People frequently ask about the nature of magic, subtle energy, or psychic phenomena within occult and paranormal groups. Many paranormal communities, cultures, and pedagogies attempt to answer that question from the pragmatics and cultural frameworks of their respective paradigms. How different places and authors decide to answer these questions tends to be derived from a cultural perspective so that the answer is predicated by how cultures and communities do things. In many communities, a belief that cultural traditions predicate magic is so prevalent that many people in magical and occult communities expect people to practice some form of magic derived from a Hellenistic culture, or some form of paganism. When I have joined different discord servers, members of those servers were insistent that I pick a role based on some cultural tradition. When I declined to take a role, in many cases, outright hostility ensued that lead to administrators of those communities banning me because I would not define myself by some particular culture of occultism. Practicing a magical art without an authentic culture was unacceptable. In this post, there are terms like rate of change, slope, derivative, fields, etc. These words are esoteric in mathematical terms instead of being occult terms; the mathematical terms imply that these models for magic are more abstract than history, culture, or tradition.

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Definitions of Magic

Within various traditions of occultism, the definition of magic is typically an extension of definitions seen in Theurgy, other forms of evocation, or a definition used in post-modern traditions heavily influenced by Aleister Crowley stylized as magick. A popular definition among a lot of occult communities – especially by Thelemites, is Crowley’s definition:

…the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will.

In that definition, Crowley encapsulates natural, “mundane” acts. In this, Crowley does not necessarily give “supernatural” entities existential import. Taken from The Lesser Key of Solomon is another popular definition of magic within occultism.

Magic is the Highest, most Absolute, and most Divine Knowledge of Natural Philosophy, advanced in its works and wonderful operations by a right understanding of the inward and occult virtue of things; so that true Agents being applied to proper Patients, strange and admirable effects will thereby be produced. Whence magicians are profound and diligent searchers into Nature; they, because of their skill, know how to anticipate an effect, the which to the vulgar shall seem to be a miracle.

Generally, those two ideas of magic influence how occultists define what magic is. In addition to those paradigms, there is another paradigm called energy work. In the late 90s and early 2000s, an engineering-oriented extensional practice of Mesmerism, Parapsychology, and Radionics called Psionics became popular. Like traditional forms of evocation in occultism, some form of animism is part of the energy work paradigms, albeit energy workers do not usually personify the entities they manipulate. Animistic archetypes encapsulate systems of energy, ethereal, and astral bodies. Consequently, definitions of magic, Psionics, and energy work frequently are inferred from metaphysical ideas of animism, energy healing, and the presupposition that there exists a type a “life” energy similar to the idea of a “spirit.” Many of those ideas revolve around ideas of an “energy body.” These ideas are heavily culturally predicated, so someone outside of those cultures would find these ideas about magic, energy work, etc. counter-intuitive; however, there are more abstract, elegant, and intuitive ways to think about magic. Fictional forms of magic use archetypes of magic in intuitive ways that are more abstract than history or culture.

When we think of magic in the fictional sense, we think of it in a more abstract sense. In MMORPG’s and RPG’s, there is generally a measure of damage a character can take before they die, a measure of stamina for physical attacks, and a measure of how many “points” needed for magical attack. To cast spells in one of my favorite games, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, there must be enough magicka. A scalar is a value that describes how much of something there is. The intuition we have concerning RPG’s and how we expect magical systems to work in role-playing games gives us a tacit idea of scalars. In Dragon Age, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, DC Universe Online, Skyrim, and other RPG’s of that nature, there is a way to get new skills of a higher rank only if one of a lower rank had been acquired by spending zero-sum points. For characters to move to a higher rank, characters must expend points because skills have tiers. While this seems like just the mechanics of a game, what you are doing is learning tacitly about scalars and matroids. A structure of skills, points, and ranks is a mathematical structure called a graph and a tree. Specifically, you are developing the intuition for what is called linear independence in vector spaces. How we think about casting spells within games provides an intuitive and abstract idea of magic beyond occult traditions. Furthermore, it provides an archetype for a person using a scalar called magic to cast spells absent a school of mysticism. This idea of magic and health points is not just an abstract video game mechanic; instead, it relates to everyday things we take for granted that have existential import.

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