A few months ago I found out that both of my non-Catholic great grandfathers were Freemasons. On the recommendation of a spiritual director, my wife and I went through the ritual known as the “Breaking of the Masonic Curse.” I’m told that various exorcists have various versions of this, but we used the one contained in the canonically approved Deliverance Prayers for the Laity published by Fr. Chad Ripperger. The ritual goes through all of the different Masonic sects and all of their curses and renounces them all one by one. I always knew the Freemasons were demonic and Luciferian, but this ritual opened by eyes to the horror of their own demonic religion for what it is.
A few years back, someone alerted me to the bizarre threat of the icon company Monastery Icons. It came from the extremist, ROCOR-Serbian Orthodox site OrthodoxInfo.com (a site which is completely unreliable, as usual, when discussing the Latin tradition, but otherwise provides good primary sources on the Greek Cappadocian tradition). It was warning the faithful about using this company for icons since there was some sort of weird Hindu-Gnostic ritual curse which was being allegedly put on every icon. I sent a message to a canonical order of exorcists and asked them what I should do. Their answer? “Burn all those icons and bury the ashes.”
So I did that.
Just recently when I was teaching adult catechism I got a question about “how can demons work false miracles?” I answered honestly that I did not really know. I told the class that I don’t fully understand the preternatural world. All I know is I pray my Auxilium Christianorum prayers, make use of the Sacraments and sacramentals, and “pray, hope, don’t worry” about the demons and their machinations. If I have a serious question, I ask an exorcist and do what I’m told.
I’d rather not mess around with demons. That’s the height of folly. (See our recent conversation with Mr. M. Symonds about the St. Michael prayer and the other Michael prayer which should not be used by the laity.)
But recently a few of my good friends whom I’ve known and loved for years have gotten into a serious argument about this. It does not concern demons per se but concerns the concept of “magic,” as contained in Dr. Sebastian Morello’s book, Mysticism, Magic, and Monasteries (pictured above).
I don’t know Morello well, but I have four good and trustworthy friends who know Morello and trust him. The first is Peter Kwasniewski, who published Morello’s book at his press Os Justi Press. Dr. Kwasniewski is on the editorial board for our Latin rite Traditionalist online journal, OnePeterFive, and I know Kwasniewski’s writings probably better than any other living author. I don’t think I agree with Kwasniewski on every jot and tittle, but I will happily go to bat for him and defend every view he takes as eminently traditional, reasonable and pious. Because that’s the man he is. So I can trust every single book he publishes.
Another friend is Dr. John C. Rao. I know Rao’s writings less than Kwasniewski, but Rao’s work is more in the realm of the historical treatise, which is more my wheelhouse as an amateur writer. Dr. Rao put Morello on the faculty for Hildebrand’s Roman Forum, and anyone on faculty there I would trust because I trust Rao.
And I am also happy to defend any view taken by my friend Charles Coulombe, whose writings I am familiar with as well. He wrote the forward to Morello’s text. He’s known for his historical writings (his new Empress Zita book is excellent, by the way), but a lesser known area of his work is his history of philosophy, in which he makes a compelling case for the need for Ultra-Realism as a counterpoint to Aristotle’s metaphysics.
But my closest friend in London is Theo Howard, host of the Two Cities Podcast and contributing editor to OnePeterFive. I’ve known him for a few years and we’ve talked for many hours about all things Christendom and the Faith. He’s one of those true Christian friends whom you can trust in good times and bad. A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity (Prov. xvii. 17). I trust Howard and he trusts Morello probably more than everyone else here mentioned.
For all these reasons, I have no reason to suspect Dr. Morello is not a pious and erudite Catholic. If he has made any errors – and which man hasn’t? – I assume he has done so in the utmost good faith.
The Wonder of the Universe
We had occasion to speak to Dr. Morello on our Trad disputed questions series with Nicholas Cavazos the “Traditional Thomist.” I did not read his books thoroughly, but I read them enough to interview him (see “Platonic Thomism? with Sebastian Morello”).
What he said in this interview captured my imagination more than any other interview I’ve had with another thinker for many years (perhaps ever). Why? Because what he said, and the thoughts he had, directly increased my prayer life and spiritual fervour.
Obviously I can’t take any credit for “increasing” my own devotion (God forbid!). That was obviously the grace of Christ. But Morello deserves credit for this for being a thinker whose thought allowed the Person of Christ to shine forth in a new way that I needed.
So what did he say that was so astounding to me? You’ll just have to listen to that interview and find out. Or, better yet, read his books yourself!
Thomas Mirus: a Solid Catholic Commentator
Now there’s another person involved that is a new friend of mine: Michael Warren Davis. Michael and I have been talking privately for the past few months (and a bit on public comments) and I’m happy to have several charitable exchanges on Orthodox-Catholic issues. I’m hoping to understand him better, but I don’t think I do yet. He wrote against Morello, but I have not read what Davis wrote. So I’m just going to assume the best about Davis and his work, and you can stay tuned for me and Davis.
The other person who got involved in this debate was another good friend of mine: Mr. Thomas Mirus. Me and Thomas have been talking for years about all sorts of subjects of mutual interest: music, literature, philosophy, and especially our common love for Papa Wojtyła, St. John Paul II. We have an ongoing series attempting to digest the Polish crusader against the Nazis, Soviets, and Western Liberals in all of his Complete Works. (Stay tuned for another podcast on that discussing Scheler and Wojtyła this summer, Deo Volente.)
Just like anybody, Thomas and I don’t agree on everything, but I’ve been blessed to call him my friend. In particular, when I was writing my book and covering music, his Jazz musical skills (with an obscure quote from Archbishop Lefebvre, in fact), helped me develop my treatise on music and finish my book covering this complex and mysterious art form (stay tuned for a revision of that on this Substack).
Mirus is a solid Catholic intellectual who is the President of CatholicCulture.org. So he’s a serious thinker and writer and more importantly, a pious soul who does everything he can for the Mystical Body of Christ. For example, he recently tackled the thorny “Jewish Question” with the proper nuance while challenging the post-war Status Quo.
The Principle of Charity
Why am I spending so much time failing to address the subject matter at hand? It’s because of the obligation of Christian charity. The mission of our lay apostolate Meaning of Catholic is to “unite Catholics against the enemies of Holy Church.” To do that we follow as strictly as possible the following admonition of St. Thomas:
He who interprets doubtful matters for the best, may happen to be deceived more often than not; yet it is better to err frequently through thinking well of a wicked man, than to err less frequently through having an evil opinion of a good man, because in the latter case an injury is inflicted, but not in the former (II-II q60 a4).
The fact is, we simply have to always assume the best unless we want to calumniate someone as evil by mistake, which can be a grave sin (“Don’t Let Social Media Send You to Hell”). St. Thomas makes it easy: just err on the safe side, spiritually speaking, which means always thinking the best of every man. That’s a principle we’ve tried to follow here at MOC, and we only criticise a fellow Catholic by name if there seems to be something manifestly wrong (sometimes that’s necessary, like with Rupnik and James Martin).
But there’s much more to this than just “being nice” (even though our salvation literally hinges on true charity). It also affects our apprehension of the truth. As I discussed in a recent article drawing on Hildebrand, we must first have charity and humility toward a person, in order to understand the truth about him. And this is not only true for men, but for being itself (“What is a Christian Attitude Toward a New Pope?”).
I have found, again and again, that in my own spiritual journey from Lutheranism to the Baptist life to Messianic Judaism to Eastern Orthodoxy to Rome, that I had misunderstood the truth because of my own pride. I had heard one thing a guy said about that, and jumped to conclusions about what was really being said or what was being communicated. In my graduate program with the Catholic University of Ukraine I wrote academic papers about how Christians misunderstand each other – all the while knowing I was the chief of sinners in this regard.
That’s why Meaning of Catholic exists. Because, as our manifesto attempts to show, it is the union of the Greco-Roman elements within Christendom (vivified by the mystical, Hebrew revelation of the God of Abraham and the Son of David and the Fire Who Fills the Temple at the New Pentecost) – that always reveals to man, in every era, the truth of the depositum fidei, against every new hubris of the fallen angels. This is what dialogos means in the history of the Church.
So this debate is highly important to our apostolate. To that end I am privately speaking to all parties involved (those involved publicly or privately) to best promote a true dialogos on this.
These are all necessary presuppositions for this conversation. If we truly inculcate them within pious hearts, then we can have the following conversation.
“Adult Magic” = Occultism = Offensive to Pious Ears?
Thomas Mirus’s article is actually not against Morello in particular but against the “Occult subversion of traditional Catholicism.” He is obviously concerned about a real problem of occultism about which every pious Catholic should exercise the virtue of caution (“to see and avoid future evil”).
I know for a fact that everything Mirus wrote in his article was done in the utmost good faith, piety and charity to everyone he names. That doesn’t mean everything he said is correct. But it does mean that he should be given a fair hearing.
The issue that Mirus seems to be getting at is the definition of magic. Catholic adults never talk about “magic” during Catechesis, homilies, or whatever. The word itself is offensive to pious ears. That’s a valid point. Mirus gets to the heart of the matter with this:
Catholics do not and have never believed that the “special words, special objects, and special concentration” involved in sacramentals and prayer have power simply as words, objects, and concentration. Rather, the power is God’s. Insofar as these things occasion the manifestation of a power beyond their own nature, it would be either from God or from an evil spirit—no in-between.
This seems to define what Mirus means by the word “Magic” and why Catholic adults never use this term. However, it sounds like Morello would agree with Mirus on this point. In his response to M. W. Davis, Morello states emphatically that he does not believe in the inherent power of sacramentals, but that the power comes from God. “Nowhere in my book,” he writes, “will you find any argument to the contrary.”
Mirus illuminates the concern in the offense to pious ears:
Thus, people who are (rightly!) very concerned about external forms of ritual may fall into a kind of magical mindset if they forget that it is God’s grace, and not the external forms, that has spiritual efficacy. People already tempted to think they have some kind of special knowledge that other Catholics lack may fall into the spiritual pride of esotericism. People who hate modern rationalism and technocracy may fall for occult “re-enchantment”. People who like what is traditional or merely pre-modern can be tempted to perennialism. And, even without sharing in these faults, people in an embattled subculture may turn a blind eye to the problems within their own group.
But before God there are no “traditionalist”, “conservative”, or “liberal” Catholics—there are only those who justify their sins and those who repent of them. All Catholics of the latter kind will agree una voce that magic cannot be tolerated, be it presented as ever so traditional. For it is indeed a perennial tradition: the wisdom of the ancient serpent, who was a liar and a murderer from the beginning.
All of these concerns are pious and reasonable. However, it seems that Morello would agree with each one as well. As a traditionalist myself, I know that good traditionalist scholars are aware that it is not traditional to create an echo-chamber where your ideas are never challenged. That’s a recipe for a shallow idol of ideology in exchange for the fullness of the truth. It’s the difference between the “Narrow Thomism” that was rightly criticised after the Council, and the true Thomism – from people like Garrigou-Lagrange before the Council or people like Minerd, Kwasniewski and Morello now – who are in conversation with everyone who speaks the truth – especially fellow Christians. But as Morello says, “looking outside the Christian tradition is part of the Christian tradition.”
Childhood Magic = Wonder at God the Father, Creator of Heaven & Earth = Sacramental Imagination = the Restoration of the Heart?
Perhaps what we need to do here is draw a distinction in the use of the English word magic. Morello notes that Magic is not a univocal term, but can be used in English today in many senses. I’m going to attempt to make that distinction by saying that the aforementioned magic which Mirus (and Morello) both condemn is “adult magic.” It’s the work of the devil to try to convince you to just “do XYZ” and then you “have more power than you can possibly imagine.”
But this is completely different when you’re talking to a child, especially a child before they are catechised to receive their First Holy Communion. Before the “age of reason.”
Before the “age of reason,” a child is in a stage of life where his brain is not yet ready to receive rational explanations. Rather, his heart is being formed by wonder and love.
God forms the heart of a child first, before his intellect – from the first moment that the child’s heart beats inside his mother, to the first words he hears (but does not understand) from his mother’s lips, to the strength he understands intuitively in his father’s arms.
How do you explain the Sacraments to a child who does not have the use of reason? How do you explain the wonder of the universe to a child who can’t read? Because they will ask, and they do.
You appeal to magic.
I’m not saying every parent believes in the Tooth Fairy. But I am saying that parents resort to “childhood magic” explanations when they are telling children who can talk about the wonder of the universe. Any parent reading this knows what it’s like when a child keeps asking “Why?.... Why?.... Why?” Sometimes you just say, “It’s magic.” Then they understand.
You think you’re lying to them sometimes with this use of “magic.” But actually you’re not. They understand magic, because their hearts understand wonder. As I write these words there are literally children playing right outside my window having the time of their lives because they discovered a frog. They will endlessly play with that frog, as they should. Because this is the wonder of the “magic” of the universe that God created. It’s a movement of the heart that defies all rational explanation. It is that movement of wonder that inspired the ancients to philosophise.
It seems that this is why the Lord said: unless you convert and become like little children, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God (Mt. xviii. 3). This is the “restoration of the heart” which was at the centre of Hildebrand’s thought, of whom I am a disciple.
The most conspicuous instance of childhood magic is obviously Christmas. In Anglo-America we rightly lament the “secularisation of Christmas,” and people all over in popular cinema and pageantry talk about “the magic of Christmas” (even though they disbelieve in the Faith of Christmas). But are these people talking about casting spells and hexes? Of course not. They are referring to the childhood wonder at the Christ Child. They’re godless, but they still enjoy the childhood magic of Christ Mass.
What’s so amazing is that this “magic” endures even when their faith is dead. That’s because their intellect is devoid of faith – their agnostic at best or just vaguely acknowledge God – but their heart still has Christian wonder at the Incarnation, even though they can’t explain it rationally. It’s an intuition of their hearts into the reality of the Christ Child.
That’s why the cultus of St. Nicholas is so popular: it’s Protestant guilt and nostalgia for Father Christmas who brings this Christmas cheer “that only comes this time of year” as the godless John Lennon sang.
Make the World Pagan Again?
Christmas time is pretty much the only time of year when the world is “enchanted” with wonder. Perhaps Modern Man, deluded with his self-divinisation by means of Anti-Culture, must be reawakened in his heart before his mind can be enlightened.
Morello seems to be saying that we need to “re-enchant” the world before we can re-evangelize:
I am nonetheless convinced of the veracity of an argument that the theologian and translator of the Philokalia, Philip Sherrard, developed in a 1994 essay entitled “For Everything That Lives is Holy”, wherein he demonstrates how our reception of, and union with, reality greatly depends on interior dispositions, both intellectual and moral. Sherrard claims that developing certain habits of mind, will, and imagination is essential for the acquisition in modern people of a pre-modern, non-rationalistic apprehension of reality. He thinks — arguing along Platonic and Neoplatonic lines — that such an overcoming of rationalism naturally gives rise to a truer apprehension of, and union with, the realities we experience.
The fact is, we are not living in a neo-Pagan culture. As Hildebrand noted, it’s worse than Paganism:
Classic paganism is nobler than the modern stance[.] Let us state that it would be a great error to characterize this perversion of the modern man as paganism. Certainly the pagan world of antiquity had not yet a clear conception of God, of creation, or still less of consciousness of a need for divine redemption. However, the pagan Greek or Roman approached life, de facto, as a creature, conscious of his very dependence upon factors which he could not control. He even lived thoroughly in the attitude of religio. In Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates says when speaking about self-murder, “Yet I too believe that the gods are our guardians, and that we men are a possession of theirs.”
And the Platonic ideal of happiness is ecstasy: of being exalted above ourselves by something greater than we are. [Unlike modern man, t]he pagan man shared neither in the superstition of an automated, unlimited automatic progress nor the ideal of discarding all bonds, of determining everything by his arbitrary will. He was reverent, and conscious of his dependence upon something above himself. The spiritual content of many high goods was experienced as reality; the “song” of things endowed with values was heard.[1]
So contrary Ratzinger’s otherwise prescient words in 1958, we are not dealing with Neo-Pagan culture, but something much worse. This is what I describe in my book, following Christopher Dawson, as “Anti-Culture” since it lacks the four elements of culture: cultus, tradition, elders and piety. This is a term that Morello also uses.
Thus before we can convert Modernity, we need to establish the most basic fundamental attitude that every child can understand in their hearts – the world is filled with “magic.” This is not the adult “magic” which is simply a lie from Satan in search of power.
No.
Childhood magic is simply this: wonder at God the Father, Creator of Heaven & Earth. This is what creates in the heart of man the sacramental imagination to conceive the world in these terms. When our forefathers came to these Americas to spread the Gospel, the Catholics – whether French, Spanish or Portuguese – all converted the Indians and created new mixed nations: the Métis in my region of the Great Lakes, the Mestizos in Mexico and New Spain, Mestiços in Brazil (the Russian Orthodox too, accomplished this in Alaska).
How was this possible? The action of divine grace won the hearts of the Indians, because they were true pagans: they had a Sacramental imagination.
What did the Anglos accomplish? Outside Catholic Maryland, the Anglos utterly failed to convert the Indians because the Anglos (except for the intrepid English Catholics of course) had swallowed heresy and had lost the sacramental imagination. Therefore their rationalistic religion was not accepted by the Indians (by and large), and therefore there exists no new nation of mixed race Indians and Anglos.
I can see the value of re-enchanting the west and the need for this because of these factors (and I think that Mirus would agree with this pious desire as well). Yet more, I am a spiritual son of Vladimir Solovyov, since his Sophiology converted me from Antiochian Orthodoxy to the true Ark of Salvation, the Catholic Church. His own journey through Theosophy to the Catholic Church reconnected authentic Russian Catholicism (manifested in the multiple Russian schisms since 1551, 1666, 1870 and 2018) to Ancient Rome, the Mother of all Orthodox Churches.[2] (See Maxim Grigorieff, “The Father of Russian Philosophy Died a Catholic”). Both Catholic and Orthodox claim Solovyov as their own, and they critique his ambiguities, but neither side has “cancelled” him for the Theosophic ambiguities latent in his writings.[3]
Let’s Have Tolkien Weigh In
In a letter to his publisher explaining The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien says that the desire for Power leads to “the machine (or Magic).” Sounds like Mirus was certainly not off base with his concern! But Tolkien makes a distinction:
The machine is our more obvious modern form [of the will to power], more closely related to magic than is usually recognised. I have not used ‘magic’ consistently, but indeed the Elven queen Galadriel is obliged to remonstrate with the hobbits on their confused use of the word both for the devices and operations of the enemy, and for those of the elves. I have not, because there is not a word for the latter (since all human stories have suffered the same confusion). But the elves are there in my tales to demonstrate the difference. Their magic is art, delivered from many of its human limitations: more effortless, more quick, more complete (product, and vision in unflawed correspondence). And his object is art not power, sub-creation, not domination and tyrannous reforming of creation. The elves are immortal, at least as far as this world goes: and hence are concerned rather with the griefs and burdens of deathlessness in time and change, than with death. The enemy in successive forms is always naturally concerned with sheer domination, and so the Lord of magic and machines; but the problem: that this frightful evil can and does arise from an apparently good root, the desire to benefit the world and others speedily - and according to the benefactor’s own plans - is a recurrent motive.[4]
This seems to be what’s happening here. “Adult magic” is the false Ork magic of Saruman. It’s the magic of the White Witch. It means the invocation of demons for the will to power.
“Childhood magic” is the magic of the Elves who wonder at the world (in one line Legolas says “I am going out to see what the air is doing” and wants to wonder at the forest or even Gimli’s caves). It is the “deeper magic” of Aslan (as Morello notes). Its purpose is not power but wonder and worship and logos.
It was Morello who, in the aforementioned interview, awakened this wonder in me, and for that I thank him. So let’s get back to him.
It is right that my friend Thomas Mirus should be concerned about Ork magic. Every pious Catholic should be! But is it true that Morello is promoting Ork magic? I’m not the judge here, I’m just asking the question.
Here’s what Morello says about his own work:
Neither in that three-part essay nor in my book do I conclude that hermetic magic can save the Church. I indicate how re-opening the dialogue with the Hermetic tradition, following the example of the doctors and holy people named above, among others — in a way not dissimilar to the Church’s dialogue with Hellenic wisdom, Roman law, and the traditions of nations (especially of Europe) — could plausibly help us to overcome certain challenges we face on account of widespread rationalism.
What does he mean by that? “I give reasons therein for why these prejudices of modernity act on the mind in a way comparable to the way hexes were traditionally thought to do so.” Here’s one of his most compelling reasons:
“Scientific Propositions of Faith” vs. “Transformation in Christ”
Morello:
In Mysticism, Magic, & Monasteries I develop an extended argument for why Christianity is better understood as liturgical, sacramental, existential, transformative, and thus in essence mystical, rather than exclusively or predominantly propositional.
My argument is that Hermeticism, with its traditional connection to the Neoplatonic ontology so treasured by many Church Fathers, offers a way to analyse the hierarchical structure of creation per se as well as natural religion specifically. That does not mean that nature is identical to what comes by way of supernature. Rather, following the ancient tradition of the Church, I claim that it is possible to show how, despite nature’s fallen condition, there is nonetheless a connaturality of the natural with the supernatural, which we ought to expect if we really believe that the latter is God sharing His own divine life with the former in order to redeem it.
If I understand Morello correctly here, I see him as saying that the Realistic metaphysics of the Neo-Platonic tradition (in which all the Church Fathers were trained and formed their presuppositional framework of their metaphysics and doctrine), must be recovered as a way to respond to Modernity, which is utterly materialistic and rationalistic. Modernity is Anti-Culture and has been disenchanted from the wonder at reality itself.
The Hermetic tradition, while it is polluted with a great deal of confusion and even occultism, is trying to grasp at this “wonder” of the universe that has been lost – according to the rational logos within man. Morello seems to say that since the Church always baptises everything pre-Christian which retains some things and removes others, and since the Hermetics are preserving the pre-Christian world of Neo-Platonism, we should baptise Hermeticism – this will cleanse it of every demonic content, and preserve the importance of Ultra-Realism as a metaphysical presupposition, forming a parallel philosophy to Aristotle (in the same way that Scotism becomes parallel to Thomism, or the Latin tradition breaths also with the Greek lung). I’m not sure if I’m understanding Morello here, but that’s one sympathetic reading of him.
[I]n my book I use the term “baptised theurgy” to describe the power of the Church’s liturgy. Theurgy is often translated as ‘divine magic’. A more literal rendering, however, is ‘divine work’. In any case, the word itself is used repeatedly by Dionysius the Areopagite, who is among the most important Christian authorities in the history of the Church, and one to whom I’m especially indebted.
If you’ve never heard of St. Dionysius, you should stop reading my words and pick up Morello’s texts for yourself.
Stay tuned to Meaning of Catholic as we attempt to form a true dialogos on this most important issue. We also have 7+ hours of content on the history of the Occult in our series Christ Against the Occult for Guild members with one of our Guild members who is an expert in all the history of its texts and how Mary triumphs over them (join the Guild community for access). We will be publishing volume 1 of Christ Against the Occult next year, if the Good Lord’s willing and creek don’t rise.
Glory to God for all things!
[1] Dietrich von Hildebrand, The New Tower of Babel (Sophia: 1953), 43-44.
[2] For a sympathetic view of Solovyov’s journey from Theosophy, see Aidan Nichols, Sophiology Man (Hrerefordshire, UK: Gracewing, 2020).
[3] At his reception into the Catholic Church, according to the written testimony, there is no evidence that he was required to renounce any particular Theosophic “tendency,” but rather to submit everything to the orthodoxy of Ancient Rome. A little over a generation after his death, the Russian Catholic Юлия Данзас produced a critique of Solovyov entitled "Гностические реминисценции в современной русской религиозной философии" but the Russian Catholic Church of the Byzantine rite still venerates and reveres Solovyov, who is very much the Godfather of this Eastern Catholic movement. Bl. Leonid Feodorov, who was the first exarch of the Russian Catholic Church of the Byzantine rite, attended Solovyov’s lectures and meetings. Meanwhile Solovyov’s Orthodox disciple, Fr. Sergei Bulgakov, did everything he could to sanitise Solovyov from any ambiguities leading to error or heresy, and Bulgakov is revered by the Russian Orthodox inside and outside Russia to this day (even the extremist zealots, i.e. the Serbian-ROCOR branch of the Russian diaspora, call him a “modern Orthodox theologian”).
[4] Letter of Tolkien to his publisher Milton Waldman, 1951 contained in the preface of The Silmarillion (Boston, MA: William Morrow, 1999), xiii.
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