Comments by "Peter deWolf" (@StoneShards) on "The Occult, Video 192: Witch, Wizard, Warlock, Mage... Title Confusion!" video.

  1. Rank has usefulness with an order. While I may not be a member, I can appreciate the human value of the accomplishment indicated by rank, and respect the individual accordingly. But, yeah, general terms are interchangeable, as they are only crude indicators of a reality completely foreign to most people. If your purpose is to make distinctions amongst the terms, you can just go ahead and do so. As long as you define your terms clearly ahead of time, nobody's got any room to bitch. In the literature where such terminology goes undefined relative to other similar terminology, a "magician" is a master of occult means, a master of the natural forces not commonly understood. A "sorcerer" in this vein is like a magician wannabe who doesn't possess the "key" and so believes that by reciting certain word-sounds in a certain order he is exerting his will over nature, for instance. He's like a baby magician, learning by imitation and error, without awareness. "Witch" is "witch" in witchcraft/wicca; "warlock" probably arose as a misguided effort to introduce a modest ranking system. But witchcraft is so pagan that it wouldn't easily accommodate ranking systems. "Mage"/"magi" are very wise men. "Wizard" shouldn't be considered "occult" terminology, since it's a "regular" word meaning, "philosopher, sage, wise man". That's one of the reasons for its common usage: a word that is not "occult" (a lot of people are afraid of...that).
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