0.3 Beginning by way of twilight: purple angel

image -->

Imagine that you are sitting at a very clear, level desk. On the desk’s pristine surface are several extremely delicate pieces of hand-cut lace. With their extensive networks of interwoven patterns, the pieces display all the internal intricacies of snowflakes or water crystals. Imagine picking up one section in your left hand, one in your right, and placing them side-by-side on the desktop. As you study the designs closely, you see that each pattern is different, just as you are looking for configurations that could be the same. At first, it appears that you cannot find any to match. Then all at once, the patterns all become the same. You blink—thinking that you cannot be seeing what you’re seeing—and as you look even more closely, the patterns suddenly change their internal configurations once again. The crystalline clearness of the cut-outs shifts before your eyes, and you see the dynamic creation of the differentials from a new angle. After a moment, you realize that your gaze is the knife that cuts the paper, just as your thoughts create the intricate patterns of the lace. And then you know that you are looking at magic.

This evocative imagery provides an apt metaphor for the experience of engaging intensely with Wolfson’s paintings, poetry, and texts. In this context, the term “magic” is particularly suggestive, as it calls to mind a deep yet half-buried connection between esoteric mystical practices and the applied techniques of the visual arts. In his classic study, A General Theory of Magic (1950), the sociologist Marcel Mauss observed that “magic includes, in fact, a whole group of practices which we seem to compare with those of religion,” just as the term expresses a close relationship with language and aesthetics, as “mystical and poetic elements” become articulated as “forms of collective representations.” Marcel Mauss, A General Theory of Magic , trans. Robert Brain (1950; London: Routledge&Kegan Paul, 1972), pp. 8, 144. As Mauss further observes, “magic has found a thousand fissures in the mystical world from whence it draws its forces, and is continually leaving it in order to take part in everyday life and play a practical role there. It has a taste for the concrete…[since] magic is essentially the art of doing things, and magicians have always taken advantage of their know-how, their dexterity, their manual skill.” Mauss, A General Theory of Magic , p. 141. In the Encyclopedia of Religion , John Middleton similarly emphasizes an integral connection between religion and magic. As he states in the entry for the term “magic”: “In most known societies, magic forms an integral part of the sphere of religious thought and behavior, that is, with the sacred, set apart from the everyday. In some societies, especially in the industrialized West, it is generally accepted as superstition and even as a form of sleight of hand used for entertainment. In addition it has almost always been considered to mark a distinction between Western and so-called primitive societies, or between Christian and non-Christian religions. Therefore it is not really feasible to consider ‘magic’ apart from ‘religion,’ with which it often has been contrasted, as many of its defined elements refer to their opposition to what both local adherents and outside observers consider the more orthodox elements of religion.” See John Middleton, “Magic,” in Lindsay Jones, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion , 2nd ed. (Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2005), vol. 8, p. 5562.