My conversation with Leonard
on the organ bench on Sunday evening was very interesting indeed, to say the
least. We spoke for a while about the importance of secrecy in our modern-day
society and why a wise individual would be advised to keep his or her personal
details hidden from thieves and fraudsters. Leonard mentioned that secrecy
played an important role in biblical times too and it even features prominently
in the Gospel stories as Jesus’ miracles are shrouded in secrecy and Jesus
repeatedly warns the healed, demons and the disciples to keep quiet about his miracle-working
activities. He confessed that no-one knows why Jesus demanded secrecy in this
way and it seems that the Gospels writers did not understand the significance
of these warnings either as the authors of Matthew and Luke consistently omit
passages from Mark’s Gospel in which Jesus issues a demand for silence, which
suggests that the Gospel authors were confused or embarrassed by them. Being
aware of the many issues relating to the messianic secret from my biblical
studies lectures, I offered a few well-known theological explanations for this
emphasis on secrecy in Jesus’ ministry but Leonard dismissed each theory in
turn, even stopping me mid-sentence once or twice which frustrated me greatly.
He clearly had no time for these arguments and he was keen to offer his own
explanation.
Leonard said that there was
another individual in antiquity for whom secrecy was of paramount importance and
this mysterious figure was the magician. He said that historians, theologians
and occultists agree that one of the defining characteristics of ancient magic is
its inclination towards secretive and reclusive behaviour, which was surprise
to me because I had assumed that all magicians roamed the land showing off
their skills and cursing their enemies willy-nilly. But seemingly this was not necessarily
the case. Instead Leonard explained that most magicians lived a solitary
existence within society and they deliberately isolated themselves from
mainstream religion and there were four distinct reasons for why secrecy was so
integral to their operations...
First, the magician had no
need to engage with mainstream religion and form part of a communal worship
group because a) he sought to achieve specific objectives for the immediate
needs of the individual rather than serve the general and continual needs of a
group and b) it was difficult for the magician to commit to one belief system
since if his spell failed to work then he would modify his technique and change
the names of the gods that he was addressing in order to find a more effective method
of achieving success.
Second, the magician would
keep his activities secret because it was commonly believed that sharing divine
secrets would offend the gods and the gods would punish the magician for revealing
their special knowledge to the masses.
Third, and perhaps most significantly,
secrecy was a method of protection. There were strict laws against the practice
of magic in antiquity and if a magician was caught practicing his magic openly
in public then he would suffer persecution at the hands of the religious and
socio-political movements of the time. But it was not only persecution from the
official authorities that the magician would seek to avoid - he also used secrecy
as a method of protection from magical rivals too. If a magical rival became
aware that he had been subjected to a spell or a curse then there was a strong possibility
that he would try to overcome it or attempt a counter-attack or, worst of all, he
might use his knowledge of the magician’s identity – particularly the
magician’s name – as a means of gaining the upper hand over him.
I found our subsequent discussion on the magical use of an individual’s
name and identity to be very intriguing. Leonard explained that the idea that personal
names held immense power was a magical motif that was consistent throughout the
ancient world and knowing the secret name or true identity of a person, god,
angel or demon was thought to grant the bearer absolute control over that
person or spirit and therefore the ability to command, manipulate or harm them.
Consequently personal names were highly guarded by magicians for fear that disclosing
them could cause the magician serious harm (and not as an early form of
identity fraud prevention, as I teasingly suggested).
At that point the door to the vestry banged shut, causing us to both to flinch
and glare down the church towards the source of the noise. The sides-persons
had left and I had assumed that we were alone in the church except for a few
remaining choirboys changing out of their cassocks and their impatient parents who
were waiting for them in the porch outside. Then I saw the silhouette of Mr.
Parry (the elderly churchwarden at St. Bartholomew’s who keeps me in a constant
supply of sherbet lemon sweets) fall across the altar and, realising that he
would be locking up the church soon, I encouraged Leonard to press on with his
impromptu lecture without delay…
