[Home]Magic/Breakdown

ec2-3-80-129-195.compute-1.amazonaws.com | ToothyWiki | Magic | RecentChanges | Login | Webcomic

A breakdown of different types of magic based on how they interlink.

Power Source / Basis



Elemental Magic
A fundamental description of how magic works, magic is the atomic basis of everything.

Etheric Magic
A gauge field which (of course) can also be interpreted as a particle cloud. Any more questions?

Cognitive Magic
The innate power of the mind. Possibly closer to being a conduit for casting, as many uses of cognitive methods have an ethereal power source

Vital Magic
The power of the body diverted to the purposes of the mind

Animism
If everything is sentient then you don't need no stinkin' power source

Destiny Magic
An extension of a demonstrably real concept. Ever hear of anyone "jumping on the bandwagon"? This just takes things a little further and anthropomorphises a little.

Daemonic
A higher being (demon, angel, spirit, god, whatever) has power.
See [this] --Jumlian

Casting Method



Wisdom
Choosing the right method at the right time

Technomancy
One of a number of categories that is just an application of some kind of magic to an area of expertise. Other similar types include pyromancy, boreomancy, aquemancy etc.

Will
What I say, goes.  Reality can just get its nose out of the way if it doesn't want to get it out of joint!  --Vitenka
This is the casting method of Cognitive magicks of course.  --CorkScrew
Some, anyway.  Also some other methods use it.  --Vitenka
Well, this section includes the parts of Cognitive magic that I was trying to decide whether to dump in Casting Methods.

Sympathetic
Power is focused through the use of some kind of model or analogue of the target or medium, for example fetishes.

Daemonic
Cajole or coerce something else into lending you the power, or performing the act you desire.  Or channeling the power from another source.
Oftentimes involves some form of exchange.  Sometimes used as a conduit for power from one of the other sources.
Pray really really hard and maybe god/ess(s) will listen and answer.  The effects are the same as magic. --Naath
This is very much a casting method, as the god[ess] or other being draws their power from some system of magic. It's casting by proxy.
Note that I'm using daemon to cover pretty much any supernatural being, gods included.

Ingestion
Something magical is consumed.  This imbues the consumer with its power.  (Taking power over the thing it is linked to is sympathetic.)




There are of course a huge number of ways of going about *using* these methods involving (possibly) ceremony, organisation, lots of people, lots (and LOTS) of stuff, performing it all in archaic languages, substances designed to cause hallucination/relaxation (I know of no method that uses alcohol for this purpose, Cannabis is fairly commonly used as are severall varieties of mushroom).  They are allso applied to a number of religeous beliefs (sometimes magic is incorporated into other worship, sometimes it is seperate) or absence of belief, some organised faiths prefering to use one method over another but not allways with complete consensus. Most modern books on magick appear to concentrate on the form and conduct of such ceremonies giving instructions to be followed so I'm not about to copy stuff here, besides you ought to learn such things either from other people who practice it directly or (as much as possible) from one's self and one's gods rather from a book. --Naath
I'm interested. I was mostly treating magic as an element of fiction leaking into popular culture. I'd enjoy hearing a contrasting view.
Well, I'd certainly point out that the concept of magic did not spring full formed from fiction writers - it originated in the RealWorld.  You desperately need to take even a basic look at the shamanic cultures of asia, africa and SouthAmerica?.  --Vitenka
I know belief in magic is a RealWorld phenomenon. The point I intended to make was that I haven't been exposed to much RealWorld magical tradition - Christianity seems to tend to kill it off slightly.  --CorkScrew
Well, there's all the shamanic stuff.  Or you could go read some Crowley. I point anyone interested here:http://oto-usa.org/library.html (someone link that...), here:http://www.principiadiscordia.com and in the vague direction of MZB's Mists of Avalon, which is a novel but it expresses many of the concepts of modern wicca (and no, modern wicca is not actually based that much on pre Roman Britania) without haveing to fight through the crap that a lot of people write about magic these days (don't even touch anything by Silver Raven Wolf with a barge pole!) - Naath
Go out and find some, then!  I'd also point out that Christianity doesn't kill off magical practices, at worst it co-opts them.  The gradual urbanisation of the western culture killed the practices off far more effectively.  --Vitenka
It steals it yesss.  My preciousssss.  Science has done a lot more killing of magic.  Science and the separation of our way of life from the land. - Naath




It should be noted that I've been trying to break these things down in a way such that anything in section A can be combined with anything in section B to produce a more-or-less complete description of how the power is applied to the situation.
Hence "ceremonial" is a bad category since the fact that there's a ceremony is not descriptive of the behaviour of the power. Possibly the gesticulations could be fuelling things, possibly the sound patterns could be ripping at reality, but the fact that there's a ceremony doesn't tell you much. However, if there's a daemon involved that tells you pretty much all you need to know about what's going on, vis-a-vis Big Mojo being convinced to help out --CorkScrew
The amount of ceremony involved is the 'how of doing' whereas demons etc is the 'how of working' which are probably two very different things. - Naath



MaintainMe - OP = Corkscrew? - need to add sigs to some paragraphs.
Yeah, it was me. I didn't add sigs originally cos I was writing nineteen to the dozen. Just blame me for most unsigged stuff and you won't go far wrong - CorkScrew
Fair enough, just needed to ask so that I didn't attribute quotes to the wrong person.  --Vitenka
Ooh, there are Quotes in that lot? - Cs

ec2-3-80-129-195.compute-1.amazonaws.com | ToothyWiki | Magic | RecentChanges | Login | Webcomic
Edit this page | View other revisions | Recently used referrers
Last edited April 14, 2004 10:55 am (viewing revision 16, which is the newest) (diff)
Search: