Introducing your Kek series, you said that (paraphrasing) magic is what the excluded turn to when they have no other ways to influence the system. I was expecting you to describe how the Chans had achieved something concrete by doing this, but you went in quite another direction. That’s left me scratching my head. What examples have there been when magic successfully tipped the balance?
In England, as you pointed out, Charles I’s magic didn’t help him; the Commonwealth was established using muskets, swords, and pikes.
In Russia, the Tsarist court, and the middle classes of Russia at the time of the revolution, were awash with occultists of all kinds, and they completely failed to save their system. Revolution by means of rifles (plus the Cruiser Aurora) triumphed.
In China, the Taiping mystics, and their successors, the Boxers, both failed to use their magical systems to overthrow the Manchu. Western rifles, cannon, and Maxim guns preserved the Imperial system. Both Sun Yat-sen and Mao Zedong used firearms to achieve change.
In South Africa, Nongqawuse’s prophecies led the Xhosa to catastrophe. Later, Umkhonto We Sizwe used Ak-47s to much greater effect.
In other words, I can’t think of an example where the excluded have successfully used magic to overthrow the power system that oppressed them. Success in either direction generally comes - if you’ll pardon the phrase - from the barrel of a gun.
I can only think of two successful uses of magic as a policy tool.
The first is Dion Fortune, et al, mobilising magic to defend the realm against Nazism.
The second - and I believe this was discussed back at TADR - was when the US Establishment after WW2, seeking to avoid the kind ofl leftward swing that returning servicemen were driving in the UK, used occult methods to focus the workers’ attention on consumerism instead. (Correct me if I’m wrong; my memory may be at fault, but I believe that was the gist of it).
Thus, magic has only been used successfully to protect the status quo, not to change it. What examples are there that I don’t know about it, where the magic of the excluded has changed things?
Magical successes?
Introducing your Kek series, you said that (paraphrasing) magic is what the excluded turn to when they have no other ways to influence the system. I was expecting you to describe how the Chans had achieved something concrete by doing this, but you went in quite another direction. That’s left me scratching my head. What examples have there been when magic successfully tipped the balance?
In England, as you pointed out, Charles I’s magic didn’t help him; the Commonwealth was established using muskets, swords, and pikes.
In Russia, the Tsarist court, and the middle classes of Russia at the time of the revolution, were awash with occultists of all kinds, and they completely failed to save their system. Revolution by means of rifles (plus the Cruiser Aurora) triumphed.
In China, the Taiping mystics, and their successors, the Boxers, both failed to use their magical systems to overthrow the Manchu. Western rifles, cannon, and Maxim guns preserved the Imperial system. Both Sun Yat-sen and Mao Zedong used firearms to achieve change.
In South Africa, Nongqawuse’s prophecies led the Xhosa to catastrophe. Later, Umkhonto We Sizwe used Ak-47s to much greater effect.
In other words, I can’t think of an example where the excluded have successfully used magic to overthrow the power system that oppressed them. Success in either direction generally comes - if you’ll pardon the phrase - from the barrel of a gun.
I can only think of two successful uses of magic as a policy tool.
The first is Dion Fortune, et al, mobilising magic to defend the realm against Nazism.
The second - and I believe this was discussed back at TADR - was when the US Establishment after WW2, seeking to avoid the kind ofl leftward swing that returning servicemen were driving in the UK, used occult methods to focus the workers’ attention on consumerism instead. (Correct me if I’m wrong; my memory may be at fault, but I believe that was the gist of it).
Thus, magic has only been used successfully to protect the status quo, not to change it. What examples are there that I don’t know about it, where the magic of the excluded has changed things?