Law as Exoteric Magic
For some time now, I’ve been debating myself and others about the relative merits of law and policy versus mysticism and shamanism. This debate has led me to a realization: what we call “law” today functions in many ways as an exoteric form of magic that has largely replaced the esoteric magic of earlier times. It’s not clear if this shift is a net positive or something different.
For the record, I’m a lawyer by day. Philosopher by night.
This debate about law as exoteric magic isn’t merely an interesting academic comparison — it’s an insight into the evolution of human societies and how we’ve systematically transformed our relationship with power, authority, and the manipulation of reality (whether perceived or actual).
Both law and magic share a fundamental goal: to impose human will upon a complex and often chaotic world. The primary difference lies in their methods, visibility, and sources of claimed authority.
When we examine legal systems closely, the parallels to magical traditions become striking. Consider how both systems operate:
- Specialized language and incantations: Legal language, often called “legalese,” functions remarkably like magical incantations. Precise wording matters intensely in both traditions. A single misplaced phrase in a contract or spell can nullify its power or create unintended consequences. The Latin phrases that persist in legal practice — habeas corpus, prima facie, mens rea — even resemble the ancient languages often used in magical texts to enhance their mystery and power.
- Ritualistic proceedings: Court proceedings follow strict ritualistic patterns — rising when the judge enters, specific formulas for addressing the court, procedural rules that must be followed with precision. These mirror the careful rituals of traditional magical practice. Both create demarcated spaces where ordinary rules are suspended and specialized forms of power can manifest. We are transformed through such practices, whether we know it or not.
- Special garments and symbols: Judges in robes, lawyers in suits, the gavel, the bench elevated above the courtroom floor — all create a visual language of power and authority similar to the ceremonial garb and tools of the shaman or sorcerer. These garments transform ordinary individuals into representatives of a higher order, capable of channeling powers beyond their personal capacity.
- Appeal to higher authorities: Where shamans invoke spirits or deities, lawyers and judges invoke precedents, constitutional principles, or natural law — forces that exist beyond the individual and carry inherent authority. Both systems claim to access truths or powers that transcend human invention and represent deeper realities.
- Transformative declarations: The judge saying “I sentence you to five years” or “I declare you legally married” performs a speech act that instantly alters reality, much like magical declarations or blessings were believed to transform states of being. These performative utterances don’t merely describe reality — they change it.
Edward Peters’ work “The Magician, the Witch, and the Law” traces how, in the early Middle Ages, magic was initially considered a practical science requiring study and skill. However, as European society evolved, this tradition became associated with heresy and sorcery. This historical shift illustrates exactly the relationship I’m exploring — formal systems of power (law) gradually displaced mystical traditions.
It’s no coincidence that the rise of formalized legal systems coincided with efforts to marginalize and criminalize magical practices. Both represented competing systems for ordering society and resolving disputes. As centralized authorities consolidated power, they naturally sought to eliminate rival systems that might challenge their monopoly on legitimate force and judgment. The witch trials of early modern Europe can be understood partially as a struggle between competing paradigms of power — the rising rational-legal authority of the state versus the traditional authority of local practitioners.
The Critical Difference: Verification
A key distinction, albeit debatable, between legal “magic” and traditional esoteric magic lies in verification. When I file a lawsuit, and win, or draft and then pass legislation, the effects can be observed, documented, and directly attributed to specific legal actions I or others have taken. I can point to the document and say, “See, I did that by writing this law or bringing this case.”
Esoteric magic rarely allows for such clear demonstration of cause and effect. When a shaman performs a healing ritual and the patient improves, is it because of the ritual or other factors? This lack of verifiability has been a crucial weakness as our culture has grown increasingly empirical and evidence-based. I have yet to see any peer-reviewed data-based demonstrations of magic or incantation as it is traditionally understood.
However, this distinction isn’t as absolute as it might first appear. Legal outcomes still depend on interpretation, judicial discretion, and the complex interplay of various social factors. It’s all but impossible to say what truly caused what in complex chains of social interactions. A law passed with one intention may produce entirely different effects when implemented. Meanwhile, some traditional practices have developed their own forms of empirical verification through observation and experience over generations.
The difference might be better understood as one of transparency and collective agreement. Legal magic operates through explicit, publicly accessible mechanisms (and documentation) that a community has formally agreed to recognize as legitimate. Esoteric magic typically relies on forces believed to operate outside ordinary perception and consensus reality. There is not generally going to be a paper trail of esoteric magic in any particular situation. As societies have grown larger and more diverse, the appeal of systems based on explicit rather than implicit understanding has naturally increased.
The Cultural Shift
We’ve witnessed a profound transformation in how people seek solutions to problems. Few modern individuals consult witches, sorcerers, or shamans when facing difficulties. Instead, they seek out lawyers for legal issues, doctors for health problems, and various other professional specialists depending on the nature of their concerns.
This shift reflects the triumph of institutionalized, formalized systems over personalized, mystical approaches. The power to create binding rules and consequences has moved from local practitioners with claimed supernatural abilities to centralized authorities with codified procedures.
Yet despite this shift, the psychological and social functions remain remarkably similar. Both systems:
- Create a sense of order and predictability in an uncertain world
- Offer access to power through specialized knowledge
- Provide ritualistic processes for resolving conflicts
- Establish consequences for transgressing community boundaries
- Confer status on those who master their complexities
The specialized practitioners have merely changed their titles and credentials. The shaman or oracle has become the attorney or judge. The healer has transformed into the physician. Each still serves as an intermediary between ordinary people and forces too complex or powerful for them to engage with directly — whether those forces are spiritual entities or bureaucratic institutions.
What’s Been Lost and Gained
The transition from esoteric to exoteric magical systems has delivered significant benefits: greater transparency, more consistent application of principles, reduced arbitrariness, and systems that can scale to serve large, complex societies.
Yet something has been lost as well. The personal relationship between the shaman and the individual seeking help has been replaced by more impersonal institutional processes. The holistic approach of many traditional practices has given way to specialized domains of expertise. The experiential dimension of ritual participation has been reduced to procedural formalities.
The modern legal system also struggles with issues of accessibility. Just as esoteric magical knowledge was once the province of a select few, sophisticated legal knowledge remains largely inaccessible to those without specialized training or resources to hire experts.
Perhaps most significantly, legal systems operate primarily through external constraint rather than internal transformation. Where shamanic practices often sought to heal the whole person or restore harmony to a community, legal interventions typically focus narrowly on specific prohibited behaviors and their consequences. The law can declare someone guilty or innocent, but it rarely provides pathways to genuine redemption or reintegration.
This limitation has led to the development of complementary approaches like restorative justice, which attempts to recover some of the holistic and relational aspects of traditional dispute resolution. Similarly, the growing interest in therapeutic jurisprudence reflects a recognition that legal systems need to address not just external behaviors but internal healing and reconciliation.
Another crucial difference lies in the emotional dimension. Esoteric practices often explicitly engaged with fear, hope, grief, and other powerful emotions as integral to their effectiveness. Modern legal systems, in contrast, pride themselves on emotional detachment and “blind” justice. Yet emotions inevitably influence legal outcomes, operating as hidden variables rather than acknowledged components of the process.
Rather than seeing the rise of legal systems and the decline of magical practices as unrelated developments, we can view them as parallel and commensurate cultural tracks. Law didn’t simply eliminate magic; it transformed and institutionalized it, creating exoteric systems that perform many of the same functions while meeting the demands of a more complex, literate, and technological society.
This perspective helps us understand both the power of legal systems and their limitations. It reminds us that beneath the rational surface of modern institutions lie deep human needs for ritual, authority, and systems of meaning that transcend the individual.
Perhaps by recognizing law as a form of exoteric magic, we can approach it with both greater respect for its power and a more critical eye toward its limitations and exclusions. And perhaps we can also recover some of the valuable elements of more personalized, experiential approaches to problem-solving that traditional practices offered.
This recognition might also help explain why legal contests often take on such emotional and symbolic significance beyond their practical outcomes. A lawsuit isn’t merely a technical procedure for resolving disputes — it’s a modern form of combat by proxy, a ritualized performance with deep psychological resonance. When people speak of “having their day in court,” they’re expressing a desire not just for a favorable judgment but for a kind of ritual acknowledgment that transcends the specific legal questions at stake.
By recognizing the continuities between traditional magical practices and modern legal systems, we can better appreciate the deep psychological and social functions these institutions serve. We can also identify opportunities to evolve our systems further, creating approaches to conflict resolution and social ordering that combine the best elements of both traditions — the transparency and scalability of modern law with the personal engagement and holistic healing of traditional practices.
The words still hold power; we’ve just changed the language in which we speak them. The robes are different, the incantations have evolved, but we continue to engage in acts of transformation through ritualized speech and action. Each word, when we realize what words represent, is a magic spell, even in normal speech. Perhaps in acknowledging this continuity from the very origins of language, we can better understand magic in its various guises.
[Claude 3.7 assisted in writing this piece]
