Ace Dreamer Wrote:Historical magic would have no real solid theoretical basis, just loads of 'working rules', many of which might be useless, or worse than useless. But, here and there, there would be useful practices, such as use of meditation, emotional control, training a 'magic self', that sort of thing.
In case it's useful (and in case no one's quoted it in the remaining 2/3 of this thread that I have yet to read), here's the "Unified Theory of Magic" passage from chapter 2 of Drunkard's Walk VIII, which I believe is relevant to the matter at hand.
Let me explain. Magic at its deepest, most basic level is a
fundamental force of nature which can, when directed, change the
way *other* fundamental aspects of space-time behave, including
those which are loosely and fuzzily described as "spiritual".
In order to direct this force, you need two things -- a genetic
trait which allows you to perceive and manipulate that force, and
a system which abstracts and organizes the process of using that
force.
The trait is the magegift. It's like being born with eyes and
hands for magic.
The system is something called a magical tradition. (Or a school
of magic, or a style, or any of a dozen similar terms.) It is a
combination of knowledge, skills, techniques, and shortcuts which
allow a practitioner to manipulate mana and use it to accomplish
certain tasks. A system always includes a model of what magic is
and how it behaves, which defines what is and isn't possible with
the methods available to that system. The model does not need to
be "true" as long as it is internally consistent and maps somehow
onto the lower-level reality of magic; different traditions can
and do have mutually contradictory models, all of which work.
It's sort of like how geocentric astronomy is nothing like
reality, but still functions just fine for the purpose of
navigation on both land and sea.
The catch is, while the model empowers you to do what it says is
possible, it also restricts you with what it says is
*impossible*. Of course, the model can be changed, but until the
twentieth century this was a slow, trial-and-error process -- and
even if a revised model worked, sometimes there was a cultural or
religious context that would not allow it to be implemented.
(For example: ask a Catholic exorcist what he thinks about
grafting some Voudoun onto his bell-book-and-candle system to
give it a bit more *ooomph*. Be prepared to run.)
Anyway, along about 1949 a small group of theoretical physicists
scattered among several colleges along the East Coast of the
United States started wondering *why* there were dozens -- hell,
*hundreds* -- of different ways to do magic, and no two of them
agreed on more than a couple axioms or principles. Working with
some equally-curious mages from the same colleges and several
different traditions, they figured out that no single magical
system actually described the objective reality of magic -- they
just provided toolkits to *use* that reality. With that
breakthrough made, they began to work backwards from the various
systems to figure out just *what* that objective reality actually
*was*.
The result was the creation by 1974 of a Unified Theory of Magic.
(Which turned out to be the missing chunk of the Grand Unified
Theory that made the whole thing work, but that's neither here
nor there at the moment.) The UTM by itself wasn't a magical
system, but it described how magical systems *worked* from the
ground up, and how they could be designed and implemented. And
since no science can be done without mathematics, the UTM had an
entire branch of math of its own -- along with a notation system
that turned out to be very useful not only for quantifying
systems, but also for defining magical techniques -- "spells" --
in a system-neutral manner.
In the latest iteration of "The South Is Rising", the magic portions of the Catalogue are released to provide an edge against whatever unknown force transposed the Continental US with its counterparts from Turtledove's novel. In those passages it's mentioned that the requirement of the mage gift is very much at work in Fenspace -- not everyone can work magic. This will be just as applicable in mainline Fenspace as in this alternate,and gives us a "brake" of sorts to slow the adoption of magic into the setting to whatever speed we need. It doesn't matter what you find out with research -- if you don't have enough people with the genetic gift to use it, it's not going to upset the applecart.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.