Idolatry Restor’d – Daniel A. Schulke (Three Hands Press)

Description

The translation of magical power to image is a matter well understood in archaic forms of sorcery, the resulting artifact being a mutual embodiment of Representation and the Represented. The Fetish, for example, arises at the nexus of a reciprocal process between Object and Creator that begins long before adzes and chisels are set to wood… thus participating in its own reification. Many of these eldritch forms of magical image-making were concerned with accessing power, and it was only later, in the context of religious devotion, that their forms densified into ‘mere’ idols. Yet witchcraft, with its stance as ‘outlaw’ to both religion and lawful magic, has never deemed such magic heresy. Instead, through its ‘promiscuity’ of syncretic magical currents, it has continued to acknowledge the image-fetish as both holy and possessed of supreme numen imbued by its maker.