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Sympathetic Magic
Sympathetic magic often swirls around the Words column, I find, as post-publication events align with the column's theme.
The term 'sympathetic magic' was coined by Sir James Frazer in his monumental 1890 Golden Bough for the deep-rooted human belief that natural events can be controlled by making images or imitations of the desired outcome. These beliefs are manifest in all animistic societies, where the natural world is thought to be controlled by spirits. The spectacular cave paintings in Europe, the increase rituals once practiced by Australian Aboriginals and the voodoo dolls of the Caribbean are all invoking sympathetic magic.
So, last month, I spoke of those occasional moments when we can use a favourite line from a treasured film or book, and within days of publication came an email with the heading: So long and thanks for all the fish. It was from Aska Siragusa and she thoroughly enjoyed her chance to use one of her favourite expressions as she resigned from Japan Energy to start her family.
For the younger PESApersons who came to Earth after hitchhiking was declared dangerous for your health, this is the title of Volume 4 of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe. It's a trilogy, of course. Earth is being demolished to make way for the new space highway and the dolphins leave this message of goodbye. The books were made into a film in 2005, and 'So long and thanks for all the fish' was the theme song.
(It goes without saying that Earth is being destroyed because Man has fouled it beyond repair, a situation that the far wiser dolphins lament. How could it be otherwise? But, I digress...)
In like fashion, or so it seemed to me, my references last month to the young lady's podium were quickly followed by my reading that actress Michele Pfeiffer 'had never lost the radiance and chops that made her a star'. Melons and buns might have occurred to a less literary-focussed mind, but 'chops'? But perhaps this was dat ole magic finally catching up because I did write about this curious use of 'chops' a year or so back.
I also wrote last month of Mike Hussey's good leave, and almost immediately thereafter learnt of the new ABC use of 'body' as a verb. The commentator first said that so-and-so had 'good body' and before I could say chops or podiums, he added that the player in question 'can body through them all day'.
I have complained before that these words spread faster than new species near a development site and before I got pen to paper this week, I heard it said that so-and-so 'bodies bodies well'. Clearly, 'to body' is now ABC-football-speak for 'bump' or 'block'.
Some PESApersons may wonder at the relevance of this to the petroleum industry but I was thinking of how things work in the boardrooms of some small companies – and some big ones too. The nexus is there in a quite central way, if you take the time to think about recent examples.
It is APPEA this week and before every session in the main auditorium an appropriately authoritative voice tells us what to do 'if a fire is alerted'. Last month it was disabled toilets and infringed cars; now it is alerted fires.
If there was a fire, and the alarm was sounded, it is those who heard the alarm that would be alerted, not the fire. While we're being alert about this, alert to is only used in the passive voice. You alert people to something or other; you do not alert to them, as a JV partner attempted recently.
I found myself wondering at APPEA if we needed some sympathetic magic there too. If we had some really good geological papers, might that attract others?
The decline in the number of major geological papers at APPEA has been a concern for many of us for a long time. The 'brain drain' into the WABS and EABS symposia is commonly blamed but I think this link is overstated. The last WABS was in 2004 and can hardly be blamed for the dearth of landmark APPEA papers on the North West Shelf in the years since.
Geoscientists decry the lack of good technical papers but many look down their nose at the APPEA Journal's lack of standing, and are part of the problem. Is the peer-review process thorough? Is it respected? If not, why not? This is our industry's main annual conference. Why is participation not more keenly sought and resepected?
Maybe it's time for a review of the APPEA papers model.
For instance, I have long favoured a return to fewer papers. I don't think APPEA is the forum for detailed papers on the ichnofacies of some formation somewhere, or the finer points of the EBPC Act. There are other and better forums for those. I mean no offence to presenters of such subjects, this year or past; only to suggest that APPEA papers would be better chosen for their broad industry relevance and appeal. Recent papers that come to mind are those by Hess on their Exmouth Plateau blocks and ConocoPhillips's 2009 paper on the Browse Basin.
There were some good papers at APPEA this year, and some good presentations too. (Like many others, I was surprised that the PESA award for the best presented paper was not made this year. An explanation would be welcome.) Papers on shale gas and coal seam gas attracted good-sized audiences, doubtless mixing the informed and the uninformed, myself among the latter. They had the broad industry appeal I refer to and some were very informative.
APPEA plenary sessions are carefully constructed for interest and relevance, and generally succeed because of that. Perhaps we need to bring this same forethought and planning annually to the content overall?
Another area needing attention is APPEA Council support for the technial program. A culture of not contributing significantly to the industry's broader knowledge seems to have developed in some companies and they need to be encouraged otherwise by their peers on Council.
That's the thing about sympathetic magic: it doesn't happen by itself; you need to make it!
I remember with delight, parental and intellectual, my daughter's demonstration of this one Easter time many years ago, when she was four. We always hid coloured cooked eggs in the garden on Easter Sunday morning and the kids found them for breakfast. That morning we were late, and Rashan had been searching for long enough to realise there were no eggs to find.
She appeared to be waiting forlornly at the gate and I went down the path to console her and encourage her to wait a little longer for the Easter Bunny to bring the eggs. Instead, I found her full of confidence that all would be well.
Sensing something amiss in the world order, she had built a nest of tissues in a small basket, put in her chocolate eggs and set it by our front gate to attract the Easter Bunny. Then, to be doubly sure to gain his favour, she had propped against the nest her large Bugs Bunny badge! By the time she had shown me this and explained her reasoning, her mother had quietly planted the eggs in the garden and Rashan, turning quickly to gather them up, was as proud as any hunter-gatherer shaman ever was: her magic had worked.
It was the year after Noonkanbah and the message of The Golden Bough, with its chronicle of the human journey from magic spirits to religion, was fresh in my mind. I still thrill to think of that morning's revelation of how deep in our beginnings is the hope in sympathetic magic.
Peter Purcell
