Where Did the Word “Papermancy” Come From?

How I accidentally adopted the right suffix for what we do here.

Paper is — well, come on, you know what paper is.

-mancy, though, is a happy accident.

I am a fan and friend of author Ferrett Steinmetz, especially his “FLEX” trilogy. One of the conceits of that book is that some people have magical powers tied to some particular passion they had. Kind of like a “necromancer” had power from death, Ferrett had heroes like a “bureaucromancer” (who had magical abilities via paperwork) or another who could tell everything about a person based on which donut they picked out of an assortment.

Flex

Check out Flex - <p><b>The first in a&#160;&ldquo;sharp, weird, and wildly innovative&rdquo; urban fantasy series about a desperate father who embraces a forbidden magic in order to save his daughter (Cherie Priest, Locus Award winner and Hugo Award nominee)<br> </b><br> <b>Flex</b>: Distilled magic in crystal form. The most dangerous drug in the world. Snort it, and you can create incredible coincidences to live the life of your dreams.<br><br> <b>Flux</b>: The backlash from snorting Flex. The universe hates magic and tries to rebalance the odds; maybe you survive the horrendous accidents the Flex inflicts, maybe you don&rsquo;t.<br><br> <b>Paul Tsabo</b>: The obsessed bureaucromancer who&rsquo;s turned paperwork into a magical Beast that can rewrite rental agreements, conjure rented cars from nowhere, track down anyone who&rsquo;s ever filled out a form.<br><br> But when all of his formulaic magic can&rsquo;t save his burned daughter, Paul must enter the dangerous world of Flex dealers to heal her. Except he&rsquo;s never done this before&mdash;and the punishment for brewing Flex is army conscription and a total brain-wipe.<br><br></p> by Ferrett Steinmetz and Steven Meyer-Rassow on Bookshop.org US!

Angry RobotFerrett Steinmetz and Steven Meyer-Rassow

I loved that. And I decided that if I was going to learn to live a magical life through paper, I would be a papermancer — practicing papermancy.*

That was all well and good until things started getting real and the word started being seen in public. I had a moment of panic: maybe I should actually research what -mancy means.

Off to the etymology site, where I learned that the word is not only appropriate to English conventions, but perfect for what I wanted it to represent:

-mancy
word-forming element of Greek origin meaning "divination by means of," from Old French -mancie, from Late Latin -mantia, from Greek manteia "oracle, divination," from mantis "one who divines, a seer, prophet; one touched by divine madness," from mainesthai "be inspired," which is related to menos"passion, spirit" (from PIE mnyo-, suffixed form of root *men- (1) "to think," with derivatives referring to qualities and states of mind or thought). Compare mania.

“Divination by means of”. From roots of “be inspired”, “passion, spirit”, “to think”. That’s exactly what I was trying to harness with paper!

Yeah, I know, there’s stuff about divine madness, mania, blah blah blah. If you know anyone with ADHD, you know that’s a part of it too.

Papermancy was the perfect word for the path towards protecting and reclaiming my brain from the predatory rush and bustle of the attention economy.

And since I’m a big fan of learning in public and love hanging out with other brains like mine, I decided to make it into a community.

Welcome! I’m glad you’re here. Whatcha been inkin’ and thinkin’ lately? If you can comment here, feel free to let me know; otherwise you can always email me at gray@papermancy.art.

And if you have some time and some paper, check out my new tutorial on the Papermancy YouTube channel:

* I do need to acknowledge the existence of an Australian upscale stationery company using the same word — but I don’t think there’s much chance of us being mistaken for each other.