure, gets to prove himself against challenges.

But why bother? To what end is all this sacrifice, effort, midnight oil and toil?

When you think of the Master, do you think of Gandalf? Yoda? Bobby Fischer? Dr. Who? House M.D.? A Priest or Rabbi? World of Warcraft mage?

What do you see Masters doing in stories? They stand aside and intone Wisdom? They utter prophecy? They penetrate mysteries by knowing what others don’t? They grant Journeyman status to their Apprentice and send her off to have challenging adventures (i.e. almost get killed.)

To be a protagonist or antagonist, the character must "arc" or change in some fundamental psychological and/or spiritual way as a direct result of the events of the story.

The characters we think of as Masters usually stand outside the plot directing things, and they don’t "arc" – they don’t learn a hard life lesson from the plot events. House is a kind of exception, but the TV Series character ends up repeating and repeating a pattern. Is that repetition a lifestyle you’d work through Apprentice and Journeyman to achieve?

The unconscious premise behind the conception "Master" in our fiction is someone who has finished learning.

Our society, however, looks with opprobrium upon the "know it all." So why would anyone look up to a Master? Or want to become one?

We are intimately familiar with how life looks from the point of view of the Apprentice and Journeyman, but consider the Master’s life a goal, not a continuing process.

This attitude was graphically expressed in the opening of Diana Pharoah Francis’s novel we discussed in November, The Turning Tide. The protagonist wants to be awarded her Mastery in the Craft of Metalsmith so that she will have everything she’s worked for and be allowed to continue making metal artworks.

That is our culture’s vision of what a Master does and why one should work so hard to attain Mastery. Freedom to do what you want. Is there a puzzle here we need to solve?

Of course, if we solve it and learn what the Master does on the side, we might lose the motivation to become a Master and never make the grade. On the third hand, the Journeyman gets used to doing hard things at great risk, so might not be scared off by the Master’s avocation.

Let’s take a peek.

When the Journeyman finally gets to the top of the mountain she’s been climbing and attains her Master’s belt, she looks around and what does she see? Way off in the distance, beyond the next valley, shrouded in mists, she sees another mountain. A much taller mountain.

Having acquired a taste for living challenged, the new Master sets off to reach and climb that taller mountain.

What does "mountain" symbolize? Go back to the May 2009 Wired magazine issue and think hard like a scientist and puzzle solver. We live at the bottom of a gravity well, the bottom of a potential energy curve. A mountain is a device we use to make it possible to raise our potential energy by climbing up the well.

OK booster rockets work better, and may become an archetype one day. But we’re hardwired to look at mountains as a way to climb the spiritual ladder, to improve ourselves and make contact with the force we worship.

It’s no accident that the Torah, the five Books of Moses, with the ten lofty Commandments, was given on a Mountain, Mount Sinai. Many Native American traditions treat mountains the same way – points of contact with something beyond normal ken, something valuable.

The hobby of the Master is to climb the next Mountain. Having acquired mountain climbing skills, the Master uses them to find and climb new mountains, and hopes to find one that hasn’t been climbed before, go up and bring back some new Wisdom, and perhaps World Peace.

And it’s an annual event. In the cycle of the calendar, the Winter Solstice is the bottom of the year, the lowest potential energy, an extreme of the year cycle when huge torrents of spiritual energy can enter manifestation. From this point, all humanity begins to rise toward the Spring Equinox, another point where the world can connect with spiritual energy of a certain type.

The Master takes this annual boost and runs with it, gaining momentum to help him climb the steepest part of the mountain from Spring to Summer Solstice.

There is an annual exercise in Kabbalah, decreed in the Torah, that should make clear how the diagram in the May 2009 Wired magazine is not a joke but a tool. It is an amazingly difficult exercise. To learn it and to do it could take a lifetime. But it’s so simple. Just count 49 days in a row, a sequence called The Omer. Why should that be hard? Because of the particular days they are and what is to be achieved with each of them.

After leaving Egypt on the first day of Passover, we counted 49 days in eager suspense. Then, on the 50th day, we assembled in the spot where G-d had first spoken with Moses, and we received the Torah.

Why 49 days? The Kabbalah describes 49 facets that make up the human character. Each day that we counted, on the Journey from the parting of the sea to Mount Sinai, we elevated another facet of our nature, bringing us one step closer to receiving the Divine transmission to humankind.

Retracing this inner Journey each year is not a repetition but a spiral in a steep spiritual climb.

Subscribe to an email reminder for each day of the Omer with explanations of each spiritual trait by day here http://www.chabad.org/tools/subscribe/default_cdo/subid/16 

Look at the lower Face of the Tree of Life diagram on the book cover at https://meaningfullife.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=OMER&Category_Code=B

Or see it here:

 

You know that each of the circles contains yet another whole diagram of the Tree – like the Quaker Oats box with the picture of the man holding a Quaker Oats box with a picture of a man holding – etc. It’s the holistic view of the structure of the Universe.

The 7 circles on this book cover each contain 7 more circles. 7 X 7 = 49. Here’s an example from inside the book. It’s the same every year by the Hebrew calendar.

Day Six of Week 2 (13th day of the omer):Yesod of Gevurah. For discipline to be effective it must be coupled with commitment and bonding. Both in disciplining yourself and others there has to be a sense that the discipline is important for developing a stronger bond. Not that I discipline you, but that we are doing it together for our mutual benefit. Exercise for the day: Demonstrate to your child or student how your bonding with each other is an essential ingredient in discipline and growth.

After 49 consecutive days doing these exercises, on the 50th day you’ll attain the top of a personal Mountain, and be able to receive something new. Maybe World Peace.

That’s what Masters do in their spare time, refine themselves to bring Peace to the world. In some circles it’s called The Great Work.

It is unbelievably difficult, which is why I’m pointing you to this exercise now so you can gear up for Spring. But in some prior life, you too attained Mastery of some craft, so you may be able to climb your mountain this time. It is easier to elevate a trait when it is the special trait designated for each particular day of the Omer, so gather strength and determination, watch your calendar and give it a try.

To send books for review in this column email Jacqueline Lichtenberg,  jl@simegen.com for snailing instructions or send an attached RTF file.  

 

 

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