An Alternate Mythic Europe

thrakhath · February 4, 2007, 10:26am

My own views on Hermetic non-intervention are simple enough:

Magi are Christian:
Magi are largely Christian, through upbringing. While gaining knowledge and power might cause them to have doubts, we must remember how deeply ingrained the indoctrination of belief can be. It's belief, trust, it doesn't have to be proven, therefore slight flaws will not cause undue doubt.

We should also remember how inclusive Christianity is of diverse traditions. Wherever there was a pagan religion that couldn't easily be crushed, it would have it's key features and holidays subsumed into the local christian traditions as St's days etc. I would quite easily say that amongst the Hermetic Order there are probably a few unique Saints known only to magi. Take the example of St Nerius from 3rd edition.

While twilight might be an option for the end of their existence, why would most magi want to take it. Christian heaven is paradise for the righteous, compare that to an unknown fate of twilight or damnation in hell, and I know which option I'd take.

Magi who wish to end up in heaven would try not to sin, they would believe it wrong to mind control, to kill, to steal for no reason. This naturally leads to non intervention.

Magi are scholars:
While having the gift is the defining trait of magi, my impression of the game world is that there are far more gifted children than are actually selected to become apprentices. Magi choose apprentices with the object in mind of study and experimentation. They choose intelligent kids over dumb ones. They reinforce this by spending 15 years minimum training them in labs and libraries. Children who didn't like knowledge wouldn't be able to hack it. There are failed apprentices other than those who destroy their gifts.

Magi who pass their gauntlets therefore are on the whole scholars who value knowledge for itself. Their social structure reinforces this through the grading of apprentice, magi and archmage. Added to the the bonisagus and rhine tribunal extra rankings that recognize study and publishing of research further. Knowledge and study gives social power for them.

A small minority of violent and antisocial magi might enjoy using power for itself, but those would have to operate within the confines of the order and those who get carried away with it would end up with reputations as thugs. When the social structure rewards active study and the laws punish making a mess then peer pressure as well as self interest will help enforce these.

Magi might be powerful but:
Yes individual magi are powerful and yes they can probably defeat any number of lesser enemies. However they need to sleep, and they want private time in their labs. Making enemies of mundanes is plain stupid. Mundanes who control small or large armies can send men to kill you when you are busy trying to study. Setting up protections can be costly and assassination attempts are disruptive.

The Church is likely to side against magi in any dispute, and while priests are individually weaker than magi, they have greater numbers and a better command structure. A reputation as an evil magus in a neighbourhood can lead to strike force of priests loaded down with relics leading their men to put you down.

The Church putting you under excommunication will destroy a covenants functioning. Any grogs and servants who are willing to serve you still are either so absolutely loyal they are willing to risk their own soul, or shouldn't be trusted if they don't even worry about it.

Magi who make trouble and get caught become effectively outlaws and will either have to defend their covenant against mundanes, whether investigations or attacks or go into hiding at a site outside the authority of those who they have offended. Which is a lot of trouble and if it is deep in a wood will have much worse access to the luxuries that make life easy.

Finally:
Most magi are social and live in covenants, while one or two in a covenant might be interventionist regardless of the cost and trouble that it will cause them, they should take into account the impact it will have on their sodales. Getting a reputation as an offender and oath breaker (the sample covenant charter to stick by your sodales and avoid getting them in trouble includes an oath to consider it as binding) is bad for you. Other magi will cease to do business with you, cease to join you on projects you are interested in, and cease sending you copies of their research.

Anyone who ignores all of these reasons to be a well behaved, studious magi who doesn't make waves is going to suffer magically, socially and their home life in their covenant will become much less pleasant. By the time they have the power to ignore all that they are probably so set in their ways not to try.[/b]

Furion_Transsanus · February 4, 2007, 11:13am

Thrakhath, I have a few words to you:

Well done, thorough and remarkably convincing!

Kudos!

angafea · February 4, 2007, 6:05pm

I agree. You've started the wheels clunking around in my head thinking of an "against type" bishop who attempts to embrace Magi and learn their ways in order to bring them totally into the fold.

Thanks

Furion_Transsanus · February 4, 2007, 6:43pm

And exactly the balance between embracing and suppressing is a very interesting side the medieval church. In the pop version of medieval history (bestsellers and Hollywood) there's often a singular emphasis on the suppression only. But the 'canonisation' of movements such as the friars are examples of how the papal court also adapted to lay religiosity instead of suppressing it. Another example, which Timothy Ferguson and I have argued quite a bit on this forum, is the Lateran IV and the adoption of clergy and lay religiosity and practices to dogma (such as Purgatory).

This is not to diminish the stories of brutal suppression committed by secular or church power, just that those are only a part of the picture. And church reactions to the Order might be as varied if more formal contacts were to be expanded.

Fruny · February 4, 2007, 8:29pm

Your Covenant's founders have been canonized. As a consequence it now has a Divine (empyreal) aura of 4.

Furion_Transsanus · February 5, 2007, 5:05am

Asd long as no one pops a surprise on me and have some Order of Reason show up to 'canonade' my covenant to rubble!!

Oberoten · February 5, 2007, 9:55am

grins ... THIS idea I am going to steal.

Prepare to be used as St Furion Transsanus patron saint of Scholary research in my campaign. If you do not mind that is of course.

Xavi · February 5, 2007, 1:01pm

I thought furion was more on the side of the "action guys" like the GI Joes of the OoH. Research would be for saint..... Timothus? Saint Ericus? Saint Yairus? Of course a demon smither can be easily canonized

Cheers,

Xavi

Ravenscroft · February 5, 2007, 1:22pm

Schoolboys everywhere break wind , and invoke [color=blue]St. Furry-arse to fireball their Latin Tutor.

Furion_Transsanus · February 5, 2007, 1:29pm

This is not entirely unremarkable - that someone mistakenly becomes a saint - it was Fruny after all who talked about covenant founders being canonized! So maybe Sct Fruny the scion of bunnies?

Oberoten · February 5, 2007, 2:15pm

grins ... And what happends to the covenants aura when the players manage to find out that the wrong magus has been canonized?

Furion_Transsanus · February 5, 2007, 4:23pm

I've just pulled myself through an old and long thread on RPGnet that might be of interest to those mulling over this issue. The thread is on the divine, the belief of magi and most of all whether Ars is a 'Christian game'.

If you have patience and can tolerate the odd trolling, a touch of siege mentality and some random bias and bigotry it does have some very interesting posts and pointers. You can find it here. There is even a few familiar faces in the crowd.

Erik_Tyrrell · February 5, 2007, 5:02pm

You bring up some ugly memories with that thread.

I very much prefer the civility of this forum to what is exhibited on RPG.net.

There is one post on the thread that is absolute gold in my opinion. CJ's post #32 on the thread. Fantastic stuff.

Furion_Transsanus · February 5, 2007, 5:05pm

It certainly did test my bile as well! I was only glad that it was sufficient old to not really inspire to chime in. I do think I know of which post you speak and I did in fact consider copying it here. In fact I think I will..

Furion_Transsanus · February 5, 2007, 5:18pm

okay - this is a copy from RPGnet - posted by a CJ.23, who if I am not mistaken in fact frequent this forum as well. I take the liberty of bringing it because I think more people would benefit and get inspired by it.

And CJ - I do recieve declarations of Wizard's War over the PM if needed be

cj.23:

Re: Is Ars Magica a Christian game?

Originally Posted by chuft

This makes the situation pretty clear. Anyone playing a wizard seems likely to be an unrepentant sinner at best and damned at worst, which makes the wizards particularly stupid, especially since it is not a question of faith, it is a fact that God exists for them. Why would anyone be a wizard if they knew God was real, for a fact?
Under discussion on Berklist, but several things spring to mind. Firstly, why is a Hermetic Magi damned? As a Christian hoping to be ordained, I do not believe that a person sincerely searching for truth to the best of their abilities will be damned for failing to recognise Jesus Christ - certainly thre are Catholic encylicals which talk of this, though I am a Protestant. Today many Christians would probably not wish to judge the moral status of magicians who practice mystical theurgical systems, and if they are sincere I say that is between them and God.
Would you damn all that break any commandment, or sin?

Hermetic magic is simply a pre-secular scientific paradigm. The games version strikes me as more scientific, and more secular - and no one is saying that Isaac Newton was damned, surely? Or Einstein? The problem is in applying a modern understanding of magic and science as different things; yet Hermetic philosophy appears to be the application of scientific reasoning. The laws of physics are different in the Ars world; magic works, and works in certain ways which are best understood by the Order. The church has not decided if magic is acceptable, but...

oh sod it.. here goes...

The churchâ€™s attitude to magic in the thirteenth century is complex and changing. While the church and secular authorities had condemned magic since the late Roman Empire, the scholastic theologians of the thirteenth century made subtle distinctions between different types of magic according to the philosophical frameworks of the times, distinctions which could permit certain types of magic â€“ astral and natural magic, against that performed with the aid of demons â€“ necromancy. Despite the universal condemnation of the latter, it was widespread within the medieval clergy and may, in the guise of the goliardic scholars of the twelfth century renaissance, have contributed to the mythology of an organised satanic witch-cult. Outside of the academic subtleties of the universities, most of the lower clergy would have shared the same magical view of the cosmos as their parishioners, and would have been called upon to perform communal rituals that to modern eyes have little or nothing to do with orthodox Christian doctrine or ritual.

To observers in the later Middle Ages, much medical practice was riddled with paganism and magic through its roots in classical culture and Celtic and Teutonic paganism. Charms were to be said when applying herbal cures, for example. These charms could be Christianised â€“ Old German versions of a charm to cure lame horses clearly show the replacement of Wotan, the original healer, with Christ â€“ but the use of herbs, especially notoriously magical plants such as mandrake, was itself deeply suspicious to later churchmen. Thus, by the standards of the later Middle Ages, the monks staffing the monastic infirmaries, such as that founded in 940 at Flixton in Yorkshire, were practicing forms of magic. At the time, however, the monks themselves certainly did not consider themselves as using any kind of magic. Although charms and herbal lore were used, they were probably considered valuable practical examples of the lost wisdom of the ancient world, whose curative powers worked through the efficacy of Christ and saints rather than pagan idols.

With the rise of transubstantiation in the 13th century, the clergy too acquired a quasi-magical status. Charms from the 11th century onwards use the consecrated host as a vital magical ingredient for curing sick animals and humans, and even love magic. There dates from the 12th century a ritual for infertile fields in which the priest and Eucharist played an important role in returning the land to fertility.

These rituals, and beliefs in the magical efficacy of communion bread are part of a common tradition of popular magic shared by both the laity and the lower clergy. Before the thirteenth century the local priesthood generally received no formal theological education, but rather worked their way up by serving a kind of apprenticeship in the minor orders to the local priest. During the thirteenth century, however, with the expansion of the universities and grammar schools, the church hierarchy increasingly attempted to discourage this form of practical education in order to impart higher standards of learning and conduct on the clergy.

The university curriculum, however, did not necessarily exclude certain types of magic from study. Astronomy was taught at the universities as one of the liberal arts, and could include astrology. Indeed, the two were often confused, though the latter, despite its widespread popularity was still theologically suspect. St. Augustine, in the City of God, considered that the motions of the heavens predicted, but did not produce, future events, while Isidore of Seville stated that while the stars could affect the weather, crop growth and human health, they did not control human destiny. The determinism inherent in the belief that the stars controlled human fate was a major theological problem. Gerald of Feltre in his Summa on the Stars stated that if the stars made someone a murderer or thief, then the First Cause, God, had thus made him a criminal, which was â€˜shameful to suggestâ€™. The late 12th century monk, Helinand of Froidmont, argued that the planets, to exert their influence on human affairs, must have intelligent souls, and therefore be either angels or demons. If they were angels, it was questionable how they could sometimes cause evil. Thus, while there was little objection to the medical use of astrology and for weather prediction, there was a heretical, even demonic aspect to the science that attracted the suspicion of the ecclesiastical authorities. As a result, subtle arguments over the influence of the stars arose to distinguish between the permissible and prohibited use of astrological practices. Most scholars, following Augustine, denied that the stars did anything more than predict human events. If they had any influence at all, it was over the body, which could influence the soul, at least in the view of Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. While the majority of humanity may not have the willpower to oppose their bodily appetites or passions, humanity nevertheless had free will and the wise man could, in theory, overcome the influence of the stars.

Just as certain questions raised by astrology could lead, by implication, to heresy and possibly demonology, so the practical application of astrological knowledge was also fraught with dangers. In his treatise On the Occult Works of Nature, Aquinas distinguished between natural and unnatural channels of astral forces. Natural channels included magnets and rhubarb, cultivated as a medicinal purgative. Unnatural channels were images inscribed with the signs of the zodiac or planets made to concentrate their stellar influence for magical purposes. These, according to Aquinas, could only work as the instrument of an extrinsic agent, by which Aquinas probably meant a demon. The apparitions summoned by magicians to impart previously secret information, such as the location of lost or stolen property, can only be demons. The stars themselves cannot make inanimate objects move or speak, turn people invisible, or unlock doors. The invocations, characters and images are clearly addressed to intelligent beings, and as magicians often use their knowledge for evil, Aquinas argued that these intelligent beings must therefore be demons. Certainly, some manuals of astral magic, such as the Picatrix, translated from Arabic into Spanish at the command of Alfonso the Wise, not only included detailed instructions for prayer and invocation to the planets, but also speaks of constraining demons to perform the magicianâ€™s will. Other manuals of astral magic considered it a tool. The preface of one manual used in the later Middle Ages acknowledged that it could well give offence, but considered that God had given such knowledge to benefit the good and punish the evil. Magic itself remained morally neutral, and the treatise rhetorically asked whether an axe could be blamed for killing people rather than felling trees.

The subtle arguments advanced to define and defend the acceptable use of astrological theory and practice was part of a wider debate concerning the nature of magic and the cosmos itself in which the traditional neoplatonist view of the universe clashed with the rising Aristotelian paradigm championed by Aquinas. Some Neoplatonists, influenced by the Timaeus and the 4th century Roman writer Macrobius, saw the universe as an integrated, living organism, united in a system of microcosm-macrocosm, sympathy-antipathy. Within this intellectual tradition, natural cosmic, stellar influences were channelled by the magician to achieve his goals without aid from supernatural forces such as demons.

At first sight, Aquinasâ€™ philosophy as expounded in the On the Occult Works of Nature seems little different from the preceding Platonic tradition. The term â€˜occultâ€™ as used by Aquinas does not mean â€˜magicalâ€™, but refers instead to the properties of particular objects that arise not through their chemical composition but from the mysterious, exterior influence of higher phenomena. Aquinas divides physical phenomena into higher and lower agents. These higher agents can impress their form on lower agents, so that they take on particular properties, or use them as a tool. For Aristotle, and hence Aquinas, the movements of the stars governed the growth and decay not only of living things, such as plants, but also of minerals underground. The mysterious attraction of the magnet and curative powers of rhubarb were due to their having been influenced by cosmic forces.

This would not have been disputed by a Neoplatonist. Where Aquinas did differ from them was in ascribing the extra-ordinary influence of astral influences through images and rituals to demons rather than the world soul. To be sure, some Aristotelians continued to believe that some magic was achieved naturally, but most considered that it was achieved through demonic intervention. Central to this interpretation of the efficacy of magic was the notion of pact, in which the magician made a covenant with the demons involved. This existed long before the rise of Christianity. It is mentioned by the 1st century Roman poet Lucan, and discussed by St. Augustine. St. Basil, according to legend, made a pact with demons. The most influential of these legends, however, was that of St. Theophilus, a Byzantine priest who sold his soul to Satan in order to counteract malicious rumours circulating about him after he refused his elevation to a see. Translated into Latin by Paul the Deacon in the 8th century, this became the model for later legends in which human beings, including the 10th century pope Gerbert, bargained their souls for favours from Satan.

Initially, however, the pact was a bargain between equal partners. To the scholastics, however, it was an act of homage in which the human partner submitted himself to the power of Satan. This pact, according to Albertus Magnus, was made either implicitly or explicitly. In the explicit pact the human agent met Satan face to face to sell his soul. In the implicit pact the human agent performed a feat which required demonic intervention, and that therefore could not be done without the performance of some kind of service to the demon in return. For William of Auvergne (c. 1180-1249), all magic was due to implicit pact. He similarly considered that the night rides mentioned in the late 9th â€“ early 10th century Canon Episcopi were objectively real. While the Canon Episcopi states that the people who believe they ride out on certain nights to feast and revel with Diana, Herodias, or in later versions of the document, Holda, were labouring under a demonic superstition, William believed that the bonae mulieres really did exist, though they were demons, not mortal women. These â€˜ladies of the nightâ€™, or â€˜Hellequinsâ€™ are led by Domina Abundia or Satia. It was these demons who feasted in peopleâ€™s cellars, granting them prosperity in return. Other demons â€“ strigae and lamiae - killed and ate children in order to punish the parents, and assisted magicians in their rites. Elaborating the mythology of orgies and satanic worship surrounding the Cathars, William stated that at its worst these sabbats took place underground during which Lucifer was worshipped as a black cat or toad. The same beliefs occur in the Anecdotes of Stephen of Bourbon, written in the 1250s, who stated that he had personally interrogated many of those who had committed such orgies as part of satanic worship, though following the Canon Episcopi he did not consider that the women who claimed to have flown at night with Diana and Herodias. He did, however, consider they were guilty of superstition and the worship of false deities.

The mythology of ritual demonic sex was an innovation in 13th views of magic and witchcraft. Although the idea that witches had sex with demons goes back to antiquity, and the Anglo-Saxon Leechbook contains salves against walking spirits and women who copulate with the Devil, it was only in the 13th century that the idea arose that ritual sex with the Devil was an integral part of the witchesâ€™ Sabbath. This notion, however, was more properly part of popular folklore about witchcraft. The scholastics themselves mostly continued earlier debates over whether demons could materialise aerial bodies to have sex, or whether they simply stole semen while succubi to emit as incubi. In their attitudes to shapeshifting and flight the scholastics were similarly conservative. Demons worked marvels only by employing natural phenomena, or creating illusions. They could not really change shape. Similarly, although they were able to move people through the air, like Christ during the Temptation, this occurred infrequently and only under the Divine command. Unlike William of Auvergne, Aquinas believed the night flight was an illusion, and that no one had ever made an explicit compact with Satan, although he did believe that magicians made an implicit compact with demons when working magic. Similarly, whilst believing in the object reality of incubi, he was sceptical about the existence of ritual sex as part of the sabbat. In his disbelief in the reality of demonic flight, explicit pact and satanic orgies, Aquinas differed markedly from popular writings concerning witchcraft. These were far more influential, and it was only in the fifteenth century that his views were considered authoritative.

Magical phenomena that operated through natural processes included the evil eye. Just as lower agents were influenced by higher, so the soul affected the body, including those of others. Roger Bacon believed that people with infirm bodies and deeply sinful souls could harm others if they desired it particularly vehemently. He also believed that menstruating women could spoil mirrors by causing clouds of blood to appear when they looked in them. Women with double pupils could also kill men with a mere glance. He also considered that these â€˜infectious emanationsâ€™ could be projected mechanically, as when Alexander, on the instructions of Aristotle, managed to catapult a Basiliskâ€™s infection into a besieged city.

Outside of the abstruse speculations of the theologians was a large clerical underworld devoted to necromancy. John of Salisbury (1115-80) recounts in his Policraticus how his old Latin teacher used both him and an older boy in scrying experiments, in which they attempted to discern supernatural or demonic figures either in a bowl of water or on their fingernails after anointing with sacred chrism. William of Auvergne claimed to have seen books of necromancy while a student in Paris, and grimoires certainly survive from the 12th and 13th centuries. In the exempla, moral anecdotes, in Caesarius of Heisterbachâ€™s Dialogue on Miracles, the necromancers conjuring demons are priests or university students. The reasons for this lie in the amount of education required for the performance of necromancy. Few people outside the universities would have had the education in Latin or astrology necessary for the rituals involved, although necromantic rituals do appear in medical textbooks, used by lay physicians as well as clergy specialising in medicine. Nevertheless, most necromancers appear to have been members of the clergy. This development was undoubtedly due to the churchâ€™s monopoly in education and schooling, and the establishment of the post of exorcist as one of the minor orders. On his ordination, the exorcist received a book of exorcisms as a symbol of his new theological function. Some may have been tempted to experiment with their new powers, conjuring up as well as casting out, and the two roles could be confused. The Book of Consecrations, a 15th century text, describes the necromancer as an exorcist, and it may well be that earlier magicians considered themselves in this way. Both conventional exorcists and necromancers used the same vocabulary of â€˜exorciseâ€™, â€˜conjureâ€™ and â€˜adjureâ€™ and invoked the power of God and the Saints to command demons, though the exorcist did so to compel them to depart, rather than appear.

Possibly connected to this underground, though not formally, were the clerici vagrantes, the wandering scholars of the 12th century, who established a mock goliardic order for themselves in the 13th, in parody of the established orders of the mainstream church. These wandering scholars were originally poor students at the University of Paris who were unable to find benefices after graduation, turning to music and poetry to support themselves. The order delighted in composing texts satirising the official ritual and bureaucracy of the church, even issuing an indulgence from its archprimate in 1209. At the end of the century, in 1291, the order was formally condemned as a subversive sect. The Goliards themselves seem to have been entirely orthodox in their beliefs. While they wrote poetry addressed to Roman goddesses, traditionally condemned by conservative moral purists as heathen idolatry, there is no evidence that this went any further than literary invention. Their real crime was to live dissolute, undergraduate lives while lampooning the official church hierarchy. While it is only supposition that the Ordo Vagorum supplied the leadership and conspiratorial organisation for surviving groups of witches, they did indeed have a satanic reputation. Golias, after whom they were named, was the medieval French form of Goliath. It was also the nickname of Peter Abelard, the hero of many poor, roistering students, who had himself been accused of heresy by St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Many of the wandering scholars going from tavern to tavern may well have been tempted to experiment with necromancy and astral magic. As actors and jongleurs, they may well have been drawn to magic more than most. Many magical manuscripts from the 14th and 15th centuries contain much stage magic, in which the illusionist passes his tricks off under the guise of necromancy. These tricks may not have existed before the 14th century, but itâ€™s possible that they were around much earlier and only came to be written down during the later Middle Ages. As professional entertainers, some Goliards may well have used stage magic to entertain and awe their audiences. They also produced a number of â€˜gamblersâ€™ massesâ€™ parodying the Eucharist in a way which struck later counter-reformation theologians as satanic, but which they undoubtedly saw it as nothing more than harmless fun. Despite this, however, there is no evidence that a formal Goliardic order ever really existed beyond the circulation of a few satirical texts by mischievous students, and none of a wider necromantic organization. The necromancers were united by a common interest, not order.

Outside of this clerical underworld, the church was clamping down on secular, folk magic as part of its campaign against heresy. While theologians debated which types of magic were natural or demonic, secular authorities tended to legislate against both because of the potential damage caused. Prosecution in the municipal and Episcopal courts was accusatory, rather than inquisitorial. A witch or sorcerer could only be prosecuted by the injured party, who risked execution themselves if they could not prove their suit. This attitude began to change as papacy increasingly took action to prevent a revival of Albigensianism. As all magic came to be considered as the work of demons, the church responded by viewing magic itself as heretical. The statutes of the Cistercian order declared in 1240 that â€˜the crime of sorcery is a kind of heretical depravityâ€™. The Inquisitors of the Holy Office further attempted to persuade Pope Alexander IV (1254-1261) to remove sorcery from episcopal jurisdiction and place it under their purview. He refused, arguing that the Inquisition should not dissipate its efforts by pursuing sorcerers, except when sorcery involved heresy. Thereafter the officers of the Inquisition did their best to prove that such sorcery involved heresy whenever it was in their interest to do so. It was as heretics that the witches of the later Middle Ages were prosecuted, not magicians. From the 1230s onwards inquisitorial manuals regularly included questions on witchcraft and the conjuration of demons as well as material directly relevant to heresy. Even with these developments, however, it was possible for magicians to escape the charge of heresy. A diviner brought before an Inquisitor at Le Mas Saintes-Puelles on a charge of placing charms on peopleâ€™s clothing and working curative magic managed to convince him that there was nothing heretical in her actions. She also claimed not to believe that her magic actually worked. As the century wore on, however, these incidents became increasingly rare. By the time of John XXII (1316-1334) sorcery was condemned as a practical heresy, implicit in a personâ€™s actions, even though they may not personally have articulated or considered it as such. The manuals written for the guidance of 13th century inquisitors list the types of magic that aroused their interest: operations involving reflecting surfaces, invocation and sacrifice to demons, use of magic circles, human heads or other parts to arose love or hatred, charms uttered over herbs, baptism of images, and the use of the Host, holy chrism or baptismal water, as well as observation of the â€˜Egyptian daysâ€™ when astral influence was supposedly at its most malign.

The churchâ€™s attitude to magic in the 13th century was thus one of increasing harshness, under the impact of the Inquisition and the struggle with the Albigensian and Waldensian heresies, and increasingly took a pro-active rather than reactive stance. The inquisitors were keen to root out sorcery in their areas, rather than wait for an accusation to be brought before the local bishop or lord. Some scepticism remained â€“ many churchmen continued to disbelieve in the reality of witches to fly or conjure up storms- and some magic was considered morally neutral by some as was not held to involve the aid of demons. Furthermore, there was a large clerical counterculture devoted to necromancy, and possibly stage magic for entertainment, as well as parodying the attitudes of church hierarchy. The real change in the churchâ€™s attitude to the occult came, however, not from abstruse debates between Neoplatonists and Aristotelians, but from the demands of inquisitors keen to acquire more power and responsibility in their mission to extirpate heresy.

I hope it helps a little, and do try Ars Magica it's a brilliant game.

Oh, and BB and all that jazz.

cj x

Personally I'm not a poster or really familiar with the RPGnet, but I found the thread by way of a googling and found it quite interesting. And it only goes to show what a little bit of malign trolling can do (I honestly think the original poster of the thread was a troll) in terms of inspiring and useful answers to said troll. Even if the not appreciated by the troll himself - I reckon he went back to his swamp or under a bridge or where-ever trolls mull there days away.

angafea · February 5, 2007, 6:45pm

Yah, great post, thanks for pointing it out.

One of our early Ars Sagas was very Mistridge-centric, so we got our fill of the Albigensian Crudading church. This go around we're going for a more "open minded" orginization.