From: mr happy (ajbehan@tcd.ie)
Date: Wed 17 Jan 1996 - 13:39:19 EET
> From: Argrath@aol.com
> 1) you don't need a priest/wizard/shaman for every
> problem any more than you need a doctor for every headache or a lawyer every
> time your neighbor does you dirty; 2) people everywhere have independent
> magic, and sufficiently sophisticated peoples have always had independent
> magicians.
What about witches,(as defined in the RQ Magic Book: people with a lot a
spirit magic but no fetch.) Also remember that an independent magician is
independent for social reasons: he is not answerable to human masters. RW
shamans are often selected by the spirits without any human intervention. A
sorceror can learn their art from books. Mystics also don't need huge numbers
of worshippers to use their magic either.
Medieval Europe is a RW period when there were plenty of magicians and
most of them weren't didn't gain their powers through a power-structure
(i.e. the church.) Witches, who turned to magic because they were beyond
the pale of normal society, had familiar spirits and behaved like nothing
so much as bad shamans. The Hermetic magus, though possibly a church-man,
gained his magical ability through occult knowledge. Whether a mystic or
wizard he was an independent magician
- -------------
Andrew Behan
ajbehan@alf2.tcd.ie
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