"Any Sufficiently Analyzed Magic is indistinguishable from science!"
— Agatha Heterodyne, Girl Genius
"The Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will."
Some of us use Tarot cards to bridge our understandings between the images and truths they represent. Some of us prefer altering our bodies through pain and art, linking the pain of the act to the passion of the Art. Some use the traditional tools and incantations of witchcraft, the pagan rites of Greece, Egypt or the Celtic kingdoms to glide away from the modern mindset of disbelief. Others call upon the gods of their families, or call up the devils their parents taught them to abhor. I know Darklings who cast spells through computer programs, ones who dance their will into form, even those who simply close their eyes and wish things into being.
— Mage: The Ascension - The Orphan's Survival Guide
Now millennia have passed, and we speak our own Words, Words that marry the tongues of the Mundane with tongues of those whose mystical insight teaches us of the Gods and the world, of the Mortal and Immortal, and with them we may sculpt the world to our Will and the universe to our Design.
So it is, and so shall it be.
So it is, and so shall it be.
— Teclis of Ulthuan, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Realms of Magic (2nd ed)
As much as it was like anything, magic was like a language. And like a language, textbooks and teachers treated it as an orderly system for the purposes of teaching it, but in reality it was complex and chaotic and organic. It obeyed rules only to the extent that it felt like it, and there were almost as many special cases and one-time variations as there were rules. These Exceptions were indicated by rows of asterisks and daggers and other more obscure typographical fauna which invited the reader to peruse the many footnotes that cluttered up the margins of magical reference books like Talmudic commentary.
It was Mayakovsky's intention to make them memorize all these minutiae, and not only to memorize them but to absorb and internalize them. The very best spellcasters had talent, he told his captive, silent audience, but they also had unusual under-the-hood mental machinery, the delicate but powerful correlating and crosschecking engines necessary to access and manipulate and manage this vast body of information.
It was Mayakovsky's intention to make them memorize all these minutiae, and not only to memorize them but to absorb and internalize them. The very best spellcasters had talent, he told his captive, silent audience, but they also had unusual under-the-hood mental machinery, the delicate but powerful correlating and crosschecking engines necessary to access and manipulate and manage this vast body of information.
Magicians tend to have pre-written incantations and spells for these kind of things, usually calling on various dire or implausible powers (of which my favourite was "Upney, Grey Lord of Tar", who I'd heard mentioned by amateurs and who we knew to be real) to achieve their temporary wills.
Sorcerers rely on will power and raw magic, and I now deployed both, snatching heat and power out of the air around me until my breath condensed with the sudden cold, and the lights above me whined and flickered.
Sorcerers rely on will power and raw magic, and I now deployed both, snatching heat and power out of the air around me until my breath condensed with the sudden cold, and the lights above me whined and flickered.
"The language of the mystic arts is as old as civilization. The sorcerers of antiquity called the use of this language 'spells.' But if that word offends your modern sensibilities, you can call it a program. The source code that shapes reality. We harness energy drawn from other dimensions of the Multiverse to cast spells... to conjure shields... and weapons... to make magic."
— The Ancient One, Doctor Strange (2016)
