On the Religion of Magi

[Berengar]

@Jachra

When I say "religion" I mean it in the anthropological context - that is to say, a means of understanding the world through a supernatural lens.

Don't you feel awfully late here? Shouldn't you have introduced such very controversial (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropolo ... f_religion) and uncommon definitions in the OP? Shouldn't you hence stick now to the common definitions of religion, faith and magic everybody else tries to use on this thread?

@Jachra

One Shot's argument can be boiled down to this:
"The titles Order of Hermes and Hermetic magic are effectively loan words that indicate little to nothing about the occult content of the Order or its magic." You suggest that it was a form of marketing in your conversation with Jabir, from my reading.

You apparently refer to this: New Herbam (and other) Spells, which are by Richard Love, an author of ArM5 (see e. g. AM) and far more entitled than me to such explanations.

@Jachra

I agree with Jabir strongly, which is to say that I think that it strains my credulity to suggest that the titles are virtually meaningless add-ons. I go further in calling it a religion because that is how my training calls it - a religious viewpoint.

As I showed before in: https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/the-break-room/102/1 , the term Order of Hermes is coming down through the different versions of ArM. It was carefully explained with 'in-game history' in ArM2 Houses of Hermes - and over the versions might have been more and more taken for granted. Hermetic magic is the magic of Bonisagus, the foundation of the Order of Hermes.
Yes, this is also an example of words moving out of one context into another within a community of speakers. I showed you other examples of that in: Intellego and Warping, where the pagan god Mercury gave his name to a metal and a planet, in-game troubling poor ArM5 Holy magi.

@Jachra

As a minor bit, characterizing Plato and Aristotle as a-religious or secular is (again from an anthropological definition) a very peculiar statement.

Nobody here makes such a statement. Also, because nobody but you here uses your belated definition of religion.

@Jachra

Consider Pythagoras if you will - he viewed mathematics as a deep form of magic, and rumors about his abilities as a magician persisted for eons. There were entire schools of magic devoted to him.

We know very little about how Pythagoras himself "viewed" mathematics. His followers soon split, also contending about the meaning of mathematics. See for this e. g.: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippasus . But ArM5 has a Mystery devoted to him, the Mystic Fraternity of Samos (TMRE p.126ff).

Cheers