Are you a Quiet Speculation member?
If not, now is a perfect time to join up! Our powerful tools, breaking-news analysis, and exclusive Discord channel will make sure you stay up to date and ahead of the curve.
While browsing the Magic Reddit, I came across a thread that tickled me in a way that few do. If you're familiar at all with the history of Magic as a part of the whole of popular culture, then you might recall the stigma brought onto the game by cards like this:
As a matter of fact, before I ever started playing Magic, I had seen and been creeped out by the cards a number of times. I remember the art for Hermetic Study being particularly chilling back in my Pokemon days.
It's been years since I've seen new information critiquing Magic as being an occult practice, and the book linked in that Reddit thread is probably the most tame piece that I've ever seen in this regard. As a Reddit commenter points out, the most bothersome element is that the author got the color identities pretty wrong. The other items in the same sub-category as Magic are also pretty absurd, but the rest of the stuff about the game delivers a pretty balanced perspective.
I grew up in a relatively Christian household, but I was also around 15 when I started playing Magic, so I never faced any pressure from that end to not play the game. I would love to see any links to materials related to the book in this thread or any personal stories in this regard though.
I’ve seen a fair amount of anti-religious magic players in my adventures at LGS’s over the years, and this is something that occasionally gets pointed to as an example of how “backwards” religious people are.
In my childhood and within my religious tradition, the general name of the game in the Catholic world has been, and continues to be, “if the game promotes goodwill, healthy competition, cooperation, fun, and learning, do it.” Back in 2000, the Pope actually spoke about the Pokemon card game amidst accusations of the occult, calling it “full of inventive imagination” and based on “ties of intense friendship.”
I realize this may not be the experience of some. I’m going to go ahead and point my finger at what is likely a small, insular, fundamentalist protestant group for the publication of that book. no offense 🙂
Excited to see what sort of things other people dig up or post here. This is a good topic, despite being a somewhat dangerous conversation to start 😉
lands in back,
kasey
I play magic and was raised in a very Christian household. The reddit post is definitely mild. RPGs and card games like magic work well because of the Rock, Paper, Scissors nature of them and dealing with the 5 different colors. At one time growing up I remember being at church and one of the youth group leaders singling out RPGs as a source of concern that could lead youth astray and he did use the term ‘Evil’ during his lesson on the subject.
The ties that Magic has to the Occult are much closer than people might think. I’m not at all saying that this is a game that only Satanists play but what I am referring to as the Occult is Paganism of which Wicca is categorized as. So yes, if you do your research there is a lot of dark history between the Paganism and Christianity. There is also very much the belief among some groups that Magic is real and can be practiced – Pagans believing that it can be good in some applications and Christians believing that it is evil on the whole. So in that way Magic: the Gathering could be looked at as a facsimile in practice.
To a lot of Christians it is seen as dangerous to the impressionable youth because of it. I play it because to me it is simply just a strategy game, or as I like to explain to the Layman, ‘Geek Football’.
I want to get a summer Demonic Tutor so I can paint the pentagram on his head like it is supposed to be
Ryan,
I’d recommend against posting “grenade” articles like this (although your post was a very delicate approach to the topic). It will simply devolve into a pointless online debacle that inevitably will invoke Godwin’s Law, similar to the countless others on different forums.
It’s funny to me however, that Christians, etc. point out the game as “demonic/satanic” but mention nothing of the angels or druids on the White and Green sides of the game. As always psychologically, the “negatives” rise to the top quickly and are the first things noticed.
Interestingly, I’ve gotten much more negative (actually, the response here didn’t seem negative at all) responses to non-issues than stuff like this.
Hello,
The ebook “So do you wear a cape ?” by Titus Chalk (a book retracing the history of MtG) has some very good information about the big pentacle controversy.
I am a devout (not fundamentalist) Christian and have been playing Magic since the Shards block. I find the religious criticisms tend to be knee-jerk reactions from people who have very little actual knowledge of the game. I have never met any player who is into the game because of a love of “real” Magic or any of the other “evil” practices the detractors would rail against.
Thanks to the posters here for keeping the discussion respectful!
Wow, that was train-wreck awkward to read. Kinda reinforces one interpretation of religion as “Choosing to believe virtual cavemen over everything else we’ve learned in X thousand years…”
And that “The most devout religious practitioner is an atheist towards every other religion.”
Why haven’t the “satanists” responded in kind seeking to have their own beliefs protected?!
Idiocy. Sorry, but i won’t even pull the punch to save the discomfort of ignorami who sit on a religious high horse spouting their irrelevant and ignorant “views” on things. I use scare quotes because, well, its not a view of your eyes are shut from the get-go.
Oh and by the way, the bible pretty clearly has magic sitting on both sides of the coin of good and evil.
As an example- the coiled snake is bad, but since “the lord loveth an upright man”, a straight serpent is not “evil”, hence moses’ staff. But dont worry, its not like they were trying to leave clues about kundalini or anything. No, seriously, dont even stress. Its obviously pure coincidence that “Amen” and “Om” (pronounced “o-u-h-m-n” when chanting…..) are pretty much the same word, referent to a pretty similar concept, from completely seperate cultures…..
…but hey, anything in common must be due to the existence of all powerful but vain but forgiving but petty and vengeful “God”, or something else external….couldnt be anything in common between us as the same type of being, internally based, rather than externally? Of course not. Because THAT church would be placing the source of divinity in ones self, not outside it (and in the hands of the privileged status quo, perhaps….)
Magic is science unexplained.
yet fundamentalist christians ignore the explanation and fail to understand the importance of the word “triceratops”.
Rant…..complete.