When you start writing about wizards, witches, warlocks and magician characters such as the Charmed Ones, Merlin, Samantha Stevens and Harry Potter, you are entering the realm of advanced screenwriting, and you begin to transcend the garden-variety Hero and Opponent. In these kinds of stories, your hero is a “Traveling Angel” character and your opponent is that of Darth Vader, lord of the Dark Side.
Hero wizards, such as Harry Potter are generally perfect people. Perfect people are boring. They have already gone through the trials and tribulations to become an adept and generally don’t have a moral and/or psychological Need. The Traveling Angel character is past personal ego and addictions and expresses a deep vision of life through his art. This is where most writers get stuck. Amateur writers using the amateur story structure (The 3-Act Structure) aren’t generally aware that their characters should have a moral and psychological Need, so their characters don’t have one. Professional writers using the Hero’s Journey (and have studied all of Joseph Campbell’s books) or those applying the Classic Structure know when not to put those Needs in their character’s make up and when to apply Need in order to transcend the Traveling Angel character.
The popularity of the Harry Potter series is partially due to showing the making of the Traveling Angel character, how he grows as a person, and how this growth is mirrored by his growth as a wizard. But even the mirror is flawed, foreshadowing the need for Harry (in later movies) to find out who he is and what he really wants . If you focus separately on the growth of Harry as a person, then the growth of Harry as a wizard, you will clearly see that Harry first grows as a person, then, using the same Game and Game Conditions (which should be contained in every story) helps him grow as a wizard. J.K. Rowling shows this in Philosopher’s Stone by having Harry and Ron play Wizard’s Chess as friends with Hermione watching, and then later has them playing Wizard’s Chess for real as apprentice wizards on a much bigger board with much greater consequences.
Game:
A contest of person against person, team against team or hero against villain. A game consists of freedoms, barriers and purposes, and there is a necessity in a game to have an opponent or an enemy. Also there is a necessity to have problems, and enough individuality to cope with a situation. For a character to live life fully, then, one must have in addition to "something to do", a higher purpose, and this purpose, to be a purpose at all, must have counter-purposes or purposes which prevent it from occurring.
Games Condition:
A condition which consists of fixated attention, an inability to escape coupled with an inability to attack, to the exclusion of other games.
To be a magician character is to practice one of the most grueling disciplines ever conceived of by man. This can also be said of writing the magician character.
In the legend, Merlin, the classic magician character of King Arthur fame, represents the last of the Druid magicians in a world that is becoming Christian.
Merlin works in the dark, subconscious realm: In Arthurian myth he often retreats from the action (the waking mind), only to return from the wilderness (unconscious) with insight that creates the Round Table or sets the Grail-quest in motion.
Merlin's Druid background is juxtaposed against the rational Christian approach to life. The Druids' world view was a complex unity of the psyche and external world. The Christian teaching places man above and separate from Nature. This separation gives us the notion that the purpose of Nature is as raw material for industry. When nature turns into a product for us to control, we lose the ability to see nature within ourselves. Myth dies and the objective modern world view takes its place. The Arthur legend shows the transition between these two world views.
The magician or wizard character deals with, and is the master of, the four building blocks of the physical universe; matter, energy, space and time. These aspects he manipulates without violating the laws Einstein laid out. He also works in both the worlds of myth, Spiritualism, and New Ageism, and within the rules of animation more than within the rules of basic drama. This way you are creating a sort of live-action version of Disney’s Fantasia.
When the audience is aware they are watching a movie in the genres of science fiction, myth and fantasy, their disbelief is automatically suspended, but you must put your magic into the mundane world so that it is recognized by the audience as their mundane world that the magic is working in.
Even the wizards, witches, warlock and magician characters in the mundane world need to be recognized as people the audience would pass in the street. This is effective in shows like Bewitched and Charmed where the characters still live mundane lives in the mundane world. Putting these people in a community of their own, you have Practical Magic. Harry Potter melds these to worlds by putting mundane characters in a fantastical world. The audience and you will get much more out of it if you put a normal character in a weird world, or a weird character in a normal world.
The Harry Potter Spoiler
Now for the Harry Potter spoiler. Don’t read on if you don’t want to know how Harry is going to grow in becoming a wizard and a better person, and the type of beliefs, trials, tribulations and rewards he will face in future stories and the film franchise.
The message here is simple. Know your characters, know their world, and know how they work and what they do by researching their world and who they are. Write what you know by research. The research departments in production companies and studios will do this for you, effectively changing your script and the story’s outcome in a major way, if you haven’t done your homework.
“Know your characters and their world so well that they become as imaginary friends and stand as technical consultants of your story when relating the story or events of their lives”. This was one of the major points of instruction J.K Rowling was given when she started writing. “In this way, not only will the story and the events surrounding your characters become real to you, they will become real to your audience”.
As a literary and production consultant, I recommend that if the writer hasn’t done their research, it’s better for the company to put the script in the Pass pile and not buy it, rather than get major complaints that the story and the characters’ actions are technically incorrect.
How To Be A Magician Or Wizard Character
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a magician? Not the rabbit-out-of-the-hat type of stage entertainer, but a genuine magus such as Eliphas Levi, Samuel Liddell Mathers, or Aleister Crowley? Did you ever--reasoning that where there is so much smoke, there must be some fire--suspect that there might be some truth to the tales told about those men and speculate how your characters might attain to the powers attributed to them?
If you have, you’re not alone. Many writers have mused about the abilities that accrue to those who follow the path of magic, prompted by the idea that a man who devotes his whole career to a cause must have some reason for believing it to be a valid one. Is it possible, they ask themselves, that there really is such a thing as magic?
Many writers have sought to find out for sure, some by rummaging through the contents of musty old grimoires in New Age bookstores or the library, and their characters by furtively practicing various spells and incantations they have stumbled across. Either the prescriptions in the grimoires were meaningless or the spells and incantations proved embarrassingly futile.
But believe for a second there is such a thing as magic. It is considerably different from what most people expect it to be, but it does exist and has been practiced by people of rare intelligence, a notable example being Nobel Prize winner William Butler Yeats. It can be said that those who are known to have practiced magic have had, on the whole, quite successful careers. But the magic they have practiced is very much different from the magic conceived of by the average person.
Magic, in regard to your character’s actions and values, is a philosophy, a way of life. It isn’t a hodge-podge of occult know-how by which wonders are produced through supernatural means. If a wizard produces a prodigy, he considers that he produces it through purely "natural" means, though they are beyond the understanding of the man-in-the-street.
Dormant Powers
No wizard, witch, warlock or magician hero character seeks to produce wonders as an end in itself. In fact, they learn very early that it is fatal to his interest to lust for results. What he tries to do is develop certain powers which lie dormant in all of us. Psychologists have known for more than a century that we use only about ten percent of our physical and mental .capabilities. The magician character seeks means of putting the other ninety percent of his power to work. If, in so doing, he achieves some ability to use faculties unavailable to the rest of us, he accepts this as a matter of course. He considers it as marking a stage in his path towards his ultimate goal. And the magician character's ultimate goal is to became so much "at one" with the cosmos that he can manipulate it as would a god.
To gain his goal, the magician character follows a Path. This is the point that eludes most writers who make only a cursory inquiry into magic. He doesn’t usually sit at the feet of an adept and learn magical "secrets" as if they were cooking recipes (but he can if you want him to).
The Path followed by the magician character cannot truly be said to be secret; it is only obscure. Clues to its nature lie all around us. If you have ever seen a deck .of Tarot cards, you have had the signposts of the Path before you in the form .of the 22 Tarot trumps. If you have wondered at the presence of a snake in some allegorical artwork, you may have been looking at the Serpent .of Wisdom that symbolizes the Path's sinuous nature. Even the "caduceus”, the two snakes twined around a staff that you have seen in your physician's office, bears a relation to the Path.
But to most people such symbols are meaningless because they don’t understand the true nature of magic. The most simple definition of it was laid down by Aleister Crawley in 1927: “Magick is the Science and Art of causing change to occur in conformity with Will”.
When you are creating a character’s range of change in your script, you are doing the same thing. But you are laying a Path for the character to follow (through the story structure) in order to reach their goal. So we might say that screenwriting is the Science and Art of causing change to occur within a character in conformity with their Will.
Crowley, who believed that every intentional act was a magical act, made no distinction between normal and supernormal ways of doing things. In other words, to walk over to a friend's house for a visit is essentially the same thing as if you were to visit him in the form of your astral self. Only the means employed are different. As the magician character makes progress along his Path, more and more means of doing things are available to him. Such means are supernormal--which means above average ability but not supernatural which means above nature. All of us have heard of war stories such as that involving the soldier who got up and ran away from a bombarded area even though both his legs were broken. Such a feat is supernormal. It isn’t supernatural. It is merely that the unconscious portion of the soldier's mind, operating through his autonomous nervous system, provided enough muscular contraction to support the body without need for the broken skeletal members.
Is it possible to gain enough control over powers of the unconscious so that it would be possible voluntarily to get up and run with broken legs? The magician character believes that it is. Towards that end he develops his will power.
Borderline Area
Let’s understand that the magician character does not seek to gain control over his unconscious. He seeks control over the powers that normally lie dormant there. One cannot control those powers through a direct voluntary act. In doing so, one would be working on the conscious level and thus defeat his own purpose. But in the mind, between conscious and unconscious levels, is a borderline area from which dreams emerge. One of the first objectives of the neophyte magician character is to reach as deeply into that area as he can by using his conscious mind. In this area, symbols are important. When it is accessible to the magician character, he is able, by concentrating on a symbol, to activate certain powers with which that symbol is associated. If you are at all familiar with hypnotism, you will recognize a parallel to post-hypnotic suggestion. In fact, it seems to me that hypnotism applied in the proper way might possibly shorten the magician character's time of training.
Dreams Recorded
To get in touch with the borderline area of his mind, the magician character learns several techniques. One of the simplest of these is merely to record everything that he can recall of his dreams each morning before getting out of bed.
This is hard to do at first. Later it becomes surprisingly easy. Still later it becomes more and more difficult because so much dream material is recalled that it is troublesome to get it all down. This is a sign that the neophyte is becoming able to dig, deeper and deeper into his borderline area.
This process sounds very easy but it really isn't. To do this the character requires a determined exercise of Will power. To skip a morning means a failure. To skip several mornings means that the neophyte must give up trying to practice magic until he has strengthened his will power. More about that further on.
But once having gained access to his borderline consciousness, the neophyte may be encouraged by his superiors to try to "dream true". This means that he must learn to control his dream content so that it seems to him that he is consciously directing his activities in a coherent manner in his dream world. It is one of the first steps in projecting the astral image and instructions for doing it are explained in relevant books in New Age bookstores.
Conscious Dream State
He may also "dream true" by concentrating on certain colored geometric patterns which have come to have certain symbolic meanings to his unconscious. One such series of patterns are the Tattwa Symbols of the Hindu mystics. These are colored shapes that relate symbolically to the astral planes of spirit, fire, air, water, and earth. By a simple concentration exercise, the neophyte is able to visit those planes in what can only be described as a "conscious dream state”.
What the neophyte sees on those planes is reported to his superiors. By their knowledge of the symbols associated with each plane, they are able to tell whether he is gaining any control in that area or not. If, for instance, on an intended visit to the plane of Earth he were to report a vision of an Undine, they would know that he was having little success. Undines are elemental spirits associated with Water. Water is a representation of emotions—or in regard to your character—unwanted emotions that are linked to their psychological Need.
Another assignment (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) given to the neophyte is to determine his "Magical Identity". That is; he is to determine who he really is and what he is really like. Here again, the technique is deceptively simple. The neophyte records, every night just before he goes to bed, the completed statement beginning, "I want to be—“
The statement must be different each night. As in recording the dreams, not a single night may be skipped. The statement must never imply an explanation of why the neophyte wants to be a specific thing. The process is continued until his superiors find a specific pattern emerging that is coherent enough to represent an identity. He is then encouraged to perfect that identity. At this time he takes a Magical Name. The name is one that relates to his new identity. Magician characters refer to themselves and to one another by the initials of their Magical Names.
In pursuing his Magical Identity, the neophyte learns to do his own True Will. This is the Will that is consonant with his Identity. It is here that he begins to run the risk of getting into trouble; his Will may be at odds with social convention. In spite of this, he must follow it in his Path towards the perfection of himself. “The man who follows his own True Will has the inertia of the universe behind him", wrote Aleister Crowley. "Do what you Will is the whole of The Law”.
That latter statement has brought down on magician characters the criticism of the ignorant who see in it only an invitation to license. Its meaning is quite the opposite. It means that the magician character may not do anything that isn’t in conformity with his own True Will.
Individual Orbit
But, in doing his Will, what of the people with whom he comes in conflict? "Every man and woman is a star", says the "Liber Val El Legis", or, "Book of the Law". That is, like a star, every man and woman has his individual orbit. If all of the stars keep to their orbits, there can be no collisions. If every man and woman follows their True Will, they will not come into conflict.
When the neophyte has achieved proficiency in the foregoing areas, he is eligible to advance to the grade of "Zelator". This is a magician character of the second degree. At this stage, he learns that the symbolism taught him in his admission ceremony as neophyte was not entirely what it was made out to be, as explained in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. He learns that certain symbols actually stand for quite different things than he was told at first.
It is at this stage that we have to leave off detailing the elements of each degree, though we may continue to examine the general outline of the Path that the magician character follows.
By the end of the B.C. era, there were so many political changes in the Mediterranean area that the science of history suffers from inadequate documentation. Many schools of religious and political thought had evolved, flourished, and then disappeared leaving little historical trace. There was, for example, one group of thinkers which considered the God of the Old Testament was only a Demi-god and that above him a Supreme Being existed so remotely removed from man, He could not be comprehended. "For not to be ignorant of Him isn’t to know him". Such thinkers were known as Gnostics. They believed that the only true knowledge was to be gained through an inner Illumination or "gnosis". There were several types of Gnostics.
One group held that “Good and evil do not exist, being only the opinions of men”, says the opponent in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone during the Battle. They represented opposites. To have completion, they taught, there must be a "union of opposites". They held that the Supreme Being contained all opposites and that to gain their "gnosis" they were entitled to do as they pleased whether other people looked on it as evil or not. To them, the only sin was ignorance. If what they did was for the purpose of learning, then it could not really be evil. This is the same thing as the magician character's doing his own True Will. That Gnostic concept is, in fact, the very root of Western Magic.
Positive And Negative
The Magician character, like that group of Gnostics, while he does not admit of a difference between good and evil, is ready to concede there are positive and negative aspects in all things. He believes that the One can exist only when the opposites are fused.
To the magician character, his "gnosis", his Illumination, results when he attains fusion with the Supreme. He attempts this by identifying with the cosmos. To do this, he experiences all things, uniting their positive and negative aspects within himself. This is demonstrated in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets when Harry goes temporarily bad.
For example, he must experience "femininity" (negative) without sacrificing his own "masculinity" (positive)--or vice versa. In other words, this means Harry getting in touch with his “feminine side”, and Hermione getting in touch with her “masculine side”. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Hermione demonstrates this as a tomboy. The process is complete when she descends the stairs as a young woman in Harry Potter 3, leaving Harry drooling at the bottom of the stairs.
Basic to the magician character's beliefs, however, is the idea that whatever exists in the cosmos also exists within himself; that is, that he is a: miniature replica of the universe.
He seeks to gain control over that part of the cosmos that is within him. If he can do that, while at the same time identifying with the Cosmos, then he will be able to exercise a god-like control over any part of the universe that he can perceive.
The Path by which the magician character expects to proceed is known as the "Sephiroth" or Tree of Life. It derives from a body of mystical knowledge called The Kabala. The Kabala represents the "hokmah nistarah" or Hidden Wisdom of the Hebrews and traditionally dates from the time of Abraham, though some schools see Egyptian and Babylonian influences in it. The Hidden Wisdom was handed down by word of mouth until the second century A.D. at which time much of it was recorded in the "Sephir Yetzirah” or Book of Foundation.
Much of the Hidden Wisdom and the Gnostic teachings mentioned are in agreement. The basic idea is this: at the beginning was the Supreme Being, the Prime Mover, the Great Unknown, the One, and nothing else. In the course of eternity, the One gave off emanations or "Sephira" each of which became a sphere of the cosmos. In order, these were:
KETHER The sphere of the Supreme One
HOKMAH The sphere of the Stars: Wisdom
BINAH: The sphere of Saturn: Understanding
HESED: The sphere of Jupiter: Love
GEBURAH The sphere of Mars: Power
TIPHERETH The sphere of Sun: Beauty
NETSAH: The sphere of Venus: Endurance
HOD: The sphere of Mercury: Majesty
YESOD: The sphere of Moon: Foundation
MALKUTH The sphere of Earth: The World
Kabalists such as Madonna believe that when the soul is created it begins a descent through each of the Sephiroth in succession. It receives the Divine Spark in Kether, acquires the other characteristics noted as it moves through each Sephira and eventually arrives at Malkuth, the Earth. When a person dies, his soul begins an ascent towards Kether in the reverse order.
The ascent isn’t an easy one. Spirits dwelling in each of the spheres offer resistance to the soul's progress. Only those initiated in the use of the proper password can hope to b overcome and pass the obstructing spirits. Complicating the ascent is the fact that the spirits associated with each sphere are hostile to man and are prone to deceive or turn back anyone they can.
The Sephiroth are arranged in the form of a tree, hence the expression, The Tree of Life, progressing from: Kether to Malkuth. This path is known as The Flaming Sword (in a future Harry Potter movie) and represents the descent of the Divine Spark.
The Flaming Sword represents the descent, but what about the ascent? This should occur after death. But, say the Gnostic-Kabalistic magician characters, suppose one did not have to die to make the ascent? Suppose he could do it while still alive on this earth and achieve union with the Supreme?
The magician characters see a gradual progress, while still in their bodies, leading upwards to a fusion with' the Supreme. It would make them as powerful as gods on earth.
That is what the magician character really wants. He does not seek the ability to perform "cute but spooky tricks”. He wants to be omnipotent and be able to manipulate the cosmos in accordance with his Will.
Meet And Defeat
In order to make his ascent, the magician character must be prepared to meet and defeat all the evil and good spirits he will encounter as they try to deny him access to their spheres. For Harry, however, this isn’t too much of a problem. Recall that he believes that whatever exists in the cosmos also exists in him. He need only evoke, from within himself the various spirits he must subdue. When he does this, he becomes master of the particular sphere the spirits represent.
The spirits he evokes need not even be objectively real. They can be hallucinatory--though real enough to the magician character--and symbolic. Aleister Crowley wrote: "In this book it is written of the Sephiroth and the Paths, of Spirits and Conjuration, of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which mayor may not exist. It is immaterial whether they exist or not. By doing certain things, certain results follow (cause and effect). Students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them".
Demon's Image
So, if the magician character, through his knowledge of symbolism, can arouse from within himself the characteristics of a given demon and then conquer them, it doesn’t matter whether his particular demon has "objective reality or philosophic validity" or not. The point is, he conquers something even if it is shaped only in the imagery of his unconscious and evoked as a hallucination. By defeating and controlling that part of him, he gains a certain degree of himself. Since it represents an obstacle to the sphere he wants to attain, he is now elevated to that sphere.
In short, with the obstacle removed, the magician character: has achieved mastery over part of the cosmos—the part that sphere represents.
It isn’t easy for a magician character to summon up a demon whether it is hallucinatory or not. The thing he evokes must have the exact nature of the demon. It is to gain that knowledge; the magician character must have experience of all he can perceive in the sphere he seeks to enter. Once he knows the nature of the demon and that knowledge has been incorporated deep within his unconscious, the magician character is able to evoke it by sending messages to his unconscious in terms of symbols. That symbolism, incorporated in a ritual, acts as a "trigger” to bring forth the image of the demon formed at the bottom of his mind.
As simple analogy will make this clear, consider the owner of a shop who rings up the proceeds of hundreds of small sales during the day. At the end of the day, he has no idea what the exact nature of his total is. By pressing a certain lever on his cash register, he "evokes" the total in an instant. If you think of the sales in the magician character's experiences and the nature of the total as the nature of the demon, then you can see how pressing the lever becomes a ritual act in which the "demon" is released.
The magician character must know the right “lever" to press; that is, he must know what symbols to use. Those symbols must relate to the demon and they must have been so absorbed in his mind, they have become an integral part of it. In Harry Potter and the philosopher’s Stone, Ron tried a magic spell on the train and it didn't work, that is the reason why. The elements of the spell were encoded in symbols which could associate with nothing in his unconscious. They could evoke no related response. It would be like trying to hold a conversation on an open telephone line when there was nobody at the other end.
In the magician character's life, there is a symbol for everything. In his rituals, every element has symbolic significance. I said before that Tarot cards are the signposts of the magician character's Path. So they are, by virtue of the symbols contained in them. No one knows the origins of Tarot cards. They first appeared in Europe in the 13th century. Old manuscripts in cipher, belonging to the British Rosicrucian Society, revealed, on their decryptment in 1883, that the Tarot was symbolic of the Path to Illumination. Descriptions of the cards contained in those basic papers served as the basis of a design for a Tarot deck by artist Pamela Colman Smith under the direction of the famous occultist Arthur E. Waite. These are the cards used by the magician character and are available in the New Age stores under the name of the "Rider- Waite Tarot Deck".
Only the 22 trump cards are important as far as the Path is concerned. The lesser cards are used for fortune telling. What makes the trumps significant is that they correspond with the paths connecting the Sephiroth on the Tree of Life.
Serpent Of Wisdom
While the descent of the soul was shown by the Flaming Sword which connects all of the Sephiroth, the magician character's ascent is shown by the Serpent of Wisdom which avoids each Sephira but crosses each path. The Serpent which, by the way, is often linked with the Serpent of the Garden of Eden who taught Adam and Eve forbidden wisdom, shows the Path the magician character must follow in going from Malkuth to Kether. This means he must have experience with every path connecting the various Sephiroth. Since, according to the Kabalists, the paths represent all possible varieties of human experience, the magician character must, so to speak, "try everything". It has been noted that this sometimes brings him into conflict with accepted moral standards.
It isn’t possible in this space to elaborate on the actual symbolism of the Tarot trumps in relation to the Paths on the Tree of Life. In fact, that would require an entire volume of respectable size. I should observe, however, that the 22nd trump numbered zero in the deck—shows the Fool departing from the Sphere of Earth (Malkuth) in the form of a heedless young man dressed in motley. He has his back to the Sun (The Light of Wisdom) and is ignorant of the fact that he walks towards the brink of a precipice". This is a clear statement of the totally uninitiated: man beginning his journey.
This places the first trump, the Magus or Magician, on the First Path from Hokmah, the sphere of Wisdom to Kether, the Sphere of The One. The Magus has the sign of infinity above his head. He holds aloft his wand in a sign of his having dominated the Tarot symbols that lie on the altar before him--the Sword (pain and death), the Coin or Pentacle (Worldly matters), the Cup (love) and the Stave or Wand (energy).
It might be useful to you to examine the Tarot trumps in terms of the Sephirotic Paths. The cards abound in symbols, not all of them understandable, even by occultists. Many of them have different meanings for different people. It is only by meditating on them that your magician character can learn how the various symbols and their combinations apply to them.
As the magician character advances along the paths indicated on the Tree of Life, he reaches certain planes of accomplishment that are indicated by his grade or rank in his particular order. The grade or rank is indicated visually by his degree and the number of the Sephira to which it corresponds. The degree is indicated by a degree sign and the Sephira is shown by a square. In most magical orders, these ranks are as follows:
The first grade within the Order is that of neophyte. He is told certain secrets of the Order as well as ways of using clairvoyance, herbs and gaining experience with the astral planes. In his admission ritual he is told all of the basic symbolism Of the Order, but only in terms of meaning such as will befit his grade. Those meanings may change as he passes through higher grades.
Zelator is the second grade. Where the Neophyte corresponded to Malkuth on the Tree of Life, the Zelator relates to the sphere of Yesod. He works towards absorbing cosmic force (compare the Hindu "prana") and putting it to practical use.
The Practicus begins an intense study of the Kabala not only from the intellectual, but also the practical standpoint. He is expected to become an accomplished Kabalist.
In the grade of Philosophus the magician character completes his fundamental training. He is then tested in devotion to the Order, usually by undertaking a dangerous mission or by giving up something or someone dear to him.
The Minor Adept is expected to acquire the Knowledge and Conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel (abbreviated K & C of HGA) a process by which he is brought in touch with the complete nature of his Higher Self. In this rank, he is admitted to an Inner Circle of the Order.
The Major Adept is the Hollywood idea of what a magician character ought to be. He has a general command of practical magic though he doesn’t yet comprehend its rationale. He also has certain perquisites such as the command of armed men and the availability of women.
The Exempt Adept is the highest a rank of the adepti. He must perfect his magical powers and then make a choice. If he wishes, he may retain this grade and dwell apart from the Order and practice magic for his own ends. If he does this, he becomes a Brother of the Left Hand Path. This is sometimes most erroneously referred to as becoming a Black Magician character. The fact of practicing magic for selfish reasons puts the magician on the “dark side”. This is how Luke’s father became Darth Vader, and why the Charmed Ones regularly warn each other about using magic for personal gain.
If the Exempt Adept remains within the Order, he loses all .of his attainments and sometimes even his personal identity. He becomes a Babe of The Abyss who "having transcended the Reason, does nothing but grow in the womb of its mother". The Babe isn’t a grade; it is only a designation contrasting with Brother of The Left Hand Path.
The Exempt Adept who remains within the Order then enters its innermost circle and becomes “Magister Templi” or Wizard. He supervises a group of disciples and begins to get a complete understanding of the universe.
The Magus is the penultimate rank. He becomes master of all magic in its greatest and highest sense. He declares his own Law and strives towards the attainment of the highest wisdom.
The Ipsissimus is the highest magical grade. All that is known of in the Ipsissimus is that he is so far above and beyond all of the lower grades that his objectives and accomplishments cannot even be understood by is them.
The magician character assigns an order to his universe and expects results consistent with it. If these results seem strange to us at times, it is because we and the magician character are playing different games by different rules.
