[006] Toy Magick

I'm teaching some upcoming classes at a variety of venues in Minnesota: Basketry (Mankato), Woodcarving (Mankato), Toys and Games (St. Peter), Handmade Games (Grand Marais), and Old World Games (Grand Marais). See you there?

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"All play means something." - Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture

In the fall, I will begin the two-year Artisan Development Program at North House Folk School . Two weeks ago, I wrote about some guiding ideas I'd like to pursue during this residency . My focus is going to be on the traditional craft of making toys, games, puzzles, and other amusements

Today, I'm thinking about haunted toys.

Why are dolls so freaky? What is the Lament Configuration? Is Barbie living in a pocket dimension? Is POLYBIUS real? How does Jumanji trap the souls of children? These are the thoughts that bounce around my shiny bald head as I whittle little puppets and board game pieces.

This angle of magick and occultism is very interesting to me. You can find more of my work on esoteric things at Gnostic Technology , where I've written a bit about the magickal aspects of play.

There are so, so, so many movies that feature haunted dolls. Why? The Twilight Zone was doing it in 1963 , we're still doing it today with movies like M3GAN, and the creepy story of Robert the Doll began as far back as 1904. I'm really curious why this trope keeps reappearing. Why is this archetype so present?

I was told during my year at Lakota Youth Development that Lakota dolls don't have faces because realistic dolls allow spirits to become trapped inside the figure. Is this the same concern that is expressed in so many hundreds of horror movies on haunted dolls? If you wanted to approach it from a hard materialist angle (not my favorite, but let's try it) you could say that a more realistic-looking, human-looking toy draws your attention and tricks the mind into ascribing more human attributes to the doll.

But, we are wizards here and we know spirits are real, so we can explore more interesting possibilities. This area of research is new to me, and I don't have answers, just hunches and investigatory temptations.

There is an archeological site in the Czech Republic called Dolní Věstonice , which my friend Karin Valis tells me is probably pronounced "Dole-nee Vee-esto-nee-tza". This site is fascinating because a large collection of animal and human clay figurines have been found - but every single one was overcooked in the fire until it exploded. How strange!

I think there are two magickal techniques at work here. The first is that these "toy" figurines capture or reflect the spirit of the thing they represent. A lion figurine has an aspect of the real lion, an aurochs figurine has an aspect of a true aurochs. This seems to fit in well with our modern fear and belief in the soul-trapping abilities of dolls!

The second practice at work here, I think, is a kind of divination. Instead of cutting open the animal to read its intestines, this might be an easier way. Since the spirit of the creature is within the figurine, maybe the clay fragments could have been "read" in the same way an oracle might read the open organs of the animal? To me, this feels like the same kind of magickal force exerted when a creepy doll makes the lights flicker or whispers secrets. The figure is alive in a way that matters.

Okay, so that's the first of two paths I am curious about: do toys have a spirit of their own? Do toys trap living spirits? Could a toy be alive in its own sense? What can a toy really do?

I think there is a complimentary or opposite sort of magick at work in board games and video games. Games like Jumanji, TRON, and the Lament Configuration have a kind of magick. Games bring the spirit of the player into the game world. As opposed to toys, which seem to bring active spirits into our physical reality. Doesn't that seem like a kind of opposite magick? Spirit into matter, versus matter into spirit?

This power of games is something recognized by even the most scientific and non-esoteric perspectives. Game theorists (beginning with Johan Huizinga) use the term "magic circle" to describe the imaginary world that players participate in when playing a game. The enchantment of the magic circle transforms colored pieces of paper into Money, and pixels on the screen into Alduin the World Eater, and little red pins into Torpedoes.

This term of the magic circle is mostly used in a not-actually-magickal sense. However, in both popular media and in ancient magickal practice, it seems to me that the idea of the magic circle is quite real. Consider the Lament Configuration, the cursed Rubiks Cube from the Hellraiser movies.

Playing with the Lament Configuration summons a dimension of torture, pain, and hellish pleasure into being. It brings the "players" of the game into a non-consensus-reality magic world, which has real consequences. It doesn't always have to be creepy and weird. I think the box from Dragon Tales is basically the same mystic-tech as the Lament Configuration.

Same with TRON. Same with Jumanji and Zathura. From a magickal perspective, these are ceremonial objects that are the furniture of an alternative reality. Playing with them brings you there.

So, that's the second path I'm curious about: how much power does a game have? Can reality be shifted by an engaging game? What is the spiritual responsibility of a game designer, if games really are magickal tools? Are all games ceremonies, are all ceremonies games?

Much to think about. No conclusions yet.

"Play is serious or is not. But is it really serious? Is it as serious as, for instance, war? Is it even more serious than war[?]" - Marc De Kesel, Playthings of the Gods