Spells and Gaming
and Hollywood

Many a day goes by that I receive a spell request that is unrealistic.  I've gotten everything from "can I have a levitation spell" to "How do you throw a firebolt or create light in a room?" or "How can you heal someone instantaneously?". And while I realize that there is no such thing as a stupid question, some of these questions made me reailze that there is a serious need for education out there. And while it may seem to some that I am beating a dead horse (when you consider my essay on Magic and Common sense), the e-mail I've received regarding these type of requests tells me I haven't gotten through to some people yet.

  Magic (real magic) is quite a bit more Earthy than that which you see on television or in the movies.  Yes, one can learn to levitate someone, but that is more of a mind training (telekinesis) than a spell.  The same with healing.  I occasionally work healing magic, and while I can speed up someone's healing, and even help things heal better, it's unrealistic to expect overnight results.  Magic has laws, just like anything else in the natural world, and few that I know of have the kind of personal energy to affect anything very rapidly.  Universal energy, while vast and all encompassing, is not always easy to harness.  As for light spells,  there are ways to increase your perception in the dark, but once again, that is more of a talent of the mind that requires training.  Few that I know of have a natural talent in that area.  As for throwing fireballs, that is just one example of what the Role Playing Game industry has done to us serious practitioners out there.  In the Druidic group of which I am now a member, we are not even permitted to game at all because of just such expectations!

These are hard questions to answer, really.  I hate to limit magic, because most limitations are in our minds, and not quite so cut and dried as people make them out to be.  But I can say that while Hollywood and the RPG industry has done some great things by bringing the practice of magic out into the open, they have done us irreparable harm by bringing up the expectations of their viewers.  The use of magic is something that, like all skills, require a certain innate ability as well as a great deal of training.  No amount of Hollywood glitz will change that!

 
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