google
yahoo
bing

The Magus


39 Responses to “The Magus”


  • hello everybody,

    does anyone knows where on the web its likely to find more information about the Tradition of the Sun? Would be nice if any onyone could help….

    [Reply]

  • The magus impressed me deeply. I would easily fall in love for him.
    I love his being alone in communion with nature, his wisdom, the way he waits and falls in love with Brida,the way he teaches her, the way he is tempted and resists the temptation, his joy when Brida finally realizes he is her other part, his renunciation and hope for the future. He reminds me of my other part and is a character I’ll always carry in my dreams. Bravo for him!

    [Reply]

  • Namaste,
    The Magus… what a fabulous character. He’s the wisdom of the ages. He’s forced to teach by example or through clever tactics because he’s the teacher of the Tradition of the Sun. Of course, my first thoughts are of Merlin. He seems like a man out of time even though he has a specific history from a specific zeitgeist. It’s as if he’s always roamed that forest and always will.

    He loved Brida before he knows her because he knows the traditions. He’s learned the lessons of his mistakes and accepts his challenge. The end, where he lets Brida go, is both sad for his sake but joyful because he’s free of his mistakes of the past, if anyone can ever truly be. He may not have the soul mate who came to him in the forest, but his future seems hopeful in the end.

    It’s hard for me to write about this character coherently because he affected me deeply. In many ways, I see this as his story as much as Brida’s. She takes him where he needs to go.

    Love to you

    [Reply]

  • I really loved this book, but was dissapointed, or maybe perplexed is the right word.

    We all know that to achieve love we have to take risks, but to me The Magus didn’t take that many, he played safe, within his boundaries, within his rules of right and wrong, within his definitions of love.

    He didn’t risk all for love, infact he let love walk away from him…. or maybe I am wrong, and eventually she comes back to him…

    But what happened to his Fight for Love…? His Good Fight?

    He just picked a daisy and threw it back into the field, and this doesn’t make sense to me….

    Just my thoughts

    [Reply]

    Pandora Reply:

    But he felt desire, you desire your Soulmate, because that is what draws you through the aeons to search for one another…. otherwise surely you wouldn’t bother?

    Love
    Pandora

    [Reply]

    Sakura Reply:

    i personally think that the Magus was trying to be selfless since he wanted Brida to be happy. as what the book said, love is liberty. where there is liberty, there is happiness. at the right time, and the right place, at the back of the magus’ mind, brida will come back to him. he just made way for her and lorens’love story to take place on that lifetime first. which i think, is a very giving thing to do. just like how God gave us free will. in time’s end, it is already innate in us to find our way back to Him.

    [Reply]

    Sakura Reply:

    you know what’s so weird guys? i met up with an old friend whom i have not seen for almost 8 months. i actually saw him already 2 years way back through a common friend and asked her if he was single, but my friend said he wasn’t and was with someone. so knowing that it was only going to cause me problems, i had to forget about it since i was also just a few months getting over my previous relationship. then the year after that, and one more break up after, i saw him again at a party and i was with the same friend when i saw him a year back. he was single already and boy was i excited for my friend to introduce me to him. when i got to talk to him, he was such a nice guy and the chemistry was there in an instant! we exchanged numbers and the next day he sent me an sms. i told him about the story about me when i saw him last year and wanted to meet him but he was with someone. he asked me out but i declined cos it was too soon to come over to his place since we just met personally and knowing that he knows that i LIKED him, he might take advantage of the whole situation. so he apologized and made it clear to me that he doesn’t have such intentions. still i was not convinced and got invitations for coffee from him and i dissed each and every invitation. then i got hired overseas, we never saw each other again. until i paid a visit back to my home country for a day. i thought of emailing him and so he agreed to meet up with me. first date with him after months! haha. the chemistry was there right away. i felt happy to see him and we were comfortable with each other. we talked about stuff that went on with our lives after our previous meeting months ago…everything!!! he told me that before we met up he had a dream that we were together in a cinema watching a movie. so weird! then i bought this book with him…brida. its just so weird because i then found myself in a situation thinking that he is my soulmate. i cannot explain it but i can just feel it. since then on, a part of me has been awakened and i then feel complete. everytime i am with him i am happy and it is always a new experience when i am with him. i know that he also feels the same way as he makes time for me everytime i am in the country even though he is a very busy man. what do u think guys? should i follow my inuition or is my mind just playing tricks on me? what do u think about the whole situation? as they say, two heads are better than one and i could always use some enlightenment. thanks!

    [Reply]

    Goldmund Reply:

    He did not “let her go” - she does not belong to him, and he expressed the highest form of love by helping her decide on her own what her path is. and, by the way, they will ALWAYS be together, because love does not recognize boundaries…

    [Reply]

  • tatjana milosevic

    I wish I read this story when I was 18 ..:(

    [Reply]

  • tatjana milosevic

    that is you….

    [Reply]

  • I have just been reading through these threads and I’d like to thank Savita and Goldmund for your very wise words which I agree with so much.

    12 months ago I had a very significant dream which was the first step on my personal journey. This dream lead me to travel half way across the world to New Zealand and to really transform myself. 2 months before going there I decided to email a complete stranger on the internet (something I had never done before) to, ask if he wanted to meet up for a coffee when I got to Auckland and that was how I made contact with my teacher. To my surprise he replied to my message and we spent the next few months discussing love, suffering, souls, spirituality, the Universe and nature . At the time I didn’t realise that we had made contact in order to learn from each other, that he was going to teach me many important lessons and lead me to experience so much. My emotions took me over and I started to have expectations, I felt that I had found my soul mate and that when we met everythng would fall into place.

    However once those expectations arose within me things started to become frustrating, he never gave me the answers I wanted, his messages became shorter but still contained important lessons but I couldn’t see past this. I stopped listening to my feelings and started to try and steer this relationship into a direction that I wanted it to go and started to say things that I thought he wanted to hear as opposed to what I really felt. Every time I wanted him to open up and share his inner feelings he appeared to become more closed. The more I did this the more it was going in the opposite direction and as the time got closer for us to meet various events happened that kept delaying our meeting.

    He was always honest with me in his emails, he never promised me anything and I started to question what it was I wanted, why I was feeling the way I did and what my real intentions were and during the time we were in contact I started to really open my eyes, to look deep inside myself and really started to listen to my feelings and my intuitions. Things he said and more importantly more of the words he didn’t say took me into many new direction and I started to see myself for who I was and this was both a shock and surprise, positive and negative aspects but I realise that I would never have seen this and learnt this if he hadn’t come into my life. We did get to meet on two occassions, both very brief but interesting experiences for me.

    Over the 5 months we were in contact he really helped me to look at many, many things including love and what love really means and it was not what I had thought it was at all. Love is about sharing, listening, learning and freedom and not being scared to let go. I do believe that he is my soul mate, he came into my life for a reason and he helped me to heal part of my soul and to find myself, as scary as it was and some days it was a real struggle. I also realise that although I do believe he’s my soul mate I don’t believe we are meant to be together. I believe that I need to meet another soul mate to put into practice what he taught me.

    I am now learning to let him go, I have tried to make contact with him several times but he isn’t answering my messages. I have been listening to my feelings and they have been telling me for the past month that it is time to walk the next part of my path without him, he has been on the path and walked beside me for many, many months now and he will forever remain part of my journey but I have to let go now.

    When I went to New Zealand I knew that I had to go for a reason, I had no idea what that reason was but I was convinced it was something important, that there would be a transformation as my dream had lots of butterflies in it. I never imagined that such a huge change was going to occur.

    I bought Brida at the airport on my flight back home and read the last page about 10 minutes before touching down in the UK. I totally connected with the book, it blew me away, it just struck a chord with what I had been going through and what I was feeling and where I want to go with regards to Wicca and learning about the Tradition of the Moon. The paragragh near the end where the Magus takes the flower and gives it to Brida and what he says brought tears to my eyes and expressed so much how I feel about my teacher.

    [Reply]

    Goldmund Reply:

    Dear Sharon,
    I am very glad about so many revelations you have achieved on your Path. The Path is not easy at some points, but the joy the revelations discovered while traveling it, overcome all pain, and blow away many dark clouds on the horizon ahead of us.
    There are many of us who recognized ourselves in the role of Brida or Magus in Paulo’s books, and I will personally stay grateful forever for that book (and others as well), for helping me not to ruin the very similar relationship.
    The same way, your own teacher had to do what he did, to suppress your contacts, and thus force you to change. He gave you the greatest gift ever: the freedom!

    [Reply]

  • Tha Magus… oh the Magus. Right from the start I could feel the Magus’s pain because he knew he had to let Brida go. I never mistrusted him and don’t know why some of you are saying so. I had the impression that he was a very wise man, and had a plan and was going to see through it. Well, I had the feeling that he knew it would happen, (whatever happened with Brida) he wasn’t pushing it, nor trying to make it happen because he knew, one way or another, it would happen.

    It’s like having that calm reserved reassurance… that’s sexy in a man.

    When he was at the bar with Brida, I wanted to be in the story, instead of her, I thought we would have so much fun together drinking a bottle of wine!

    [Reply]

    Sakura Reply:

    yes, that is right carolina. his whole attitude towards the whole situation is so sexy. i, myself can see a part of me in him in a way that he tries to compose himself when needed. like me in love, before plunging into the dark night, i step out of the picture first to see the set up. he always tries to get a hold of his emotions through reason. he knows how to tap into his feminine and masculine side by doing that. so i guess in a way, i do know how to tap into my masculine side. when needed.

    [Reply]

  • In the beginning I didn’t know whether to trust the Magus or not, but by the end I grew to respect him and he made me experience for a moment a lonely soul who is here to teach but also to learn and he finds fullfillment through his own growth and acceptance that we don’t own anybody but we can carry the love we have for the people that we meet and be enriched through our encounters. I was glad he made peace with himself and still had the ability to love. blessings to you Paulo Coelho.
    aliza

    [Reply]

  • he’s one of the best charachters.
    I imagine him as a magus I met many years ago.
    We shared a part of my path toghether an I firmly believe that we were two souls linked toghether.
    It’s nice to read that also other people had the same experience. It makes you feel well and a part of the World.

    PS where have Paulo form Austria; Thelma, Savita Vega and all the others gone?
    With the new assets of the blog I almost don’t read your comments anymore.
    Are you there? how are you? I miss You .
    Love Chris

    [Reply]

    Savita Vega Reply:

    I’ve been wondering the same thing! I think the blog has expanded in a way. Now it is like this palatial house with many rooms. The forum is the main room, but there are all these other wings to the house - each book - and in each wing, many more rooms. It’s possible to stay in this house for many days, chatting away, and not run into the people you know. It’s wonderful though, really - like being a summer guest at some huge estate.

    Missing you too!

    Love,
    Savita

    [Reply]

  • Reading “Brida” was both - a terrifying and relieving experience for me; terrifying, because I was stunned reading about my own experience with a girl that was my student (about 90% of the book mirrored it), and relieving, because in your book I found a confirmation I was right to do exactly the same things The Magus did. Most of the time I was balancing on the razor’s edge like Don Juan’s benefactor Don Julian, but managed not to undergo to many temptations and obstacles. I was finally rewarded with a pleasure of awakening a lovely creature, capable of “changing” the world, sent out to fulfill whatever her destiny may be…

    Dear Paulo, thank you very much for sharing your life and your visions. It’s always been a good feeling of having someone at cold nights to share the fire with …

    [Reply]

    Amy Reply:

    How do I sign up for a teacher, a Magus??

    what do you teach Goldmund? So many people have teachers and masters and gurus, I guess I haven’t been one of the lucky ones.

    [Reply]

    Goldmund Reply:

    Dear Amy,

    there are so “many ways to reach the top of the mountain”. There is a saying: “when the student is ready, the master appears”, meaning: your mere will to learn what destiny places on Your Path will summon people and situations to teach you what you need to know.

    We tend to to call the people we learn the most about life and spirituality from: teachers, masters, gurus, but, in fact, all people, animals, objects, situations around us teach us something - the only thing you have to do is to watch and listen.

    Of course, there are people to teach you, but we are just ordinary people who discovered that the world is much more than it appears, and started studying that, reaching at a certain point, the urge to share with others what we have learned, in order to awake the others, so this world may become better.

    Personally, I started by feeling there is more than we usually perceive, digging here and there, swallowed “the red pill”, fought my own way, got in touch with many different people and stuff, and finally started sharing what I picked, the way described in “Brida” as “The Path of The Sun”.

    But no matter how much knowledge any teacher have collected and used it to evolve, compared with Life itself, we are just students …

    [Reply]

    aditya Reply:

    Goldmud !

    what is this ‘just students’, sounding almost as if it is somthing wrong, inferior, to be students ?

    love
    aditya

    Goldmund Reply:

    I was just pointing out that no matter how wise teachers are, they will always be “just students” when compared with Life/God…
    Peace

    Savita Vega Reply:

    Dear Amy,
    I have had a “guru” at one time in my life - still my guru really, because now he lives inside me - but that was an experience that took me quite by surprise, not one that developed because I was consciously seeking a teacher. The thing is that when I look back over my life, I have had so many gurus/guides/teachers - almost too many to list. One was an ex-leader of a New Orleans street gang; another, a floral designer; one, the CEO of a retail company. One is my daughter. My dogs have taught me many many things, and I don’t just mean things about the mundane aspects of life. I mean truly profound and transformative spiritual lessons. For the past three years, the forest surrounding my home, has assumed that same role. Once I lived on a cliff overlooking the ocean - the waves and the tides, the wind, the ever-changing nature of the ocean itself became my guru, my guide. The Universe reveals its mysteries to us in so many ways, and it always provides precisely the lessons we need and are ready to learn at that time.

    The term “guru” seems to be a popular buzzword these days, and I see so many people actively seeking a teacher or spiritual guide, someone to call their “guru.” But the thing is that teachers do not always come in the packages we expect. They can take on many forms that look nothing like the stereotype. Sometimes it is not a person at all, but an activity that we are engaged in on a regular basis, something so simple as sweeping the floor or washing dishes. Almost anything that you engage in consistently and with mindfulness can become your “teacher.” It does not always have to be a person, and when it is a person, it may not be the person you are expecting to take on that roll.

    I would suggest this: look into your life, look deeply, and you may discover that you already have a teacher or teachers of which you were not fully aware. Although some might like to convince us otherwise, I don’t think we have to be someone “special” to have a spiritual guide or guru. At every phase of our life, the Universe provides for us precisely the teachers that we need. I don’t know if you’ve read The Alchemist, but it provides some very good examples of precisely this phenomenon. Yes, Santiago met the Alchemist (his “official” guru), but the desert was also his teacher and even way before that, his sheep.

    Gurus, teachers, guides - they take on the strangest, most unexpected forms. And we don’t have to wait to be “worthy” - they are always there. All we have to do is open our eyes and recognize them for what they are.

    Wishing you all the best!

    Much Love,
    Savita

    [Reply]

    Goldmund Reply:

    Great post Savita! Thank you very much for it!!!

    Angela Reply:

    i had my own magus.

    at the time i didnt understand it, and now i thank him for life he brought back in myself.

    [Reply]

    Marta Adriana Reply:

    Wow!

    [Reply]

  • I was soooo upset when the magus decided to let Brida go, i guess i could never be that selfless…what an appealing character full of mistery…

    [Reply]

  • I like The Magus very much :)

    [Reply]

  • Ladies…

    I am very impress with both of your comments… and I love the fact that Paulo is giving us the opportunity to share our ideas and points of view…

    I do believe though, that Magus was not in excile on just punishment literally… I think that he was out in excile while in the search for something more meaningful… hence his wisdome and knowledge.

    I see him distant not because he is physically distant… of course in the novel he is, but knowing our lovely writter the way I understood Paulo through Magus personality and ways, Paulo wanted to point us, I understand, to that place in which the real knowledge and the responsibility of that knowledge merged together.

    Magus is a strong figure, he has conviction on his believes, but he is still open enough to learn more things, in this case, to learn and respect the needs of Brida. And although he is strong, he shows this soft, carring, and loving side of him… characteristics that only comes with wisdome, and from those that has evolved enough to be selfless and to be able to love to the point of letting go, if that makes the object of his affections happier…

    Alexandra, I can’t agree with you more, I will love to find a man like him, and also, like you said… Magus is teaching us something even deeper, perhaps if we pay more attention to the things that really have value the so called “small great things” in live, if we get away from the noise like you said… we migth be in route to the discovery of a bigger and stronger spirit within ourselves…

    [Reply]

    Alexandra Reply:

    Thank you…
    Love
    Alexandra

    [Reply]

  • What a charming mysterious character. Wish I meet one as him, for myself… Could be my ideal man. I loved the fact that he let Brida discover things with her own struggle, and so she could develop. Why every holy man, or Magus are usually described as a lonely man, living far from humans, as here in a forest or near the top of a mountain? Nature is a medium to spirits? Or we have our mind clear if we are far from the usual noisy urban life?

    [Reply]

    Savita Vega Reply:

    Good questions, Alexandra! Well, as we know, the Magus was in the forest as a sort of punishment. He was in exile. During that exile, it became his “home.”

    But as for all those other holy men sitting atop their lonely mountains - that’s fine if that is their path, but, as I have already tried it, I know that it is not my path. In fact, if we’re talking about men, it doesn’t even really impress me that much. It doesn’t really take a great deal of courage to climb to the top of a mountain and stay there, because, from up there, it looks like everyone else is below you.

    What I view as a far greater challenge is to hold true to your path and, at the same time, navigate through the daily reality of ordinary life - be a part of the world, take part in its struggles, face boldly its challenges, and yet still uphold a strong sense of oneself as a “spiritual” being. If there is a border between the spiritual realm (the realm of the occult) and the material realm, there are very few who are capable of freely navigating back and forth between both realms. It is easy to go to deep into the occult and get lost and thereby be unable to come back. It is equally easy to get caught up in the material world and forget one’s spiritual quest. Thus, the practice of jumping back and forth between the two worlds (inhabiting both realms at once) requires a certain agility that I just don’t see in someone who hides away in seclusion at the top of a mountain. It is easy to maintain a spiritual path when one is surrounded by all things spiritual; it is much more difficult to do this when one is “in” the world, taking an active part in it at every step. Our dear Paulo, I think, is a perfect example of the latter - a true Magus!

    [Reply]

    Victoria Reply:

    Savita, very nicely written, and I agree with you entirely. I experienced a man like this once. He taught me so much, counseled me and led me when I took the first steps on my personal journey. Several months into our relationship as mentor/student I thought that he was my soul mate, my twin flame, he was my teacher but I came to the realization that he had the knowledge to teach but kept himself from the world, he didn’t care to associate outside of his very small world. He put me out on my own, I was so frightened, lost, but I took what he had taught me and put it to use and learned that I could feel loss and grief without becoming a ’sad’ person. I experienced deep emotions without allowing myself to dwell in them. I cried for my loss while smiling at a beautiful sky - it was that day that I realized his role in my life. He let me go because he gave me as much as he could and it was now time for me to continue on my path on my own,to learn and grow and experience new teachers and use the tools he gave me to discern for myself those ideas that I chose to explore. That wonderful teacher, guru, mentor, friend gave me Brida last summer as a gift. He told me that the story was about me. I am forever grateful for my Magus and the wisdom and strength it took to make me leave him.

    [Reply]

    Savita Vega Reply:

    What a wonderful/sad/amazing/inspiring story, Victoria! It does sound like you are Brida! How wonderful to have had the opportunity to meet your Magus, and even greater that he is still in your life to give you the beautiful gift of this book.

    Love,
    Savita

    Goldmund Reply:

    He loves you unthinkably and you are brave as much! When teacher and student who are destined to learn from each other (teacher also develops herself/himself due to the student), it is the same as falling in love.

    From student’s point of view is very hard to discern, and her/his “final exam” is to accept that. Otherwise, she/he may fall into trap of wanting to possess the teacher for ever, being afraid to conquer the world by her his own meanings.

    Of course, life is full of very interesting plots and twists, and they may be meant for each other. But, if teacher is forced into relationship before student is strong enough to make her/his own decisions, they are both doomed in the most horrible way: they can easily get split hurt and stop developing each other which is the worst thing to happen.

    The pain of losing a student sent to you by “Higher Will”, and becoming responsible for breaking of her/his (and Magus’ own, as well) development, because of weakness and bad judgment is devastating! The pain of knowledge that she/he turned the student into wreckage, could have even killed Magus’ very being. And there is also the consequence of using the power for his own selfish goals, the reason he exiled himself for.

    In my personal experience, the only way to preserve or heal myself from wounds caused by others, is to seek the answer to the question “why”, for the pain may be the powerful force to move us, as Paulo stated in “Manual” that warrior may be fighting his own way, caused by carrying some childhood/adulthood hurts buried inside.

    Magus’ exile was to confront himself and realize he was selfish in his previous usage of power, which is in fact the black magic. His repentance came through Brida, and was very hard concerning the fact what they were to each other.

    We can find the motif of teacher/student relationship in many works of art and literature, some of them went wrong like Merlin being seduced by Nimue or in great Ang Lee’s film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”. But maybe the best “recipe” was given by Richard Bach the author of “Jonathan Livingstone Seagull”:

    “If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they’re yours; if they don’t they never were.”

    Goldmund Reply:

    When you love someone deeply and completely, you must do what he did - let her develop her own way, even if that could mean the end of their “relationship”. As Paulo quoted his master’s words in Warrior Online, or in Fatima’s words in “Alchemist”, we do not possess those we love. We possess only “the energy of love” we beam at people we love wherever they are.

    I believe that people in relationship must develop in two ways simultaneously: as individuals, because we are all different and perceive and learn uniquely, and together-as-one, because we learn from each other what we are missing, and approving what we are both good at. The lack of any of these two aspects, produce just an unhappy relationship.

    And I do agree with you - leaving “the usual noisy urban life” of a capital for a remote, never-heard-of village is better in my own experience. One gets closer to her/his nature, or nature generally. But that is a personal call, and must follow our real, deep, inner need. Otherwise we may found ourselves as unhappy as before.

    Not every Magus chooses forest or mountain seclusion - there are some of them who live in the forest of skyscrapers :D The place they live is chosen by their path - meaning: the reason what they are called upon to do, sometimes even not aware why…

    [Reply]

    Alexandra Reply:

    Interesting…
    Maybe you are right.

    [Reply]

    Karin Reply:

    Goldmund,
    This makes me curious; are you saying that some Magus do not know what their task is? Are there even Magus that don’t know that they are teachers, and that they act only on instinct doing good without knowing that they do?

    Karin

    [Reply]

    Goldmund Reply:

    Yes dear Karin, there are many people in this world completely unaware of occult stuff, never being in touch with literature, psychology, philosophy etc., but still giving good advices, helping and doing all sorts of good things to others…

Comment Page 1 of 11

Leave a Reply