Private message to Tosha

[alt_sinistra]

Tosha -

I didn’t want to go into it in company, but you are extremely generous. Exceedingly so. (Was it that obvious just how much I’d been coveting your book trunk?) I cannot bear to say no, even though I know I should.

Thank you, truly (now that I’ve made my formal “It’s far too much” protest.) It will get a great deal of loving use, and it solves more than a few of my worries about managing my library after the wedding. All the little touches are brill - using the zodiac constellations to mark the configurations, and having one set for charts, rather than books. And I’m sure Raz will appreciate not having books and charts strewn over every flat surface, too.

Other things not for general company:
First, do you have an afternoon free for bookshops and the Archetype? I suspect, from the hints I heard, that your time is more committed than mine, and I do not want to step on any toes. (Other than the various social obligations, I’ve one conversation I want to schedule after New Year’s, and some necessary wedding planning, but everything else is flexible.)

Second, at Christmas Day with my family, we did touch on a couple of topics of interest. Less ongoing wrangle with Diane about Defence, for once (probably because Raz was there and she was doing her level best to be welcoming) and more comment on your own field. But now I say it, I’m hard put to describe it, exactly. Distaste, yes. A certain amount of quiet curiousity in places. (Chiron, my brother in law, especially.) And some assumptions, about the implications, that I’m still trying to sort out how to explain.

And finally, I’m glad to say Raz let me set the personal charms on both the pocket watches. (Which I’m telling you, because if there’s a need, it might be useful to you to know. I only wish we’d exchanged them before last Friday.) And it’s a real relief to me to have some way to know if I really should be worried.

Oh. And there’s a bit of the reading you lent me I’ve got a question about, but it can wait if you’re as busy as you still seemed.

- A.

Comments

[alt_antonin]

'Obvious' is perhaps not the word, dear one, but the number of covetous looks at mine were enough to help me realise a trunk of your own would not go amiss. (And if it will soothe the part of you unwilling to accept such gifts for fear of the unspoken price tag they might carry in future, allow me to assure you the gift is made freely and with no hidden strings or conditions; I do vow it upon whatever bedrock you feel might bear my oath.) Consider it an appreciation of all the delightful hours we have spent discussing matters academic, and in service to future and similar conversations. (And, yes, as a present to Raz as well -- and I am glad your present to him was agreeable.)

I am very pleased you like it. And I look forward to hearing tale of what sort of categorisation system you devise: the maker suggested several methods of triggering which space will appear when you open the lid, but I knew instantly which would suit you best.

For practicalities: the bulk of my time is spoken for until after Friday, though I will be at the Coopers' tomorrow night, for a short time at least. Sunday, perhaps? After Friday, with a bit of luck I should be nearly entirely free, social obligations aside. Even if we are not able to carve out a full afternoon, I must take you to Poundtree & Associates and make you known to them: I believe I've mentioned they have two sets of prices, one for the casual reader and the other for actual scholars, and you more than deserve the scholars' prices. (They are open most days save for Mondays, holidays, and Thursday mornings, should Sunday not work for you.)

I am glad your Christmas with your family was pleasant, and yes, am quite interested in the implications, your family being a useful cross-section of public opinion. What bits intrigued your brother-in-law?

As to the questions on the reading: busy though I might be, I have mostly arrived at the 'hurry up and wait' stage of the matter. What are your questions? Having lent you the books, I am happy to put forth the effort to help clear up any misconceptions.

Yours,
T

[alt_sinistra]

Toshenka -

I appreciate the reassurance, though in this case, it was my - pride? my upbringing? something like - that's more of the sticking point. (Yes, I know, I show my House. Both ways round.) And yes, on the categories, once I sort them out. Sunday - one? two? - would do very nicely for me. Should I meet you, or would you rather come here? (By which I mean, which is the least exertion for you, Tosha, please.)

Chiron was asking about how you and I had gotten actually friendly - he admitted he was surprised. (And I suspect half the family was on him to ask, actually.) And he did want to ask about your classes, because of Andie, next year.

But the thing I wanted to ask you about is partly one of the books you loaned me, and partly a present from my Aunt Canora. (Not the brightest star in my family, alas, though very sweet in the right setting. An excellent example of general opinion in some circles and so useful here though.)

Anyway, she gave me The Open Door, by Prudentia Mallen. It came out a year ago, and I’m three-quarters sure it’s a pseudonym. She says, and I quote, that the Dark Arts, while “potent tools for change” also “open doors in the self and the environment that may, in fact, be best left closed.”

You know chapter 3 in the Magica Abscondita Patafacta Erit he’s got that whole section about privacy versus secrecy, experience versus intellect, and then that discussion of precaution and proper foundation? When she references that chapter - and I wouldn’t know this if I didn’t have them both at hand - she picks out about three sentences from it, and ignores the rest, even when he's actually supporting her argument.

(The bits she picks on are something called ‘Death Essence’, a reference to ‘deep practice’ which seems to be an idiosyncratic phrasing in the Abscondita, and then a discussion about blood magic’s imperviousness to certain kinds of removal techniques. And yet, I remember you commenting about the blood-lock and the boxes that it can be overridden, in some cases, yes?)

It’s not bad research, exactly. (I mean, that bit is, but that’s not what’s most bothering me.) It’s something about why those examples. It’s balanced, on the surface - and she’s good about referring to titles I know you approve of - but at the same time, there’s quite a line of “All right for some people, and not for everyone” about it. And there’s several places where I’m fairly sure she’s using examples from the Carrows.

So, my question, roughly, is “What context am I missing from the Abscondita”, and in general, what to keep in mind as I read. (I’m only on chapter five of the former, and chapter four of the Mallen.)

I don’t know. Stars are so much simpler, sometimes. Either you prove they’re there, or you’re all talking theory, and either way, they’re a very long distance away.

A.

[alt_antonin]

Oh, bones of the Blessed Martyr Barbara, are they still repeating that slander? And in a book published only last year? It must not have come from one of the more reputable presses, that's for certain.

To put it bluntly: the concept of 'Death Essence' has been lingering around for at least the last three hundred years, and stems from most of the scholarship on the Arts being forced underground (and thus not widely disseminated) and done in Latin (which practise only started to fall out of favor about forty years ago). Some idiot mistranslated fatis, the perfect passive participle of fari ('having been spoken'), as fatis, the ablative of fatum ('doom, death'), interpreting it as the ablative of agent and rendering it as "the essence of death". So what was intended in the instructions (and yes, I have read the original source) as "the incantation having been spoken, add to the spell you are building by performing these wand motions..." was rendered as, "Add 'Essence of Death' and perform these wand motions..." -- thinking it to be some elixir or potion the reader would be familiar with, one assumes.

Sadly, no-one who read the mistranslated manuscript had enough sense to recognise the confusion. The mistranslated manuscript then fell into the hands of those whose only use for the Arts was to use them to generate screed after screed of moral outrage, mutating into 'Death Essence' along the way. Someone else decided that 'death essence' must refer to some mysterious quality that 'Dark wizards' have, intrinsically, to make them suited for certain classes of spellwork. You'll find source after source of so-called 'Light wizards' railing against the perfidity of the practitioners of the Arts, and about horrible rituals we conduct to sacrifice our souls and our victims to gain this 'essence', and about horrific practices we all get up to behind closed doors that threaten the very fabric of society, and so on and so forth. It is most wearying.

(All right, and sometimes amusing -- but too many of my forebears have been condemned and executed on the strength of that mistranslation for it to truly amuse.)

I have not read The Open Door, but if she is discussing 'death essence' with any seriousness, her scholarship has passed 'questionable' and arrived solidly in the land of 'indiscriminating about her sources'. The other points of hers you raise are also not promising: most types of blood magic can be broken, and redirected, and overridden, in many cases. (A topic which has been on my mind quite a great deal recently, actually, for several reasons, including my reflecting on the descent-linked magics I alone am now heir to, and could not teach to anyone not of my family's blood; they are lineage-bound.) The Abscondita is quite explicit about that, in fact, though more in later chapters than what you have read so far.

And 'deep practice' is the Abscondita's term for the bits that have the most transformative properties, or have the potential to be most transformative -- well, if you've reached chapter five, you'll soon start seeing the hypothesis presented and argued: the Abscondita is where the concept was first advanced that the Arts can be summarised as "the class of magic that behaves differently for each practitioner, and asks the practitioner to commit to whatever changes they enact". Which, from the sound of it, is also Mallen's theory, but the transmission has become garbled on the way.

Does that help, any? While you are reading Magica Abscondita, pay careful attention to the duality he sets up between 'static' and 'transformative' magic (although I can't remember; the translation I gave you might be the one that uses 'unchanging' rather than 'static', a rendering I find somehow unsatisfactory), and particularly the nuances of 'sacrifice' in the later chapters. (Which is another concept that has been rendered very badly throughout the years, and misunderstood and used to excoriate my brethren-in-Art throughout history: when the Abscondita discusses 'sacrifice', it only rarely means the sacrifice of another's possessions, blood, life, or potentials. When you get there, for 'sacrifice', think 'offering'; when next we have time, if you would like concrete illustration, I will tell you of some of the sacrifices I have had asked of me throughout the years.)

If I had the translating of the Abscondita, meanwhile, I would put chapter nine, or at least a summary, in the preface. You may want to skip ahead and read that now; it might make everything else a bit clearer.

And speaking of 'when next we have time': Sunday at one should be fine. Why don't you join me at my townhome? (I'm on the Floo, as 'Cottesmore Steading' -- the 'Steading' is necessary lest you wind up halfway across the country.) I expect to be much refreshed by then, but we shall see.

Yours, in scholarship (and the tendency to pontificate at the drop of a hat; admire my restraint),
T

[alt_sinistra]

Toshenka,

I do indeed admire your restraint: it is clear that might have been two or three times the length (or ten), without it. (Not that I would have minded, but - well, we do both have other calls on our evenings, and should not dally too long in mutual indignation over this. At least not tonight.)

I agree more every day with Alde's rant about the lack of formal training in Latin, and the number of people who are content to rely on other people's work without the skills to evaluate it on their own. No one can be master - or mistress - of every field, granted, but really, you'd think someone in the past centuries would have figured out the problem. (And that's scarcely an uncommon instruction, either, really, all things considered. It's not like the Latin asking one to calculate the locational magics, where everyone has a different preferred phrasing.)

On the rest of it, clearly I should make you a present of The Open Door for your commentary and offended marginalia notes when I am done with it. Though as a rhetorical device, it, well, I'm trying to figure out exactly what its aim is there, and I'm finding it quite intriguing. (Bearing in mind it came out before your return to the Protectorate, and when it seemed likely Alecto would remain as Professor of Dark Arts for some time. So very glad that was not true, may I say again.)

I do indeed take your instructions about the Abscondita, and I will indeed skip ahead to chapter 9. I am more or less making sense of it - well, I've a good twelve inches of notes to ask you about, but it's all smaller points, not the main ones - but a larger context sounds entirely promising.

Finally, on Sunday, here I must admit that of all the methods of transportation available, I like the floo the least. That said, I know it's one of the easiest to adapt to some kinds of warding around, and if that's what you prefer, I will manage. (Just, there will be at least a quarter hour of my sneezing my head off afterwards, and it's so terribly undignified. And difficult to hold a conversation during, more to the point.)

And if you do need to cancel, just say the word. I do hope the Saint Mungo's Gala will be entirely less exciting than it was last year. (Not that I was there, mind you - it would have been different if I had been, and I still can't decide if that's a good or bad thing.) There are one or two things I'd like to ask you (and one better discussed in person, I think, since it may be easier to demonstrate), but they are not crucial, really.

A.

[alt_antonin]

If you've things to discuss, meeting here is likely the best option (though we might wish to mount the expedition to the bookstore and your café first, lest we fall into our typical reverie). My wards are formidable, yes, but if Floo does not agree with you, I will owl you apparition coordinates to the park down the street, and you can walk from there. (The wards may be formidable, but knocking on the front door will not trigger them. And that is another reason to meet here: I can key you into them enough that in future you will be able to apparate into the arrival parlour, even though you will not be able to go further if I am not in residence without safe-conduct from my house-elf.)

And yes -- that is the most irritating part of the whole mess; the phrasing in question can be found in half the grimoires of the time. But it is yet another example of the propagandists winning. You do, however, make me think that next year, I will revise my NEWT-level curriculum to include a unit on proper research skills -- how to evaluate a secondary source for accuracy, how to cross-check against other secondary sources, when (and under what circumstances) to step back to a primary source, etc. I am already thinking of ways to teach many of the skills of which I am noticing the lack, and that is one I am most determined about.

(I do so wish there could be two of me -- one to teach the Arts, and another to teach all the fundamentals that have fallen from the curriculum over the years. Rhetoric, as we've already discussed. Latin. Greek. A practicum in research skills, both in terms of performing research and the magics that help in the execution of same. Ah, well. Perhaps in a year or two, once I am settled, I will begin a Latin club.)

But we've tread those boards before, have we not?

Yours, and anticipating the amusement of excoriating a very silly and badly-researched book,
T

[alt_sinistra]

Tosha -

Apparition coordinates, please. I'm quite happy working from them. (And ... I still don't know if it's Floo or something in the powder. I've never really wanted to do sufficient formal testing. Some variants are better than others, but all of them make me sneeze my head off.)

Anyway, yes, on the need for better research training. (I did tell you, didn't I, about our Mr Moon's distress that researchers might not be telling the entire truth as they had observed it?) And I'd help you with the Latin Club, you know. Not this year, but thereafter.

As to my questions: I was going to say that both of them could be discussed in one of the Archetype's private rooms, but on consideration, you're right that at least one of them is better done elsewhere. (Or otherwise, we'd need to be rather oblique.) Books, cafe, then conversation, then?

My other question, in case you wish to tuck it into your contemplation between now and Sunday, has to do with the best combination of privacy and sound-muffling spells with some specific parameters. (In short, I plan to arrange a conversation with a certain friend I've mentioned to you, and I expect it to be noisy, and perhaps revealing of private details that neither of us would, in a calmer moment, want others to overhear.)

The parameters, if that helps:
- Communal space over which I have some authority and greater permission (namely a reading room in the Astronomy Guild Hall here in New London)
- To last until I dissipate it (or ideally, to release if I am for some reason unable. I don't expect that, but tidiness is a virtue. )
- To be utterly and reliably soundproof and free from other interruption.
- The room itself is about 15 by 30, standard windows down one side, one fireplace, solid floor, two doors, both into the hallway. I can draw you a sketch Sunday if that helps.

I do have ideas, but this is a "Asking Raz is a little tricky" question, and there are two or three options where I'm not sure of the best combination. I promise, in advance, that the conversation is personal, and that while matters touching on Our Lord's service may come up, I fully expect it to stay on the personal. Just, I really do not want people getting the wrong ideas if they did chance to overhear, and we've a limited number of even vaguely neutral spaces to choose from.

At any rate, I am expected elsewhere (ten minutes ago). Do sleep well, Tosha, and take care.