Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Magic Is Not Magick - Get This Right!

Is there anything left in the world that doesn't get dragged into the Harry Potter narrative by the mainstream media? I've complained about Christians, I've complained about Pagans, and now I have to complain about stage magicians - but seeing as the conflation seems to be universal I'm starting to suspect much of the confusion has to do with news agencies rather than the sources themselves.

Master of magic comes up with own Hogwarts

The "master of magic" in question is a top Indian stage magician, and actually the idea of a school teaching traditional Indian stage magic sounds really cool - but it has nothing to do with the magic that exists in the Harry Potter universe. That is, this school will teach "magic" rather than "magick," to use Crowley's terminology. The magic of Harry Potter is more properly "magick," though to be fair the distinction is not widely used in mainstream culture.

It would be really nice to see news agencies get this right. I suppose they figure they'll get more hits on an article if it mentions a huge pop phenomenon like Harry Potter whether or not the story is actually related.

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