petermarkadams
The Game of Saturn Author
Hi Patrick,
What an excellent question and one that I have frequently pondered.
Given the family basis of political power during the Renaissance, and given the prevalence of daemonic magic in that milieu, (it was, after all, priests, monks and other clerics who practiced the grimoire magic ‘for hire’, so to speak, under the protective umbrella of the elite families) then the system of the SB is just one more operative system amongst the many that characterised that pre-modern era, it just performs on a much higher voltage and demands much higher intellectual and theurgic skills than most other systems.
In this sense it is streets ahead of the grimoire based traditions. It is a throwback to an earlier era of Alexandrian and Near-Eastern Neoplatonic theurgy and magic, and therefore both purer and more primal.
So, as a protective system for self or family and/or to counter offensive sorcery directed against self or family, I can imagine no system to equal it.
That said, is its actual use ever justified?
As with all magic, we come, finally, to the fundamental issue of ethics. Most of us would say that defence of friends and family is justified - possibly, almost always - and that any other use is not.
That said, and this is the nub, if you think you can invoke a force like this and then lightly dismiss it - whether in this or any future life - you have got another think coming. These energies are transgenerational and once invoked the old adage of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice applies, you can get the genii out of the bottle, but can you put him back in it once he is liberated?
I caution anyone from seeking to invoke these powers for any reason whatsoever.
Peter
Hi Patrick,
What an excellent question and one that I have frequently pondered.
Given the family basis of political power during the Renaissance, and given the prevalence of daemonic magic in that milieu, (it was, after all, priests, monks and other clerics who practiced the grimoire magic ‘for hire’, so to speak, under the protective umbrella of the elite families) then the system of the SB is just one more operative system amongst the many that characterised that pre-modern era, it just performs on a much higher voltage and demands much higher intellectual and theurgic skills than most other systems.
In this sense it is streets ahead of the grimoire based traditions. It is a throwback to an earlier era of Alexandrian and Near-Eastern Neoplatonic theurgy and magic, and therefore both purer and more primal.
So, as a protective system for self or family and/or to counter offensive sorcery directed against self or family, I can imagine no system to equal it.
That said, is its actual use ever justified?
As with all magic, we come, finally, to the fundamental issue of ethics. Most of us would say that defence of friends and family is justified - possibly, almost always - and that any other use is not.
That said, and this is the nub, if you think you can invoke a force like this and then lightly dismiss it - whether in this or any future life - you have got another think coming. These energies are transgenerational and once invoked the old adage of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice applies, you can get the genii out of the bottle, but can you put him back in it once he is liberated?
I caution anyone from seeking to invoke these powers for any reason whatsoever.
Peter