Magic 201: Will and Whim
A reminder: magic is not intended to be learned alone. A teacher is absolutely necessary to help you find balance and direction.
A magician of sufficient capacity will, over time, begin to develop a feel for the spirits which visit them. The same way that being in some sort of relationship with someone will, over time, let you get to know not just their behavior, but also the way they think, how they react, their moods—all of these things form a distinctive impression of the person or the spirit. Because spirits are not physical, the distinct impression is not of a body, but of behavior and how their energy presents itself. The same can also be said of situations. Over time, one recognizes the behavioral trends, and more than the behavioral trends, the energetic trend. The energetic trend predicts the outcome a LOT better than the history of scenarios which are like the one being observed.
We call this, as a metaphor, the energetic current or the current for short. People have weak currents. Magicians have slightly stronger currents. Spirits have much stronger currents, and situations can have anything from a weak to an overwhelmingly strong current.
The personal work a magician does tends to focus their current via focusing their will and removing things which divert the force or current available to them. Personal work also makes a magician more resistant to being overwhelmed by the current of a spirit or situation. It removes many blind spots a magician might have, and makes them more likely to recognize a pattern forming. Personal work puts their reactions under the magician’s control, which is distinct from emotional suppression or other forms of self-sabotage.
The will available to a magician and their ability to recognize and understand current puts a magician in a unique position: to be able to choose what they will do in response to a current, whether to ‘ride’ (deliberately go along with) the current according to the whims of the current or to use their will to intervene (take deliberate advantage of, make changes) in the current.
No matter how powerful the magician, there are limits to how effective a magician’s force is and how much change a magician can effect in a current. Small interventions in the right places, however, can cause large changes to the current. Where to intervene is a matter of wisdom and experience. When to ride or employ will is equally a matter of wisdom and experience.
A teacher should be able to provide that wisdom and experience to the student, along with helping the student perform enough personal work to be able to employ will and force to currents.
