Dead Man Rising

NEITHER FRIEND NOR FOE

Term Paper: Magi Studies 403

East Merican Hegemony Academy of Psionic Arts

Dacon Whitaker

The current strain of Magi thought has undergone a complete reverse in past years. This paper examines the attitudes most current among active Magi practitioners and touches on how this change came about.

The pre-Awakening view of demons was hazy in the extreme, tainted by the Religions of Submission. Of all spiritual practices, only Vaudun and Santeriana came close to a workable theory of interaction with noncorporeal or sometimes-noncorporeal beings. This had begun to change by the end of the twenty-first century, when a vibrant counterculture existed, most notably of those studying Saint Crowley's work. However, the Republic of Gilead interrupted most serious experimentation in this area, and the confusion of the Seventy Days War, as well as the social and economic dislocation caused by the Awakening, further interfered.

Between the Awakening and the advent of Adrienne Spocarelli's work, demons were defined as primarily non-corporeal as well as ethically unsound and morally capricious—in essence, trickster demigods, against whom humans are essentially powerless and can only beg for favors from. Magi theory at that time held that whatever place demons existed in prior to and after their visits to our physical plane was an environment unsuitable to flesh-and-blood beings. This attitude was widespread even though Broward, in his classic study, points out that demons do indeed seem to breathe and bleed (witness the woodcuts of the Sterne collection and the holostill captures of the Manque Incident.) Broward's observations were treated with the assumption that when demons enter our physical plane, they take on a physical body and so, can be hurt. (Adrienne Spocarelli, in her famous essay What's Flesh Got To Do With It? remarked wryly that a thermonuclear strike might even work to kill a demon—with a whole lot of luck.)

It was Spocarelli's work with a reliable method of calling and constraining imps that finally answered the question. Spocarelli claims to have been able to induce an imp to write in Merican on the hardwood floor of her study inside a circle; the imp's claws would scratch out a word or two in response to her carefully-phrased questions. The complete transcript sounds like a conversation between a lawyer and a mischievous five-year-old, but several important points can be deduced.

First of all, whatever place demons come from, they are physical there as well as here. Much ink and breath has been wasted on trying to determine actually where they come from, whether different plane, dimension, planet, or simply state of being; Spocarelli's greatest revolution was declaring that she didn't care where they came from, she simply wanted to find out how they affected our home plane and planet—and why they seem so damn interested in it. As physical beings, they only seem to violate natural laws; in reality, they may well be made of a stuff that conforms to different laws only because of its basic alienness but conforms to laws all the same. In other words, just because hover technology superseded petrolo does not mean that either violated natural law. And just because demons supersede humans in magickal technology does not mean that human or demons violate natural laws.

Spocarelli's other great revolution is so simplistic as to seem obvious and is predicated on the first. While other practitioners looked upon demonic lying with several layers of shock and disapproving prudery, she pointed out that demonic culture may be so different from ours as to make their «lying» simply a different set of social interaction rules. If they are physical sentient beings, they have a culture; if they have a culture, they may even have prohibitions against whatever they define as "lying." All verbal brinksmanship on both sides aside, Spocarelli declared that she wanted to discover how and why demons are seemingly addicted to interaction with humanity, and that it might be worthwhile to apply anthropological and archeological tools as well as magickal theory to our interactions with demonkind.

The effect of this simple suggestion cannot be overestimated. At one stroke, Spocarelli disposed of any lingering superstitious worship of demons, reducing them to the level of beings that could be studied with scientific techniques; she also made it possible, though reactionaries loudly trumpet against her, to put the Magi in a position of power instead of supplication when it came to these beings.

The next thing that can be deduced from Spocarelli's transcript of the imp's replies is this: demons are as fascinated by humans as we are by them.

Spocarelli, while often scoffing at the notion of demonic involvement in human evolution, nevertheless does not completely rule it out Again, she is utilitarian: whatever involvement demons might have had in shaping human genetic code is irrelevant at this juncture. What matters is that they are now seemingly enthralled by and disdainful of humanity at the same time, much as Nichtvren are. But while Nichtvren have the advantage of once being human, demons do not. Why, then, are they so fascinated?

Even pre-Awakening sources (Caplan, Perezreverte, Saint Crowley, Saint Goethe, and the anonymous author of the Illuminatis Papers, to name a very few) agree that demons are possessive and controlling in the extreme. A human who catches a demon's attention does not easily escape meddling. Even Spocarelli herself seems to have had some murky trouble with a particular demon, though reports of this are sketchy at best and mixed up with legends about other members of her famous family.

Perezreverte, in his classic Nine Gates, postulates that demons are hungry for human adulation, that it feeds them in some way. This is sound magickal theory and a good working hypothesis, even if demons presumably had other means of gaining Power before the advent of humanity. Perezreverte also seems to think demons are lonely, sometimes bored with their own kind, and turn to humanity for momentary diversion. He seems to give some credence to the ancient tales of fleshwives, though any mention of that myth tends to drive Magi to fits of frustration. Dealing with demons is hard enough without pulling in outright fabrication to muddy the issue.

This leaves us with something important to remember: We simply do not know what demonic motivation is yet. They are jealous and possessive when they deign to take notice of humanity, and the Circles working with Lesser Flight demons often note how one or more Magi within the circle will be singled out for positive or negative attention, often with almost-disastrous results on the Circle's cohesive magickal Will necessary to keep a demon under control (if such a thing can ever be said to be done.)

The logical extension to these new strains of thought is a deeper examination of reported instances of demon behavior, especially when the demon attaches himself to a particular human, whether as familiar or nemesis. Many Magi circles are reporting positive signs in dealing with imps and certain Lower Flight demons with anthropological cultural-sensitivity guidelines establishing their behavior. The amount of information available about demon anatomy and hierarchy has quintupled since Adrienne Spocarelli's time, and instances of severe harassment seem to be on the decline. However, this may not prove anything, as Circles are not likely to report ignominious failures, and actively demon-harassed Magi rarely live long enough to report their experience.

To sum up, having accumulated enough data since the Awakening, the Magi community was simply ripe for someone to put into words a few laws about dealing with demons in a way free of pre-Awakening superstition. Genius often consists of simply seeing what was there before, something Spocarelli seems to have excelled at On the other hand, her utilitarianism has earned her severe criticism, mostly from hard-core academes who consider her as throwing the baby out with the bathwater and not practicing proper caution. On the other hand, Spocarelli survived far past the median age for actively demon-consorting, solitary Magi. She must have been doing something right.

We do not yet know why demons are so fascinated with humanity, or whether they are at heart friendly or inimical to human interest. The gamut of opinion runs from the ever-cautious old-fashioned Magi who think extreme caution must be taken to defend the greater mass of humanity from demonkind to those who insist that it is humanity's prerogative to bargain with demonkind for superior magickal training and technology, to the benefit of both sides.

Whether friend or foe, demonic intervention in human affairs does not seem likely to cease. And that is the strongest reason for the Magi to continue research, to find out exactly what they want from us.

Note: The electronic notation on this document reads: "B-. Wonderful paper, Mr. Whitaker. Who wrote it for you?"