When I was first invited to Oxford, all these Harry Potter images went through my head. I thought, well, I suppose this is the old school opening its secret door to let in a philosopher wandering around in the twilight, calling in reinforcements.
Then I went to Oxford, and I wandered around in the city, saw all its beauties its nooks and crannies, the Turf Tavern where the Tolkien books all started from.
It has taken me by surprise, because after I was there the first time, I wanted to come back. But not to all the international academic flatteries. I do not care much for flattery, no I have wanted to come back, because I miss that door that I went through with my philosophers stone.
Now there is a grand symposium going on, and it calls for a redemption of England, a redemption for the very culture of England, and that is what we are truly talking about. If the Anglican church is to have a comeback, English culture needs a comeback as well.
But where do we find the roots to that culture. It has many roots, one of them on the blown marshland here in Angles. But another one, is that secret door deep down in the very basement of Oxford. It is called magic.
Ok, now you probably think that I am crazy, and all the philosophy that I am dabbling with finally got to my head, I lost it, and I am sitting, like Newton, in fumes of quicksilver trying to find the secret recipe of gold making. But the truth is, I have always been fascinated by magic. From my research on hermetism (Egyptian/greek philosophy), my connections to the cabalists, my adaptation in the order of the maltese knights.
Magic is what really make the world go around. That, and the fact, that most science really is magic in its roots (chemistry is really alchemy, psychology is kabbalism), makes me believe, that to truly find the roots of our world. You have to work a bit with magic.
This goes as well for the Anglican church. You have to open that door in yourself, believe again in the traditions of Oxford. Not the superficial traditions, but the traditions that truly built that place. Find your inner Gryffindor. Maybe not make a wand, but find your way to the light.
Because that is what true magic is; it is light and illumination. The belief in that there is a good thing in-between heaven and earth, and that is the truth of what we are.
You need to open yourself up, to that basic belief of your own creed, that there is light, and you have to take up that inner wand, and wield it for England again.
G-d bless the English, and may they find themself again, in Oxford, that arena of shakespearean eloquence.