[ Matt smiles faintly, in appreciation and elucidation both. His reading into Mesoamerican traditions isn't as thorough as some of the self-directed research he's done. And besides, there's no guarantee that what he's read is accurate--accurate to this version of Tezcatlipoca, at the very least. ]

Sure, [ Matt agrees with a nod. ] That makes sense to me. Symbol-sense. [ His lips quirk. ] There's always something metaphorical about magic, the way I practice it. You know, like ... you draw a magic symbol, and that's a metaphor for a piece of the world, which is a metaphor for heaven. The broader universe. Left-hand tantra has kind of a longstanding debate about whether you really eat the meat and fish, drink the wine, and have the sex, or whether it's just a metaphor. [ Matt makes a spinning gesture with his index and middle fingers. ] A metaphor inside a metaphor, I guess.