The Art of Hidden Causation: Magic As Deep Mediation
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THE ART OF HIDDEN CAUSATION: MAGIC AS DEEP MEDIATION By © Peter George Alexander Duchemin. A Dissertation submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Interdisciplinary Studies Memorial University of Newfoundland Final Submission August 2019 St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador Acknowledgements I would like to sincerely thank the following people, without whom it would have been impossible to persevere with and make sense of this difficult topic in this particular way. 1) My PhD supervisors, Dr. Peter Trnka, Dr. Steven Crocker, and Dr. David Bell, who stayed with me throughout the process with both words of encouragement and valuable critical expertise. 2) Dr. Kurt Cline (1953-2018), magician-scholar, who first suggested that I include some discussion of Jean Gebser’s Ever-Present Origin. How I wish we could have met! 3) Any and all scholars and practitioners with whom I have conversed, presented for, discussed, debated, and practiced the Art of Hidden Causation over the years, especially S.C. who first exposed me to the esoteric world in a way that made consistent sense. 4) My grandfather, Dr. Lloyd Duchemin, and my father Dr. Parker Duchemin, both life-long scholars and academics who pushed me and encouraged to engage with humanities in general, and doctoral studies in particular. Finally, and most importantly: ∞) my phenomenally brilliant partner, Dr. Evelyn Osborne, with whom I have travelled the lengths of the earth in pursuit of music and magic. Gratitude is owed to you all. “Fake becomes true, it depends on you.”: A sculpture bearing an aphoristic rhyme that bears no relation to the Chinese text above it: 動物要成真 (animals become true), 自然要關心 (care for nature); Trans. Dorion Berg. Nam Shan, Lantau Island, Hong Kong, 2018. i Contents Table of Figures ............................................................................................................ v Preface .......................................................................................................................... vi Opening Bracket ( ...................................................................................................... xv Part 0: WHAT IS MAGIC? ........................................................................................ 1 Chapter 1: Key Questions .......................................................................................... 2 Chapter 2: Methodology: Emic/Etic or Enic/Exic ..................................................... 4 Chapter 3: Historical Approaches .............................................................................. 8 Chapter 4: The Cognitive and Post-Structural Approaches ..................................... 15 Chapter 5: Magics as Media ..................................................................................... 20 Part I: THE ART OF HIDDEN CAUSATION ....................................................... 27 Glossary .................................................................................................................... 28 Chapter 1: In the Garden of Forking Paths .............................................................. 29 Chapter 2: True Names ............................................................................................ 37 Chapter 3: Concealed Causes ................................................................................... 39 Chapter 4: A Mesh of Magics .................................................................................. 46 Chapter 5: The Art of Hidden Causation.................................................................. 57 Chapter 6: Occult Systems ....................................................................................... 59 Chapter 7: Magic, Fiction, and Qualitative Time ..................................................... 65 Chapter 8: Abstraction and the Mesocosm .............................................................. 70 Chapter 9: Fortune-Telling, Randomness and Aesthesis. ........................................ 73 Chapter 10: Spelling & Dis-Spelling ....................................................................... 81 Chapter 11: Enchanted Theatres .............................................................................. 88 Chapter 12: Spotlights .............................................................................................. 93 Chapter 13: Intuition and Fundamentality ............................................................. 102 Chapter 14: Machines of Metaphor and Memory .................................................. 105 Chapter 15: Magus or Sorcerer? ............................................................................. 108 Chapter 16: Limit and Limitlessness ...................................................................... 113 Chapter 17: The Flatness of Lettered Perception ................................................... 115 Chapter 18: Rhetoric and Enchantment ................................................................. 121 ii Chapter 19: Aesthetic Efficacy............................................................................... 123 Chapter 20: Productive Metaphor .......................................................................... 127 Chapter 21: What Isn’t Magic? .............................................................................. 131 Part II: THE ARCHITECTURE OF ABSENCE ................................................. 136 Glossary .................................................................................................................. 137 Chapter 1: The Fullness of Emptiness and the Emptiness of Fullness ................... 138 Chapter 2: Surfaces ................................................................................................ 153 Chapter 3: The Veil in the Cave ............................................................................. 156 Chapter 4: Bubbles ................................................................................................. 164 Chapter 5: In the Tunnels of Memory .................................................................... 169 Chapter 6: Hermetic Memory and Volition ........................................................... 182 Chapter 7: Frozen Music ........................................................................................ 186 Chapter 8: Thinking in Figures .............................................................................. 192 Chapter 9: Abducted by Mutants! .......................................................................... 197 Chapter 10: Into the Labyrinth ............................................................................... 206 Chapter 11: Doctor Illuminatus .............................................................................. 209 Chapter 12: Ars Generalis Ultima .......................................................................... 224 Chapter 13: The Assemblage of Figurate Systems ................................................ 244 Part III: THE WORK OF FORGING STORMS ................................................. 255 Glossary .................................................................................................................. 256 Chapter 1: Magical Calendrics and the Image of Time.......................................... 257 Chapter 2: Chronos’ Ruler ..................................................................................... 274 Chapter 3: Bridges .................................................................................................. 277 Chapter 4: Fiat ........................................................................................................ 281 Chapter 5: The Crease ............................................................................................ 284 Chapter 6: Black Iron Prison .................................................................................. 288 Chapter 7: Moment Focality .................................................................................. 292 Chapter 8: Singularity ............................................................................................ 295 Chapter 9: Play ....................................................................................................... 300 Closing Bracket ) ...................................................................................................... 304 References ................................................................................................................. 312 Appendix I: Notes on Moment Focal Notation ...................................................... 320 Appendix II: Examples of Calendars ..................................................................... 328 Appendix III: EBPS1 ............................................................................................... 332 iii Appendix IV: The EBPS Chain .............................................................................. 335 Appendix V: EBPS Chain Topography ................................................................. 336 Appendix VI: EBPS Checksums and Properties .................................................. 338 Appendix VII: A Universal Mnemotechnic Imager ............................................. 343 iv Table of Figures Figure 1: Crowley's Definition of Magic & First Postulate_________________________49 Figure 2: Clarke's Three Laws_______________________________________________54 Figure 3: I Ching Hexagrams owned by Leibniz_________________________________59