Canon and Theme: Notes on Belief and the Loss of Magic

“What do you think is become of the art of forcing the thunder and celestial fire down, which the wise Prometheus had formerly invented? ‘Tis most certain you have lost it; ’tis no more on your hemisphere; but here below we have it. And without a cause you sometimes wonder to see whole towns burned and destroyed by lightning and ethereal fire, and are at a loss about knowing from whom, by whom, and to what end those dreadful mischiefs were sent. Now, they are familiar and useful to us; and your philosophers who complain that the ancients have left them nothing to write of or to invent, are very much mistaken. Those phenomena which you see in the sky, whatever the surface of the earth affords you, and the sea, and every river contain, is not to be compared with what is hid within the bowels of the earth.”

―Rabelais, 1534

†

“There are not many persons who know what wonders are opened to them in the stories and visions of their youth; for when as children we listen and dream, we think but half-formed thoughts, and when as men we try to remember, we are dulled and prosaic with the poison of life. But some of us awake in the night with strange phantasms of enchanted hills and gardens, of fountains that sing in the sun, of golden cliffs overhanging murmuring seas, of plains that stretch down to sleeping cities of bronze and stone, and of shadowy companies of heroes that ride caparisoned white horses along the edges of thick forests; and then we know that we have looked back through the ivory gates into that world of wonder which was ours before we were wise and unhappy.”

―H. P. Lovecraft, 1922

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“It had taken him years, and much conniving, to get access to the mighty, and more trickery still to learn which of them had dreams of magic. When pressed. He’d used the jacket, seducing those who fawned upon potentates into revealing all they knew. Many had no tales to tell, their masters made no sign of mourning a lost world. But for every atheist there was at least one who believed; one prone to moping over lost dreams of childhood, or to midnight confessions on how their search for Heaven had ended only in tears and gold.”

―Clive Barker, 1987

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“See, this is my opinion: we all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God’s sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they’d allowed to wither in themselves.”

―Robert R. McCammon, 1991

They … will … believe … anything!

You know, I once actually heard a Catholic priest debunk a sighting of the Virgin Mary by pointing to a lamp. An unlikely combination of factors apparently caused the light reflected off the lamp to cast a distorted image on the wall that looked much like the Virgin.

And, yes, that was a long time ago. Probably about the time devout pilgrims were gathering to see the Virgin in the iridescence on the back of a road sign near Yakima.

Then there was the time that some of the Medjugorje witnesses came to speak at my Jesuit high school; the one thing I can remember from that day is that they were quite sincere. They really believe what they’re telling people.

And that’s well and fine. I still remember that one priest who tried to stay rational.

But this?

Nick Pisa reports for the Daily Mail:

The image, said by believers to show the Holy Father with his right hand raised in blessing, was spotted during a ceremony in Poland to mark the second anniversary of his death ….

…. Gregorz Lukasik, the Polish man who took the photographs, said: “It was only afterwards when I got home and looked at the pictures that I realised I had something.

“I showed them to my brother and sister and they, like me, were convinced the flames had formed the image of Pope John Paul II.

“I was so happy with the picture that I showed it to our local bishop who said that Pope John Paul had made many pilgrimages during his life and he was still making them in death.”

You know, I think when I was a kid, there was an episode of That’s Incredible! or Real People that featured a picture of a house burning down; the family took comfort, though, when one of the children spotted Jesus Christ standing in the doorway. It was sort of the same kind of thing you see here.

And at least this is cooler than the road sign outside Yakima.