So when I miss a day of posting, it’s a terrible event and I have to post the next day. When Derek does it, he gets to write it off as “thesis prep.” Seem fair? I don’t think so either. I’ll be sure to drop a box during his move next week to protest this inequality in our posting expectations. That’ll show him! I may even jangle some hangers!

In the meanwhile, I’ll continue posting about the development of my magic system for my first novel. I actually did a short  excerpt as some notes to myself between drafts. My original intention had been to post that but I got a tad long winded during Part 1. So here’s the first bit.

 

A Treatise on Magick

by Scholar Henrik Wulfgang

 

It is a fact that the primeval energy of the cosmos flows through all things. Within each object, each natural item beats the softest drum of the universe’s heart. The vibrations from these essences can be felt through the natural aether that buoys all objects. A trained mind can perceive these vibrations, can sense their differing frequencies and react with them.

This is the core principle of magick. It requires the carefully trained and honed senses of the practitioner to navigate the aether and its cacophony of noise to pinpoint the source of certain frequencies. A trained practitioner recognizes the very same frequencies that they, themselves, project and learn to focus and manipulate their own projections in order to funnel the natural energies through the aether to produce the desired results. In this manner, a practitioner could funnel the heat energy of a flame into a focused concentration around the reactive energy of another object to create a spontaneous combustion.

However, it requires more than just mere concentration of one’s own energy to manipulate the aether. Due to man’s natural own peculiarities in their own projections, they cause certain repeatable contaminations to different sources which either interfere with their channelling or mutate it into a wholly different form through a process known as transmutation.

It is this mixing of different energies that gave rise to the classification of different magicks and to the development of the glamours in particular. It seems that man’s higher cognitive functioning often transforms even the basest and wildest energies into a subtle perceptual form. It is the belief of this scholar that human energy contains within it a certain higher quintessence that has a profound energizing effect upon most energies. This excites the energy frequencies, causing them to work on a higher level output. While this would create a diffusion of concentrated power, this scholar feels it is a more pure and divine creation that turns even the rawest energy form into something more sophisticated.

Human channelled energies can thusly be a vivid representation of their primal forms but to be elevated to such a level that they no longer possess the entropic qualities of their previous sources. Simply put, human transformed energy is insubstantial. It is more cerebral. It works on a perceptive level while being channelled harmlessly on a physical sense. A human practitioner can turn the raw fiery essence of heat into a blinding conflagration to the senses but leave the actual natural world unaffected by the energies. It turns highly reactive substances and makes them inert. It makes even the most languid of energies fluid and flowing.

These are what the laymen call illusions. Because these energies lack a lasting impact, they are under the impression that the energy never truly existed in the first place. This is incorrect. Energy always exists within the aether, it is just the manipulation of that energy that creates the different effects. Essentially, man can move the energies about the aether of their own accord regardless of the natural frictions inherent in the rest of the essences.

Because of man’s natural affinity to the production of glamours, these techniques are typically the first taught to the initiates. While it takes a tremendous amount of skill and at least some creativity to form these glamours into the most remarkable forms witnessed, the basic glamours are quite easy for beginning initiates to grasp. One need only to step into the classroom to hear the phantom sounds of the beginner effortlessly ringing about the hall to understand our own natural affinities.

This scholar believes the reason for this affinity is due, in part, to man’s highly developed social sense. Few animals appear to possess the natural tendency to perceive and interact with high order social structures and these complex relationships are wholly unfeasible in lower based life. Quite often, the status and rank of a member is determined by almost imperceptible cues and indicators and, as such, our minds are primed to attentiveness for these subtle elements. It is in manipulating this natural propensity that a practitioner can trigger the most subtle of man’s perceptions and play into his natural biases.

While glamours may be the most common, they are certainly not the only skill to be taught. The second classification of magick arose  through the manipulation and experimentation of various other substances.

Wards are based on the unmoving energies of rocks and earth. While man has a very transient energy, earth does not. It is this immovability, this unyielding force that gave rise to the development of the wards. These are, perhaps, the sorcerer’s most famous abilities. These are static, focused fields that require a physical sourced anchor. The first wards were protective, creating fields that would alert the practitioner to any outside influence that disturbed its natural order.

However, through the careful application of transmutation, wards could be created to produce just about anything. Most remarkable are the anti-magick wards. These incredibly powerful fields dampen and restrict the flow of aether through their area. Most will weaken the abilities of a sorcerer within, reducing the amount of energy they can channel from all sources. The most powerful, however, can reduce the movement of energy so much that a sorcerer can find that he is just unable to channel enough energy to produce any magickal effect at all!

As with all magicks, the advancement of the knowledge on wards came through the creative use of their energies. Some sorcerers were able to create small, inverted fields that rippled within the aether at such a frequency that they could be tracked far further than one could naturally. Other fields flow through the natural energies of their areas that they can accurately reproduce any changes within, allowing a sorcerer to sense all activity within its area.

The final field of magickal inquiry is in the charm classification. The most recent magickal discovery, through the application of advanced channelling techniques, many prominent scholars have demonstrated that the natural energies of items can be increased or decreased if properly admixed with similar or opposing energies. Thus, a sorcerer could physically turn a small flame into a roaring blaze or turn the strike of a thunderbolt into the most harmless of jolts. These charms are, perhaps, the most misunderstood by the layman’s mind.

To the uninitiated, charms can give the impression that the sorcerer is conjuring or creating new energies seemingly from nowhere. As previously state, this is impossible within the aether. To create a flame from nothing, that object must first have a very reactive energetic source. Then, the practised sorcerer could fill that source with even greater reactive energy that causes that source to ignite, reaching its potential energetic state.

The practical application of these techniques, however, are rarely so obvious. A charm can make just about anything better: a charmed sword is sharper, a charmed sweetroll is sweeter and a charmed door is stronger. Likewise, one could induce a state of weakness into substances by interposing contrary energies. The trained sorcerer could cause a new sword to become rusted and brittle, the tastiest cake to turn dry and bland or make even the sturdiest wall crumble at the slightest touch.

However, in order for any charms to reach such effectiveness, the sorcerer must have an intimate knowledge of the properties of its target and their spell’s ingredients. They must know the exact type of energy produced by sandstone compared to marble in order to properly enhance or detract from it. Otherwise, they will find they have burned through their ingredients and produced nothing or worst, cause an aetheric flareback from the unused energies. Furthermore, a sorcerer must be careful to not naturally contaminate the spell with their own innate energy else they will produce a rather useless glamour effect which will do nothing but reveal the amateur abilities of the practitioner.

These three techniques – glamours, wards and charms – form the foundation of modern magickal study. They are well established principles from which all other research is based. The proposed existence of other techniques or forms of energy are wholly hearsay lacking any applicable empirical evidence. Most are based on the exaggerated accounts of historical abilities captured by past historians working with an incomplete knowledge of magickal practice and theory.

To understand further the magickal practices and how a sorcerer can use these principles in a practical setting, I would like to draw the curious reader to my next paper on the components of Ritual and Invocation.