Norman C Bowles

Many books tell you about magic. Few explain how it actually works. If you want to understand it — not just watch it happen — The Earth Keeper’s Quest lays out the fundamentals in the middle of an entertaining history of Santa’s beginning.

What follows is a series of excerpts from the book, lightly condensed, that together describe the power behind what we call magic. The lessons are offered by Leona, one of the most knowledgeable practitioners of magic on the planet, and by Zander, an Earth Keeper who will one day become Santa. Their students are two magical cats: Cindr, who is black, and Indi, a persistent piebald. The lessons begin when Cindr asks a simple question.

“Leona, can you explain how magic works?”

The Particles That Make Up Everything

Leona smiled. “To many, it is mystical. To us, it is mysterious in a perfectly natural sort of way. All of us are at least 4.5 billion years old, the same age as the particles that form the building blocks of the Earth and all that exists upon it. These infinitesimally small particles, called atoms, are indestructible. They are neither wasted nor re-created. They’re simply used over and over again. Nothing about you is new. Every atom in you, this chair, my dress has been in thousands or even millions of other things before it became part of what you see. Each of us is made up of every kind of living creature — plant or animal, ocean, and land mass — that existed before us.”

Zander watched Cindr and Indi struggling with this and stepped in to help.

“Think of it this way. Just days before we began our journey, a fly was drinking from a flower and was eaten by a bird, which a snake ate, which a bear caught and then died of old age in a field, providing food for insects, birds, and small animals. What remained of the bear decayed and settled into the soil, creating nutrients in the wheat that went into your bread this morning and the grass that the cow ate, which produced the milk you drank. Now the atoms of the flower, fly, bird, snake, bear, soil, and cow are part of you. You are made up of what your mother ate, and what you have eaten, drunk, or breathed. Imagine that cycle playing over and over again on a grand scale for 4.5 billion years. Every single part of you has been all over this Earth many, many times.”

He motioned for Leona to continue.

“That is the backdrop for our magic. These particles have the vaguest memory of places they have been, and there is a weak attraction to rejoin a previous form or reunite with a former partner. This is universal and never disappears, creating a slight mutual attraction among all things. Faint as those attractions are, taken together, they create a constant ethereal fluid that embraces everything. Magic exists in these attractions, waiting to be released by a wizard, sorceress, or adept student of magic. This commonality of age, and that all these atoms have shared similar forms many times, often together, links everything into an imperceptible river of energy.”

Cindr blinked rapidly and shook her head slowly. “This was a bit overwhelming. I think I understand what you told me. I’m the very Earth itself, in living form.”

Releasing Magic’s Energy

Across several scenes, Zander teaches Cindr and Indi how to actually use their powers. The lessons come piecemeal, often in the middle of practice sessions. Pulled together, they amount to a short set of rules.

The first rule is command, not wish. When Cindr tries to make a box move and only manages to get it to follow her:

“You expressed a desire, not an instruction, to the box, so all it could do was follow you, waiting for your direction, Cindr. It needed a command. I want you to order that wrench to come to you and snap your fingers at the same time. Be sure to be ready to catch it.”

The second rule is frame of mind. Later, with Indi, Zander kicked at a pinecone and said:

“Magic comes from the positive energy of the Earth and from life. One’s frame of mind makes a significant difference. Like when you’re in a good mood, the breakfast you eat is the best ever. But when your mood’s bad, the very same breakfast seems tasteless. How we view the world determines whether we have many great opportunities or few.

“Imagine that you could duplicate yourself and live two identical lifetimes side by side. In one life, you are positive and see reasons to be grateful for even the small things. In the other, you are negative, and all you see is how little you have and how others around you have more. It’s a choice. Magic works the same way. If we are open to it, we see magical things everywhere, and it flows through us.”

The third rule is belief.

“To release your magical energy, you must believe you will succeed. Be open to drawing upon all the energy around you and be flexible. If one thing doesn’t work, try something different.”

The fourth is sequence — goal first, action second. Zander watched Indi struggling and recognized the pattern:

“I think that when you try to do magic, my friend, you snap and then think of what you want to have happen. That delays the time between when you create the power and when it has something to act upon. It gives that magic space to create its own mischief. Have you tried thinking of a result and then snapping your fingers?”

He later brought all these together:

“This gift of magic that you and Cindr have doesn’t work if you don’t believe. Believe, and your door to the unimaginable can open. Have your doubts, and surely you will fail. Success not only with magic but in our lives often depends on our faith in ourselves. Create the goal in your mind that you wish, mentally see it happen, and then commence. If there is no goal, who knows what will happen?”

The Use of Sound as a Catalyst

The snap of the fingers appears throughout the book, but Leona eventually explains that the snap itself is not the magic.

“Our power doesn’t actually come from a snap. A snap is merely a catalyst that creates sound waves, or a disturbance, in the air. That brief tremor gives our magical forces something to hold on to. Think that your little snap shivers the world just enough that magic can slip in through the crack. We can get the same effect from clapping our hands or stomping our feet. They all create a disturbance.

“When we’re first learning and our magic skills aren’t developed, a loud sound is essential. Later, as our skills improve, we need less sound assistance. We can achieve our goal with the movement of a finger or the flicker of an eyelash. However, an assist is never bad, no matter how skilled we are, and sometimes it is almost essential.”

Cindr listened attentively, then nodded. “That’s why you and Zander didn’t always snap your fingers to make something happen — but why he clapped to heat a stream, and he stomped to speed or slow time!”

Magic Is Not About Force

As the lessons progress, Leona refines her students’ understanding. The first refinement is about intent.

“We want to consider the best way to get the objects to move. I like to think I’m gliding objects rather than trying to get them to fly. I also like to imagine moving with my objects rather than pushing them, or that I’m helping them to do something they already want to do rather than forcing them to do something they wouldn’t do. We are facilitators when we use our powers, not controllers.”

The Medium That Carries Magic

The second refinement is about the air itself — and what’s in it.

“Just as snapping our fingers or stomping our feet causes magic-assisting ripples in the air, the particles in the air produce an even more powerful effect.” Leona pointed to the dust visible in a beam of sunlight. “Sound needs a medium to travel to our ears. If there is no medium, such as air or solid material, there is no sound. Our eyes need light to see. If there is no light, we don’t see well. Have you ever noticed that smells are stronger on a humid day than on a dry day? It’s because the water particles in the air help intensify the smell.

“Magic is sort of like that. We can send magic through plain air, but it doesn’t have much to hold on to.

“However, if we add a little dust, the magic builds up on each dust particle like a jolt of static energy for the briefest moment and releases all at once, intensifying the power. The power increases when we add even a wisp of dust. Fairies are small creatures, and yet because they use their dust so expertly, their power is much stronger than people who can do magic. I’ve seen a single fairy move half a forest by herself.”

Taken together, these lessons describe a complete system.

Magic begins with the atoms themselves — ancient, shared, faintly attracted to every form they’ve ever worn. That attraction creates an ethereal field that embraces everything. The magician doesn’t manufacture power; the magician releases what’s already there, by commanding rather than wishing, by holding a clear goal, by believing, and by using sound to disturb the air just enough that the magic can take hold. Fill the air with dust and the effect multiplies, because the particles give the magic something to grip.

This is the foundational source. These are the principles.

Once you understand them, the different magical traditions of fantasy — the Jedi Knights of Star Wars, the wizards of Hogwarts, the White Witch of Narnia, the elves of Middle-earth — stop looking like separate systems. They start looking like different schools channeling the same underlying energy. That’s the subject of the next post, “Schools of Magic.”

For the full lessons, in the context of the story they belong to, read The Earth Keeper’s Quest.