#temporal magic

"Santa must employ some kind of time magic..."

to:

"Maybe something like a TARDIS..."

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TL;DR Witching Hour is at 3am because everyone is asleep, then spoopy shit goes down.  We’re talking skeletons in top hats, man.  Crazy shit. So Witching Hour is apparently this big bad moment on the clock when the big hand and the little hand join up and the Sun is nowhere to be seen.  I hear the time is generally 12am, but I also have an independent source who claims it is actually 3am.  Why?  I dunno.  I’ll ask them.  But is Witching Hour actually bound to 12am?  What if you live near a timezone line?  Is it affected by Daylight Savings Time?  Is it a constant global? I’ve got the feeling that 3am in the central area of a given timezone is more accurate simply because, during late night walks, I have noticed it to be the part of the night that is most often devoid of human activity (except for my own walking, obviously).  I have heard of two kinds of magic (more, actually, but two for this purpose) - mana and Od.  Mana is the lifeblood of our sweet Mother Earth, the magic that is produced by the world we live in.  It travels via Ley Lines and spreads all around like veins carrying oxygen.  If the Chinese are to be believed, Feng Sui has something to do with this flow, but that is another rant for a different day.  Od, on the other hand, is the energy produced by living things.  Normally mana has a much more prevalent effect on the general rules of magic than Od would, since we’re comparing a vast ocean of energy with a thimble of it.  Then again, seven billion thimbles is nothing to scoff at.

My personal thoughts are that Witching Hour occurs when it does from a combination of Ley Line flow shifting a bit (with influence of Sun and Moon, primarily) combining with a lack of human interference (not unlike radio wave interference).  This also would suggest that the Hour isn’t strictly set to these times (New Year’s Eve, for instance, would occur differently because of the number of people still active).

So what’s the big deal?  Well, if there are many worlds other than ours (something almost certain if any level of magic is to be believed, and even many sciences), then one of them is a so-called “Spirit World.”  It probably isn’t just one place, and probably doesn’t just have spirits.  But the gist of the idea is that at 3am, the veil that separates the Material World (read: the world as we know it) from the Spirit World & Co. becomes quite thin.  And when the veil is thin, all the things that go ‘bump’ in the night sneak their way through.  I couldn’t tell you why, either.  According to many a legend, they’re simply up to no good.  I would think that if you hooked a well-endowed incubus up with a corner prostitute, it might resolve a few issues, but that decision is above my pay grade.

Since things in nature aren’t usually in strict ON/OFF positions, I am convinced that Witching ‘Hour’ genuinely begins up to an hour before and after its peak.  This also helps to account for timezone issues near their borders.  So if 3am is that peak, then I’d avoid doing anything magical between 2-4am, because spirits are drawn to magic like moths to flame.

The downside?  Witching Hour would most likely be the BEST time to be doing anything magic related.  With a lack of interference from other people’s activity, your own abilities would be much more noticeable.  That is unfortunately noticeable to you AND to things that wish less than the best upon you and yours.