Devolution Device

Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est: And thus knowledge itself is power 

~ Sir Francis Bacon, Meditationes Sacrae (1597)

Mage Music 42

Back in Merlin's day Magick was still an accepted scientia, that is, a form of knowledge.  Today scientia is understood to be a discipline with exclusionary rules rather than of direct and personal knowledge. Magick has been reduced to the sleight of hand of Las Vegas, which is no Magick at all.

Magick is scientia in the original meaning of the term.  Knowledge of the true nature of Magick persists, though modern science can't explain it.  These days if a thing isn't science then science says the thing is fiction, and that makes the scientia of Magick harder than it has to be.  Of course, Magick never has been easy, truth be told - not even for a Merlin. After all, Magick taps into the foundational energy of the Universe, and if that isn't a challenge then what is?

Ironically, humans have an intuitive knowledge of how the Universe and its parts work because not only do humans live in this Universe - they are a microcosm of it. How could humans not understand Magick, then? We only have to look within.

Do Not Enter

Science has made fiction of Magick in self-defense, even though Magick is an extraordinary and yet natural process of human manipulation of energy that works perfectly well. Magick has an impact on reality that can be directly known, if not exactly duplicated, measured and quantified. So what does it matter if science can't explain it? 

It matters because what Sir Francis said is absolute truth: Knowledge itself is power. How could anyone have control over anyone else if everyone could have knowledge... and thus power?  Ideas like that give entities that are in positions of control (governments, religions, science and other institutions) the willies - it's bad enough to them that there are artists loose out there.   

We have no Merlin these days because people with true knowledge threaten the social, scientific and political status quo, and wielders of true scientia can't afford to be blatant about it.  There isn't an Inquisition any more, but history warns us that there are plenty of ways of dealing with Mages that are darned effective besides inflicting physical pain, as traditional as that has been.

Still, there's no stopping scientia.   Discretion may be the name of the game in these modern, so-called "enlightened" times, but there still is Magick and there still are Mages. Some of them just don't use the same tools of the trade as Merlin did.