A Little Bit About Magic.

Like most Traditions of Wicca, Adventure looks at magic as something quite natural and normal to use, much the same way as seeing color and walking upright is natural and normal. There are many definitions of magic; we tend toward Valiente's idea that magic is causing change in conformity with will. But to understand magic, we have to know a little bit about how it works.

No matter how or whether you can see it, everything has an aura. (Curlian photography is one way to seeing auras.) In the auras of things is where connections on the Web (of Wyrd, not of Internet) are made. It's something like the synapses of the brain --there doesn't have to be a physical contact.

Magic works similarly to drawing on a magna-doodle, or an Etch-a-Sketch. You move existing lines with your will and the energy you raise. On the toys, the lines never go beyond the edges of the frame; and in the same way, magic doesn't make the auras in the world move unnaturally. Magic works with physics, not against physics.

When you send our your energy in a spell, it's guided by your will, strengthened by the clarity of your visualization and the firmness of your intent. Your energy is transmitted through the World(s) and excites and rearranges other energy. Tiny, subtle changes can make huge differences. Further, energy can work through various points without making much change where change is not intended, just as you can pass a message to one person through another, and not much affect the messenger's life with news that might make a big difference to the person the message is for.

When we put magic into a spell, we are empowering otherwise "mindless" energy. We are making normally neutral energy somewhat "sentient," and a well-made, well-sent spell "knows" where to go and what to do, without doing anything stray. This knowledge is transmitted by our auras to the Worlds, and to our auras by our "symbol brain," or inner child.

Making magic work is a tricky proposition. You have to know what you want, but you can't think too rigidly about how you want to get it, lest you rule out opportunities that might work better than what you can imagine.

Once you're clear about what you want to achieve by magic, you have to think long and hard about it, to be sure your motives are clean. One may not, period, not do magic that messes with other people. You mustn't do spells to "make" other people do "your bidding." (Further, if you know people who think it's okay to do manipulative magic, or cast curses, steer clear!)

Magic will be its best for you when you know yourself well, know how everything you do furthers your personal quest. So exploring your own life is a good thing to do, albeit often challenging and sometimes downright difficult. When you're really tuned in, then anything you do is magic. It requires living an examined life.

What are the rules of magic? They're not very romantic, although it would make a nice journal exercise to phrase them more poetically:

* Be in legitimate need and of firm intent -- know what you want and how it first in with the larger plan of your life.

* Have a clear, but not rigid, idea of the result you desire.

* Don't deny/defy physics. Real power is power with.

* Harm none. Leave no one without options.

* Think about whether the magic you're working with is going to be subtle, or knock you up side the head when it comes back around?

* There are two parts to working magic: the magic, and the working. Don't forget you have to balance in Mundania what you're doing in Magicland.