The biggest douche in the universe* Assuming you're talking about the title he receives in south park. That episode was so funny I almost choked on the after chuckles that followed the initial breathtaking laughs.
The only experience I've had with "magic" involved a guy with "healing hands"...I wasn't the one hurt so I can't give a first-hand account, but I did watch him work, and I have to say, I was convinced...my friend was having an allergic reaction to something (not like a sudden I'm-about-to-die allergy) and had a lot of swelling, pain, and a rash. We were in a big group and this guy comes up and says he can heal it...he put on hand on my friend's head and the other on his chest....his hands turned bright red and got unnaturally warm, and within 5 minutes the swelling had mostly gone and the rash was faded. None of us present had any useful medical experience, so I can't vouch for its absolute authenticity....but I was certainly convinced... As for the evil of magic, I can understand why people would want to persecute magic-people (magicians just makes me giggle...) but I can't really see it happening in our society. I mean there is still a lot of prejudice and stuff, but the majority of people are accepting of science and things that produce "magic", so I don't see any reason magic-people would be treated any differently than a cross between a scientist and an evangelist...provided they could prove their authenticity and value to society...
Where does this hope come from? You live in a world where people hate each other BASED ON THE COLOR OF THEIR SKIN.... Would real magicians be persecuted today? If someone judge their power as dangerous, damn right they would. And they would be hated by many no matter how useful their powers were. By some out of jealousy, by some out of religious belief, and by some out of general fear of the unknown.
Fear of the unknown only stretches so far. . It's really a rather simplistic way of looking at things. The reality is, everyone would react differently. I for one, would be queueing up for lessons, along with most other sane, reasonable people with ambition. It would be seen as the next step in evolution by many. My stepfather firmly believes that we'll all be levitating, communicating via telepathy, and manipulating objects with our minds within the next 100-200 years. Of course, he may be completely crazy. Or not - who knows? Perhaps it's just me being Canadian, (where religion isn't so popular as in the states) but I don't think the angry villager scene is very realistic at all. . Sure, you'd have groups here and there, going ape s***. . but they would be the exceptions, I think. Almost every single person I know would be delighted to see concrete, indisputable evidence of real spiritual power, or 'magic'. I coudn't tell you how many times I've discussed this very thing, or how many people I've discussed it with. It's only a very few religious people I know who would be unreasonably afraid, and they are the radicals. . . To certain religious extremists, I think it would be the same deal as abortion doctors get. Most of them are fine and safe; a few get killed and make the news, or recieve the old burning-cross-on-the-lawn. Think of how you personally would feel about a guy who could actually levitate and heal the sick. Think of how your friends would react, your family, your neighbors. Most people I know would just love it - absolutely love it. It would give them hope. Those of us who can't find it within ourselves to accept religion could use a little more hope, and that's the honest truth most atheists won't admit. The problem is that if religious teachings don't work for you, then you have to find your own answers to the big questions. That is much more difficult than it sounds, and many of us go through life accepting that we don't have the answers. Now, a guy who levitates for real doesn't give you the meaning of life, but it would give you hope. It would prove that there is more to this life than what we perceive with the five senses, what we can understand in scientific terms and measure on a scale. That's very uplifting.
It would not give me hope. It would make me angry. Why can he levitate and not me and where can I learn to levitate and how much time will it take to learn to levitate. (Okay I suspect I wouldn't be angry but it is a completely logical reaction that some would have.) It would not give me hope though. Human kind would still be pretty much hopeless. Now let's give murderers magical powers - sudden decrease in population by 50% lol. Plus calling yourself sane based on a matter of opinion is somewhat borderline crazy if you ask me, not that that is a bad thing Here's what I believe would be the belief assumed by most people: It's bull****. Movie tricks and what not. After all they can only show a few people in real life, no? For real life examples just look to the whole deal about ghosts and psychics, as far as I can tell the majority of people DO NOT BELIEVE WHATSOEVER(no matter how hard TV programs try to convert them.) + The world is very much complex enough as it is. Try understanding it without magic and you'll have a hard enough time. Add magic to that equation and suddenly nothing makes sense. Which is anything but gratifying. More like crazifying lol. An what if no lessons could teach you? What if it was decided by birth.. wouldn't that annoy you? Some lame idiots could use magic, and you could not. Wouldn't be too cool would it? I would be one of the "uninterested insane" ones. Life is simple and complex enough as it is. Magic would just ruin the balance. People would go mad by things being made either a lot easier or a lot harder for them, and loads would get at least disturbed and other ticked off. Think about it. Society has existed without magic for so long... if you add magic to it all of a sudden, there's bound to be a lot of bad stuff happening. I for one, will never hope for magic to reveal itself as something other than a product of human fantasy. The madness following the revelation would nooooot be worth the revelation itself.
I never saw magic as evil- however you all (ha well not ALL OF YOU ) are talking about 'do-able' "magic" , healing, curses, sickness', things that require the power of the mind which i never believed to be magic (though floating and what not is a little bit more of my magical thinking) however turn a person into a sheep with a few words, then i'll be impressed. That being said I believe that is why they make it 'hidden' in shows and what not- these people are suppose to be in 'our' society and we DON'T have people popping into rooms by clouds of smoke, or living in bottles, or battling demons- there for to make it 'realistic' they say "well you don't know about it because its hidden" - its not necessarily because it's evil. It's because it's not (err...) real? or they made the main characters hide it. That being said- i do fully and whole heartedly believe that if someone walked up to central park and turned a band into a herd of sheep, and revealed magic did exist there would be an uproar - as a previous posted mentioned ; they flip their top over different religion, race, (hell hair color) why WOULDN'T they flip their top over something they thought wasn't possible- though I wonder if that magical person would even be able to get very far. The lovely government would tried to hide them from us since apparently they believe we can't (maybe we cant who knows) certain things and secrets they keep so sealed tight. However, I do not believe EVERYONE would be against Magic. I think Magic would just turn into once of those forbidden subjects (like gay rights, abortion, illegal aliens (the foreigner type not the UFO type) ) . That's my take on it anyways- though I have been up for 24 hours straight so this all could make sense to me and not you. =)
Well, Ragnar, sanity is subjective. The vast majority of the population seem completely bonkers to me; thus, they are insane, according to my standards. And the varying opinions regarding what would happen pretty much prove that everything would happen. You'd have groups representing all the ideas expressed in this thread, and many more. The only real question is; what would the governments say? That one is tough to figure. No doubt many would seek to exploit a perceived military advantage, and recruit these people, providing their abilities were actually useful. If they weren't useful (I can make sparkly sparkle-stuff!!) then. . we're back to, "how would people react to the general idea?" I think, with my magically sparkly sparkle-stuff a lot of folks would just assume I'm gay. I think most of the attention I'd get would be from gay bashers and magic enthusiasts. I can't really see anyone shooting my sorry ___ for being sparkly, or the government suits carting me off to make evil military sparkles, resulting in the end of mankind.
It is simply because there has not been a brain able to fathom a realistic modern world where magic existed openly. Okay so in another dimension on this exact same earth, magic exists, and has existed since the first life form was born. Would there even be humans? (might only be possible if humans were the only ones with magical powers, sounds unlikely if magic existed though.)If so, what would their society be like? Would there even be anything resembling society at all?
No, it was just the goofiest, most meaningless magical nonsense I could think of in the moment. No worries. I think you're really that tired. Get some sleep, TJ.
All comes down to the type and caliber of magic. If anyone could with little training become bottomless wells of destructive power this earth would exist for a few days at best after the discovery.
Yeah, but that's a bit silly. . In one of my fantasy novels, magic exists pretty much as it (supposedly, according to some) does in real life. The book is set in 2010, real world. There are a wide variety of 'magical' characters who can do a wide range of fantastic things. However, most of the destructive stuff is pretty limited. If you look at actual teachings, there's lots of stuff about dreamwalking, telling the future, and even more tangible things like levitation, telepathy, telekinesis, etc. You could pick up a how-to manual on any of those subjects if you wanted to. There are people who buy into all of those ideas, and many more. However, none of those things, within reasonable limits, would cause a tremendous upset. There are people who perform all of those things (great showmen, I assume, but that's just me) in front of people all the time, and they don't cause any great turmoil. I stuck to mostly what some people actually believe in, and just modified these practices slightly. This way, most people who perform the practice (or pretend to) are doing it wrong, sometimes just very slightly wrong; so they might be on the edge of something, but not quite there. I basically created seven schools of magic, composed of dozens of spiritual beliefs and teachings, divided into groups. So anyway, one character is a travelling magician who can actually do some things that are physically visible. His audience believes him to be exceptionally clever, nothing more. As amazing as some of his performances may be, nobody wants to be the idiot who says, "OMG, he's doing real magic!." So most of the story occurs 'behind the scenes,' so to speak, even in plain sight. Most real magic that is actually recognised as such, is much like the things people often practice in any case. . So for people who believe in it, the success isn't alarming. For people who don't believe - well, they just don't believe. Results don't really matter so much to people who refuse to accept an idea. If someone walked up to me and told me something about my dead granny, I'd say, "Lucky guess," being the ___hole sceptic that I am. In my more recent novel I went with the idea that magic has been around for a long time and is accepted as everyday, like scientific advancement. A thousand years ago, sights from today would have terrified people. Anything can become normal in time.
If we're going to call names like that... your whole concept is silly as well. What's so silly about magic being terrifying if it exists ? -.- There must be a reason they're keeping it a secret no? Stands to logic that it would be terrifyingly powerful. And yes it can become normal over time. If you suddenly shoved air planes into a medieval society they would probably never use them. If magic is to be successfully introduced now it has to be introduced sloooowly. Over a very long period of time.
Well, I meant that the idea of magic capable of destroying the world being easily learned and easily accessable by people sounds silly. If you run with that idea, try to write a book, your audience is likely to say, "So, why hasn't it happened yet?" Totally unrealistic = silly in my mind, but that's just me. That kind of magic, to my way of thinking, (in the context of writing of story about it) would take like a lifetime of study by the greatest of gurus -- people who aren't likely to put the world in danger. I prefer to run with less apocalyptic threat, because I feel those storylines are often badly managed, and it's very difficult to pull off successfully (believably). Plus, I just don't find them interesting. And if even 0.01% of the crazy things most people believe (yes, I said most people - more than half of the people I know believe in magic in one form or another) were true, magic IS being slowly introduced. So slowly, so subtely, you don't even know it! Hah! Who's to say that firewalker in ______ isn't actually making himself impervious to flame with only his mind? Who's to prove it, one way or the other? He's walking on fire, barefoot. What more can he do to prove himself?
Please remember this forum's Prime Directive - respect toward other members at all times. If you can't discuss these topics in friendly tones, the threads will be shut down.
^ Totally saw that one coming Now to Kas- I do get what you mean- however I am partly on Ragnar's side BECAUSE whose to say that that's the way things would work. What if Hitler had had the power to read minds? What if he could explode things with his mind!! What if magic did exist, but you didn't get to learn it like ragnar said, if it was given to you- some had it, others didn't. Those that didn't would riot, those that did would be angry- whose to say that those who had it wouldn't use it for evil or to rob banks. And even still your talking about do-able magic like I said before, reading minds, resisting fire, things that have to do with the MIND. What about the magic that has nothing to do with minds, if a character could pick up a wand, mutter a few words and make your head disappear or make you drop dead dead dead. What if they could control your body. What if someone had the magic ability to control the weather? Magic is a very debatable thing because everyone has their own interpretation of what magic IS. like Ragnar pointed out- if we grabbed someone from the 17th or earlier century and pulled out our black berries, or cars, airplanes, this is all magic to them- they have no idea about it! So in truth there really is NO real way to know what would happen if magic DID exist or more so what magic truly is. Which is why i think so many people have it as a 'hidden' thing in stories...
Okay then. Realistically, even statistically, speaking; anything and everything ever invented or discovered has been abused. Introduce magic and you can bet that it will be as well No offense intended whatsoever. I would love for magic to prove itself real if people would refrain from using it to hurt or kill other people.
You hit the nail on the head, TJ, in that most of what I talk about involves the mind. This is because I, personally, see magic as a more intellectual persuit. The opposite extreme would be better classified as mutation, to my way of thinking, as represented in the show "Heroes," or any of a hundred other mutant shows (X-men etc). There's a difference between what a nervous person might call a "mutant freak," who can fly 'just cause,' and the enlightened master who has spent 30 years on a hilltop learning to do it. Yes, of course. Magic is abused aplenty in my stories. Intellectual persuit or not, smart don't mean wise. Anyway, I should butt out of this discussion before I get it locked.
Maybe the real reason why magical people tend to keep their magic a secret has nothing to do with worries that people would react negatively and persecute them. Maybe they just don't want to be asked for magical favors all the time.
Or maybe magical people hide their magic because having special powers has turned them into selfish jerks with god complexes.
