A Universal Magic System Based on Historical Folklore

I have invested some time and energy into creating a magic system that I wanted to use for world-building purposes in a series of historical-fantasy stories I want to write. It's intended to very loosely simulate the way magic was supposed to work according to real world folklore and tradition, anywhere and anywhen. It's intended to allow Wild Magic without losing Magic A Is Magic A. Here is a short exerpt from what I have already started writing:

"Magic is the appearance of persons, objects and actions that are understood to be impossible in the normal world, phenomena for which there are insufficient material causes to explain them. It is the result of a magically empowered individual imposing their will and desire upon the mundane world. This is done by tapping into an alternative dimension of reality in which the rules and laws governing existence are very different from our own. A place full of emotional energy, where “dream-logic” is more important than objective logic or cause and effect, where the beliefs, myths, legends and desires of communities of people actually exist, and can be accessed and interacted with by those who know how. Variously called the “Dream-Time”, the Ethereal plane, Arcadia, or the Shadow Lands, it is the collective unconscious of the human race (henceforth, the “CU”). If an entity or ability appeared in myth, legend or story somewhere in the world, it still exists there, and by the manipulation of someone with sufficient skill and will, can also exist here.

This is a very loose system that emphasizes creativity and discovery over consistency and continuity, and it’s based in the magical folklore of traditional societies around the world and throughout history. The intent is to provide a simple system that can help simulate any set of magical beliefs for role playing or fiction writing purposes. It’s also loosely inspired by actual folklore, Jungian psychology, historical research on the ritual magical practices in various places around the world, and the Vertigo line of comics, esp. the Sandman series by Neil Gaiman, and it’s spinoffs."

So that's the gist. I would value any feedback or suggestions that anyone here would like to make. If there is sufficient interest, I would be willing to continue writing the rest of it and post it here for comment and discussion.

Any takers?

Ok, here's the entirety of the Introductory section:

A Universal Magic System Based on Historical Folklore By Demarquis @ TV Tropes.org

Introduction The purpose of this article is to facilitate the writing of fictional works in which magic plays a role, or in role playing games that include magical characters. This system is intended to act as part of the world-building of the setting, or the backstory of one or more characters. As such, it is an aid to the writer, and should be used creatively, more as a set of coherent and self-consistent guidelines than a rigid structure that must be adhered to in every detail. It is also an expression of the frustration of the author with magical systems as commonly depicted in stories these days, which are more a form of “poor man’s science” than a true system of mystical practice. Systems which impose hard limits on consistency and mechanical operations, in the opinion of this writer, fail to capture the mystery and charm of magic as found in traditional folk-tales, mythology and legend. “Wild Magic” in it’s various forms should be neither entirely predictable, nor entirely comprehensible. This system is also intended to help reproduce, in a very loosely inspired form, any magical or mystical practice found in traditional cultures throughout history and around the world. How does one “write” an ancient Egyptian priest, or a renaissance European magician, or an Indigenous Shaman or Seer? How could these different practices co-exist in the same world (as they evidently did)? How would magic like this work? Ultimately, this essay is intended only as a set of friendly suggestions, albeit a system of suggestions that support each other and make sense as a universal approach to magic and mysticism in general. The emphasis is on magic in the modern world (“Urban Fantasy” as it is sometimes called) but this system is intended to be adaptable to anytime, anyplace. It could be used to help flesh out an entirely made-up world, or used as a shared backstop for a series of historical stories, taking place in different time periods and cultures.

Magic is the appearance of persons, objects and actions that are understood to be impossible in the normal world, phenomena for which there are insufficient material causes to explain them. It is the result of a magically empowered individual imposing their will and desire upon the mundane world. This is done by tapping into an alternative dimension of reality in which the rules and laws governing existence are very different from our own. A place full of emotional energy, where “dream-logic” is more important than objective logic or cause and effect, where the beliefs, myths, legends and desires of communities of people actually exist, and can be accessed and interacted with by those who know how. Variously called the “Dream-Time”, the Aetherial plane, Arcadia, or the Shadow Lands, it is the collective unconscious of the human race (henceforth, the “CU”). If an entity or ability appeared in myth, legend or story somewhere in the world, it still exists there, and by the manipulation of someone with sufficient skill and will, can also exist here.

This is a very loose system that emphasizes creativity and discovery over consistency and continuity, and it’s based in the magical folklore of traditional societies around the world and throughout history. The intent is to provide a simple system that can simulate any set of magical beliefs for role playing or fiction writing purposes. It’s also loosely inspired by actual folklore, Jungian psychology, the ritual magical practices of medieval and renaissance Europe, and the Vertigo line of comics, esp. the Sandman series by Neil Gaiman, and it’s spinoffs.

In terms of world-building, the collective subconscious is created by the emotional commitment of communities of people who share a common set of beliefs for some period of historical time. Somehow, in a way we may never understand, the emotional residue of these beliefs are imprinted on an alternate reality, where it continues to exist essentially forever. A magic user is a person who is able to align their own mental worldview, feelings and attitudes with the belief system of one or more communities of people, and using some method of spiritual and emotional self-discipline, is able to connect with some aspect of the collective-subconscious, and channel some entity or effect through themselves so that it can manifest in the material world.

The underlying system is simple to explain: the magician connects to the CU, “borrows” an effect from there, and binds that effect to a person, place or thing here in the mundane world. People can transform into animals, fire can rise from ashes in the form of a bird, statues made of clay can move and obey commands, and the elements of earth, air, fire and water can become subject to the will of the magician. The effects that can be achieved are essentially infinite, limited only by the imagination of the magician and the cultural belief system he or she is tapping into.

There are other restrictions, however. The magician’s personality must be compatible to or aligned with the cultural beliefs they are borrowing effects from—someone raised in a modern North American suburb is unlikely to be able to gain easy access to the beliefs of a people they have little direct experience with, such as that of Native Americans, Sub-Saharan Africans or pre-communist Chinese (the ritual practices of pre-industrial Europeans are more accessible, however). This doesn’t make it impossible for someone of the “wrong” ethnicity or background to access such effects, but it does make it more challenging. You must believe to command.

The other main restriction is the “Goat Effect”— the belief system of most ordinary human beings in the early 21st century is secular in nature, an attitude that anything which cannot be explained by “science” (as commonly understood by the public) is impossible. The end result is that an audience of non-believers will suppress any magical effect that violates these secular beliefs. So anything a magician wants to do in public has to have an alternate, mundane explanation to anyone who sees it. For example, many systems of folklore include the ability to summon rain when needed. However, nearly everywhere in the world, anyone attempting to summon rain will be surrounded by large numbers of people who follow, and believe in, the local weather report. Thus, any rain summoned will have to be believable within that context. Thus, no hurricanes in the middle of a desert in summer. This was not as true in the past as it is today, which explains why magic and the supernatural have gone underground, but also in the past every place and time-period had a majoritarian belief system of some kind. Any practices that violate the understanding of that belief system will be magically suppressed (or else get one killed for a witch).

Other restrictions have to do with the magician his or her self. The substance of magic is made of emotional energy, and to channel this energy from the CU the magician will have to use their own emotional energy to accomplish the connection and binding effects. This requires a considerable degree of internal focus and self-discipline, therefore the power or extent of magic is dependent upon the willpower and skill of the user. Attempting to exceed those limits, by casting a spell effect which is too powerful or too complex is likely to harm or even kill the caster.

Groups of magic users cooperating with each other in a kind of mental communion will be able to combine their mental energy and outpower nearly any individual acting alone. Magic is, therefore, typically learned and practiced in small communities of people who share similar beliefs and practices, apart from the rest of the world. As a consequence of this, the mainstream religions are considered the most powerful magical belief systems that exist (though they are losing the battle with secularism). The quickest and easiest way for someone to get started in magic is to join a religious community, and then seek those people who still engage in the more esoteric practices associated with that religion. Summoning or banishing, commanding or appealing to “angels” and “demons”, spirits of protection and destruction, is the single most common form of magic there is (aside from fortune telling). Think of it as summoning aspects of the Super-ego, or the Id, but filtered through a belief system.

Anyone can learn to use magic, but it isn’t easy. The level of skill required is comparable to mastering a martial art—the very basics can be learned in a few days of practice, but to be any good at it requires years of dedicated study. In addition, the personality of the magic user must compatible with “magical thinking”, in other words they must be comfortable with “dream logic” and be willing to set aside any expectation of normal logic or cause and effect. Not everyone can do this. Not everyone has the patience to spend years learning how to focus and discipline their emotions and mind for mystical purposes. You have to be a certain “type”.

Next up: Magical Items

Magical Items

There is a shortcut, for those who can find them. Magical items exist, normal objects that have been permanently bound to some effect borrowed from the CU (the process of accessing and borrowing an effect or entity from the CU is called “conjuration”, and binding the magical effect to a mundane target is called “enchantment.” Along with “divination”, these are the three fundamental skills of magic). Magic items tend to fall into a few common categories: there are normal objects that are intended for some specific purpose (like a weapon) which have been magically enchanted to be more powerful or easy to use (for example, a sword that has the ghost of a successful swordsman bound into it, such that is possess the user and guides them in fighting with the sword more skillfully, and incidentally can kill ghosts). There are also magical items (generally in the form of jewelry) which have no utilitarian purpose, but have been enchanted to produce an entirely magical effect (like banishing evil spirits). Such items are called “charms” and the production of charms is “charm magic.” A talisman of protection against some specific magical entity is a charm. How these items operate, whether anyone can use them or only magically empowered people, or just one specific person, or anyone who knows the “secret word”, or whether they require an entire ritual, is entirely up to the magician or entity who originally manufactured it, as is the amount of magical energy bound into the charm itself (some items exist solely as “magical batteries”, reservoirs of emotional power, and others store up spells to allow the magician to cast them on demand, getting the ritual out of the way). There are communities of people who systematically search the world for such items.

Then there are grimoires. Mundane grimoires are just normal books that describe some magical practice (and can serve as “textbooks” for budding magicians), but enchanted grimoires are different—these are books that have certain spells bound into them, such that reading the spell is part of a ritual that sets it off. Again, the specifics, such as which spells, whether they are written in an arcane language only known to a few (or in a code known only to the magician), whether reading the spell is sufficient or additional ritual activities are also required, and so forth, is entirely up to the magician or entity that wrote and enchanted it.

What happens when someone reads a grimoire is somewhat complicated. A mundane person reading a mundane grimoire will do nothing (other than learning about an arcane bit of folklore), a magically empowered and trained magician reading a mundane grimoire may be able to pull off the spell with only their own magical energy and ability to call on, but when a mundane person reads an enchanted grimoire the results can be very unpredictable. It depends on what the grimoire was intended to do. Some were deliberately designed to kill or injure any unauthorized person attempting to use them. Others were intended to be used by anyone belonging to a particular mystical community, and others were intended to allow mundane people to cast spells easily and successfully (these were generally paid for by wealthy mundane people who wanted to use them, and hired a magician to create one). Should a mundane person obtain one of these latter type grimoires, they essentially become a magician without the years of practice and self-discipline (to the never ending disdain and contempt of “real” magicians who did invest such years). Such “Grimoire Magicians” still need to have a compatible belief system and mindset to the person who enchanted the grimoire in the first place, and observe the other restrictions.

A final note on potions. Perhaps the single most common type of magical item, an integral part of magical traditions from traditional herbalists and healers to alchemy, a potion is simply an enchanted substance, the ingestion of which is part of a ritual that releases the spell (“potion”, for our purposes, includes solid food as well as drinkable fluids). The substance itself will have some spiritual association with the effect it is believed to produce (apples, for example, are associated in some traditions with increased romantic appeal), and the magician producing it will simply bind the effect to the substance, with the expectation that the effect will take place once it is absorbed into the body. Magical potions, because they are intended to be ingested into the body, will produce an effect that is associated with something that is commonly known to happen to bodies. Good or poor health, increased or weakened fertility, sharpened mental acuity or death are all common spell effects associated with potions. Potions are used to restore or upset the natural balance of the body or the mind, so while you might devise one that can regenerate a wound, or super-strength, or a strong emotion like love or hate, but you wouldn’t easily be able to create one that allows unnatural effects like flight, invisibility or silence. One special category of potions are those that are intended to allow the user to achieve an altered state of mind. Magicians use these to help put themselves into the trance state they require in order to connect to the CU (Native Americans relied on tobacco).

There is another type of item used in magical practice which act as symbolic representations of a belief system, a magical entity, an effect or the target of the spell. These items are called a “focus” and they assist the magician in achieving the proper mindset to access the CU, the effect or entity they wish to channel, and the target of the spell. Foci are typically not enchanted, and may often be temporary, produced or created during a traditional ritual. Examples include a Buddhist mandala, the numerological equivalent of someone’s name, the Tetragrammaton, or a lock of the target’s hair. How these items are used, whether as an object of reflection, a burned offering, or part of a magical symbol, depend entirely on the ritual and the belief system from which it was derived. The holy book of a religion is a very common foci. The possession of such foci is often the first clue that someone is a practicing magician.

Edited by DeMarquis on May 1st 2020 at 9:00:39 AM

I dig it. It strikes a good balance, I think, between hard and soft magic.

Can a "mundane" organism be enchanted? If so, what complications dissuade ( most ) magicians from enchanting themselves in order to become such creatures?

Can spontaneous magical effects occur? Perhaps as the result of a culture's or subculture's reaction to a crisis, an unintended conjuration, divination, and / or enchantment might be enacted.

Can a particular place and / or time be enchanted? If so, what are such places and / or times called and what are some of the rules regarding them?

What are non-magicians called?

Thank you for your interest.

"Can a "mundane" organism be enchanted? If so, what complications dissuade ( most ) magicians from enchanting themselves in order to become such creatures?"

None, and when I used this in a role playing campaign, the opportunity to buff yourself was a favorite application of the magic. Of course, all other restrictions still apply, and it's harder than you might think at first to find examples in folklore and mythology.

"Can spontaneous magical effects occur? Perhaps as the result of a culture's or subculture's reaction to a crisis, an unintended conjuration, divination, and / or enchantment might be enacted."

As a general rule, any magical effect would have to be consistent with the prevailing social belief system, so the miraculous appearance of Gods or Saints during time of crisis would be the most common example I can think of.

"Can a particular place and / or time be enchanted? If so, what are such places and / or times called and what are some of the rules regarding them?"

Places, definately, and an upcoming section of my system will go into more detail on that, so I will defer answering right now. I dont know what you mean by "enchanting a time" unless you are referring to traveling into the past or future, which is a thing. Technically, you would conjure it, though, not enchant it.

Next section:

Conjuration and Binding Spells (“Summoning and Enchantment”)

These are some of the most common and useful types of spells in magic. Conjuration is the act of mentally accessing some supernatural entity or force from the realm of the collective unconscious. It takes many different forms, depending upon the skill, power, and desire of the spell caster. Some magical traditions differentiate between “Invocation”, or access to a supernatural entity that remains within the mind of the spellcaster (ie, “hearing voices”) vs. “Evocation”, or access to a supernatural entity that in a manner that other people could also perceive, or in such a way that it could carry out an activity that will change something in the material world (such as attack someone). For our purposes, this might best be regarded as a spectrum of spell effects that depend on the emotional energy available to the caster. Communicating with a spirit within one’s mind (for the purpose, say, of requesting information or a blessing) requires much less power than causing it to manifest in the material world. Fundamentally, however, it is essentially the same type of spell.

In terms of operational steps, the the magician would first discipline their mind, directing their focus within, in a fashion very similar to self-hypnosis, which allows the caster to access the CU in the first place (by whatever name the magician’s belief system identifies it), a connection to the desired entity or force is sought by means of a symbolic representation of some kind (normally utilized as part of a traditional ritual). After access is gained to the entity or effect in question, the magician then disciplines their mind to connect to the intended target of the spell, which could be any person, place or object in the material world, also by means of a symbolic representation. The two symbolic representations are then connected in mundane reality as part of the same ritual, which will cause the entity or effect to merge with the target on the mystical level, and therefore in reality as well. To become possessed by the Voudoun loa Baron Samedi, one first forms a mental connection to the Baron, as described above, form a mental connection to the intended target (normally oneself), and connect the two, which will allow the Baron Samedi to enter into and possess the Voudoun houngan or mambo (priest or priestess). To acquire the power to fly, a Native American Seer would conjure the totemic ancestral spirit of, say, “Hawk”, symbolically “borrow” the effect of flying like a bird, and merge that with the intended target (say a warrior of one’s tribe) who will then shapechange into a large hawk with the ability to fly (remember the Goat Effect, hawks the size and mass of a human will be difficult to reconcile with the secular belief system of the modern public, so the hawk will have to be plausible to the average bystander, if there are any). To transform an enemy’s flesh into fire, one would first connect to a fire elemental, and merge it symbolically with a representation of the target (a piece of their clothing, or a lock of their hair), causing some part of them to spontaneously combust (subject to all the restrictions already mentioned), or be frozen as a statue, or become trapped in a mirror, or whatever the imagination of the magician can encompass, and whatever his or her belief system will allow. That’s conjuration in a nutshell.

Binding is the “merging” process within conjuration. Again, certain magical communities make a hard distinction between permanent and temporary binding effects. Only the permanent kind is referred to as “binding” proper, the other is regarded simply as the effect of a spell, but for our purposes they share the same underlying foundation. In order to cause your enemy to spontaneously combust, you need to bind the spell effect to the target for only a moment, but if you wanted to, say, bind a powerful demon into a weapon, you would want the effect to last much longer, possibly permanently. Binding one thing to another thing is itself a magical effect that has to be summoned from the CU like any other, and so as part of the ritual one will need to utilize some sort of symbolic representation. Common symbolic representations of magical bindings include a knotted cord, stones mortared together, or a drawing that includes the intended effect and the target as one which is then burned as an offering to the Gods.

One note about permanent spell effects. While effects or entities bound into an object can be made permanent with a single expenditure of emotional energy on the part of the magician making it, effects on people generally require a degree of continuous effort on the part of the spell caster (this is because the person’s body or mind will attempt to revert back to it’s “natural” state, even if the individual is a willing target, or even the spellcaster him or herself. This effort is usually a small fraction of that required to bind the effect in the first place, but trying to maintain multiple spell effects on several people (such as the members of an adventuring party) will quickly wear out the magician.

Often, what is being summoned is not a “what” but a “whom.” Typical targets of conjuration spells includes spirits of protection, spirits of destruction, spirits of nature, elementals, and the dead. For more details on where and how to summon these entities, see “Enchanted Beings and Worlds” in a later section.

As a special note, it is important to avoid symbolic representations that invoke the secular belief system of the mundane world. Various forms of technology are generally speaking difficult if not impossible to use in conjuration. No binding the spiritual representation of the Hiroshima bomb to a pistol, or undertaking a spirit journey to the Voyager probe. This is another form of the Goat Effect—the products of science and technological innovation generally have no place within the emotional dream logic of the CU, and so will not work, or worse, will undermine whatever magic the spell caster is attempting to create (this implies that mundane bystanders who have witnessed some form of magical effect can protect themselves by symbolically reasserting their secular beliefs—any form of scientific or empirical investigation of the effect should be enough to dispell it). So no summoning a werewolf to attack a mundane, although you might get away with the materially embodied spirit of a serial killer.

A Note On Combat In fiction, probably the most common depiction of magic in action is during a combat sequence. Most commonly, it takes the form of a kind of “magical raygun” wherein the magician points their fingers, or a wand, at their opponent and a ray of destructive energy is emitted. Historical folklore, however, almost never depicts the use of magic this way. Combat is the realm of warriors, swinging weapons in melee with their mighty thews, while any magical antagonists are invariably depicted as cowardly sorcerers trying to avoid danger by hiding behind their deceptive illusions and spells. Obviously, the requirements of modern drama impose audience expectations on the kind of stories that can be told today, and nowadays magicians are as likely to be the heroes as the villains (and a good thing too) but the fact remains that it is somewhat difficult to reconcile the expectations of modern drama with a system based on historical sources. How is this style of magic used in combat?

First off, a real obstacle is the emphasis on ritual. Magical rituals take time, and few enemies would be willing to wait around while their opponent arranges some ritual items and completes a traditional chant. There are various ways around this problem, including preparing a small number of spells ahead of time and storing them in a charm. They can then be fired off with a word. While this is useful, it would probably be faster and more effective to simply use a firearm, or a bomb. One can also summon a monster of some kind and have it accompany one into battle, or else one can recruit a team of mundanes who can protect the magician with weapons while he or she deploys the spells. Finally, the magician can buff their companions, providing them with thick, armored skin or giving them preternatural reflexes. Remember the Goat Effect, and also the necessity of avoiding anything that might evoke the modern secular belief system (so no buffing their assault rifles).

Ultimately, however, this is just not a combat-oriented magic system. If the story you are telling is action-heavy, you would probably be better served with another system. On the other hand, obstacles and challenges can be an inspiration for creativity. Before rejecting ritual magic entirely, why not have the protagonist try to overcome their antagonist with the constraints of this system? The end result might be less “action-adventure” and more about clever problem solving, but those are a worthy and popular form of stories too.

When I mentioned enchanting a time, I was talking about the possibility of binding a spirit to a particular cycle or part of a cycle. I was thinking of things like a portal that only opens on the winter solstice or an illusion that fades once a clock ( within a certain range ) strikes twelve AM.

Oh, of course. Just bind in a symbolic representation of the time you want to trigger the spell to the spell effect, bind it all to an object or a place. It's possible to "nest" enchantments that way, although it takes more skill and energy.

Last One (so far):

Divination

The other most common and useful form of magical practice is divination. Divination is the use of magical means to obtain information about the mundane world, that is otherwise not available. This can take a wide variety of forms, from seeing the future to reading minds to remote viewing, depending, once again, on the imagination of the magician and the constraints imposed by their belief system, and all the other restrictions. Technically, divination is just another form of conjuration, wherein one “summons” the information one desires, by utilizing a symbolic ritual very similar to that which was described under Conjuration. Invocation Divination would be restricted to accessing the desired information strictly within one’s mind, while Evocation Divination involves acquiring the information in a way that affects the material world, and which could be witnessed by bystanders. Invocation Divination can be experienced as seeing or hearing stimuli in the normal way, except mentally (close your eyes and see where your best friend is right now), or it could be experienced as a “spirit journey”—dreaming that one is physically traveling to a remote place while one’s actual physical body is left behind (typically in a trance state of some kind). Visits to the Gods or spirits of protection are typically experienced this way (they regard it as a sign of respect).

Evocation Divination typically will include the magician physically leaving the location or time where they are at, and actually traveling to the remote location (a distant place, a time in the past or future, another person’s “mind-scape”, or a mystical realm within the CU itself). Any bystanders present would see the magician disappear, usually by passing through an enchanted doorway or portal of some kind. Obviously, Evocation Divination requires far more emotional energy and self-focus than Invocation Divination.

Another distinction to be made is between active and passive divination. Passive divination is the mere acquisition of information about something, without affecting the thing divined in any way. Classic fortune telling by means of a tarot deck, reading a flock of birds, or the I Ching fall within this category. But active divination deliberately changes the destiny of the thing being scryed (‘scying’ is the act of divining information about a person, place or thing). The act of conjuring good luck and binding it to a target is called “blessing”, the reverse is termed “cursing”. The farther away the target in time or space, the more specific the knowledge, the more certain the outcome, and the more extreme the effect (in evocation) the more emotional power and internal focus will be required. The best place to obtain a blessing is from a church (provided one is a believer).

Enchanted Beings and Worlds

The Collective Unconscious includes everything that anyone ever invested emotional belief in. The more people who believed in it, and the stronger their emotional commitment to that belief had been, the stronger it’s representation in the CU and the easier it will be to access it. At a bare minimum, the magician intending to access some aspect of the CU must at least be aware of the belief in question, and their own belief system must be compatible with what they are trying to access in terms of whether the magician can really understand and relate on an emotional level with the traditional belief system in question. This has some interesting implications. Any belief system that the magician him or herself personally believes in and was raised within will be most easily accessible to them, and the effects one can conjure will be the most powerful. But magicians can pool their efforts by undertaking rituals together, and one can access elements of the CU associated with other belief systems by allowing a true believer to guide oneself, again in the context of a ritual of some kind. A practitioner of Hermetic Magic can nevertheless call on Baron Samedi if they allow themselves to be led in ritual by a genuine Voudoun houngan or mambo (it is best to inform them of your status as a practitioner of another belief system, lest the good Baron take exception to your presence in their ritual space).

Another implication is the possibility of mentally or physically traveling to a mystical realm, which is part of the belief system in question, and meeting the inhabitants there. Every religion or belief system has such places, typically where the virtuous dead and the Gods mingle together. Norse mythology has Valhalla, the ancient Greeks had Olympus, and of course Christians have their heaven where saints and angels dwell (to say nothing of Hell).

There are a variety of ways to do this. The most common is by means of invocation divination, but one requires symbolic foci to facilitate the ritual. One very common foci for this purpose is an enchanted location in the mundane world. Various religions and belief systems around the world have identified sites that they consider holy, and which could be used as the location of a divination ritual intended to access a mystical realm associated with that belief system. To undertake a spiritual journey to the Avalon of early Authurian legend, travel first to physical places associated with those legends, such as Glastonbury Tor in the West Country of England, or the ruins of Tintagel Castle.

It isn’t necessary to undertake a globe spanning journey in order to access an enchanted place. Any church will have, accessible to those who are able, the emotional residue of the people who worshiped there, giving access to whatever entities are included in the worship. Any graveyard will be haunted by ghosts, visible only to those with the appropriate skills.

This has tremendous story-telling potential. In order for a character to undertake a spiritual journey, they must also undertake a physical one, with obvious potential for the use of metaphore and character development. In order to meet magical beings, they must first deal with the human ones they meet along the way. This device keeps the story grounded in the real world that readers can most easily relate to, while opening up the opportunity to introduce magical and mystical elements. Characters can go anywhere and anywhen, but they can’t do it easily or quickly, nor without engaging in actions that will help advance the plot.

The kinds of beings that exist in the CU deserve special analysis. From a narrative perspective, they can be anything the plot requires, but from a magical theory perspective, what are they? Are they real people with experiences and memories independent of what anyone believes about them? Or are they mere illusions, a manifestation of the dream-mind of the magic user? Do they have free will? An agenda of their own? This is not, and probably never will be entirely understood. Obviously they must be made out of the substance of the CU, the emotional residue of all the people who believed in them. Most of them do not seem to be aware of their status as symbolic archetypes for human belief systems. Yet when encountered, their personalities seem consistent with the popular understanding of them. Gods, angles, demons, fairies, ghosts, elementals, legendary heroes, eldritch abominations, ancestor spirits, and all the rest, are above all not human. They may appear as self-aware individuals who can be spoken to and interacted with, but something about them will always seem more or less strange. Perhaps they see things that humans cannot, or their values are a little weird, or their behavior is a little too random, or too rigid, or they act in ways and with powers that mere mortals cannot comprehend. One can talk to them, ask questions and receive answers, even command or be commanded, but one can never truly understand them. And perhaps, they, in their turn, have trouble understanding us.

Most commonly, magical beings are encountered as the result of a conjuration spell. As a general rule, the more destructive or dangerous the being, the easier it is to summon them (because the want to hurt the magician, and thus are willing targets). Destructive spirits are often termed “demons” regardless of the belief system they come from (“devil” has a more specifically Christian connotation). Demons are very dangerous entities: willing, even eager to be conjured, they are capable of exceptionally skillful deceit, and they will agree to commands or requests for no other purpose than to try to undermine the magician. Most demons are able, and desire, to “possess” human beings. This is a gradual process by which a demon assimilates itself into the subconscious mind of the magician, eventually to take over the personality of the magician even while the individual possessed still retains their memories and sense of self identity. Demons generally are themselves symbolic representations of destructive emotions or personality characteristics, hence as the possession takes place, that destructive trait will gradually become a more and more central and controlling form of motivation for the person being possessed, until finally it becomes an all-encompassing obsession for the possessed victim and leads to their own destruction. Demons are nasty creatures, but they are easy to access and communicate with.

As for the places where enchanted beings live, these are the mystic realms of myth, legend and faith. Once there, traveling around them and interacting with the people who live there should more resemble a dream than anything in the material world. One will not be able to obtain the kind of map of, say, Fairyland, that will give one directions like “travel north three kilometers from the enchanted castle to arrive at the Court of the Winter Queen.” To arrive at the court of the Winter Queen one will always travel north into a cold blizzard which will last long enough to bring the character to the brink of death. This will be true regardless of where one starts out from or when one begins the journey. That’s because traveling from place to place in the dream-realm is more akin to carrying out a magical ritual than it is to mundane traveling. To find the Fairy Princess one must first cross the Troll Bridge, which is the first bridge one finds after having decided to try to find the Fairy Princess. That’s how it works. Of course, the troll will attempt to prevent one from crossing the bridge, so it would be best to be prepared for that. Magicians will have full access to their spell effects while traveling in an enchanted place (unless the prevailing belief system prevent it), but it will also be true that the inhabitants of these worlds will be very good at using the magical powers that popular belief ascribes to them, usually without the need to resort to a ritual of some kind. Foreknowledge and a respectful attitude might get one farther.

Edited by DeMarquis on Aug 16th 2022 at 4:14:40 AM

So can anyone theoretically use magic? If magic came from the collective unconscious of humanity, then that means that both magic, magical beings, and gods were created by humans. It sounds like the magic system is based on the power of belief. But what is the difference between a regular believer and a mage?

What is interesting is that this is the exact opposite of how ancient magic was thought to work. Ancient magic was based on theurgy, borrowing the supernatural power of the gods (of non-human origin) via direct contact or communication, and the original mages were demi-gods and priests. The word "mage" itself comes from the word for a Zoroastrian priest.

Edited by shiro_okami on Apr 8th 2021 at 8:23:41 AM

There is no difference. It takes years of mental discipline and training to learn how to make a connection to some entity or element in the collective unconscious, and draw down the power for some desired effect. Whether priest or magician makes no difference. This is meant to imply a couple of things. First, an ordinary member of a congregation can't really do anything by themselves, that's what priests are for: taking the emotional energy from the congregation and doing something useful with it. The congregation is the ultimate source of the energy, the God is the storage device, ritual is the work being done, and priests are the control mechanism.

This also implies that in many ways priests have an advantage over mages in that they access to training resources, allies, and large congregations of people eager to lend their emotional energy during services. Of course, they lose a lot of flexability, since all this power is supposed to be used strictly for the benefit of the church community, not the priests, and has to be used in a manner consistent with church doctrine. The vast majority of the energy will end up being invested into ordinary standardized rituals like blessing the congregants and so forth.

So what I understand is that anyone can be a mage, as long as they put forth the effort.

But that goes for people who tap into the existing collective unconscious. What about those people who had a hand in making certain supernatural entities, either inspiring them or imagining them and passing their idea down? Are they really good at magic, or does an entity only reach its full power after it has permeated the CU, long after the original inspiration is dead? If gods are of human origin, how and when does a god become real?

You say there is no difference, but saying that magic comes from the mind of the human race as opposed to beings that existed before humanity is a pretty significant difference to me.

Edited by shiro_okami on Apr 8th 2021 at 7:03:56 AM

"So what I understand is that anyone can be a mage, as long as they put forth the effort." It's a bit like the martial arts in that way.

"What about those people who had a hand in making certain supernatural entities, either inspiring them or imagining them and passing their idea down?"

If I understand your question, you're asking about the person or people who originate the new mythology? I hadn't considered that aspect of it before, it's an interesting question. I can see an argument both ways. On the one hand, in the system as I have developed it so far, magic is a function of the collective unconscious, not an individual imagination, so the "pool of spiritual energy" that results from the beliefs of tens of thousands of adherents needs to become large enough to draw upon, to become organized in the form of some set of archtypes, and that takes time. On the other hand, the ability to draw down the energy from some realm of the CU is a function of mental and emotional alignment, or sympatico, in the sense of "Of like mind or temperament; compatible" and who is going to be more compatible with a belief system than the person who created it? I think of a charismatic populist sorcerer brainwashing a population in order to mentally enslave them. Gee, that sounds familiar.

"You say there is no difference, but saying that magic comes from the mind of the human race as opposed to beings that existed before humanity is a pretty significant difference to me."

There is no practical difference, from the point of view of someone casting a spell/saying a prayer. Theoretically (theologically?) there is of course a huge difference, esp. since no mainstream religion that I know of accepts the idea that the Gods were created by mankind. Once a significant proportion of the general population became convinced of exactly that (ie, as a direct result of the Enlightenment) magic (esp in the form of religion) lost a lot of it's power. So I guess that is a practical difference, after all, depending on what time period the character is depicted in. In a modern setting, one of the major handicaps facing magic users is the "Goat Effect" (the suppressive effect secular thinkers have on magical effects).

Yes, you understood my question correctly.

It looks like you completely covered all your bases with how archaic magic was thought to work. I don't have the same view for your source, though. I view magic source as being just as important as magic operation, if not more so.

If you take the stance that a collective belief is necessary, then you end up with a magic "sweet spot" era in history after the myths and religions have been spread but before the "goat effect" has taken hold.

Also, if humans predate gods, where does life come from? Abiogenesis and evolution, as real life scientists assert? Where does the universe come from? It seems ironic for a world with actual magic to have such a mundane beginning.

Edited by shiro_okami on Apr 9th 2021 at 9:53:20 AM

More interesting questions. By that logic, magic on Earth was strongest just before the secular enlightenment, say the 1400's. Although by another argument, available magic power equals total numbers of spiritual believers divided by the number of people using magic (including religious practices), which would have been a stable ratio for most of human history.

As for beginnings, I guess that depends on the author/game master's cosmology—is there a creator God? Most of the mainstream religions, including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Taoism and Buddhism are comfortable with the idea that there was a creator long before there were any other Gods (and therefore any magic). I think even many indigenous people's pantheon's accommodate such a notion. Most belief systems seem to regard this creator as being so distant and removed from human or mundane life that one doesn't set up temples or pray to them (outside Monotheism). So that's one possible answer.

That's a very Judeo-Christian answer. So then you would have a real God that created life and humans, and fake gods that were created by humans.

In The Bible, the difference between the miracles of the prophets and magic is that miracles come Yahweh/Jehovah the creator God, while magic comes from demons (formerly angels created by God), often filling the role of whatever imagined god the mage believes in. The mages always lose against the prophets because they don't realize that the prophets are drawing upon a greater power.

You could do something similar, where the power of the creator God is completely different from magic and is immune to its rules (such as the need for believers and the "goat effect"), but human users of it are far more rare than mages.

"The Tao that can be spoken is not the real Tao." This is a style of spiritual belief that is found around the globe and goes back thousands of years. The idea is that the creative force is so remote that it's no good appealing to it—prayers go unanswered, spells fail. You need more comprehensible Gods for direct intervention in the natural world, with the notable exception of pantheism. Of course there are all the magic users who depend upon their own energy, and don't truck with any Gods, remote or not.

Edited by DeMarquis on Apr 16th 2021 at 8:05:58 AM

"And he made out of one man every nation of men to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he decreed the appointed times and the set limits of where men would dwell, so that they would seek God, if they might grope for him and really find him, although, in fact, he is not far off from each one of us." - Acts 17:26-27

That just shows the difference between Far East philosophy and Christian theology. But I digress; no point debating theology when we're talking about religion and folklore only for the purpose of making a fictional magic system.

I suppose that's true: in most stories, God is part of the setting, not a character!

So, one last essay to add, because I got bored and came up with something. What follows is a systematic treatment of spell effects, that is, a category system for organizing spell effects into a limited set of different types. I intend this as a guide to role playing and story writing, in terms of what type of effects a given magic user could borrow from the CU and how they relate to each other.

There are eight different spell effect categories, arranged in a table by two dimension, each of which have three levels. Imagine a tic tac toe table, with three rows and three columns. The three rows I will label "Alternative Worlds", the middle row I will label as "The Material/Mundane World", and the bottom "Alterations to the Mundane World".

The column on the left I will label as "Uncertain/Flexible", the middle column is unlabelled, and the right hand column "Certain/Fixed". Got that? Now to fill in the boxes in the Tic Tac Toe board.

In the Upper Left Box put the word "Dreaming/Mental", the Upper Middle "Astrological", Upper Right "Pantheons"

In the middle left put "Elemental/Alchemical", the middle middle box is empty, and the middle right "Nature/Wilderness"

In the bottom left put "Fortune/Seeing", the middle bottom "Undeath", right bottom "Space/Time"

The end result should look like this:

Remember that this table describes Spell Effects, that is, effects that a magic user can borrow from the Collective Unconscious and bind to a target in the material world. Also recall that any magic user must identify with an historical school or practice of magic, and is therefore limited to effects that occur in the doctrine, folklore, mythology or legendary stories of that belief system (see above). That's how magic works in this system.

The row and column labels are pretty easy to understand. The "Alternative Worlds" row describes exactly that: three different categories of alternate realities that exist in some alternate dimension. Dreams actually exist somewhere, in some world that can only be accessed while sleeping. The world of the astrological signs obviously exists in the sky, but it isn't a physical location some distance from the Earth, it's a realm of symbols that happens to use certain collections of stars as symbolic representations. And pantheons always exist in some mythical realm of the Gods and other entities. Magical effects are borrowed from these places according to the traditional systems of beliefs about them.

"Flexible" and "Fixed" are two ends of a spectrum of magical effects that vary by how predictable they are. The sources of magical effects under the "Fixed" column correspond to the type of magical systems in which "Magic A is Magic A", that is, the underlying principles of magic are believed to be well known enough that the same ritual, followed correctly, should render the same result every time. Gods and temples are well known for such rituals of worship, nature is generally pretty stable and predictable once you take the time to learn about it in sufficient detail, space and time define stability.

"Flexible" are systems that are not that stable and structured. Magic effects in this column might vary from time to time or location, depending upon the mood of the caster, highly complex circumstances or just blind luck. Such magic effects may be following a rule all their own, but mere humans do not understand it well. Dreams define the mysterious and the irrational, traditional systems of elemental alchemy are less like modern chemistry and more like a type of mystical self-development, in which how mercury interacts with fire and water depends on the internal spiritual state of the caster, and True Seeing may see past illusions and the barrier of time or space, yet what is revealed may not be very clear, resembling a poetic metaphore more than a remote camera. The middle column is unlabelled because it is "in between", neither entirely given over to stable rules and relationships, nor wild and unpredictable.

Notice that the middle box is empty. This is deliberate, for a couple reasons. The first is that the "Tic Tac Toe" box is really a circle, or a circumplex, which is a way of displaying two dimensions in a circular form, to imply that neighbors are related in some way, and categories on opposite sides of the circle are opposed somehow.

The other reason is to give the storyteller/gamemaster some flexibility in adding additional spell effects that I haven't thought of. I often use the middle box for a "Mystery" school of magic that even most magic users have never encountered!

The various categories of effects are simple to define, and are intended to be flexible enough to accommodate almost any belief system.

Pantheonic Magic are effects borrowed from the Gods of a particular belief system's pantheon. If one is a believer in the Greek Gods, then anything a particular God was depicted as being good at, the magic user could "borrow" for a spell effect. Zeus hurled lightning, Apollo controlled the Sun, Heracles was exceptionally strong, etc. For the purposes of game play, lists of "Angelic" and "Demonic" powers that appear at various points in history also fit here.

Astrological magic borrows effects from the astrological systems that are traditional in many parts of the world. Taking European astrology as the example, Aries lends itself to fighting like a Ram (ie, charge attacks), and Jupiter lends itself to leadership (ie, charisma rolls on follower characters).

Dream magic is magical effects taken from dreams. Lucid dreaming, sharing another person's dream (and directing such), interacting with "Dream Creatures", and other such effects. Magical dreaming while awake is one source of "Illusion" and "Glamour" spell effects.

Nature magic are effects borrowed from nature, and beliefs about nature. Any ability of any animal or plant is available here, as are "Nature Spirits" such as Sprites or Spirit Guides.

Elemental magic is manipulation of the classic elements (what they are depends on what part of the world the character is from). From European tradition, they are Fire, Air, Earth and Water.

Space and Time are doorways to other places and times. This allows mental or physical travel, restricted to places that the character is familiar with and believes in. I normally include a "Paradox Prevention" restriction such as the spell effect cannot alter the timeline already experienced by the spell caster.

Undeath is the creation, interaction with, or combat against ghosts, zombies, vampires and the like.

True Seeing is fortune telling, "True Seeing" past illusions and other magical effects, and changing or influencing future outcomes with blessing and cursing spells.

In theory, within a single belief system any magic user can borrow any effect, but in practice magic users will usually specialize to some degree. In games and stories, it is highly unusual that the same individual will be equally practiced in, say, necromancy and, say, dream magic. A "plus" in Dream Magic, therefore, should be accompanied by a lesser advantage in elemental or astrological magic, average abilities in pantheons and True Seeing, and a negative impact on ability for Undeath, Space/Time and Nature magic.

Magic items normally cannot combine spell effects from opposed effect types, and it might even be necessary, for game or story balance, to restrict a spell caster from even possessing magic items that contain opposed effects.

Spells using oppossed effects cast simultaneously in the same location may cancel each other out, or one of them will succeed, causing the other one to fail.

Recall that spell effects are included in symbolic form as part of the ritual. So to borrow an elemental spell effect (say, stone skin) one would use an actual stone in the ritual. Space or time travel would involve an actual door in the real world, and so forth. The specific symbols used should be borrowed from the belief system of the character casting the spell.

Hopefully, this helps provide some structure to the use of spell effects and adds an additional "realistic" aesthetic to the overall system.

Edited by DeMarquis on Aug 16th 2022 at 11:06:46 AM