Dweomer (Deverry Cycle)

Dweomer (Deverry Cycle)

Dweomer (pronounced "dway-OH-mair") is the fictional system of magic depicted in Katharine Kerr's novels of Deverry. This system is described by Kerr as being rooted in "what we might call 'British revival Rosicrucianism,'" from the late Victorian age to the 1920s, which itself drew from Renaissance Rosicrucianism. According to Kerr, the lines of influence in her fictional magical system trace back through this Renaissance "Christian Kaballah" via the Jewish Kaballah to Late Roman Gnosticism. (As an inside joke, some of Kerr's characters refer to a scroll by a certain "pseudo-Iamblichos": there was a genuine Iamblichos writing (in Greek) in the late Roman world about magical topics.) There are also some similarities between Kerr's dweomer and ideas found in Theosophy.

In the glossaries to her novels, Kerr defines dweomer as "in its strict sense, a system of magic aimed at personal enlightenment through harmony with the natural universe in all its planes and manifestations; in the popular sense, magic, sorcery." Most characters who practice dweomer do not do so out of a desire for personal power, but consider themselves to be the servants the Great Ones, supernatural beings which are analogous to the Buddhist concept of Bodhisattvas.

Although the word "dweomer" derives from Old English, Kerr uses it as an English equivalent to the Deverrian word dwunddaevad (Deverrian, in the universe Kerr has created, is a Celtic language), in keeping with the literary conceit that the novels are English translation of Deverrian books.

Throughout the novels, Kerr repeatedly (if subtly) emphasises that although dweomer magic can produce spectacular physical effects, it is chiefly a spiritual pursuit, and not a replacement for science or technology.