A Druid Magician
and the Son of God
The following words were written by a man who has become a brother to me in various ways. Indeed it was through him that I discovered the Druidic path. Rob Chapman is a magician in the same sense as me (a conjurer) and yet is also an esoteric magician. A Druid for many years, Rob uses illusionary magic to take people deep into the mystery of being. He and I met after he read one of my books and decided to get in touch with me. I was so enthralled by his grasp of stage magic combined with Druid wisdom that I asked if I could attend a Druid ritual. That day was a pivotal point in my spiritual development. It was Rob who, as Druid Chief, initiated me into the Bardic mysteries in an old wet womb-like Welsh mountain cave. As was the custom, each Druid there presented me with a token of my initiation. Rob’s was a small wooden pendant necklace with the Druidic Awen symbol burned into the wood. However when I turned it round I noticed it also had a Celtic Cross burned on the other side. I looked up at Rob and with a wink he said, “Whichever path you choose, in the future, you’ll always be my brother.” That is a characteristic of the Pagan men and women I’ve been privileged to know—a thoroughly generous openness, a realistic faith that only wants the best for you, and a great respect for all the gods of the world.
I grew up with the church, even wanted to be a vicar at some point in my life. Yet as time ticked by, I felt myself drawn to the more esoteric paths, a journey which has brought me to the point I find myself at now, which is within the Druid tradition. Druidry is a nature-based spiritual path that gives you a framework to explore your own personal beliefs in relationship to the land you live upon. Therefore there are Pagans, Christians, Jews, and Muslims all looking at their own personal connection with spirit and the divine. For me this is a wonderful thing, and very much at the heart of my feeling toward the church; I never felt that there was a place for personal understanding and connection to Jesus and God through the established church. You could voice an opinion, but at the end of the day “truth” is handed to us by the trained clergy. Therefore I have never really been able to find that personal connection through the church.
Yet Jesus as a character holds an interest for me. I do not believe that he was the Son of God, more an individual that had a message from spirit. Unfortunately I believe that message has been long distorted into political power, rather than a gift to humankind for a better way of being. I do not even know if I believe him to have really existed or whether his life story is just another parable like those he chose to teach by. But does that matter? I think not. The heart of what is important is the message that is given by the story. When I look at the story of Jesus I see the life of a person who made the ultimate sacrifice for the message he felt about so strongly. But this does not make him unique. In fact, it has led to one of the greatest guilt trips ever. Many people have given their lives to the cause they believe in, and even today we have people that do this. We do not always agree with their cause; governments will label them as terrorists and disturbers of the peace. Jesus the anarchist is not an unfair statement. In his life there was great acceptance of people, there was a lack of judgement. He treated all as equal, healing the poor, the sick, and the tax collectors alike. If I think of Jesus as an anarchic anti-establishment defender of the meek, I find a character that resonates. Not the Son of a single divinity, but a son of humankind, who dared to put his head above the parapet, accepting the risks that entailed.
If I look at Jesus from the perspective of my profession as a mystery entertainer, magician, and hypnotist, I discover for myself a couple of things. The first is that there is no emotional connection there at all, which echoes what I have just said, but then there is also the curious performer in me that wants to know how he did his thing. Was it a power from God? In truth all the power that ever existed is here, in this moment, now, be it from God or wherever. I believe in magic, but also am very aware that even in a short time the deed of the performer can become the work of mystics, inflated by the word. People have come up to me telling me that they remember the way I levitated a person in the middle of a room. Now I do not do levitation effects with people, I have hypnotised people to not be able to see an object I am standing on and this gives to them the impression that I am floating. Yet people from the audience will come up saying that they remember me floating. Which says to me that when we look at the miracles and wonders of Jesus, we have to allow for the distortion of perception, the altering of reality. Not as so many say over the last two thousand years, but in what will have been a very short period of time. After a month’s time I hear from people that an effect I performed is being reported as an act with true supernatural origins. If we bring the element of hypnosis into this, then we can see how an individual wanting to get over a message, using illusion, suggestion, and hypnosis could quite easily in, say, six months have very tall tales of his achievements being told all over the place. We as human beings make myth, we have the gift of magic, to take something ordinary and make it extraordinary. If some of the performance magicians around today were to go and perform their magic and not tell you it was a trick, in truth there would be a lot of people believing it was real. Someone once said to me, “I know it is all a trick, but you are not like the others—you do real magic.” That is someone in this century asking the question. Take that back a couple of millennia and you can see how Jesus as a Holy man could have had the influence that he did. Holy men have always used magic and showmanship to show the masses their powers and the might of Gods. Also, trance as a part of religious practice is as old as belief. The Bible has many references to people falling into sleep, falling into trance; indeed, God put Adam to sleep to remove a rib, Satan used suggestion to influence Eve. Paul speaks of being in trance whilst in the Temple (Acts 22:17). Indeed, Acts is full of accounts of the apostles gazing into the eyes of people who are then healed. This man was listening to Paul speak, and when he fixed his gaze upon him and saw that he had faith to be made well, said with a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet.” The man leaped up and began to walk (Acts 14:9–10).
This then leads us to the point that, yes magic trickery was known of at the time, but hypnosis as we see and think of it is a concept of the last few centuries. In the time of Jesus, the ability to influence people through touch, eye contact, and the spoken word would have been an amazing performance to behold and one that again would easily be retold and embellished at a quick pace.
So Jesus as a mystic with a message who had skills that we would now associate with magicians is, I feel, a realistic image. Living in a universe where all things stem from one point—be it a big bang, the divine, or God creating the world in seven days—means Jesus really did do his thing through the power of God. However, each and every one of us does what we do because of that one moment where it all began.
I would love to be able to sit down with Jesus and hear what he has to say about the world we live in and the way the Church has developed since his passing. I feel that our history of persecutions, holy war, and torture would turn his soul. A man who taught “love thy neighbor” would see a history of hate and fear. Indeed, I am sure over a drink or two he would laugh out loud at how his actions had been distorted and changed. Who knows, he may even be willing to share a trick or two.
In compiling these few thoughts, I come to a closer idea of my relationship with Jesus the man, the myth, the rebel. And it is a relationship of sorrow; my heart draws a tear for a way of life that could be so beautiful. A man died for that which has become dogmatic and soulless. His message has become a power-based religion so far removed from what I feel was its original. I would want to take the man in my arms and use his own words.
“Forgive them … they know not what they do.”
About the Author
Rob Chapman is a mystery entertainer; Druid of the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids; and a initiate of the Alexandrian tradition of the Craft. He has spent several years running public events and retreats as a founder of the Earthworks Druidic Community, which unfortunately is no more. At present, he is putting his energies into developing his performance work and is married to the lovely Rowena.