Monthly Archives: October 2023

Miracles and Magic

Posted by natechen on

Alchemists have been promising us they are on the verge of creating life from nothing, then granting mankind immortality since long before the word alchemy existed. Even today scientists, as we call modern alchemists, insist the Singularity is about to merge us all with the machine for the rest of eternity. Or perhaps we’ll clone ourselves into immortality. Perhaps no salvation will come to our generation but our children can be genehacked into perfection and all suffering on Earth after they take over will be averted.

Regardless of whether it’s the promise of immortality, the power to see the future or control over the forces of nature magic has always been the promise of control over things mankind previously thought we could not control. Miracles, in contrast, represent an intervention into the natural order by something transcendent. They are the opposite of magic in that they represent things moving even further out of control. The transcendent does not just move beyond the material it also surpasses human understanding and control, after all.

Thus these two forces, magic and miracles, often stand in stark contrast.

A brief aside. In fantasy fiction there is a spectrum known as the hard magic-soft magic spectrum, which is used to assess how well the audience understands the functioning of the supernatural power system in the fiction. Hard magic has clear rules. The characters and readers should understand what it can do, what it can’t and what it costs. Soft magic is mysterious. Its function is hard to understand and dealing with it is extremely dangerous in no small part because it is so poorly understood. It’s generally understood that hard magic exists to build stakes while soft magic exists to build wonder or fear.

For the purposes of our discussion this distinction is irrelevant. It is tempting to map miracles onto soft magic and magic as a source of control onto hard magic. However that ignores what I actually want to get at today.

As you may have already gathered from the opening paragraph, for the purposes of this discussion science counts as a kind of magic. Most scientific principles started as bits of occult knowledge. Chemistry? First it was alchemy. Medicine? Partly the herblore of witches and shaman, partly learned by heretics who cut up dead bodies.

Now it’s true that as the Church gathered the writings of the Greek philosophers many members of the clergy gained an interest in science and started discovering its principles themselves. Eventually the Church would conclude that nothing human reason discovered contradicted God’s ability to intervene in the world as He chose. However, be it the ordered realms of science or the wild fetishes of the witch doctor the tension is the same. Magic seeks to seize control of the world. Miracles take the control of the world away from mortals and places it in the hands of the transcendent.

Reconciling these two things is one of the roles of religious belief. Not every religion will reach the same balance point as Christians did and some will reject any compromise in favor of one extreme or the other. But sooner or later they will find some point of balance – that’s the point of systematic theology.

Thus, when writing a system of belief what is less important is the hard or soft nature of your magic system and more how a person of belief feels about the control magic seeks. Continuing with our starting metaphor, the religions of Star Trek, this is one area where they all seem to agree. Both the Vulcans and Klingons have a strong emphasis on wielding science as a way to gain the control needed to pursue their transcendent goals. The Bajorans largely accept science as a part of understanding the world. They often insist that the Prophets can work outside the bounds of science but very few Bajorans disregard science entirely. In fact, in doing research for this post, I could not find any reference to their rejecting science on religious grounds at all.

Granted, I did not have time to go back and rewatch Deep Space Nine while writing this post. Don’t consider this definitive.

The point is, by and large, there is little tension between the forces of magic and miracles in Bajoran thought. While the miracles the Prophets create, namely creating a wormhole and predicting the future, are interesting to the Federation rarely do people question their scientific interest in them. The Bajorans see the Prophets themselves as divine whether their gifts are understood or not.

I don’t have a personal problem with that perspective but I know there are many people who would and have very clear reasons for why they do. The notion that scientific understanding is a method for controlling our world that is granted to us by the divine order isn’t new. But it is very specific. A quick study of Greek myth, for example, shows us a strong belief in mankind’s actions being controlled by fate rather than by men. Those who challenge the Fates or the Gods suffer for it. Their efforts never see success. There are beings that use “magic” in their mythology but they descendants of gods, at the very least, and their powers are extensions of the divine and transcendent rather than magic for the purpose of this discussion.

In short, magic in Greek myth is transgressing on the divine and inviting punishment.

There’s a lot of middle ground between the Greek view of magic and the Star Trek view of magic. Some religions might see magic as valid in some areas and invalid in others. Many smaller religious sects in modern America reject medical intervention because they view it as an attempt to usurp the power to choose when people live and when they die. In more paganistic belief systems farming techniques might be seen in usurping the harvest.

So, for the storyteller the first real question of miracles and magic is, what can people do to take control of their circumstances without transgressing their beliefs?

One aspect of miracles and magic that the modern storyteller does do quiet well is grapple with people confronting the miraculous. Most horror stories have that element to them. A film like It Follows presents us with a force beyond human understanding that can’t be reasoned with, only appeased for a time. These chilling tales tackle the second question of miracles and magic. Namely, what will people do when confronting the transcendent tells them that they will never have control of some part of their lives?

Many tales that involve magic and religion often put these two forces at odds but few of these tales get down to the reasons that cause the division. Of course you can call many things “magic” or “religion” and create a coherent tale. But the separation we’ve put between the old ideas we called magic and the modern conception of science conceals many of the old threads that put religion and magic in tension. In fairness not every story needs to engage with the themes of control and transcendence. The thematic power is there, though, and I find the restriction of this idea to the horror genre a little sad. Hopefully we’ll see the rich vein of ideas come back into the limelight in the future.

Writing Vlog – 10-25-2023

Posted by natechen on

Quick look at what I’ve been doing this week.

Why Systemic Theology?

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We’re not going to be addressing systemic theology on a large scale today. It’s a huge topic that people can, and often do, study for their entire lives on a scope ranging from personal reflection to rigorous academic investigation. It’s also important to note that very few people embark on those studies. They’re not topics that interest most people nor is the study of them very accessible to most people, as writings and talks on systemic theology are generally addressed towards those who are already very aware of the questions and contradictions that they attempt to address. That doesn’t change the fact that big, world changing beliefs have days and years of constant, diligent, intelligent thought behind them. The problem this poses to a storyteller is twofold.

First, when dealing with anything as all encompassing as religion, if your story is going to address the topic then if you fail to adequately understand it you will come off as insulting and uninformed. Second, systematic theology is so complex, obscure and full of jargon most people aren’t familiar with it. The observant will notice that these two things are somewhat in tension.

There is no direct contradiction, mind you, but the first thing the average writer must work with is the fact that most people who profess a religion do not know the full intricacies and nuances of hundreds or thousands of years of religious study and meditation. That’s not a judgment, just a fact of life. I drive a car with only a basic understanding of what it is and I go to church with only a marginally greater understanding of God. What writers must understand is that systematic theology does exist. This is something modern Western culture seems to entirely reject, as if acknowledging the fact that people work hard to create coherent, consistent ways of understanding their beliefs is bad.

Modern writing’s approach to belief is the Bajoran approach. To the extent people believe anything, they engage with it as a way to promote a nebulously understood ‘good’ for their community that comes from the solidarity and continuity of religious expression. This approach identifies strengths of religion – solidarity and continuity – and mistakes them for the purpose. However, as stated in my introduction to this topic, we are defining religion as something that connects its adherents to a concept or being that transcends the material. Solidarity and continuity are certainly immaterial concepts. The problem with them is that they do not transcend the material, nor do those religions focused on them ever insist that they do.

Consider the Vulcan belief in logic. Nothing about logic is bound up in the Vulcan people, it is entirely abstract. If there were no Vulcans, logic would still exist. Its basic principles would still be discoverable by anyone with an ordered mind and a desire to systematize the world. In fact, it is the discovery of those principles that drives Vulcan belief. While the methods Vulcans use to discover logic are unique to their people and build a sense of shared community and understanding among them, logic is not dependent on Vulcans. In fact, Vulcans find particular insight from the methods used to uncover logic by other species.

In short, logic is transcendent. Logic is logic regardless of the who, what or where and will continue to be so no matter how much time passes.

The Klingon belief in honor is rooted in courage and conquest, virtues of a warrior who bends the universe to his will. In the far past, the Klingons were attacked by a spacefaring people. Their homeworld was stripped of many vital resources then the invaders departed, leaving the castoffs of their technology on Qo’nos. Impoverished and enraged by this travesty, the Klingons fell into petty infighting. Eventually they would be united by Kahless the Unforgettable, who conquered the planet, taught them the importance of honor then pointed his people towards the stars.

The Klingon understanding of honor is rooted in the example Kahless set. It stands in stark contrast to the Federation’s understanding of honor. Starfleet honor is rooted in loyalty, excellence and the promotion of the common good. And yet from the moment we first see Kirk meet Kor we see that these different senses of honor result in similar actions and attitudes. These similarities and contrasts are part of what make the Klingons such a powerful foil.

Honor is transcendent, it will exist whether or not anyone holds to it. And yet the ways people hold to it create a very rich and nuanced understanding of what exactly honor is and how we can try to reach it. By showing the many different shapes honor can take when it interacts with specific circumstances, personalities and cultures we get a better understanding of those conditions, peoples and cultures.

Neither the Vulcans nor the Klingons have anything approaching a systematic theology. At least not one that we see on camera. Even if creating such a thing was one of the goals the writers had when inventing these cultures they couldn’t have the depth of thought and nuance we see in the real world theologies of long lasting world religions.

Yet we can still see how the core, transcendent pillars of their beliefs function. They inform vast swaths of their cultures and thoughts and no one looks at them quite the same way. If there were a religion like the Klingons’ or the Vulcans’ I can easily believe it would have a systematic theology. By the same token, I don’t think members of those species would be upset with how their religions are presented in Star Trek. It is handled with nuance, depth and empathy, even if the writers are not adherents themselves.

The Bajoran religion isn’t quite so lucky.

The Prophets are so named because they often predict the future to benefit the Bajoran people. These predictions, along with the religious rituals and traditions of the Bajoran people who are waiting for new prophecies, exist mostly to keep the Bajorans alive and give them a sense of community, rather than to give them an understanding of the Prophets. They are mechanisms for survival rather than transcendence. Unlike the Vulcan understanding of logic, the rituals and Prophecies the Bajorans study cannot serve as a bridge to other civilizations. They’re too particular to share.

Even Benjamin Sisko, the Emissary, a human being who is seen as a go-between anointed by the Prophets to prepare the Bajorans for a major crisis, doesn’t deepen this facet of Bajoran spiritual life at all. He occasionally gets cryptic prophecies but the key to unlocking them is the circumstances he’s in, not his understanding of the Prophets or some transcendent virtue they teach.

These survival driven tenants also negate nuance. Because prophecy and ritual are entirely circumstantial none of the different perspectives or cultural approaches to reach the same end can exist. There cannot be a broad examination of what it means to interact with the Prophets in different situations. The Prophets give revelations to relate to single circumstances for a single group of people or a single person.

We never really get a clear idea of why the Prophets behave this way. In the best case, their interest in Bajor seems to be some kind of inter dimensional charity project. Because these transcendent figures are so nebulous I never get the feel that the Bajorans have any kind of systematic understanding of them. (They do have a highly politicized clerical hierarchy, but that’s outside the scope of this post.)

It’s fine for transcendent figures to have specific points of interaction with those who seek them, by the way, and to be incomprehensible to those they interact with. The problem arises when those seeking the transcendent make no attempt to draw lines connecting those points of contact. They don’t have to all agree on how to connect those points or the order to draw the lines. No one ever has, no matter what clerics and priests sometimes tell you.

The point is they have to try. That’s the key to writing a belief system that implies a systematic theology without actually trying to create one. As a bonus, you’ll unlock all the nuance and depth of character we see in the Klingons and the Vulcans free of charge! Try it some time. The effort won’t be wasted.

Writing Vlog – 10-18-2023

Posted by natechen on

A look at the development for my next fiction project!

The Bajoran Problem

Posted by natechen on

Let me start by making myself clear. I do not now nor have I ever had any problem with the people of Bajor. I just think their religion is rubbish.

This is not because, like Starfleet, I think atheism is some kind of highly enlightened religion killing silver bullet. I find atheists as childish and silly as they find religion so there’s that. Instead my problem with the Bajoran religion is that it has very little of meaningful religion about it. The average person might conclude that is because the writers of the Star Trek franchise, being largely of an atheistic and secular bent, were incapable of creating meaningful religions but that actually isn’t true. Both the Klingons and the Vulcans possess identifiable beliefs of a religious nature.

Since the definition of religion is nebulous and difficult to pin down for the purposes of this discussion I’m going to define religion as a set of beliefs and practices intended to put adherents in contact with something beyond the material, something transcendent, be it a concept or an actual entity that transcends what we can see or touch. This is not quite the normative or philosophical definition. It’s just mine.

Klingons venerate a great teacher known as Kahless the Unforgettable who set out the Klingon code of honor while uniting much of the planet via conquest. Then he set out on a long journey and promised he’d return and they could find him if they waited at a star in the sky. (Klingons of the time were aware of space travel although were not spacefaring themselves.) They also have underworld myths, rituals that govern the coming of age and something like an ecclesiastical calendar. There are even gods in their stories, although apparently they’re all dead now. In short, Klingons have a code of conduct and a clear metaphysical structure it interacts with.

Vulcans have a strict regimen of meditation and logic they use to control their emotions. While there’s little in the way of the supernatural in their religion they do have many tenants similar to Buddhism, which in many forms is an atheistic way of viewing the world. Some might characterize it as pantheistic but that is a distinction without a difference in my book. What’s important is that Vulcans have distinct moral tenants, rituals, meditations and behaviors their beliefs demand of them. Because of volatile nature of their emotions, they must exercise self control at all times. Logic is their key to this.

The Vulcan philosophy is also key to participation in Vulcan society – Vulcans who ignore the strictures of the logical life are ostracized, to the point where there’s a whole splinter race of them called Romulans. The Vulcan philosophy doesn’t meet the modern conception of a supernatural belief system. But that conception is just that – modern. In its function and way of looking at the world logic takes the place of traditional deific authority and the system is, in all other ways, religious.

Many stories about Klingons and Vulcans have nothing to do with these beliefs but many others put their beliefs, rituals and behaviors at the center of the story. While several major stories about Bajorans put Bajoran myth in the center we rarely get an idea of what kinds of behaviors or moral foundations underpin their religion. At most it seems to involve community bonding and ritual to give a structure to life and create disciplined thinking. That’s all well and good but organized sports can do the same.

We’re not going to dig too deep into how organized sports might serve as a religion for the modern era right now. Maybe in the future.

The problem with this approach to religion in stories is that it just becomes a placeholder for community cohesion. When the Prophets (the venerated figures in Bajoran religion) are invoked they don’t symbolize or stand for anything. It just refers to the things the Bajorans hold in common. By the same token, the Pah Wraiths, the evil counterpart to the Prophets, are just a group of snidely whiplash villains, snickering in the shadows as they plan to overthrow Bajor and destroy the universe as we know it.

Unlike Klingons and Vulcans, there is no clear pattern of behavior we can measure Bajorans by. Klingons and Vulcans exist in a constant state of tension between their culture, their beliefs and the wants and needs of their immediate concerns and circumstances. We see this more in stories about Klingons. They grapple with the meeting between their sense of honor, particularly honor through conquest and victory, and the contrary standards of other civilizations in the galaxy. Klingons often compromise their lust for battle in order to uphold their loyalty, or vice versa. Who makes what compromises and when helps us understand the essentials of their characters, what they prioritize and what their goals are.

Unlike the Klingons, the Vulcans have a pretty easy time integrating with the desires and methods of other groups of people. It’s not that Vulcans don’t understand hypocrisy and emotional behavior, they just suppress it. So they are quite capable of adapting to the behaviors of other species. The problem is one of attitude. Vulcans are dispassionate and detached as a matter of course, subordinating all their behaviors to the all encompassing power of logic and that can rub people the wrong way. Especially when the logical solution to a problem is unethical by some standards.

Bajorans don’t have these kinds of easily understood points of tension built into their culture and that is exactly because their religion is devoid of meaning or substance. Instead religion is presented as the point of tension. The writers of Star Trek are entirely blind to the fact that any philosophy that encompasses understanding the nature of life, the universe, good and evil, and how we should live as a result of these things is religious in nature. We can’t compare or contrast a religion without some of those tenants to work from.

Unfortunately religion in media is presented more and more through a Bajoran lens. It’s just a totem we hold up to try and bind a community together and unite them, not a series of principles that inform everything else in life. In fairness, that’s also how people have come to view religion in modern, Western society. The problem is that view of religion is so shallow it may as well not exist. Indeed, we see that culture largely ignores religion now, at least the things it calls religion. But, as I’ve just discussed with the philosophies of the Klingons and Vulcans, I don’t think that leaves us with no religions. We’re just blind to religion now.

That has impacts on both storytelling and living and a good writer has to be aware of both. I’m going to discuss both in the next couple of weeks and I’ll be referring back to this post frequently so stay tuned. In the mean time, I hope I’ve clearly articulated how I think our three big examples show the strengths and shortcomings of different aspects of religion in storytelling. Let me know if I can clarify anything or if you’d like to see more in the future.

Writing Vlog – 10-11-2023

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A brief look at where we stand on various projects now that I’m back from vacation.