The Nature of Magic A Beginner's Guide

by Treasurehunter20

Rating: everyone
Tags: Random
Length: 2276

This is for all of you out there who is curious about magic.

Have you seen something that can't be explain? Are you curious about Magic? If the answer is yes then this the book for you. Join me as I try to explain everything about Magic.

Note: this book is part reference guide, part story. I'll also add more tags as they become relative.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2016-02-15 00:39:42 UTC

The Introduction

The Nature of Magic

Magic is somewhat related to Quantum Physics and to a lesser extent science in general. Studying magic takes years to master and is never to be taken lightly or played with unsupervised. Now there are many types of magic, but all of them usually requires a will or a mind to work in some way. I say usually because if magical energy is in high enough concentration naturally to begin with, something of unpredictable nature happens. To everyone who never experience magic or those who experience it but don’t understand it, this is a quick introduction to magic. Just to note, I never actually experience magic myself but have given the subject a lot of thought.

Magic is like a field of energy that exists in its own dimensional plane and still be able to interact with the world. Don’t ask me how, for I doubt even the brightest minds could figure that out. Now magic can transform into other forms of energy and, through some scientific theories if Einstein’s equation of 〖E=MC〗^2 is true, matter. Energy from magic such as heat is easy but gets incrementally more challenging the more complex the energy gets and matter from magic is beyond all but the most powerful of beings (such as Alicorns that have been around for thousands of years or God) or maybe a group of powerful beings.

Magical fields of study can blend together and even overlap each other, meaning that there are multiple ways to get the desire result. Like I said earlier, magic exist in a field but I forgot to mention that the nature of these fields are similar to the magnetic fields that you’ll find around stars and planets. I say this now because it’s possible for some creatures to navigate by magic. The living things that do use magic in some way need a special organ or organ system to sense and use magic, but magic can and will affect anything without a problem. With that being said, it is possible that technology could be made to sense, measure, and use magic, but said technology will not be easy to make. Especially if the inventor of such technology cannot sense and use magic to begin with.

There are 16 major fields of study for magic so far and I’ll try to give a summary of each. Do keep in mind that since I haven’t experience magic, this is all theory at the moment. Some myths about magic will be cleared up here as well. The 16 fields are levitation, light, dark, divination, alchemy, earth, fire, air, water, life, death, holy (divine), unholy (devil), mind, time, and teleportation (space). Now some of the fields of magic are forbidden. I will try to order the fields of magic from easiest to hardest, but that is not always the case.

The first field of magic is levitation as levitation magic is maybe the simplest and easiest aside from a candle light spell that any flashlight could mimic. Levitation is often the most useful because it could move some of the heaviest objects around with very little effort from an experience magic user. Plus levitation magic could also be use to manipulate objects without them being in the air, like for example flipping a light switch.

Light magic is the second field of magic I’ll be talking about here. The field of light magic is both a simple and complex field of magic. I have to make this clear right now that contrary to popular belief, light magic does not mean good magic nor does it solely work with light. This field of magic works with energy conversion but got its name for the candle light spell I mention earlier which was the first spell to have been develop in the history of magic. The magic of this field can be use for but are not limited to illusions, fireworks, sound amplification, shields, and energy blasts.

Dark magic contrary to popular belief doesn’t mean evil magic. This field of magic is about stealth and deception which is not bad in itself. The field of dark magic can dampened light and sound as well as create wards that could limit the use of magic from other fields of study.

Divination magic is all about detection of magic and other things. In a way, Divination started out as a way to detect things like water, and food. Soon afterwards it quickly diversifies to the detection of predators, gold, and gemstones. Today there are a lot more uses for Divination magic like in science, medicine, engineering, and the military. But despite the usefulness, not many know about divination.

Now I’m going to talk about the four Elemental fields of magic which is likely to be the most powerful of the magical fields. If you haven’t notice a trend by now, I’ll tell you that the magical fields is about balance. I’ve notice that all around us the world likes to rest at a balance between chaos and order, meaning too much order and you’ll be board and too much chaos and you’ll be insane. This is true for every system you look at whether or not its economics, politics, mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology, the food web, and weather. Magic is the same way and tends to influence the minds of sentient and semi sentient beings with a balance of sorts of Good and Evil. Sorry that I went on a tangent but it is necessary because the reason there are four Elemental fields of magic is to maintain balance of the natural world, meaning the weather, the seasons, and the creation and destruction of everything.

The first of the four Elemental fields is water magic. I’ll let you know right now that there is very little that’s known about water magic, but that’s not my fault here. Water magic is the domain of the merfolk and they’re very secretive, no one has seen any of the merfolk as far as I know. I’m just speculating here that water magic can make storms when combine with air magic, make walls (or anything really) of ice, and a few other things I’m not sure of here.

Earth magic is the second of the four Elemental fields. Philosophers often thought that Earth magic only worked on the planet Earth but I’ll put that myth to bed now because that’s not true as in this case Earth magic means ground magic. This field of magic is maybe the most studied of the elemental magical fields thanks to some Earth ponies, and I don’t mean the ponies of my home world of planet Earth. The magic of this field is what gave Earth ponies their endurance and stamina. Some of the Earth magic spells can make earthquakes, volcanoes, and almost any object out of stone.

The third of the four Elemental fields of magic is Fire magic. Careful with the magic of this field because Fire magic can be very dangerous if handle in a reckless manner. A common misconception is that Fire magic is only about setting things on fire but Fire magic is a tool. Yes I said tool because Fire magic is all about controlling temperature differences which means you can control cold as well as heat. Now I should mention that I’m telling the broad overview of the fields of magic, so don’t be upset if I don’t go into detail here. Some examples of spells of this field can make fireballs, firewalls, fire storms, and cryostasis. You got to remember that I haven’t experience magic here so all this is theory.

Air magic is the last of the four Elemental magical fields I’ll talk about here. The magic of this field is what allows pegasi to fly, walk on clouds, and can control the weather to some level. Now I won’t say much about this field because I’m not sure how Air magic works here. Anyway some spells can make air blast, tornados, and cushions of air.

Life magic is a diverse and extremely useful field of magic in the sense of farming and medicine. Most soldiers in Equestria are required to know most of the basic first aid spells if they're to graduate from basic training. The Earth ponies all seem to have some affinity for Life magic as well for farming and the care of livestock. Some of the fancier spells of Life magic could make plants grow into structures, shields and walls, heel injuries, and a few others stuff that I just theorizing to be transforming living things into other living things. Despite the usefulness of this field of magic, there is still a lot of research to be done in Life magic.

Death magic is the counter balance of life magic and is consider to be forbidden field of magic. Now there are two maybe three subfields to death magic which I’ll only mention here because if you get caught practicing this field, you’ll be imprison and/or put to death. No exceptions!! The first part is the lethal or the killing spells, some of which will take time killing the victim while others kill instantly. This next part I’m not sure is possible is leaching which is the process of sucking the life-force out of one being into another being, usually yourself. This last part is something that’s been a part of popular culture for awhile now, the animation of the dead. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, animating the dead means bringing the dead back to life but not completely which is how you get walking mummies, zombies, and the Frankenstein Monster.

Alchemy is the creation of potions to get the desire results. Now this field of magic is the closest to actual science for it is what the scientific field called Chemistry is base off of, but alchemy often use plants and minerals and sometimes animals that have magic infused in them. It’s because of that trait, alchemy is accessible by anyone. Now there is another form of alchemy that deal with Transmutation, which focuses magic to change the properties of materials in either shape or makeup. Transmutation usually requires what’s known as a transmutation circle and magic from the alchemist own body, which can be dangerous.

Unholy magic, also known as Devil’s magic, black magic, and sometimes confused with Dark magic, is a forbidden field of magic which practicing is punishable by imprisonment and/or death. No Exceptions. Now the only reason why I am writing about this field is to warn you not to use it for even the simplest of spells in this field will corrupt you. This field of magic truly earned the name Devil’s magic for its many parts that involve but not limited to the summoning of demons, possession, torture, and curses. And there is always a steep price to pay when playing with the Devil’s toys. Even Discord won’t touch them.

Holy magic, otherwise known as Divine magic, is the only magical field that can counter the advance stuff of Devil’s magic. Only practitioners of this field can study the fields of forbidden magic and will have to in order to learn how to best counter such magic. A word of warning to all who wish to learn this field of magic is that only the purest of the pure will succeed to become masters. For some reason the Elements of Harmony fall under Holy magic.

Mind magic is one of the more powerful and dangerous fields of magic. While Mind magic can read peoples thoughts and memories, alter and corrupt personalities, and even control people among other things dealing with the mind that should make forbidden, it has found its usefulness with treating patients who have severe mental health problems thus making it highly restricted. With that being said, only use mind magic with extreme caution and only as a last resort. The magic of this field has the potential to cause insanity, paralysis, memory lost, coma, and possibly even death if not handle correctly. Now I believe that Princess Luna’s Dream magic is part of this field of magic but don’t ask me how mind magic works as this is an uncertain field.

Time magic is a dangerous field to play with, as it has a tendency to create paradoxes. It wasn’t until a unicorn named Star Swirl the Bearded created the first time travel spells that the field of time magic got recognized. Trying to change the past can and will often create timelines that may not be desirable because distractions to the timeline would unbalance the world with their cascading effect. The only safe way to use time-magic is to observe the past to learn from past mistakes.

Teleportation magic is actually a subcategory of space-time magic that includes time magic. Time and space are so closely related that the two fields of magic are considered to be the same.

The danger of teleportation is that if you don’t make the correct calculations, you could get hurt or killed. It is possible to create safety features in these spells to prevent such possibilities. Feeling out the space you want to teleport to before actually teleporting is advisable. You don’t want to experience butterflies in your stomach in the literal kind of way.

Now this is just an introduction to the Nature of Magic for the common person. I still have a lot to go over and much to contemplate as I have not talk about how emotions interact with magic or thought about how love or chaos magic work.