"James E. Gunn - The Magicians" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gunn James E)

science. "I mean the kind of things I saw happening up in the Crystal Room."
"That was magic, too," she said. "You'll never understand it unless the evidence of your eyes can
dent your hardheaded materialism. And until you understand how this side of man has been suppressed
by science and technology, how doing things with one's mind and hands replaced mysticism as a search
for truth and power. Because there was a search down through recorded history. The wisest of men
pursued it, believed in it, even testified to their success. The alchemists seeking not just the philosopher's
stone but God. Responsible men like the Dutch physician Helvetius, a German professor, Wolfgang
Dienheim, and the Swiss philosopher Jacob Zwinger all testified to seeing gold made before their eyes."
 I thought about it and found the whole narrative pretty unconvincing. That kind of success could
have changed the entire history of Western civilization. The reason we had rejected magic for science
was that all evidences of the success of magic were deceptionтАФor self-deception, delusion, mass
hypnosis...
"You're probably asking yourself why it didn't catch on if it was so successful," she said. I
started, but she went on without noticing. "It must have been a haphazard business, this searching after
secret power, and those who stumbled on the right formula or procedure believed that they were
uniquely blessed, the chosen, the elect. They didn't want to share their discoveries with their neighbors,
even if they could do so without being feared or hated, accused of witchcraft or demonology. They might
hint at itтАФfor they were human enough to want to seem brave and powerfulтАФbut they wouldn't ever set
anything down except in parable and symbol. Their knowledge would die with them. Secrecy became a
way of life. Everyone had to start from zero."
Secrecy could explain a lot of things, I thought. But it was also a good way to hide the
falseness of superstition.
"In The Doctrine and Ritual of Magic, Eliphaz Levi wrote, "To attain the sanctum regnum, in
other words, the knowledge and power of the magi, there are four indispensable conditionsтАФan
intelligence illuminated by study, an intrepidity which nothing can check, a will which nothing can break,
and a discretion which nothing can corrupt and nothing intoxicate. TO KNOW, TO DARE, TO WILL,
TO KEEP SILENCEтАФsuch are the four words of the magus....' Of course he went ahead and wrote
about them."
"In the program," I said, "a lot of old books of magic and spells were advertised. If secrecy was
so importantтАФ"
"They couldn't keep entirely quiet about it," Ariel said. "Human nature being what it is, they had
to boast a little, to hint that they had been in personal contact with God or Satan and had forced them to
do the magician's will. But those who did write about their successes, who weren't outright fakers, or
self-deluded fools, put them down in such cryptic language that nobody else could duplicate their work
until my father and Uriel began experimenting with mathematical equivalences."
"Your father and Uriel were the discoverers of the new art, then," I said. I was getting nervous
sitting here on these gray anonymous stairs, but talking was better than thinking about it. "How did the
rest of those unscientific people get into the group? What happened to secrecy?"
"This isn't the Dark Ages, you know," Ariel said. "And my father and Uriel belonged to a
different tradition. They were both mathematics professors at a large state university, and Uriel wanted to
give it to the world. He wanted to publish their results in a mathematical journal. It would make them
famous, he said."
Famous! I thought.
"He always was a bit unworldly," she said. "But they were only junior faculty members. They had
no reputations as scholars, and Father told Uriel they would just be laughed at and locked up. He was
always much more practical and decisive, and he convinced his brother-in-law, my uncle. A few tricks
wouldn't convince anybody, he told Uriel. Illusion, they'd say; or hypnosis."
My fact felt hot. I had thought of that myself in my need for explanations.
"Father wanted everything investigated and documented before they disclosed anything. So he
and Uriel recruited a few trusted friends and formed the society to compare results and present papers