Tok. Magick tale

Preface

"It's one thing to read about dragons, it's another thing to meet them."

Ursula K. Leguin

***

"And to the sun is subject the troop of daimons, or rather, troops: for there are of them many and diverse troops, placed under the command of the planets, an equal number of daimons being assigned to each planet. Thus arranged in separate army corps, the daimons serve under the different planets. They are both good and evil in their natures, that is, in their operation; for the being of a daimon consists in his operation. These daimons are given dominion over all things on earth. They are also the authors of the disturbances that occur on earth, and they operate manifold troubles both for cities and nations collectively and for individual men. For they mould our souls in another form, and capture them for themselves, being seated in our nerves, marrow, veins and arteries, penetrating even into our innermost organs. For at the moment when each of us is born and made alive, the daimons who at that instant are occupied as ministers of birth, take charge of us, that is, the daimons who are subject to one of the planets. For the planets replace one another from one moment to the next; they do not continue to operate without change, but succeed one another in rotation. These daimons thus work their way through the body, and enter the two irrational parts of the soul (namely, the part that feels desire and the part that feels repugnance), and each daimon perverts the soul in a different way, according to its special mode of action. But the rational part of the soul remains free from the dominion of the daimons and fit to receive God into itself. If then the rational part of a man's soul is illumined by a ray of light from God, for that man the operation of the daimons is reduced to nothing; for no daimon and no god (that is, no planetary god) has power against a single ray of God's light. But such men are scarce indeed; and all others are driven, soul and body, by the daimons, establishing their hearts and affections upon the operation of the daimons. Such is that love which is without reason, the love which goes astray and leads men astray. The daimons therefore govern our earthly life, using our bodies as their instrument; and this government Hermes calls 'destiny'."

Corpus Hermeticum – Tract XVI

I

I am more than tired of seeing "chosen" peoples everywhere on this planet! So chosen are they, that they find proof of it even in their ability to contemplate the beauty of the world in a unique, unrepeatable and unsurpassable way. They also always take it for granted - the "chosen" peoples - that all other peoples are cannon fodder, expendable or, at best, unworthy. You too - confess it to yourself - see around you staunch defenders of nothingness, who imagine - over that nothingness - rights of possession, droit du seigneur or of administration. The worst thing is that they think the same of others.

Ancient contracts are brought to light in every commercial dispute. The archives of the world's bureaucracy are highly complex circuits - paper circuits - supporting centuries of tradition, in a myriad of interconnected webs that give life to a fearsome creature. This creature - this subject of all rights and obligations - is so fearsome in that it outlives man himself, and traverses the ages on the backs of generations. This dragon with a thousand faces, this hydra with fractal and multifaceted heads, documents in its wake every value that changes hands, weighing the entropy of balances at all times, and exercising a stubborn dictatorship over the markets of man.

It is said that the existence or non-existence of private property was the trigger for the Cold War. Today, the ownership of ideas is being discussed. Even before the effects of such ideas are considered, they are already given value and nomenclature. There are exotic patents all over the world's registries, including cures for deadly diseases, some of them unclassified. Faced with the avalanche of exploitable ideas that are being patented every second, there is a discourse of collectivisation of knowledge that does not stop gaining followers and building arguments. Is it not the same dog with a different collar? Is it not to think that, by changing the accounting method, our dragon will become tame? We are deluded if we think that it is possible to tame the dragon, if we consider that it is nothing more than a tool made by and for man, if we do not reflect powerfully on the real possibility of this dragon having - at last - a life of its own, understanding by life of its own - for the moment - nothing more than its capacity to have generated, throughout its existence, its own interests, beyond the interest of the generations, and totally unknown to them.