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How "new school", "scientific", "inauthentic" magic is ruining fantasy.

Started by SonTodoGato, August 02, 2021, 05:07:26 PM

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RPGPundit

The Occult War is just a myth. At least, the way it's presented in the book.
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SonTodoGato

Quote from: RPGPundit on August 31, 2021, 10:40:17 AM
The Occult War is just a myth. At least, the way it's presented in the book.

What about the "real occult war"? Or the history of the actual invisible college and other secret societies?

RPGPundit

I'm answering someone banned for being a promoter of anti-semitic and anti-masonic conspiracy theories, but I make it clear in the Invisible College, and this IS true: NONE of the supposed "secret societies" that conspiracy theorists obsess about are either particularly occult or in any way significant in running the world

-The Bohemian Grove is a (probably decadent, likely degenerate) playground retreat for people in San Francisco's upper class. They frequently invite and make "honorary members" of presidents and important people in politics or industry who go to their retreat and give talks. Their "ritual" is basically a bonfire.

-The Illuminati WERE a group that really existed, for about 8 years (1776-1784), and were a secret plot to attempt to take over German Masonry among certain political radicals who were fervently anti-monarchist, anti-papist, and also anti-democratic (that last one very contrary to the norm for Masonry, which practically birthed democracy in the every democratic nation in the modern world). They never amounted to much, and were almost completely forgotten from history after 1784, until the late 1960s. At that time, a libertarian movement called Discordianism was invented by a couple of hippies, with the goal of making fun of religion, faith, dogmas, and the entire idea of secret-groups by highlighting how absurd most of them are. One of these hippies became friends with Robert Anton Wilson, at that time editor at Playboy magazine, and convinced Wilson to print a fake "letter to the editor" in Playboy where he claimed to have uncovered a centuries-long secret plot to rule the world run by the sinister Bavarian Illuminati. He chose the Illuminati on purpose because at that time almost no one had ever heard of them, they were totally anachronistic (hadn't existed in centuries), not connected to any modern political movement, and literally the most ridiculous secret society he could imagine being in secret control of the world. His letter was meant to be so completely outrageous and nonsensical that it would cause people to realize the idiocy of Conspiracy-Theory thinking (in particular, he was concerned about the furor of JFK-assassination conspiracies that had been at a fever-pitch at the time).
Unfortunately for him, his plan backfired catastrophically. Playboy went on to receive hundreds of letters from kooks all claiming that they too had uncovered "evidence" of the Illuminati, some claiming that they were members, etc etc, and the Illuminati went on to become the household name of conspiracy theory groups.

-Opus Dei: a real life ultrafundamentalist catholic cult. Sick fucks, long history of abuses, utterly dogmatic, but quite small, and the only area of influence they really have in any significant measure is over the Catholic Church, and given everything we currently see of the Church's politics, its pretty clear their influence there isn't strong enough for them to get their way on almost anything either.

-P2: A real conspiracy that emerged out of an incredibly irregular Italian masonic body. It was a plan by a group of very right-wing nationalist power brokers to take over Italian government and society. It operated in mafia-like ways, probably killed people, certainly generated a huge percentage of the (immense) corruption in the Italian state, and had some pretty famous people among its membership (including Silvio Berlusconi). It was mainly the work of one dude, Licio Gelli, and he's dead now, though remnants of the vast patronage network (which is what P2 ultimately consisted of) may still continue to operate to some degree in Italy.
P2 used a masonic lodge as a facade. They did no rituals of any kind, not even masonic rituals. Their supposed mission statement was ideological, in practice it was for criminal self-benefit.

-Rosicrucians: There was never a real "rosicrucian order". There was a Rosicrucian MOVEMENT, that started from some books written in the early 17th century. It led to a philosophical and esoteric mass awakening in Europe, a successor to the Renaissance and a precursor to the Enlightenment (Frances Yates refers to it as the "Rosicrucian Enlightenment"), that was highly interested in the ideas of Universalism (one brotherhood of man, one fatherhood of God), mysticism/occultism, the pursuit of knowledge and reason, and the concept of universal "Freedom of Conscience" (essentially, personal liberty and free speech). The movement was repressed in most of Europe, but less so in England, where it evolved in a generation to a successor movement called the Invisible College, and members of the Invisible College were the founders of both Freemasonry and of the Royal Society, among many other things.
During and after the Rosicrucian period, many people (some stupidly, not understanding the allegorical nature of the Rosicrucian writings, and others self-servingly seeking power or money) claimed to be members or leaders of the "True Rosicrucian Order". There have been dozens and dozens of Rosicrucian Orders throughout history. Most of them are scams, and none of them are legitimate. A handful have some more or less basic teaching in hermeticism or philosophy. None of them have ever had any political influence.

-Skull & Bones: An elite fraternity in Yale, that has a stupid ritual like many fraternities do (a bit more sophisticated because its Ivy League and very Upper Class), and that has long been a source of Networking for the children of the Political Class in America. Both Presidents Bush were "bonesmen" and so was John Kerry. Like all Frats, there's a rule (unwritten or not) of showing some favoritism to your fellow frat members. Of course, given the strata of society most bonesmen are from, whereas in other frats favoritism might mean a discount on a flat screen tv or a an entry level job in an office supply company, in the bonesmen it can mean a prize internship for a US Senator or a Supreme Court Judge, or a ticket into the CIA.

-The Freemasons really DID start out as an occult order, but by the early 18th century they were already mainly a dining club, though unlike all the others I listed that still exist they do still have occult elements to their practices, but 95% of Freemasons are not occultists at all. They also were enormously influential in the Nationalist revolutions in the United States, other countries in the Americas, France, Italy, Germany, and other parts of Europe, as well as becoming very deeply ingrained into the liberal reforms that took place in the British Empire in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Today, Freemasonry has almost no political power or influence.



If you want to know more about Freemasons, and P2 also, I strongly recommend John Dickie's book The Craft: How Freemasons Made the Modern World (note: Dickie is not a Mason, but he is one hell of an historian).
If you want to know more about the origins of western hermeticism, the Rosicrucian movement, and the early modern Freemasons, I strongly recommend Tobias Churton's The Golden Builders: Alchemists, Rosicrucians, and the First Freemasons
LION & DRAGON: Medieval-Authentic OSR Roleplaying is available now! You only THINK you\'ve played \'medieval fantasy\' until you play L&D.


My Blog:  http://therpgpundit.blogspot.com/
The most famous uruguayan gaming blog on the planet!

NEW!
Check out my short OSR supplements series; The RPGPundit Presents!


Dark Albion: The Rose War! The OSR fantasy setting of the history that inspired Shakespeare and Martin alike.
Also available in Variant Cover form!
Also, now with the CULTS OF CHAOS cult-generation sourcebook

ARROWS OF INDRA
Arrows of Indra: The Old-School Epic Indian RPG!
NOW AVAILABLE: AoI in print form

LORDS OF OLYMPUS
The new Diceless RPG of multiversal power, adventure and intrigue, now available.

Stephen Tannhauser

Quote from: RPGPundit on August 31, 2021, 10:40:17 AM
The Occult War is just a myth. At least, the way it's presented in the book.

Sounds like you've been running into what I'd like to call "Diana Tregarde Syndrome".

Back in the late '80s / early '90s Mercedes Lackey wrote three urban fantasy novels and a few short stories about the character Diana Tregarde, a practicing witch and paranormal investigator with a vampire boyfriend who solved occult mysteries and protected the world from arcane menaces -- a kind of proto-version of a cross between Anita Blake and Harry Dresden. The books were praised for being far more Wicca- and neopagan-friendly than a lot of SF was at the time, but there was a small but significant segment of fans who became irrationally convinced that Mercedes Lackey was an occultly powerful figure of the same type as Diana Tregarde and that the books were "fictionalized" revelations of What's Really Going On Out There. While Lackey's official position is that she gave up writing the character because the books simply didn't sell all that well compared to her Valdemar stuff, I have always suspected that wanting to get away from the crazy fans was another significant motivation.

I also suspect this is the same reason the World of Darkness, Old or New, has always avoided drawing too heavily or directly on historical real-world occultism tropes, especially those from belief systems like Kabbalah which are actually practiced today; for legal purposes, they want to make it absolutely clear that nobody who deludes themselves into believing the games are literally true can have any rational grounds for such a conclusion.
Better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt. -- Mark Twain

STR 8 DEX 10 CON 10 INT 11 WIS 6 CHA 3

palaeomerus

I remember people who thought they were goths (they did not pull tail at OHMs the big local goth haunted nightclub, so no, not really Goths kids, sorry about that reality is cruel sometimes, have some X from the bowl though...you are Anne Rice fan BTW. That's you actual group) playing dress up and talking funny at IHOP at 3AM and I am not sure they were formally part of a LARPING group but were sort of accidentally doing it on their own. I have no doubt that some of theme thought there were real vampires and that Peter Murphy  was on the phone with White Wolf twice a week. People can be awfully impressionable if you only know what about. I thought we'd have rowbuts and powered armor and flying cars at one point not understand why those are difficult things to own and operate and may not work at ALL like you've been lead to believe by fiction that was operating on rule of cool.

Then I found out that there is a legged logging machine created to deal with environmental regulations to log in sensitive places without tearing the ground up with treads and it is slow, not that robust, they flip over sometimes, are expensive, and they are so much less efficient and more difficult and dangerous to operate than the conventional alternative that loggers only use them because of laws that made the awful thing the only option apart from hand work on foot.  Flying cars are just private aircraft automated to the point that they won't kill someone who should not be operating an aircraft and doing it in rough weather in such a way that running out of fuel won't be possible in the air. Powered armor is...probably more dangerous and expensive and less useful in combat than a truck with a gun mount on the back and some small arms protective panels on it but a powered frame is okay for loading trucks with heavy crap and carrying stuff around. Still more expensive in most cases than a pump hydraulic truck and a ramp and hiring some more stevedores. But the army actually uses them for shifting freight though not on anything like a mass scale. Battery life isn't impressive.

But I bought into most of it.

So I think people would be prone to conspiracy and mental powers, and secrecy things man was not meant to know or something that could pass for vampires or whatever.

I read a novel once where there were werewolves who sometimes kidnapped and brainwashed people into being their friends and family, only changed into wolves to screw and hunt animals, but were paranoid, xenophobic, homicidal, insular, and love their meth but when they wanted to kill someone they did it from a distance with a deer rifle or a can of gas and a lit rag because that made it easy and convenient and the movie idea of blood hungry beasts ripping out throats was way off base.  The protagonist got away from their negative attention by promising to move out of town and never come back and not to snitch on them and giving them $4000 cash to buy meth with.  He got on to them because a body was found ripped apart and it turned out that was done by stray dogs.
Emery

Naburimannu

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 01, 2021, 10:54:16 AM
-Rosicrucians: There was never a real "rosicrucian order". There was a Rosicrucian MOVEMENT, that started from some books written in the early 17th century. It led to a philosophical and esoteric mass awakening in Europe, a successor to the Renaissance and a precursor to the Enlightenment (Frances Yates refers to it as the "Rosicrucian Enlightenment"), that was highly interested in the ideas of Universalism (one brotherhood of man, one fatherhood of God), mysticism/occultism, the pursuit of knowledge and reason, and the concept of universal "Freedom of Conscience" (essentially, personal liberty and free speech). The movement was repressed in most of Europe, but less so in England, where it evolved in a generation to a successor movement called the Invisible College, and members of the Invisible College were the founders of both Freemasonry and of the Royal Society, among many other things.
During and after the Rosicrucian period, many people (some stupidly, not understanding the allegorical nature of the Rosicrucian writings, and others self-servingly seeking power or money) claimed to be members or leaders of the "True Rosicrucian Order". There have been dozens and dozens of Rosicrucian Orders throughout history. Most of them are scams, and none of them are legitimate. A handful have some more or less basic teaching in hermeticism or philosophy. None of them have ever had any political influence.

There's a modern Rosicrucian group in the US that seems to have some size - AMORC - and be into mysticism. I know them mostly from the decent Egyptian museum they run across the street to my childhood school.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Naburimannu on September 03, 2021, 05:57:48 AM
Quote from: RPGPundit on September 01, 2021, 10:54:16 AM
-Rosicrucians: There was never a real "rosicrucian order". There was a Rosicrucian MOVEMENT, that started from some books written in the early 17th century. It led to a philosophical and esoteric mass awakening in Europe, a successor to the Renaissance and a precursor to the Enlightenment (Frances Yates refers to it as the "Rosicrucian Enlightenment"), that was highly interested in the ideas of Universalism (one brotherhood of man, one fatherhood of God), mysticism/occultism, the pursuit of knowledge and reason, and the concept of universal "Freedom of Conscience" (essentially, personal liberty and free speech). The movement was repressed in most of Europe, but less so in England, where it evolved in a generation to a successor movement called the Invisible College, and members of the Invisible College were the founders of both Freemasonry and of the Royal Society, among many other things.
During and after the Rosicrucian period, many people (some stupidly, not understanding the allegorical nature of the Rosicrucian writings, and others self-servingly seeking power or money) claimed to be members or leaders of the "True Rosicrucian Order". There have been dozens and dozens of Rosicrucian Orders throughout history. Most of them are scams, and none of them are legitimate. A handful have some more or less basic teaching in hermeticism or philosophy. None of them have ever had any political influence.

There's a modern Rosicrucian group in the US that seems to have some size - AMORC - and be into mysticism. I know them mostly from the decent Egyptian museum they run across the street to my childhood school.

Yes, they're a 20th century invention.
LION & DRAGON: Medieval-Authentic OSR Roleplaying is available now! You only THINK you\'ve played \'medieval fantasy\' until you play L&D.


My Blog:  http://therpgpundit.blogspot.com/
The most famous uruguayan gaming blog on the planet!

NEW!
Check out my short OSR supplements series; The RPGPundit Presents!


Dark Albion: The Rose War! The OSR fantasy setting of the history that inspired Shakespeare and Martin alike.
Also available in Variant Cover form!
Also, now with the CULTS OF CHAOS cult-generation sourcebook

ARROWS OF INDRA
Arrows of Indra: The Old-School Epic Indian RPG!
NOW AVAILABLE: AoI in print form

LORDS OF OLYMPUS
The new Diceless RPG of multiversal power, adventure and intrigue, now available.

BoxCrayonTales

I prefer Invisible College over Mage because it's actually about helping the muggles help themselves rather than imposing your religion on everyone else. There is no argument that the Invisible College are good guys: they do not seek power but seek knowledge so that they can share it with everyone else. With Mage, in any iteration, there have been so many flame wars about which side is right or wrong.


Shawn Driscoll

The Unarius Academy of Science is real. But what it teaches is very fake. Many have trouble distinguishing these two things. Every town has its own "college" of some sort. And people can get wound up about them. People will believe in anything. So it must be real if there's a lot of people filling the parking lots.