The Hermetic Cull(t)

I ask you to invest your imagination with me, momentarily, to unbridle your brain from the coached mundane. To set a kooky course for a parallel universe, where this extraordinary world is mirrored in all things.

All things, except, the ability of every sentient being on that planet to utilise magic. A gnostic licence to tailor the material world to their own individual wants and needs. The body, the partner, the home, the health, the knowledge, the wealth. The material happiness required to live that life, on that planet, without the need for transitory suffering. A birthright from the Godhead. Now imagine that this birthright was diluted from their consciousness for the gain of a select few. A covetous group of warlocks who rose to power, through supposed intellect and meritocracy. Their hoggish justification? If everyone were witches and wizards, no one would be left to carry out the slavery of paid labour; building their castles and servicing their private jets, managing their stocks and mining their natural resources. To fight the wars needed to perpetuate their choke hold on the planet; keeping the sacred sites of the ancient craft under their total control, whilst continuing to divide and conquer the global populous as a chirpy bonus. To discover new technologies used to enslave the masses further; from caffeine to nicotine, glossy magazines to bright white phone screens, all set for a night of dread filled horror dreams, and then psychology, with ever evolving terminology, for the ones who can't sleep. To find new cures for all the dis-ease, physical and metaphysical, so the workforce and armies could march on undeterred and strong. Or simply to entertain all of the above, and themselves, through song, film, picture and painting. All the while they, amounting to just 1% of the total population, lived a life of unimpaired ease in outstanding luxury, whilst enjoying in abundance all the beautiful things their enchanted world had to offer. The more than capable alchemists who made up the rest of the 99% believed, through centuries of preconditioning, that they were born for this life and it was meant to be tough, that they had no real power of their own, and the most brilliant part of it all, they didn't even realise they were slaves. Quite the contrary, they worshipped their masters for their veiled mercy, and their shining example on how to behave in a world of such hardship. The hermetic nobility kept their magic a staunch secret, of course. There were ways and means of climbing the ladder to their lofty perch, but the path was dimly lit for the multitude. But through all the years of social conditioning and conspiracy, their was a flame that flit deep within the souls of their fellow man, that the elite mystics could never extinguish. A constant and troublesome niggle, that there was something more to their lives, a key to a door they had not been shown. A science of soullessness and religions of subordination were offered up to answer their questions, but to also subversively mock and put down, any grasps at their limitless potential for magic, that esoteric artistry that wasn't really esoteric at all, it was free and available to all if they only chose to illuminate their own existence with it.

I'd want to be a wizard in that world.