To Keep Silence

Magical Stealth in the Age of Public Performance

Howard, Jeff ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9077-1025 (2026) To Keep Silence. In: Creative Practices: Bridging the Invisible, October 15 2026, Online (Moderated from Charlotte North Carolina and Amsterdam).

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Abstract / Summary

In *Transcendental Magic: Its Dogma and Ritual*, French magician Éliphas Lévi declares that there are four key virtues of a sorcerer: to know, to dare, to will, and to keep silence. Aleister Crowley comments on the last power, whose Latin verb is “tacere,” saying “which last means many things, but most of all to control oneself that every act is done noiselessly; all disturbance means clumsiness or blundering” (642). The declaration that the greatest power of a magician is silence opens a labyrinth of esoteric concepts, from the philosophical silences of the Neo-Platonic theurgists to Christ’s command in Matthew 6:5-6 to pray in secret and Wittgenstein’s aphorism: “that which cannot be spoken of must be passed over in silence.” In this paper, I will argue that silence can operate as an occultural practice, a discipline, and a way of being that helps build a bridge between the practitioner and the invisible. Moreover, silence is connected to peace, in the sense that the Quakers’ comfort with silence is a foundational practice from which all dialogue with the ineffable occurs. Silence is also a form of play, manifesting in the sub-genre of action games known as stealth games, in which the ability to move invisibly, gracefully, and silently is the core prerequisite to success. Moreover, the lore of many stealth games (such as the *Thief* franchise) represents stealth as a form of spirituality associated with a state of inner balance and focus. In an age of the internet, in which esoteric practice is often public and magical oaths of secrecy might seem quaint and outdated, what does it mean to keep silence? And how might keeping silence constitute a state of grace in which disturbance is avoided to maintain peaceful contact with the invisible and the divine?

Item Type:	Conference Item (Lecture)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	magic, occultism, stealth, silence, tacere, Eliphas Levi, Andrew Chumbley
Subjects:	Computing & Data Science > Game Design Philosophy & Psychology
Department:	Games Academy
Depositing User:	Jeff Howard
Date Deposited:	03 Nov 2026 11:43
Last Modified:	03 Nov 2026 11:43
URI:	https://repository.falmouth.ac.uk/id/eprint/6645

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