Aural Communication and the Magus
The archetype of the Magician or Magus weaves its way through legends and myths around the world as well as down through time. In oral cultures, the person who is largely responsible for preserving a tribe’s stories and traditions is often the shaman or medicine woman. Relative to the spoken word, oral cultures place high value on ethical communication. It regulates communal life. Consequently, Magician energy in older cultures must show up cleanly, with a high regard for impeccable speech.
If you were an apprenticing shaman in a tribal culture, the rules and laws governing the tribe’s sense of wellbeing would be strictly imparted to you. Rather than learning in a didactic manner, the necessary guidance would be imparted through vehicles such as storytelling, recitation, sanctioned songs, and a higher language used only in sacred settings. The shaman, in these cultural contexts, preserves a continuity of tradition, sets a high ethical standard, and unifies individuals into a strong sense of a community. The spoken word must, therefore, be employed as a hallowed medium, capable of conveying a mystical current and magical energy. Like an inspired preacher, you got to know how to light people up.
Our contemporary culture differs radically from a shamanic society in that we espouse democratic ideals and secular standards of conduct. As a core principle, we claim that each person is free to speak his or her mind and each receiver is free to choose whether that information is factual or not. Laws exist determining what may be slanderous or irresponsible, but our democratic society leaves plenty of room for individuals to interpret what may be truthful. For all its pluses, this choice leaves ample leeway for the shadow side of the Magician to exploit others through deceitful communication.
In our technological culture, verbal communication has largely been desacralized. Spoken language rarely carries a magical current. We do not, as a rule, engage with others in the sharing of a dream, the recitation of a teaching story, or the interpretation of poetic verse. Beyond an inauguration event or memorial service, we aren’t often exposed to a ritualistic use of words. Certain types of poetic expression, such as national songs or recitations at an inauguration, are the closest we get to the Magician’s oratory gifts. Like the degradation of physical landscapes, our sacred ecology has been eroded. Sadly, without any overriding ethical framework, individuals struggle to discern authenticity and truth-telling in a political leader’s address or press conference.
Just as the magicians of old were capable of weaving spells through speech, large bodies of people can become charmed, persuaded, or enraptured by a skilled communicator’s use of words. There was a time when religious bodies and political organizations gave rise to great orators, public speakers, and individuals capable of inspiring the human heart. Today, too much scandal or deception has tarnished our trust in words delivered from the pulpit or political platform.
From time to time, various religious cults spring up around a charismatic leader who has the magician’s touch and knows how to generate a sense of group resonance through the spoken word. The danger in these movements is that a manipulative energy can creep in, especially around the persuasive use of words. A big clue as to whether the Shadow Magician is at play shows up when people are instructed to implicitly trust and blindly follow someone’s literal minded thinking. The word literal, in the Oxford Dictionary, indicates: “taking words in their usual or primary sense ...without mysticism or allegory or metaphor.”
Whether we consider a fundamentalist Christian group or a Fortune 500 company, any organization can demonstrate cultic attitudes and pressure parishioners or employees to fit into small boxes of conformity. For good or ill, words are part of the Magician’s bag of tricks and so noticing our patterns of speech is an excellent way to monitor our connection to Magus energy.
I am fortunate to be friends with a wise elder and First Nations man who values the wonder of words. In his own life, he embodies how to show up as an oral communicator. As an indigenous elder, he understands how words can cause things to come into being, can break illusions, or can penetrate to the core of a human heart and inspire meaningful changes.