On Sacred Magic

Part 5, Ontological Effects

A few years ago, one of my Hispanic students, a Catholic, asked me if I had some holy water. "I figured you'd be the only professor on campus who has holy water in their office," she said.

She was right. I have bottles of holy water in my office. I also have water from places of healing, like Lourdes and St. Winifred's Well in Wales.

My student wanted the holy water to bless her computer. I can't recall why, exactly, but she felt it had come under some dark influence. She wanted the water to bless and cleanse it.

Last spring break, Jana, my son Aidan, and I visited the Santuario de Chimayo in New Mexico. My colleague and friend Jon Camp put me onto Chimayo. Chimayo has been a site of pilgrimage for generations and is one of the most visited religious sites in the United States. Chimayo is known for the healing properties of its holy dirt. Next to the church is a small room where visitors and pilgrims line up to gather some of the holy dirt from a hole. In the entryway to the room pictures, written testimonials, and crutches hang on the walls of those who have been healed by the dirt. Aidan and I purchased containers in the gift shop and we stood in line with those waiting to gather dirt. A family in front of us had brought large ziploc bags and took away several full bags.

On that same trip to New Mexico we visited the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe. In the left transept of the Cathedral a great many relics were on display, most notably a bone from St. Francis and a splinter of wood from the Holy Cross. Rows of candles were in front of the relics and as we looked at them many people came to pray before the relics and to light candles.

Following from the last post, I wanted to pause here in this series to share some of these stories. In the Catholic tradition, especially in its popular and folk piety, objects can become receptacles of sacred power and energy. Holy water can cleanse a person, space, or object from evil forces. Dirt, water, and relics can possess healing powers. To be sure, for many Protestants these aspects of Catholicism are deemed "magical." And that is precisely the point. Holy water, healing dirt, and the veneration of relics are examples of sacred magic.

Protestants have their own examples of sacred magic. At my little church Freedom Fellowship, when people come forward for healing prayer, we will often anoint them with oil. True, the oil isn't deemed to have healing properties. And as Protestants we have no way to "bless" or "consecrate" the oil to make it a receptacle of divine power. And yet, there is a tacit conviction that adding the oil to the healing prayer is, in some mystical way, contributing to its efficaciousness. Otherwise, why anoint if the anointing is purely inert? You'd just be making people's foreheads greasy for no reason. There's a difference between going into your pantry and dabbing your forehead with some olive oil you find there versus praying over a supplicant while anointing their forehead with the Sign of the Cross and the words, "In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit." Because of this difference, anointing is a practice of sacred magic.

Also, while Protestants do not use holy water to cleanse or protect a space, they will use prayer rituals to accomplish this. People will walk prayer circles around spaces, petitioning for a hedge of angelic protection. People at my church will, before services, walk the sanctuary touching and praying over every pew. Such a practice is a form of sacred magic as it blesses, cleanses, and protects the space to make it, when the worshippers gather, a receptacle of the divine presence.

Also, like Catholics, Protestants will pray prayers of exorcism and deliverance. Such prayers will even "command" demons in the name of Jesus to depart. These prayers are also examples of sacred magic.

Now, of course, I don't expect anyone to begin describing these practices as "sacred magic." All I would suggest here is that the category of "sacred magic" is applicable. Why?

Well, as we've sussed out in our exploration of theurgy, there is something going on in these practices that is different from the moral or symbolic. There is a real encounter with divine energy and power to cleanse, protect, or heal that is being mediated through material objects (e.g., water, dirt, oil, physical touch) and/or ritual (e.g, prayer, making the sign of the cross, commanding demons to depart, invoking the divine presence). The practice is "magical" in that some new potency is being infused into the material realm. The ontological situation is being changed. What, then, are we to call objects or practices that effect ontological change? "Sacred magic" is a label that might be used.

Also, if "material rites effecting an ontological change" is a description of "sacred magic," then the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist can also be described this way. That is to say, baptism and the Eucharist are not mere symbols. They effect ontological changes. Regarding the Eucharist, we can recall Flannery O'Connor's famous quip about the Eucharist being a symbol. "If it's just a symbol," the Catholic novelist observed, "then to hell with it." The same can be said of baptism. If baptism doesn't effect an ontological change, is merely a symbol, then baptism can be left aside as inert and superfluous. Baptism wouldn't "do anything," ontologically speaking. And if baptism doesn't do anything, well, like Flannery O'Connor said, to hell with it.

Again, I don't expect anyone to start describing baptism or the Eucharist as "magical." But we are seeing, once again in this series, how the category of "sacred magic" is doing some useful theological work for us. For example, in my own congregation and denomination our view of the Eucharist and baptism has become very disenchanted, very moralistic and symbolic. Being a memorialist tradition, our view of the Lord's Supper has always been disenchanted. Our view of baptism, however, has been very magical. The rite had to follow exact requirements: Believer's baptism (credobaptism, not paedobaptism), for the remission of sins, and full immersion. If you were an infant, it didn't count. If you were not fully immersed, it didn't count. And finally, if you believed you were saved prior to or outside of the rite of baptism (like saying the Sinner's Prayer and accepting Jesus into your heart), you were not saved. As a rite of sacred magic baptism had to be done in very particular way. Otherwise, the ontological change would not happen. Stories abound in our tradition about people needing to get re-baptized because some part of their body, like a foot or arm, did not go fully underwater. And if all this sounds a wee bit like magical thinking, well, that's exactly why I'm bringing it up.

But as I said, our denomination has been losing this imagination. Mainly because our rigid, exact, and magical formulation of baptism created a very sectarian posture. We doubted the salvation of pretty much every Christian denomination, from the Baptists with their Sinner's Prayer to the Catholics with their infant baptisms. Everyone, except us, was going to hell. Over the last two generations, however, many in our tradition have rejected this narrow view. That's the good news. But the bad news is that we've accomplished this by evacuating baptism of any ontological effect at all. Baptism used to be a practice of sacred magic, a rite that ontologically changed you. Today, baptism is largely symbolic, a rite where a (usually young) person publicly declares their faith in Jesus. Which is a lovely thing to do, but when baptism is evacuated of ontological effect, when it is no longer a practice of sacred magic, it becomes superfluous. If baptism doesn't "do anything" it can be ignored. And that's exactly what is happening in our denomination. Fewer and fewer of our young people are getting baptized, even though they identify as Christians.

Simply put, baptism as mere symbol is empty and discardable as nothing "really happens." But baptism as "sacred magic," as ontological transformation, becomes both necessary and urgent.