Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Freedom
After reading "A Wondrous Oriental Tale of a Naked Saint" by Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder, I have come to the conclusion that magic exists only in the story as a sort of bridge to freedom. The saint is stuck in a roll of winding the wheel of time. He sits and critiques the pilgrims that he observes as they visit with a disdain. He does so because he views the world differently than them. Magic comes into play when one night when "the homes of the people were transformed into the dark shapes of boulders and dusky supernatural palaces." He says from that point "the people, no longer blinded by sunlight, lived with their eyes fixed on the firmament, and their souls were mirrored beautifully in the heavenly glow of the moonlight night. The magic freed the people to see what they could not see before when they were blinded by the light. They were freed to add additional perspective to the world they once knew. This too goes with the saint. After the people sing the song that magically releases the saint from being imprisoned in his job, and his imprisoned human form. He goes from being full of disdain to a grander feeling of happiness related to freedom. Magic serves to open people's eyes to a new world that they either did not pay attention to at first or never really knew.
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I disagree with the posit of magic as a bridge to freedom (or generally anything) in this story. The magic is depicted here as an inability to bridge or explain. In the beginning this is made clear when he explains the concept of the "naked saint" as one who is really just a spirit trapped in human form so that he cannot be understood by and does not in turn understand real people. This makes it clear that it is impossible for the two worlds to blend but in their coexistence, they require a means of explanation: which for the saint is ignorance and for the common people is magic and genius. (Link here to the concept of inner genious/unfettered nature.) The magic was only really present in the spell that trapped the saint in theworld. The story is actually driven by a lack of understanding and form of mysticism. In the end, it is music/emotion that overcomes the spell. Music is the freeing agent.
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