Getting Started In Magic

Even after all these years later I can’t conclude where the thought and feeling emanated from. It was just something that popped into my mind with all the force and conviction of something that had already been accomplished. The feeling of being fully set in motion, but without any framework of how to do that.

If you made your way to the top stacks in Duane library and were able to navigate the vertigo of walking across those narrow platforms, at the far end of the building there was a desk that looked out across Edward’s Parade, framing almost half the campus. I found this spot when searching for some reading required for class, and it quickly became one of my favorite places to sit and think about what I was even doing here on campus.

I’m going to study magic.

Magic.

No analysis, no questioning, no reason beyond it was something that needed to be done.

First was that I had no idea what magic even was or looked like, and second was how would one even go about doing this?

Each of us was assigned a Jesuit academic advisor.

You would meet each week with your advisor and they would engage with you regarding your courses, what you were reading, and what you were working on. As a philosophy major my advisor was a faculty member in the Philosophy department and I figured he might be a good person to ask.

There really wasn’t a plan on how to ask, or even what specifically to ask, so when our session started I just asked.

In the moment there was a pause on my part as he didn’t miss a step and shifted the conversation as if I had asked him about something that was a mixture of common and mundane.

The first step was alchemy.

Alchemy as it was the most recent expression of that thought in history, and from there I would work my way backwards from Europe to Rome, Greece, and finally arrive at Egypt.

In true Jesuit fashion I was assigned a paper on the subject with my first draft due in two weeks.

A solid first step, but where to even start with alchemy?

He directed me to look around in Keating Library as it was the place where obscure and little used books at the University reside.

There was no staff at the library, you kind of checked yourself in, and after about an hour of walking around and searching the unnamed stacks, that is where I found them.

A dozen or so books on alchemy, books that up-to-this moment I never knew existed.

My first draft was acceptable for a first draft, and went through two rewrites that semester as I received further instruction. It was not enough to study magic, as that would certainly be expected, but also to understand how the thinking and thought process of it went, as expressed and understood by the people of that time. Reading old books not from the point of view of an academic study, but from the logic, structure, and world view of those who lived it.

Was I ready to adjust my course schedule?

Continuing my studies in philosophy, but also courses in mythology, religion, along with Latin and Ancient Greek. Outside of those formal studies, introduction would be made to the history and classics department, and some more papers at selected times along the way.

Some of my classes were early in the morning, and as a commuter on Metro North that meant I would often get to class at 7:30 in the morning. Most of the campus was still closed, my resident friends were all still sleeping, and the commuter lounge in the McGinley center was an afterthought.

I found the Blue Chapel as it was always open for self-reflection outside of mass and at that time in the morning it was always empty.

Much like the Duane Library it soon become a second home for me.

As soon as you entered you could feel the atmosphere change, the lack of sound and complete silence was the first to experience. Despite being in New York City and all of that, the combination of stone, elevation, and architecture in the Chapel created a kind of null zone.

I wouldn’t’ sit there necessarily thinking about anything in particular, and sometimes the combination of staying out late with friends at the Jolly Tinker and being up early to commute to class would have me in an almost sleep state, at which some point I noticed that the Blue Chapel was not always silent.

Sometimes , lets call them artifacts of the Holy Mass, would be laid out and in that architecture, that geometry, one could hear something through the silence. There would be a resonance of one was still enough to hear it.

When I discussed this with my advisor, it lead to a paper on classical architecture and when temples, halls, and churches were constructed in such a way, taking into account the objects that would be placed inside them.

While I can’t say that I directly learned any *magic* during that time, there were elements such as this so when I encounter the temple I already possesses a structure to be aware of.