#magic class

In today's modern world, the power of words, particularly names, has largely been forgotten. We give out our names freely and without much thought. But the power of names has been told in stories for thousands of years.

In the old lands in Europe, stories of malevolent faeries and tricksters have been told for generations, warning the children, and any who would listen, to never give your name to a faerie. The protagonists of these stories were clever, and quick to think on their feet. They'd lie or dodge the question, but no matter what, they were never to hand over their name.

They understood that the power of a name gives someone power over another.

In Egypt, the Goddess Isis obtained unfathomable power by tricking King Ra into telling her his name, turning her from an already powerful spirit into a goddess of overwhelming authority and strength.

Still to this day in modern exorcisms, learning the name of the offending demon is considered a crucial step into banishing it from the victim.

From a modern perspective, it's well known that you should never have your full name out there on the Internet. You never know who can find you, and what people can do to you.

All that being said, it is no surprise that warding your name can be a crucial, but overlooked practice. And it is not even particularly hard to do. Whether you can do this daily, weekly, or whenever you can remember to do it; at least it is done.

Use the power of your spoken word to ward your name. Here is an example.

"Through the power of my spoken word, may my name (insert name), be shielded from the mouths of vipers who would dare to poison my reputation, my blessings, my body and mind. May wealth shower over me when I am spoken of in conversation, whether I am present or not. May my name spoken in joy double my own happiness and may my name spoken in anger fill the room with calm. May lies spoken against my name be revealed, and may evil attached to my name be banished. When the name (insert name) is spoken or imagined, may all malice be transmuted, and all affection be amplified. So it is, amen."

It is suggested that all names that you use or don't use be warded as well. For any person who doesn't use their birth name, the old name should still be warded. If you are transgender, warding your dead name can cause people who speak it to change their minds, or send wealth your way. If you still have to use your dead name on legal documents, the same idea applies.

So now welcome to

professor alexa's magic 101

Search tags = #prof alexa and/or #magic 101

That's right, this is gonna be me basically just explaining the magic in my writing in a series of post (that and gushing about cool abilities i came up with ngl) questions are welcome and in fact encouraged, attendence is not mandatory except for tests, and please be sure to give me a high rating on rate my professor!

for this first one im gonna explain basic magic classifications, this should be a fairly short lesson today class, be sure to take notes. This will be on the final

The first classification term is

Class

A spell or magical abilities class refer to what kind of magic it is and how available it is

ex. Attack, bloodline this would mean the ability or spell is a type of attack and is a bloodline ability (meaning only members of one bloodline are able to use it)

The possible classes are as follows:

Attack, defense, mobility, enhancement, passive, control, impairment, creation, charm, unique, bloodline, divine blessing, soul bound, essence bound, undefined

Most abilities will have one or two to determine what the ability does and one to determine if it is restricted to a person or group and how its restricted (if there is nothing to define restriction assume it's generally available)

Now most of these i think are self explanatory if you are unsure on one please come see me after class i will happily answer any questions (ask, reblog or comment) but i will provide a quick explanation of some of the less obvious ones:

Control: the ability to manipulate something freely (such as an element, blood, fire, plante etc) generally restricted to one substance but there are exceptions. This class is unique in that it is completely free general manipulation of the substance (some spells provide manipulation of an object but generally it is limited to whatever the spell does). Common pairings: attack, defense, passive

Impairment: weakening of a person or object either magically or physically, also includes sealing magic. Common pairings: attack, charm

Unique: this means the ability is restricted to a single person or group, this however does not mean it cannot be learned by others outside of the group but instead generally means the knowledge of how to use the ability is kept secret by that person or group

Divine blessing: means it the ability was granted by the gods or was granted as a wish via the ritual of zarkos. This also generally implies the ability is incredibly powerful. Common pairings: bloodline, soul bound, essence bound

Soul and essence bound: putting these two together as they are similar and commonly paired together, these mean that the ability is bound to a persons soul or essence meaning only that person can use it and will also be the only person to ever use it (soulbound does have exceptions to this)

Undefined: outside the current classifications, this is generally very rare

Type:

This in effect is the kind of magic the ability generally utilizes, some spells/abilities have several types while others have only one

Some common types of magic are: earth, water, ice, wind, lightning, fire, plague, shadow, light, void, enchantment, space, time, storm

As i plan to go into several of these in future classes i wont get to in depth at this point in time. Its important to keep in mind these are not all of the types of magic, there are many more, some of which likely haven't even been discovered. The tree of magic has many branches and is ever growing and likewise magic grows with it.

Notes and things to keep in mind

Rigid and malleable: during your research into magic you may find these terms in various different readings, annoyingly not ever scholar likes to use (especially older ones) due to various disagreements in their philosophy of magic (we will talk about that eventually) i recommend you use them when possible. These terms refer to how well one can change a spell/the diversity of its use, effectively if you can only use the spell one or two ways/ for its intended purpose it is rigid, if a skilled enough sorcerer can modify the spell and use it in various ways then it is malleable.

Difficulty: you'll see this often it just refers to how hard the spell is to learn/ use, different people use different terms personally i use, novice, intermediate, and advanced with few exceptions

Mana cost: how much mana it takes to use, if a spell does have this listed it will likely be labeled light, medium, or heavy. If you find one labeled weird and you cant figure out what its implying let me know i will see if i can figure out what they meant.

Something to keep in mind, mana cost not listed =/= no mana cost. Very few spells have no mana cost if its not listed either the cost is unknown or the author just didnt know or more likely didnt feel like writing it down

Alright with that said i think that's all our time for this class today, i'll be sure to post any addendums if needed or at least ill cover them next class. Please read to page 15 in your text books. If you have any questions please let me know.

well hi!! I didn't know you were Greek, that's awesome!!

And boy, that is a loaded question lol. A lot of our time this semester was dedicated to defining magic. It's not really an easy answer.

The main definition we used was according to Radcliffe Edmonds III. In his book Drawing Down the Moon: Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World, he defines magic as a non-normative practice. I.E., something that is not socially acceptable and therefore religion. (I do have a list of all the resources we used for the class here)

We ended up looking at about 5 different definitions of magic, all of which tried to delineate between religion, superstition, and magic. This is genuinely a really hard question because it is hard to separate those three.

Some specific magics that we studies this semester include:

Binding magic

Imitation magic

Erotic Magic (and it's inherent flaws and shitty-ness)

Curse Tablets

Theurgy

Astrology

the Greek Magical Papyri

the Evil Eye

Poppets

Prayer

Fortune Telling (through the πυθία as well as bibliomancy with Homeromanteion)

Historiola and Grammata Ephasia

Alchemy (my fav)

'Magical Assistants'

Healing magic

We did not go super deep into any one other than the debates on the definition of magic, seeing as this is more of an introductory class into the subject. We specifically looked at Greece during the Hellenistic and Classical period, about 500 BCE - 31 BCE

There truly is a lot of magic at play in every culture in the world, especially in ancient times. I personally find it to be interesting and hope to keep studying it in the future, and Greece and the Celtic Nations are my specific areas of study.

I know that there seems to be a negative connotation around magic, which I personally think is stupid. Magical thinking is a core part of the human psyche, and trying to label it as 'bad' just hurts us and the way we view/learn to accept the world. But, the way media portrays magic as "evil people who kill" children still prevails, even through a lack of archeological evidence.

I hope this answers your question!! I would be glad to keep rambling about this class lol, it was a lot of fun!

Warlock by Dheuster

Replaces the Magic Class with Warlock. Warlocks are magic warriors, trained in the use of arcane staffs. They prefer melee over ranged combat.

Ladybug: Restoration

Chat Noir: Destruction

Rena Rogue: Illusion

Carapace: Alteration

Queen Bee: Alchemy

Hawkmoth: Mysticism