Thaumatologist

A thaumatologist is a person who actively pursues research into magical traditions, theories and techniques. Depending on the society they live in and the precise nature of their research, a thaumatologist may be viewed as a revered intellectual, an eccentric antquarian, a flaky eccentric or a reviled heretic.    

Basic precept of thaumatology

  The world is broadly understood. Day follows night; winter follows summer; the tdes rise and fall; childredn try to improve on the work of their parents; their ablity to do so is constrained by the limits of human capability. As society moves onward in possession of these thruths, however, it retains a tradition of engagement with the notion that those capabilities, the limits of both the means and extent of human control over their circumstances, might be extended by closer examination of their relationshp with the universe. This tradition takes the form of the coprus of myths, legends and tales of the unexplained and the supernatural which exist in some form of grey area between demonstrated fact and outright fiction. All societies generate such tales, and while they may not be accepted as fact they never disappear entirely; tales of gods, heroes, wizards and monsters are so interwoven into most cultures that even the most contrary people must take them into account in order to make sense of even the most banal conversations.   Many study these stories as an intellectual exercise, to gain greater insights into their culture and others. Within that intellectual movement, however, there are always those who study tales of magic and miracles with an eye to reiterating the supernatural in reality, the intent of learning how the magical elements of those tales - always presented as real and clearly stemming from something akin to belief - might be systematised and replicated by skilled practitioners. In essence, these people study magic in order that they might one day practice it. These people are thaumatologists.  

Research techniques

 

Literary research

  A vast proportion of thaumatology is done at a desk, usually in a library. Thaumatologists pour over literary works ancient and modern, correlating multple versions of stories to spot patterns and develop theoretical models behind practices and phenomena so that they might better be studied and practiced in reality. For this purpose thaumatologists almost always either collect substantial personal libraries or spend considerable resources developing working relationships with individuals or institutions which maintain such collections. They also tend to either write books or curate collections of working notes which, should they find their way into the hands of other thaumatologists, can allow those other researchers to build on their success. Many thaumatologists work in secret, however, or guard their findings carefully, so this does not happen as often as anyone would want it to.  

Linguistic research

  Since this often involves a familiarity with the foundational literary texts of a society, or the meaningful comparison of texts from various places and periods of history, thaumatologists are often obliged to become wide-ranging polyglots acquainted with a broad swathe of languages, dialects, orthographies and idioms. "Magic words," and "magic runes" after all, are words that mean something to someone (or used to). What may come across as complete nonsense to the unversed observer is often a thaumatologist using an unfamiliar or antique language from one culture to articulate a concept from another. Since that first culture may not have a word for the concept, the thaumatologist may be obliged to invent one, drawing on word roots from existing languages, which requires expertse on how languages work. Such groundwork can hold up an individual researcher's work for years, though it may expedite those of future workers in the field.  

Folkloric fieldwork

  Depending on the fields of study an individual researcher may be interested in, a substantial proportion of the stories or research materials they may pursue may not have been committed to writing. Many stories survive, or develop critical new dimensions, in oral traditions maintained by specific subcultures to which the researcher may or may not belong. Gaining entree into such groups, working with them to determine what they know, and relating that to other literary or academic sources to establish clearer ideas of what may or may not be useful information. This is also the case for thaumatologsts who study folk religions or practices, a fairly common concern in their field. Scholars who enter into this work often find themselves travelling widely, and not necessarily in the greatest of comfort, in order to deal wth people who may not trust them or, just as likely, may not appreciate the potential power of their own popular traditions.  

Archaeology

  The study of the magical past sometimes requires in-depth knowledge of ancient places or buildings. In ancient temples, forgotten catacombs and ruined vllages, a thaumatolgist who knows what they are looking at may find valuable artefacts or texts - insofar as these categories differ - to take home to study, or may even be able to glean important insights into magical practices from the study of the sites alone. This is among the most taxing and dangerous forms of thaumatology, often involving long, costly journeys to work in potentially hazardous sites. Such work can only be countenanced by well-resourced researchers, but the insights into magic gained in this way can be groundbreaking.   

Experimentation

  Thaumatology is a slow and often frustrating process. Once a researcher is in possession of research materials they believe promising, they must engage in a long, onerous, potentially infuruiating process of experimentation as they try to systematise a supernatural idea into a technique which can be relably replicated.    This typically requires determining how two or more often radically disparate ideas might be profitably interrelated. A thaumatologist who wishes to talk to a spirit from an ancient legend, for example, may try to summon and bind that being with the use of a folk incantaton associated wth good fortune from an entirely different society, translated into a language the spirit might understand, an endeavour which mght require extensive research into exactly how the new language relates to the orginal. Another might brew a healing elixir from one continent and experiment wth what happens if herbs used in healing on another continent are added; will this strengthen the effect or ruin it? A third might spend a year researching the efficacy of protective gestures practiced by the adherents of an extinct religion in order to be better protected on their journey into reputedly haunted catacombs to retreive a reputedly magical sword so that they may study the artefact and learn how to enchant weapons of their own.    The wdespread notion is that whereas people in the ancient legends could acquire supernatural agency easily - for they are after all characters, who acquire whatever abilities the author of the tale feels they should have - people in reality must study carefully and practice diligently in order to do so. Thaumatology is therefore hard slog, a gradual refining precise techniques over months or years or trial and error. Some thaumatologsts will spend their entire career developing a single 'spell'.    This difficulty is exacerbated in that thaumatologists tend to guard their studies carefully. Some work in societies where magic is not respected, or even persecuted, and do not want a reputation for pursuing it. Others, working to better their lot through magic, will simply protect the resulting secrets carefully. Those who commit their research or techniques to record may publish the resulting works, but just as often they will not. Much thaumatological research and experimentation is therefore piecing together fragmentary reports about the successes of past practitioners and trying to figure out how they managed it based on what materials they had available. A wizard might amass dozens of books of legends, songs, travelogues and dictionaries in the course of following up a few century-old pages of notes gleaned from another wizard's library.   To ameliorate this diffculty, however, many thaumatologists form small groups of llike-minded indivduals, scholars with overlapping or complementary research interests who can aid each other in their work. Some groups will work towards a specific end, and become life-long comrades in the process; for others such partnerships are purely utilitarian measures in a pursuit which has few rivals as a generator of intellectual vanity and professional rivalry. Nevertheless the benefits of working in groups tends to outweigh the costs, and these groups - be they known as covens, circles, lodges or sisterhoods - are becoming more common over time.  

Reputation

  The reputation of thaumatology as a pursuit varies wdely from place to place. In some places they are admired for their dedcation and patience. Some may even revere them for their knowledge of ancient ideas and societies and consult them for their expertise. They may seek to study under thaumatologsts, offering their serives as apprentices or assistants. Their motive may be to develop magical ideas of their own; conversely they may privately dismiss magic as flimflam but simply respect and desire the historical or linguistic knowledge developed in its pursuit; indeed, many thaumatologists finance their studies by taking on such students.   In other places thaumatology is the subject of ridicule, its practitioners seen as eccentic, myopic fools. Some soceties will even persecute researchers as heretics or witches, seeing them as prying into matters proscribed by religious or academic tradtions. Possession of research materials can be banned, often with severe penalties. Researchers in such places must conduct their work in secret, often disgusing their work as something else.