When Games And History Clash :P

It's pretty late now where I am, and because I'm not really feeling sleepy, I decided to read up a little more on the development of hermetic ideas from the Roman period to medieval times.

Surprisingly, there are a lot of sites with "hermetic" as a theme. I guess, even though the current Golden Dawn does not have direct lineage with the original order... they have managed to make hermetic philosophy and ideas popular enough for there to be thousands of google-able sites.

Most recent... when I say "recent" I mean in the last 300 - 400 years ... historical personages of note in hermetic and ceremonial magic are pretty well known to most practitioners in this field... from figures like Eliphas Levi to Aleister Crowley and McGregor Mathers (not his real name by the way)

However, when you get a little further back in history, the names and dates get hazier. Unfortunately, I'm not quite as proficient in this area as I'd like to be. :P Well, this evening, I stumbled onto a site which seemed to contain an interesting writeup about Roman-era priests and magicians who have allegedly contributed to the ideas current in today's ceremonial magic. It was pretty interesting at first, until I scrolled downwards and chanced across a name which made me reconsider the validity of the article.

The name "Tremere" was listed as the name of a wizard of note. Now, I honestly think that the writer of this article meant for the article to be an actual historical timeline... because he also wrote other articles on magical theory and history.

If not for the fact that as an avid gamer I have heard of both Ars Magica and White Wolf, I would have thought that "Tremere" was a real historical person. :P Because both Ars Magica and White Wolf have a tendency to use actual historical characters in their games, I have actually looked up "Tremere" ... as a sort of "just in case" ... The result, not surprisingly, is that there is NO historical reference of this name in all academic and actual ceremonial magic - related websites.

I'm a little annoyed by this incident because it seems the popularity of the games combined with a lack of actual research have resulted in some people at least thinking that made up characters are real :P

This reminds me of an incident some years ago. When I was still working in IT, there was this rather manipulative young guy who liked to frequent chatrooms. He would go to wiccan chatrooms and claim that he was a mage who could cast such Dungeons & Dragons related spells like Fireball, Invisibility and the like. And would you believe it... quite a lot of young Singaporean people who ... at that time thanks to "Charmed" ... wanted to try out the whole witchcraft thing... actually believed he was what he claimed to be???!!!

Honestly... Fireball???? Invisibility???? Recently, an actual ceremonial magic related lodge (man... I really feel ashamed when I say this) claimed in its recruitment brochure to have "Invisibility" as a spell in one of its temple levels... I found that incredibly hilarious....:( Honestly, if I had read that part when I was standing in front of the recruiter, I would have asked the guy to demonstrate "invisibility" to me :P

Whatever happened to brains?! What about empirical evidence?! Heck, just 'cos we believe in magic, it doesn't mean we completely abandon reason :(

I'm right now wondering if this is just a Singaporean phenomena. I mean, at the end of the day, we can blame it on our educational system. :(