Practices

There are reasons that Hephaestus is a metalsmith, Jesus is a carpenter, and Ogun is said to be the iron “who always eats first.” It’s no accident that Freemasons remain one of the most respected yet feared societies around – a society responsible, in ways, for the foundation of the United States. Many myths peg humanity’s origins to deities who fashioned us out of clay and then breathed life into their creations. That’s because craftwork – the Art of making miracles out of raw materials – is among the first metaphysical practices.

Craftwork’s mystique has been largely diminished in the industrial world… so much so that it’s often farmed out to sweatshop labor or performed by machines (which hold their own ominous metaphysical connotations – witness the Terminator and Matrix sagas). Even so, there’s something magical about that Geek Squad specialist who can fix your errant computer, the tattooed malcontent repairing your car, or that friend who forges swords or crafts costumes for the SCA. The heart of craftwork comes from an apparently supernatural expertise with materials and tools – the ability to take bits of rock or skin or tree and then make lovely, useful objects from them.

Many mystics bridle at the thought of crediting craftsmanship as a magical practice. After all, the Technocracy began as a bunch of disgruntled Craftmasons who shaped the machines that ended the High Mythic Age, so why should such people be considered mages? And yet, that prejudice ignores the legendary ties between craftwork and the mystic Arts: the legacies of Solomon’s temple and the masons who built it, of the temples whose sacred geometries invited gods to dwell within them, the shapers of iron, gold, and stone who brought humanity out of caves and into cities of their own design. Even the Industrial Era has a sense of magick – the sleek glare of glass towers, the hellish factory glamour, the enchanting pixel dance that comes from computers, TVs, and the Internet… all of which demand craftwork in their creation, maintenance, and eventual dismantling into recycled components. That Art might be taken for granted these days, but it’s still magickal to those who understand it.

As a practice, craftsmanship combines the physical and mental skills involved in various crafts (carpentry, metalsmithing, glasswork, plastics, leatherworking, and so forth), then combines them with Pattern Arts in order to make those materials better than they’d been before. Matter presents the obvious Sphere for such disciplines, but Forces (to command fire, air, electricity, gravity, and the like), Prime (to energize and strengthen those creations), and often Life (to work living or organic tissue) and Entropy (to spot, add, or banish flaws) are more-or-less essential too. Old-school crafters employ Spirit to Awaken or placate the spirits within the materials – an important process in ancient craftwork, which depended upon the goodwill of gods and spirits in order to succeed. And although the rituals of creation demand time, materials, and expertise, the results – from glass vessels to armored tanks – can last for centuries… or even, as with the pyramids, millennia.

A typical crafter-mage seems rough around the edges compared to her more academic peers. Often physically strong and personally abrupt, she can be perceived as boorish and dull. That’s a common but mistaken view. In her chosen craft, this mage is every bit as sharp and knowledgeable as her book-bound contemporaries… most of whom would be lost without her expertise. And although common prejudices view such mages as members of the Technocracy (not without some truth), a crafter is just as likely to be a stonesmith Verbena, an ironworking Ngoma, an artisan Hermetic, or a VA computer tech. The Taftâni weavers earned that name from their physical skills as well as their mystical ones, and the Ngoma preserve the practical skills as well as the magical rites from their Egyptian/ Nubian origins. Even Akashayana employ craft Arts in their martial practices – see the film The Man With the Iron Fists for several examples. Though often forgotten in the catalogs of magic, craftwork is as old as humanity yet as fresh as the laptop at your fingertips.

Associated Paradigms: A Mechanistic Cosmos; A World of Gods and Monsters; Bring Back the Golden Age; Creation’s Divine and Alive; Divine Order and Earthly Chaos; Everything’s an Illusion, Prison, or Mistake; It’s All Good – Have Faith; Might is Right; Tech Holds All Answers

Associated Abilities: Academics, Arts, Computers, Crafts, Energy Weapons, Esoterica (sacred geometry, quantum mathematics, elemental pacts, stone and metal lore), Hypertech, Research, Science, Technology

Common Instruments: Artwork, blood, books, computers and IT gear, devices and machines, elements, gadgets, household and crafting tools, laboratories and workshops, symbols, weapons (hammers, blades, sickles, guns, etc.)