Lesson Four
Making Magic
Throughout this class, and its sister course, we've discussed all different sorts of magic: charms, spells, curses, potions. We have even gone into Magical and Muggle laws and statutes, but the one thing we really have not discussed is how these have all come into play. Magic may have poofed into existence centuries ago, but the spells and potions we have today haven't always been around. For this final lesson, we are going to delve into how exactly magic is made.
Hinted throughout literature, we have heard of people practicing inventing new charms and spells as hobbies. Never have we actually witnessed an actual spell or charm be passed as safe into the Wizarding world, so we can only guess how this might be done.
First, let us start with an unfortunate case that we know as fact to have experimented with making magic. Luna Lovegood's mother was said to be a very gifted witch who liked to experiment with magic. Sadly, one of her spells went terribly wrong one day and it ended in her demise. Her death happened in front of her daughter, Luna, and was said to be quite gory. This would explain a good deal about Luna, though.
In magic, especially ours, the language in which the spell or charm is cast is important. Most of our spells are based off the ancient language of Latin. Now, if you sit down and think about it for a moment...Why are these magical spells in the Latin?
There are actually quite a few theories for this. Some people believe that spells are continuously in Latin because magic is as old as this truly ancient language. Thus, over the centuries, the spells from so long ago have lingered in our histories and trickled down to our own generation of magic. Another theory for spells being in Latin is that this language was considered sacred, the language of the gods, and only those who were worthy could speak it, hence keeping the secrecy.
A more explainable theory is that Latin was the more sacred and less-learned of the ancient languages. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was formed around the 9th and 10th century. If you think about it, the many and varying languages we have today in our society were not in existence back then. Scribes were extremely rare to come by and scribes who were well-versed in Latin: doubly rare. Thus, for keeping magic a secret, the language of Latin would be very handy.
As mentioned in the previous lesson, the Muggle show 'Charmed' pulls a lot of its material from real life magic. No, kids, it's not just stuff made up for television, a huge portion of it is accurate, if not a little inventive. Witchcraft in the show is a great example of how spells are created. The witches were often seen creating rhyming poems and couplets in order to defeat whatever evil ailed them that specific day.
If you've ever wondered why these magical verses are written in poem-form or why they often rhyme, I might be able to shed some light on this odd conundrum. As we've talked about in previous lessons, magic and its counterparts all center highly around balance, physical balance and cosmic balance. When creating and writing spells, rhyming is an elaborately effective way to retain this magical balance. The similar sounds for the words and the syllibic matching tends to be an easier and more effective way of creating magic for some.
For many of those who practice the craft, the means of creating magic is, sometimes, traditional and passed down through generations. Those practitioners will go about their magics one way for years and, one day, do something slightly different on purpose or by mistake and find that their newly discovered way also works. Whether or not they embrace this new way of magic or stick to the traditional methods depends on how open they are to change or how lazy they are.
Another concept of creating magic I wish us to cover in this lesson is the manifestation of magical powers. Telekinesis, telepathy, mind-reading; all of those sweet powers we all wish we had when we were kids. Thankfully, I have been fortunate enough to have taken a course during my studies on supernatural occurrences and phenomenon and my professor was willing to share some of his knowledge and theories on power manifestation.
"During my studies, I have formulated a number of theories on how these manifestations of physical and psychic power might come to occur in the human body. Personally, I stand by the theory of genetic modification. And before you ask, because I know you will, Ashley (that's me!), : Yes, I do mean magical genetic modification.
Not necessarily caused by magic, but a modification resulting in a magical means. It's a confusing, tongue-twisting mess, but it is a definite theory. How this modification occurs is a harder peg to pin. In order to understand the formulations behind a genealogical anomaly, one must have a specimen for observation and study and even if these powers were in existence, we're not likely to find someone willing enough to step forward and say, 'hey, I have magical powers! Test me and see where they come from!' It's not probable, or, even, possible, but we dreamists retain the hope of greater understanding."
Possible? Absolutely. Probable? Who can really know. The wizards and witches in Harry Potter support the theory of magical genetic modification due to the magical "gene" being passed down from parents into their children. Then we have squibs who might have magical parents, but retain no ability to perform magic and muggle-borns who have hit the genetic lottery and possess magical ability, but their parents do not.
Some of the time, I will sit and think about the human mind and its physical ability and wonder if our ideas on our own limitations is the only thing standing in most people's way of making the supernatural possible. Is it because we have always viewed fantasy and science fiction as true fiction that we truly don't believe these things are possible? If one believed magic existed in the world and as never told it was fictional and impossible, could they make it happen?
Your theories are as good as mine right about now. Personally, I think magic is possible. I believe the supernatural happens and is always around us. Am I clinically crazy, probably, yes, but at least this makes for an entertaining life.
I do believe this leaves us at the end of our adventures together and your final homework and EC await you.