A little while ago, I posted the following reflection on a friend’s blog (The Path of a Christian Witch). I thought it might be of interest around here in the Sophian community as well. I’d be very interested to hear what others think about the relationship between magic and prayer…
Hi Adelina!
Thanks for your insight on the relationship between magic and prayer … your reflections on the use of symbolism and “object imagery” to create a prayer event, rather than the use of linear language, is quite helpful.
One of the reasons I’m interested in this question of the relationship between magic and prayer, is that as a pastor and theologian, I often hear people talking about intercessory prayer saying something like “well, it isn’t magic you know”. To me, it seems like that sort of statement misses the point of both magic and prayer. But it reveals that for many people (Christian and Pagan alike), intercessory prayer is about asking God to do something, and magic is making something happen praeternaturally, but without the direct assistance of God/dess.
The problem with this type of thinking is that it assumes that God is omnipotent, and that if a prayer is not answered, then it is not God’s will. And if a prayer is answered, then it is God’s will, and God causes it directly. All of this assumes that God can do whatever S/He wants in the universe … but I’m really not sure that this is a safe assumption (no matter how traditionally orthodox it sounds!) A more process-oriented theology of intercession reminds us that God, whether by nature or by choice, is at least somewhat limited in power in relation to the creation. Or another way of putting it is that God’s power IS love, and that love, even divine love, never works through coercion, but rather through persuasion. For whatever reason, God has chosen to share Her power with the rest of creation. In intercessory prayer, from this perspecive, our conscious prayers, actions, and desires open up options for God’s Spirit to work in the world which would not have been available to God had we not prayed. Or in other words, God works through our prayers, as our prayers become available to Her.
For some people, this idea of God’s power being limited is simply too much to bear. Who wants to worship a God who is not all-powerful, who suffers and waits, and shares limitations in a way similar to ourselves? But if we take the teaching of the Incarnation and the mystery of the Cross seriously, we find revealed a God whose “power is made perfect in weakness”.
In this view of prayer, God is not “in control” in the way we typically think of omnipotence, but rather offers Her Spirit to us in a co-operative way, for the healing of the world.
In some ways, this view is much more compatable with certain progressive understandings of magic. It doesn’t fit with the image of the mage speaking words of power, commanding the spirit world to do his bidding (and thus taking the place of the omnipotent god). But rather it resonates with views of magic which, like Starhawk’s teachings, see magic primarily as energy and consciousness, weaving and working with the patterns of life and healing within a living, interconnected world. When the power of Love is invoked and drawn upon, this seems to me to be actually quite close to the reality of intercessory prayer just described … an intimate cooperation with the Divine Spirit for the benefit and healing of all creation.
Does that make any sense?
Peace,
Shawn
Ecumenical Companions of Sophia 