ScottySatan
Well-Known Member
Everyone more than a month old uses lesser and greater magic multiple times daily.
I define magic as an attempt to use a non-physical power or force to accomplish your Will.
I define lesser magic as attempting to influence other animals including people, using your behavior and presentation.
I define greater magic as attempting to influence (usually) yourself.
Lesser Magic: I'll paraphrase what a wise man said. Even priests and monks with the simplest fashion are projecting an image to others. Unless you're wearing something wholly functional (survival or military gear) or are dressed in a burlap potato sack (maybe going to the grocery store in a robe and pyjamas?), you are dolling yourself up in order to impress something about yourself on others. Everyone looks, acts, talks in a certain way to project a certain role they have in life.
Greater magic: I'm not saying that the following is all that lesser magic is, but it starts with psychodrama with the use of ritual. You are empowering yourself to get that one thing you want. You are influencing your own attitude, and attitude is powerful. I use the academic social sciences definition of ritual: including an unnecessary action to do something essential. We don't just pass around a message to let the community know that two people are bonded for life, we have a wedding. Hospitals and clinics have a certain look, with staff in uniform and certain procedures in place. The way a new bottle of wine is presented and tasted in a restaurant even though modern bottling techniques have made this obsolete. All of that is ritual in order to congratulate and stay away from a certain woman, to make yourself heal, and to feel better about this expensive bottle of wine, respectively. I would extend that to include stopping to smell the roses, taking the scenic route, and banging on your new cigarettes to "pack" them.
Of course all of this is magic in its most basic form, and magic can do more. But, with these basics, I believe that magic is common and mundane.
I define magic as an attempt to use a non-physical power or force to accomplish your Will.
I define lesser magic as attempting to influence other animals including people, using your behavior and presentation.
I define greater magic as attempting to influence (usually) yourself.
Lesser Magic: I'll paraphrase what a wise man said. Even priests and monks with the simplest fashion are projecting an image to others. Unless you're wearing something wholly functional (survival or military gear) or are dressed in a burlap potato sack (maybe going to the grocery store in a robe and pyjamas?), you are dolling yourself up in order to impress something about yourself on others. Everyone looks, acts, talks in a certain way to project a certain role they have in life.
Greater magic: I'm not saying that the following is all that lesser magic is, but it starts with psychodrama with the use of ritual. You are empowering yourself to get that one thing you want. You are influencing your own attitude, and attitude is powerful. I use the academic social sciences definition of ritual: including an unnecessary action to do something essential. We don't just pass around a message to let the community know that two people are bonded for life, we have a wedding. Hospitals and clinics have a certain look, with staff in uniform and certain procedures in place. The way a new bottle of wine is presented and tasted in a restaurant even though modern bottling techniques have made this obsolete. All of that is ritual in order to congratulate and stay away from a certain woman, to make yourself heal, and to feel better about this expensive bottle of wine, respectively. I would extend that to include stopping to smell the roses, taking the scenic route, and banging on your new cigarettes to "pack" them.
Of course all of this is magic in its most basic form, and magic can do more. But, with these basics, I believe that magic is common and mundane.
