Thursday, February 4, 2016

Why witches require secrecy

I had another meeting with my 'manager's' manager today. I have been sworn to secrecy under the penalty of having my throat cut across, my tongue torn out by its roots, and my body buried in the rough sands of the sea, so I am therefore musing on witchy secrecy.
I'm going to start by revealing the biggest secret of magic, right now for free,  which is that there isn't a single actual secret in the entire universe. The whole point of magic is that everything is connected, therefore the sorcerer can never really be kept out of anything.
The act of making something apparently secret functions as a sort of competency test to separate the men from the boys. I will know your worth as a magician by whether you can know the secret: in fact this is built into some of the initiatory traditions as the tradition of the initiate being required to repeat a part of the tradition which he has not been taught.
On the other hand the people who witter on about oath-bound secrets don't know this and are plainly not very good at magic.
Image source: http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2011/09/16/journalists-declaration-opposes-secrecy-bill

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