[Greetings, friends, from Austin! A few times in the last couple of weeks, I’ve caught myself contemplating two things: (1) how we, as a society, tend to think ourselves much brighter than we are; and (2) the dangers associated with assuming we have the intelligence (and, more importantly, the wisdom) to play God and cheat nature. As we continue to push the boundaries in the realms of artificial intelligence, robots, genetic manipulation, and other emergent technologies (like Musk’s Neurolink), I can’t help but think we are playing with fire.
Fire, of course, can be a good thing—providing warmth, light, and preserving life—if given proper respect and boundaries. Without those guards or in the wrong hands, however, it can become a force of destruction. Our belief that fire is a force for good depends on our faith in the ones wielding it.
So the question becomes: do we have faith in those pushing us into new technological frontiers? Can we trust them to be good stewards of humanity? Or are we dealing with corrupt governments and corporations seeking only the accumulation of power, prestige, and profits? In our race to develop new technologies, is the finish line our demise?
There can be no doubt, ours is an age of genius—the age of the Magician. A few months back, after watching the movie Oppenheimer and reflecting on the scientific advances that produced the atom bomb and the Nazi gas chambers, I wrote On the Collapse of Stars, where I advocated for wisdom in an age of genius. This week, I want to add a few other suggestions. In addition to wisdom, there ought to be humility and reverence.
Against the self-interested and self-glorying pursuit of knowledge and power, our ancestors have warned for thousands of years. Their warnings are found in their proverbs, folktales and legends. Three stories in particular—the exorcists in Ephesus (Bible), the sorcerer’s apprentice (Lucian and Goethe), and the fall of Phaethon (Ovid)—are relevant to the topic at hand.
All tell of the (often unintended) destruction that comes when the uninitiated and self-interested play with powerful forces.
We devote the rest of today’s essay to those stories.]
Ours is the age of the Magician. Writing of the various archetypes in King, Warrior, Magician, Lover, Robert Moore and Douglass Gilette explain it this way:
Ours is, we believe, the age of the Magician, because it is a technological age. It is an age of the Magician at least in his materialistic concern with understanding and having power over nature. But in terms of the nonmaterialistic, psychological, or spiritual iniatory process, the Magician energy seems to be in short supply.1
In the Magician’s realms of applied science, the last hundred years have seen a disproportionate number of reminders of the dangers of a Magician disconnected from its mature expression, which places wisdom above knowledge and stewardship above self-congratulations. The nuclear explosion at Chernobyl. The atomic bomb. The tampering with viruses.
It was the Shadow Magician that handed us in the darkest days of World War II, not only the tecnology of the death camps, but also the doomsday weapon that still hangs over all our heads. Mastery over nature, a proper function of the Magician, is running amuck, and with incalculable results that we are already beginning to feel.2
In the continued pursuit of profits and status in the arenas of artificial intelligence, gene editing, and pharmaceuticals, we continue to move further toward playing God… except there is one problem: we seem to have forgotten that we are not God. And the consequences of pretending is something our ancestors have been warning about for centuries.
Three old stories illustrate my point: The Exorcists in Ephesus, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and the Fall of Phaethon. Each is (briefly) summarized in turn.
The Exorcists in Ephesus
When Paul arrived in Ephesus, he argued daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus for two years—ensuring that “all the residents of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord.” During his time there, “God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that when the handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were brought to the sick, their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them.”3
Seeing Paul’s success, some traveling exorcists “tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, ‘I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.’”4 But for their pretending they would pay.
[T]he evil spirit said to them in reply, "‘Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?’ Then the man with the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered them all, and so overpowered them that they fled out of the house naked and wounded.5
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
In a folk legend that goes back to the days of Lucian (125 AD), the Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a ballad that tells of an naive apprentice dabbling with forces beyond his control. Retold by Goethe (the version used below) and eventually adapted into Disney’s Fantasia (1940), it’s a story many of us are still familiar with.
It starts with the old sorcerer retiring from his workshop and leaving the apprentice alone with his chores:
That old sorcerer has vanished
And for once has gone away!
Spirits called by him, now banished,
My commands shall soon obey.
Every step and saying
That he used, I know,
And with sprites obeying
My arts I will show.
Here, we see the apprentice, tasked with fetching water from the river for their well but tired of doing it the old-fashioned way—by pail. Looking for an easier way and convinced he knows everything the sorcerer does, the apprentice decides to enchant a broom to do the work for him.
Come, old broomstick, you are needed,
Take these rags and wrap them round you!
Long my orders you have heeded,
By my wishes now I've bound you.
Have two legs and stand,
And a head for you.
Run, and in your hand
Hold a bucket too.…
See him, toward the shore he's racing
There, he's at the stream already,
Back like lightning he is chasing,
Pouring water fast and steady.
Once again he hastens!
How the water spills,
How the water basins
Brimming full he fills!
When the apprentice enchants the broom, he sets in motion a force he cannot stop. The genie is out of the bottle and cannot be put back in. The broom continues to fill the well long after it is full and the floor soon begins to flood.
Stop now, hear me!
Ample measure
Of your treasure
We have gotten!
Ah, I see it, dear me, dear me.
Master's word I have forgotten!Ah, the word with which the master
Makes the broom a broom once more!
Ah, he runs and fetches faster!
Be a broomstick as before!
Ever new the torrents
That by him are fed,
Ah, a hundred currents
Pour upon my head!
Unable to make the broom a broom again, the apprentice tries to stop the disaster by splitting it in two with an axe.
Can I never, Broom, appease you?
I will seize you,
Hold and whack you,
And your ancient wood
I'll sever,
With a whetted axe I'll crack you.He returns, more water dragging!
Now I'll throw myself upon you!
Soon, O goblin, you'll be sagging.
Crash! The sharp axe has undone you.
What a good blow, truly!
There, he's split, I see.
Hope now rises newly,
And my breathing's free.
But instead of solving the problem, the problem worsens. Each piece becomes a whole broom, takes up pails of its own, and continues fetching water, now at twice the speed.
Woe betide me!
Both halves scurry
In a hurry,
Rise like towers
There beside me.
Help me, help, eternal powers!Off they run, till wet and wetter
Hall and steps immersed are Iying.
What a flood that naught can fetter!
Lord and master, hear me crying! -
Ah, he comes excited.
Sir, my need is sore.
Spirits that I've cited
My commands ignore.
Just when all seems lost, the old sorcerer returns and restores order.
‘To the lonely
Corner, broom!
Hear your doom.’
As a spirit
When he wills, your master only
Calls you, then 'tis time to hear it.6
The Fall of Phaethon
Ovid tells the story of Phaethon in his Metamorphoses (c. 8 A.D.). It starts with Phaethon, the Sun-god Apollo’s son, going to his father and asking for proof that he is, indeed, the son of a god: “‘Universal light of the great world, Phoebus, father, if you let me use that name, if Clymene is not hiding some fault behind false pretence, give me proof father, so they will believe I am your true offspring, and take away this uncertainty from my mind!’”7
Eager to reassure his son, Apollo agrees to grant Phaethon any wish he has. “Embracing him, he said, ‘It is not to be denied you are worthy to be mine, and Clymene has told you the truth of your birth. So that you can banish doubt, ask for any favour, so that I can grant it to you. May the Stygian lake, that my eyes have never seen, by which the gods swear, witness my promise.’”
Before Apollo could sit back properly, the boy relayed his request: he wanted to control his father’s chariot—the one responsible for guiding the Sun across the sky—for a day. Instantly regretting his oath but unable to back out, Apollo (unsuccessfully) tries to talk Phaethon out of his request:
What you want is unsafe. Phaethon you ask too great a favour, and one that is unfitting for your strength and boyish years. Your fate is mortal: it is not mortal what you ask. Unknowingly you aspire to more than the gods can share. Though each deity can please themselves, within what is allowed, no one except myself has the power to occupy the chariot of fire. Even the lord of mighty Olympus, who hurls terrifying lightning-bolts from his right hand, cannot drive this team, and who is greater than Jupiter?’
“The warning ended, but Phaethon still rejected his words and pressed his purpose, blazing with desire to drive the chariot. So, as he had the right, his father led the youth to the high chariot, Vulcan’s work.” After Apollo issues a few instructions (which Phaethon promptly ignores), Phaethon grabs the reins and takes flight. “The boy has already taken possession of the fleet chariot, and stands proudly, and joyfully, takes the light reins in his hands, and thanks his unwilling father.”
Before long, the winged horses pulling the chariot sensed something was off and bolted through the heavens in an erratic pattern. “As soon as they feel [the unbalanced chariot], the team of four run wild and leave the beaten track, no longer running in their pre-ordained course. [Phaethon] was terrified, unable to handle the reins entrusted to him, not knowing where the track was, nor, if he had known, how to control the team.” Realizing he is in over his head, Phaethon is suddenly gripped with fear and drops the reins:
When the unlucky Phaethon looked down from the heights of the sky at the earth far, far below he grew pale and his knees quaked with sudden fear, and his eyes were robbed of shadow by the excess light. Now he would rather he had never touched his father’s horses ... Dazed he is ignorant how to act, and can neither grasp the reins nor has the power to loose them, nor can he change course by calling the horses by name … robbed of his wits by chilling horror, he dropped the reins.
Feeling the reins drop, the horses run unchecked through the air, carrying the Sun chaotically around the cosmos. As the solar orb that warms the universe is taken both too high and too low, the forests burn, rivers run dry, tundras freeze, cities and people are reduced to ash. In other words, destruction ensues:
When the horses feel the reins lying across their backs, after he has thrown them down, they veer off course and run unchecked through unknown regions of the air. Wherever their momentum takes them there they run, lawlessly, striking against the fixed stars in deep space and hurrying the chariot along remote tracks. Now they climb to the heights of heaven, now rush headlong down its precipitous slope, sweeping a course nearer to the earth. The Moon, amazed, sees her brother’s horses running below her own, and the boiling clouds smoke. The earth bursts into flame, in the highest regions first, opens in deep fissures and all its moisture dries up. The meadows turn white, the trees are consumed with all their leaves, and the scorched corn makes its own destruction... Great cities are destroyed with all their walls, and the flames reduce whole nations with all their peoples to ashes. The woodlands burn, with the hills… The sea contracts and what was a moment ago wide sea is a parched expanse of sand.
Suffering for the faults of Phaethon, the Earth pleads with Zeus to end the misery: “‘If this pleases you, if I have deserved it, O king of the gods, why delay your lightning bolts? … Even if you find me deserving of ruin, what have the waves done, why does your brother deserve this? Why are the waters that were his share by lot diminished and so much further from the sky?’” Hearing Earth speak, Zeus climbs to the summit of Olympus and sends a lightning bolt to vaporize Phaethon:
He thundered, and balancing a lightning bolt in his right hand threw it from eye-level at the charioteer, removing him, at the same moment, from the chariot and from life, extinguishing fire with fierce fire … Phaethon, flames ravaging his glowing hair, is hurled headlong, leaving a long trail in the air, as sometimes a star does in the clear sky, appearing to fall although it does not fall.
Here ends the story of Phaethon and his fall.
(Shadow) Magicians Playing With Fire
In the exorcists in Ephesus, the sorcerer’s apprentice, and Phaethon, we find warnings of what happens when the arrogant and self-interested play with dangerous powers for their own gain and glory. They are all examples of what Moore and Gillette call the passive pole of the Magician’s Shadow:
The passive pole of the Magician’s Shadow is what we are calling the Naive, or “Innocent” One… The man possessed by the “Innocent” One wants the power and status that traditionally come to the man who is a magician, at least in the societally sanctioned fields. But he doesn’t want to take the responsibilities that belong to a true magician. He does not want to share and to teach. He does not want the task of helping others in the careful, step-by-step way that is necessary part of every initiation. He doesn't to want to be a steward of sacred space. He doesn’t want to know himself, and he certainly doesn’t want to make the great effort necessary to become skilled at containing and channeling power in constructive ways. He wants to learn just enough to derail those who are making worthwhile efforts… the Innocent One’s underlying motivations come from envy of those who act, who live, who want to share. Because the “Innocent” One is envious of life, he is also afraid people will discover his lack of life energy and throw him off his very wobbly pedestal.8
If ours is the age of the Magician, then it is also the age of the Shadow Magician—the one quick to play with powers beyond their ability in the interest of self-glory. We must be careful elevating those who operate this way, for they play with things they don’t understand and invite consequences they don’t intend. We must be cautious about what future we vote for with our dollars and what we reward with our attention. We must hold the Magicians in our culture accountable when they are acting from the Shadow.
And if we are Magicians—knowers of hidden secrets—ourselves, then we must value wisdom alongside genius and be good stewards of our knowledge. We must have the humility to recognize we are agents of the eternal; not replacements. “We need to mix with the Magician the King’s concern for generativity and generosity, the Warrior’s ability to act decisively and with courage, and the Lover’s deep and convinced connectedness to all things.”9
Only then can our age—the age of the Magician—be a force for good.
—
P.S. I am by no means saying we ought to halt progress on all scientific fronts or even that we should stop the pursuit of technological progress; I am simply arguing that we, the individuals, ought to be thoughtful about who and what we empower and incentive with our money and attention… about the future we vote for with our dollars and our eyeballs. Because if we are not careful, we vote for our own destruction.
Robert Moore and Douglass Gillette, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover, p. 102. (from now on, “KWML”).
KWML, p. 111.
Acts 19:9-11.
Acts 19:13.
Acts 19:13-16.
All the selections from this portion of the essay come from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (1797), translated by Edwin Zeydel (1955).
All the selections from this portion of the essay come from Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book II: 31-328, translated by A.S. Kline.
KWML, p. 115.
KWML, p. 118.