S.S.O.T.B.E. Revised: An Essay on Magic

 

S.S.O.T.B.M.E. Revised: An Essay on Magic by Ramsey Dukes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ramsey Dukes: When you had me, you really had me. But when you lost me, I wondered if you had had me or not? I'm confused.

You're not quite the savior that some readers and reviewers would have you to be. Then again, I sense that you wouldn't really want that anyway. You're a smart cookie, though, if a little muddled toward the end. But, then again, I think you want to at least appear muddled, for the sake of banishment, if nothing else. At times you are incisive, and that's when I like you best. You are, after all, writing for some kind of audience, so it pays to be clear. On the other hand, you are writing for another kind of audience where secrecy itself is the goal. I get it. I mean, I really get it, in an esoteric sense. But I don't, in an artistic sense.

Then again, you're not much of one for art in spite of having created a good piece of it in S.S.O.T.B.M.E. You outline, quite incisively, I must add, a paradigm of paradigms: Art versus Religion versus Science versus Magic. Not "versus" in terms of territory, as all of these paradigms can and often do inhabit the exact same territory at the exact same time, but "versus" in terms of direction and, hence, perspective and viewpoint.

It really is all about the attitude, isn't it? But I think that your focus on Science, Religion, and Magic entirely misses the fact that you, or your book, is utterly encased in Art. You can't escape it, so you scoff at it, like a defiant prisoner spitting at his jailors. But that spittle doesn't remove the chains, buddy. You're stuck in art, and there's no banishing it. Even a Magic circle has to be drawn, no?

Reminds me of Heidegger's critique of Descartes, in some ways. You've made some assumptions and, by doing so, you've entirely missed the opportunity of questioning those assumptions. Unable to break out of your own bubble, you're blind to your own work. But, again . . . .maybe you always wanted it to be that way.

Because, as we both know, silence is Golden. And not just reflective of that rare metal substance. This is a gold more refined, beyond the material sphere. I know you know what Gold I'm talking about. And yet, I wonder if you haven't missed the real luster of Gold and traded it in for fool's gold.

Then again, playing the Fool is not a bad thing, now is it?

I'm not telling.

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