What is Semiurgy?
The term semiurgy was coined by Jean Baudrillard to refer to the creation, manipulation, or combination of signs. A sign – studied in the discipline of semiotics – is something that stands for, refers to, represents, or evokes something else. For example, a word refers to the thing we agree it means, smoke points to the existence of a fire, the detection of butyric acid indicates to a tick that a mammal is nearby – the word, the smoke, and the detected chemical are all examples of different types of signs.
Magic is a form of operative communication that uses symbolic means to bring about a change in the practitioner (the one doing the magic), and when necessary this brings about a change in the world outside the practitioner as well.
The central thesis of this blog is that magic is a form of communication through signs.
Borrowing this term from Jean Baudrillard, I call this particular approach to magic semiurgy: the creation or manipulation of signs, linguistic or otherwise, to cause specific effects within and beyond the psyche of the magician. These effects can then be reflected in changes in the world of the real; i.e., the objective universe of matter, physical laws, and other self-aware inhabitants each seeking to understand and affect their surroundings through language and other systems of signs.