What is SideQuest Sorcery?
We approach historical traditions with respect, scholarship, and critical inquiry, and engage symbolism, rituals, and storytelling as living technologies that convey and preserve meaning through each generation.
We neither demand belief and blind faith, nor dismiss mystery, instead holding a curious attitude of wonder and humility as we embrace uncertainty.
SideQuest Sorcery exists to cultivate curiosity, discernment, and meaningful experience through the study and practice of the Magical Art.
The magic we seek to manifest lives in our relationships with history, imagination, ceremony, and our own lived experience.
Our work invites curiosity to grow into wisdom, blossoming through study and experiment, contemplation and conversation, wonder and play.
We invite you to participate in the side quests that strengthen and deepen your experience of life and find your Life’s magic on roads less traveled.
“Magic is the first and last religion of the world,”
- Clive Barker, Imajica
Magic is the Art, Science, and Technology of consciously acknowledging and intentionally engaging the relationships within the living web of meaning woven by all sapient beings.
Because this web is continually reshaped by religion, philosophy, politics, language, and every-day life, magical practice adapts its symbols and sources of power while preserving the recurring human work of protection, healing, communion, knowledge, negotiation, and transformation.
Even still, Magic retains at its core a deeply human purpose, which SideQuest Sorcery defines as seeking reconciliation with the environment and those who live within it.
While some may approach the Magical Art as a means of exercising Power-Over others, we practice Power-With to the best of our ability, and view our Magic as an opportunity to foster attunement and alignment.
In this way, we honor the relationships that support and sustain us and protect against what does not have our best interests in mind. Through this avenue of Magic, we manifest the outcomes we truly desire.
Therefore, Magic serves as an adaptive ritual technology that operates through the relationships available within the cultural environment it exists in. As the cultural Zeitgeist changes, Magic translates its authorities, myths, symbols, and language while preserving, modifying, or recombining many of its fundamental operations.
Why the name “SideQuest”?
The name SideQuest comes from the worlds of fantasy literature, tabletop role playing games, and video games. The greatest treasures are often found by wandering off the path, exploring hidden places, and accepting unexpected adventures. Often, the side quests are what gives the Player a better advantage to complete the main quest, offering powerful tools and hidden skills to develop.
Instead of struggling to separate the reality of magical practice from fiction, superstition, stage illusion, or popular culture, SideQuest honors their co-existence and how they inform one another to create a larger whole. The stories we tell, the games we play, the myths we inherit, and the rituals we practice all express our enduring fascination with mystery, transformation, and the unseen. Modern fantasy often preserves echoes of ancient symbols, archetypes, and magical ideas, even as it reshapes them via the imagination and desire of those who retell the stories in new ways.
Part of the Mission of SideQuest Sorcery is to bridge this apparent divide. Uplift the Truth of Magic that dwells within modern fantasy, while preserving the integrity of our practices. While our practice is rooted in the serious study of historical magical and spiritual traditions, SideQuest Sorcery seeks to embrace joy, wonder, creativity, and adventure that fantasy inspires. We believe that books, films, games, and legends can become gateways to deeper learning. They invite us to trace beloved symbols, myths, and concepts back through history to the cultures and worldviews that birthed them.
For most people, magic is not the center of everyday life. Choosing to study, contemplate, practice, or simply find a wand-for-hire, is in itself a side quest. It becomes a deliberate step away from the ordinary to seek wisdom, cultivate meaningful relationships, and discover hidden treasures within ourselves. Like every good side quest, the goal is never to remain apart from the main quest, but to return with greater understanding, new skills, renewed perspective, and perhaps a little more wonder and joy than when the journey began.
