R. Scott Bakker’s definition of sorcery

[Wild Fox Zen]

Fell should probably be the one posting this, as he's the source, funnily enough:

sorcery— The practice of making the world conform to language, as opposed to philosophy, the practice of making language conform to the world. Despite the tremendous amount of apparently unresolvable controversy surrounding sorcery, there are several salient features that seem universal to its practice. First, practitioners must be able to apprehend the "onta," which is to say, they must possess the innate ability to see, as Protathis puts it, "Creation as created." Second, sorcery also seems to involve a universal commitment to what Gotagga calls "semantic hygiene." Sorcery requires precise meanings. This is why incantations are always spoken in a non-native tongue: to prevent the semantic transformation of crucial terms due to the vagaries of daily usage. This also explains the extraordinary "double-think" structure of sorcery, the fact that all incantations require the sorcerer to say and think two separate things simultaneously. The spoken segment of an incantation (what is often called the "utteral string") must have its meaning "fixed" or focused with a silent segment (what is often called the "inutteral string") that is simultaneously thought. Apparently the thought incantation sharpens the meaning of the spoken incantation the way the words of one man may be used to clarify the words of another. (This gives rise to the famous "semantic regress problem": how can the inutteral string, which admits different interpretations, serve to fix the proper interpretation of the utteral string?) Though there are as many metaphysical interpretations of this structure as there are sorcerous Schools, the result in each case is the same: the world, which is otherwise utterly indifferent to the words of Men, listens, and sorcerous transformations of reality result.

R. Scott Bakker's Definition of Sorcery

and more discussion here:

http://barbelith.com/topic/24559

and Qaexl integrated the subject into a few of his posts here:

Culture code and throat chakra

New Scientist: Kids hang onto dad's every word

[Kuroyagi]

I have read the "Prince of Nothing" trilogy a couple of years ago and did enjoy it; recently I also bought the new book The Jugding Eye, too.

Bakker makes some inspiring points though very much from a literate's perspective...maybe in above quote I would substitute "imagination" for "language" etc...

The spoken segment of an incantation (what is often called the "utteral string") must have its meaning "fixed" or focused with a silent segment (what is often called the "inutteral string") that is simultaneously thought.

This touches on something quite relevant to all magic: multi-tasking, or being in parallel states and acting simultaneously on more levels. To strengthen this highly consciousness-creating and abstrazising faculty of the mind-body and thereby mutate oneself even further is one of the trends in (post) modern and cutting-edge magickal technology. Another fictional work, or works, I highly recommend in this vein are the books by China Mieville, esp.The Scar...

[thenewcomeox]

I really liked the Prince of Nothing too. I liked how Bakker described spells as songs that are sung, it was a nice image.

Also, it was interesting that Kellhus could use more then 1 inutteral string, at the end of the Thousand-Fold Thought, after meeting with Moenghus, he alters a more conventional spell, I forget what its called but it allows remote telepathic communication between Mandate Schoolmen, and with 2 inutteral strings creates a transposition spell to teleport to the battlefield.

Also, the difference between the Mandate and other schools, the Gnosis and Anagogis were in their philosophies of spell-casting it seemed. The Gnosis was the "Philosophy" while the Anagogis was "Poetry". The Anagogis would create ethereal dragons and suns to affect the material world while the Gnosis dealt with abstracts and manifested as geometrics and energies.

And the Gnosis looks to be stronger by an order of magnitude. Achamian, who'd been having a rough time of it towards the end of Thousand-Fold Thought, ran across that Imperial army, and decimated the army, the Imperial Sukh School and killed their Grandmaster. By himself. And Kellhus annihilated the Cishaurim.

And of course the Cishaurim use the Psukhe, which is an emotion based magic apparently... They use the "Water" they bear within them to affect the world.

And then there is Techne, used by the Consult, it appears to be basic biology, genetic engineering and such. But I don't really know since they are left rather mysterious. Along with the No-God, whatever he is.

Anyways, I'd like to get the Judging Eye at some point too. But I've heard it isn't as good as Prince of Nothing, so I've been waiting for my library to get it.