Myths, Wizards, Heroes and Superintelligence
Witch of Endor raising the spirit of Samuel, illustration by William Blake
The Sacred, the Profane and the Wizard
The tension between the sacred and the profane is directly related to the human search for explanations concerning the secret of the universe and its connection with humanity. Religion, therefore, appears as knowledge about the experience of the sacred as a perception of a superior reality, divine, supernatural, above the profane world.
From the perspective of a religious man, the supernatural or sacred is the true explanation of reality, where man can only understand the world and live in a correct way if he is re-connected to this divine instance. Hierophany refers precisely to the act of manifestation of the sacred in profane things, like rocks or trees in more primitive religions and even something more abstract, like the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ.
Philosophies and sciences are means of knowledge based on reason, where the discovery of truth is experienced as a conquest, a goal attained, a victory of human intelligence. In turn, in religiosity, the truth is perceived as a gift, a precious gift freely granted by the Holy, and requires preservation by man.
Myth and magic go hand-in-hand. Magic becomes the passport for holy secrets and hidden realities which, by means of rituals and ceremonials, become capable of modifying people’s will and destination. Myths are sacred histories, supernatural narratives that try to explain several phenomena of the world by appealing to the divine instance.
The anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss widely studied shamanism and its effectiveness in more primitive societies, with emphasis on the process of psychological manipulation by shamans. He concluded that the magic practiced by the wizard is really efficient when there is genuine belief embodied in three complementary aspects: initially, there is the wizard’s belief in the effectiveness of his techniques; thereafter, the belief of the sick person who is to be cured, or of the victim he pursues, in his power; finally, the trust and demands of collective opinion that continually generates a kind of gravitational field at the center of which are the definition and the relation between the wizard and those he bewitches.
This is the enchanted world of the old societies involving magic and myths.
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Daniel Augusto Motta, PhD, MSc
Founder & CEO BMI Blue Management Institute
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