One of the images used by Johnstone to illustrate his different tech- niques of thought was to compare the so-called ‘Unknown’ to a swamp. He explained that there are basically four ways to explore a swamp. First, like a hydroplane, you can move so quickly that you do not sink in. Secondly you can fly above the swamp. Thirdly the swamp can be covered over by constructing a solid platform so that an ever-increasing area of it becomes sound dry land. Fourthly you can spread your weight over a greater area so that you can cross the swamp without sinking.
The first technique was analogous to what he called Artistic thought. It could be used to explore far into the Unknown at great speed, but although the traveller came back with exciting tales, he was usually unable to give very precise directions as to how he travelled.
The second technique was compared with Johnstone’s ‘Religious’ thought. It too gave a far reaching view, much more clearly set out, but it was very much of a bird’s-eye view and tended to be inferior to the Artistic method in that it lacked real contact with that which was distantly seen.
The third technique was the Scientific one. Scientists were like people in wheelchairs who needed firm level ground to move about. So when they became interested in some distant area which had been described by Art or Religion, they set about extending their concrete platform in the given direction. This is a very slow method; the dry ground gradually extends whilst shady dogmas are cut down and soggy hypotheses filled in. But once the new area is reached, there is a tendency to say ‘this bit is as boring as the rest of it — what were those lunatics talking about?’ For the very process of exploring has done so much to change what was being explored, hobgoblins and foul fiends having rushed away into the jungle at the sound of the first myth being exploded.
The Magical method is very much one of spreading your weight. It is slower and often less exciting than Religion or Art, but it does
enable you to develop a very detailed and close understanding of the areas explored.
In this plan no one technique is considered to be ultimately supe- rior to any other, therefore it would have been nice to have given equal weight to each. Nice but clearly impractical. Firstly my own inclination towards Artistic thought means that I have little to say on that subject. But above all this is an essay on Magic, and that is there- fore the most fully explained of the techniques: the others were only mentioned so that contrast could better illustrate the main subject. However the bulk of the comparison has been with Science: this is because it is the most widespread and best understood system of the four. Inevitably, therefore, this essay will seem to some to be an attack on Science, championing Magic in its stead.
Although this is far from being the aim of the essay, it is true that some destructive observations about Scientific method have been made, because no less aggressive an approach is likely to have any impact on those who have been brought up not to question the authority of Science except in jest. Had Religion still been dominant, it would have been necessary to make similar criticisms of that method and so on; for no technique is at its best when all-powerful. What is more, it must be realised that some of the apparent attacks on Science are nothing of the sort in my own eyes, but would seem so to Scientists because of their own form of morality. I ascribe to Scientists a large element of what in their own words would be described as ‘self-deception’. This might seem to them a slur, but. as far as I am concerned it is an element which is basic to all conscious- ness, and therefore I am here admitting the validity of Scientific method rather than denying it.
No system is ultimately superior, but our own limitations are such that we tend to incline more to one system than another, the major- ity being content with the system they are brought up with. If the reader is quite happy in his acceptance of Scientific authority, then there is no need for me to tell him or her not to bother about this essay. If however the reader feels ill at ease with his education into what seems like a bizarre and artificial way of thought, then perhaps it will be encouraging to realise that there are equally respectable alternatives.
A more tedious way of expressing this is to suggest that there are some of us who fall short of the ideal of the rational materialist; either because of a defective brain structure, or because of defective programming of that structure, their minds are capable of registering experiences which are not only impossible but actually meaningless to a purely rational mind.
Two alternatives are open to such people: either to be treated by surgery, drugs or psychiatry until they become ‘normal’ or else to come to terms with their own version of the universe. Both have their dangers: in the second case you will be setting out to explore a world which is much less clearly charted, a large and peculiar world where things can happen which could never happen in the rational world. The ‘danger’ is that you will be seduced by the excitement of this new world, even imagining that the rationalists envy you with your greater freedom. Most people arrange some sort of compromise in practice, but sometimes it is an uneasy compromise and such people would do better to realise the distinction and to embrace it consciously. For the encouragement of such people this essay was written.
Lastly a word for those cabalistically inclined readers who studied the title of this essay in the light of the Notaricon: would you be very disappointed if I failed to expose the Sex Secrets of the Black Magicians?
Ah well, it is quickly done — vide infra.
THE END