Instruments

Is print obsolete? Not even close. Although e-books and PDFs comprise a wider range of texts now than they did even a decade ago, the printed word retains a mystic significance that those digital media have yet to achieve.

In older days, books were like magickal items: rare, expensive, exclusive to a certain class of people (those who could read), and able to transmit arcane lore through an apparently supernatural method. Mages, then, were an elite class simply because so many of them had, and could employ, books. Since the advent of mass publication in the late 1700s and mass literacy in the 1800s, most of the glamour has faded. And yet, when people seek deeper truths and fictions, they still turn to da Vinci codes, boy wizards. and Middle Earth. Even the rougher voices on the socio-political fringe publish books in order to seem more respectable. Talk is cheap; writing is respected.

21st-century mage periodicals range from e-books of shadows to SF/ fantasy lit, computer manuals, magazines and e-zines, occult tomes, aged grimoires, ancient scrolls, downloadable PDFs, print-on-demand texts, graphic novels, and even game books like this one. Many feature the occult lore of ages, whereas others present pop philosophy, subversive concepts, historical information, cataloged facts, and any other subject that can be presented in written form. Within the last 30 years, incredibly rare arcane texts have popped up on big-box bookstore shelves all around the world, so any mage who takes herself seriously has a library of some kind. (See the Library Background in Chapter Six for more details.)