Magic, Ritual, & the Christian Myth By W. J. Whitman There is nothing more certain in this world than the fact that magic is real. Despite all of the pontifications of modern scientists, all science can ever really do is observe the magic and explain what takes place. The scientist does not know, and cannot know, why the magic works the way it does. There is a magical force that pulls objects together. The scientist observes the phenomenon and calls this force gravity, but he has never made a single step towards explaining the phenomenon. In fact, all science can possibly do is describe the phenomena of our world. It cannot draw any necessary relation between things; it can merely posit that the magic generally works in such-and-such a way. The magic makes an object of higher mass attract objects of lower mass, and the scientist can call this phenomenon gravity all he wants, but he will never be able to explain the logical connection between the phenomenon and the inherent nature of things. There is no logical reason for objects to be attracted to each other. The only real explanation is that some Grand Magician has made it so by His supernatural decree. Chesterton was right when he said, A tree grows fruit because it is a magic tree. 1 I challenge any man to come up with a better or more plausible explanation. If someone were to tell us about a special tree that grows lemon drops and candy canes, we would be certain that he was lying. Yet such a tree is really no less odd than one that grows peaches or oranges. We have simply grown accustomed to the magic trees; this is why we view them as natural and normal. I suppose that if she had been born in Wonderland, Alice would have thought the pot-smoking caterpillar to be quite normal. Everything in the world is magic, and not a single thing can be explained upon the naturalist presuppositions of scientism. We simply overlook all the magic because we are used to it. Everything in this world is filled with magic and supernatural power. Nothing is natural in the scientific sense. That plants can grow sweet-scented flowers is supernatural. That seeds thrown into the garden can magically turn into strawberries or tomatoes is beyond the scope of scientific explanation. That two persons engaging in a naked ritual can cause a third person to come into existence is a very peculiar thing. It can only be explained by the fact that we live in an enchanted world. That a cut in the flesh can naturally heal itself and go away is nothing short of a miracle. The natural is supernatural. Nature is magic. 1 G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Ch. 4
What we call natural law is simply familiar magic. It is magic that we are so accustomed to that we have forgotten that it is magic! The natural is magical and everyone is familiar with it. Yet, there is another kind of magic. There is a different sort of magic that not everyone is familiar with. This other type of magic is called miraculous, religious, and mystical. The natural magic has only to do with our bodies and physical things around us. The religious magic, on the other hand, is more subtle. There is an invisible part of us. We have consciousness, a mind, and emotions. This may be called the psyche, or the soul. The religious magic affects the invisible part of us. It can transform our souls into angelic beings, just as the natural magic can transform seeds into plants. There are also invisible creatures that can help us on our path to spiritual transformation; these are the saints and angels. The saints are the elders from the community who have passed on. They are venerated and remembered forever. We can invoke them in a ritual called prayer, where we ask them to intercede on our behalf before God. The realm of religious magic is where the spiritual world and the material world come together. For the religious magic to work, however, we must engage in certain rituals. This is not at all unordinary. Even the natural magic requires rituals at times. The farmer must plant his seeds, ritualistically water them, etc. If he does not perform the rituals correctly, the magic might fail and he will have no harvest. If ritual is so important for ordinary magic, does it not follow that it must be much more important for the higher types of magic? The existence of magic is a fact, the necessity of ritual is a fact, and no one in their right mind can deny either of these facts! To experience the higher magic and learn about the religious rituals, you have to be initiated into the community of the higher magicians. This community is called the Church. In order to become a member, you must learn the basic teachings of the mystic order. These basic teachings are called the faith, and they are laid out in the Creed. I suppose that you are all vaguely familiar with these things, so I need not elaborate much on this. To be initiated into the Church and become a member of the mystic community, you must undergo a period of education called catechesis. Then you must participate in the first ritual, which is called baptism. This is a magical rite involving immersion in water. After one is initiated into the community, then he must learn the other rituals, begin to interact with sacred objects, and memorize magic incantations. The chief among these sacred objects is the prayer rope and the greatest incantation is the Jesus Prayer, a special spell that wards off evil spirits. These things can change your inner being and bring you inner peace. There are other sacred objects, like the cross and the icons (or
images) of the saints. Each Sunday the community of mystics gathers together in order to perform a Grand Ritual together. This Grand Ritual is called the Eucharist or Liturgy. It involves chanting a very precise incantation, the sending up of smoke from incense, and the reenactment of the mythos, the most important story told within the magical tradition the story of how the invisible Grand Magician became visible and defeated the Evil Magician with the deep magic of the Resurrection. There is music sung throughout the event the chant is both solemn and triumphant. And there is not a single part of the Ritual that is not meaningful and important. From the images in the building where the Grand Ritual is performed to the heavenly smoke that fills the entire place with sweetness, there is not a meaningless thing at all. And, perhaps, the most meaningful things of all are the chief magician s gown and the food on which the spell is cast. No, perhaps I spoke too soon. I suppose the most important thing is the Invisible World that the symbols point to, that is, the Kingdom of the Grand Magician. It seems that the entire Ritual is aimed at transforming the members of the mystic community into beings that are able to pass from this world over to the Invisible World. Since I have already alluded to the mythos, I suppose I have no choice but to explain what it is. A myth is nothing more than a story that conveys a deep religious or metaphysical truth for a particular culture. The myth can be historically accurate and literally true, although it does not necessarily have to be. There are different kinds of myths. Firstly, there are natural myths wherein stories are woven into the very fabric of the magical world in which we live. The dead seed falls to the ground, only to spring forth to life again, ascends up towards heaven as a living plant, and beckons us to eat the fruit (its body) and drink the juice of the vine (its blood). When the Grand Magician created this world, He artistically weaved this story into the tapestry of nature. The glorious Sun comes from the East and drives away the darkness of the night. The moon imitates the Sun as a disciple ought to imitate his master: it reflects the natural light of the Sun and helps to drive back the forces of darkness, yet its light is only derivative. The glory of the moon depends upon the glory of the Sun. All of these things are natural myths myths painted into the landscape of the world itself. They reflect the deep truth of the Christian religion. Then there came the pagan myths. These were stories told by the ancients. They spoke of dying gods, resurrections, and such. Yet all of these myths were based upon the natural myths. They were derived from observations of nature. The pagans personified the forces of nature in their literary stories and poems. The natural myths point to the higher realities in the Invisible
World; and the pagan religious myths point to the natural myths and are derived from them. Yet the myths hint at the higher realities behind these things. The final kind of myth is the true myth, the historically accurate myth. The uniqueness of the Christian story is that the mythos is not just metaphorically/allegorically true but historically true! The myth became historical fact. C. S. Lewis writes: In the Christian story God descends to reascend. He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity; down further still, if embryologists are right, to recapitulate in the womb the ancient and pre-human phases of life; down to the very roots and seabed of the Nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him. In this descent and renascent everyone will recognize a familiar pattern: a thing written all over the world. It is the pattern of all vegetable life. It must belittle itself into something hard, small and deathlike, it must fall into the ground: thence the new life reascends. It is the pattern of all animal generation too. There is a descent from the full and perfect organisms into the spermatozoon and ovum, and in the dark womb a life at first inferior in kind to that of the species which is being reproduced: then the slow ascent to the perfect embryo, to the living, conscious baby, and finally to the adult. Death and Rebirth go down to go up it is a key principle. The doctrine of the Incarnation, if accepted, puts this principle even more emphatically at the centre. The pattern is there in Nature because it was first there in God. All the instances of it which I have mentioned turn out to be but transpositions of the Divine theme into a minor key. I am not now referring simply to the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ. The total pattern, of which they are only the turning point, is the real Death and Rebirth: for certainly no seed ever fell from so fair a tree into so
dark and cold a soil as would furnish more than a faint analogy to this huge descent and reascension in which God dredged the salt and oozy bottom of Creation. 2 C. S. Lewis is so bold that he proclaims, From a certain point of view Christ is the same sort of thing as Adonis or Osiris. 3 The story of Christ really does parallel the pagan myths because the myths were pointing to Christ. The distinctiveness of the Christian story is that the myth became real. God really became a man and lived in a definite historical epoch. The myth has become more than a metaphor. It has become a concrete scientific fact. The Evil Magician had usurped power over the world that the Grand Magician had created with the primordial hocus pocus. The black magic of the Evil Magician held the world hostage to the darkness of sin. The world seemed to be doomed, but the Grand Magician suddenly broke onto the stage. He sold Himself to the Evil Magician as a ransom in exchange for the world. But when the Evil Magician took hold of the Grand Magician, he found that his black magic could not affect Him. The Grand Magician enchanted the Evil Magician, stripping him of his powers, and stole back the world that He created. The Evil Magician killed the Grand Magician in a bloody ritual sacrifice to the forces of evil, but the Grand Magician came back to life. The Evil Magician used his Spell of Death in an attempt to keep the Grand Magician in a state of perpetual slumber, but the black magic did not work. The Grand Magician quickly awoke from the spell, and, with a flash of supernatural light, He chased back the darkness. The dark magic was defeated by the white magic. The power of the Evil Magician was weakened in the battle, the power of his black magic continues to grow weaker every day, and the black magic will eventually be altogether useless. Now that the black magic has been defeated, the Grand Magician has beckoned us to come and learn the power of the white magic. He promises us that if we follow the secret rituals we will be transformed into angelic beings, then He will take us into the Invisible World and accompany us on a new adventure, a truly never-ending story. There is nothing truer than the myth, nothing more factual and real than magic, and certainly nothing more important than ritual. It is through the myth that we learn the story of the invisible Grand Magician. It is through the ritual that we learn to participate in His magic. And it 2 C. S. Lewis, Miracles, Ch. 14 3 C. S. Lewis, Miracles, Ch. 14
is through the magic that we come to see the invisible Grand Magician Himself. We are called by the Grand Magician to become little magicians ourselves and to help Him wage war against the evil forces of the black magic. The world in which we live really is Fantasia. When we step out of bed in the morning, we step into Narnia.