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Today, I write this paper on the basics of magic to serve as a springboard in the future for my own thesis on the arcane and mystic. Magic is a broad term for many forms of controlling and manipulating arcane forces. There are different branches underneath it but that is not what I am here to discuss. As a student of the arcane, I must be familiar with what magic is at its core. Such information is fluctuating constantly which is why it is good to keep refreshing your knowledge with a personal study or a simple assignment.

As of now, magic may refer to the general mystical energy in the air and is more academically the ability to manipulate and control particular forces in our world. These forces manifest as arcane energy and the simplest to understand are the elemental forces. Fire, water, earth, wind, light, and dark. These energies exist in harmony in nature and there are many scholars who would prefer the name natural energy. In part, because there are other elements we are discovering all the time but also because the sciences exist alongside magic and things can get a bit confusing when referring to elements in a chemical sense and elements in a magical sense.

All of that aside; magic is performed through many different methods but at the same time, there is a core to each of them that traces back to two roots. Heart and Mind. Heart is a core method comprised of using emotion. Emotion is a powerful thing that takes time to understand and making it even more complicated is the fact that these expressions of ours have the ability to manipulate magic. Small sprites or residue in the form of glowing orbs may gather around someone who is upset or laughing if the emotion is strong enough. Typically it happens with those who have a deeper inborn connection to the energies surrounding them but it is also those with the most innate talent who are at risk. Such explosive bouts of anger or sadness can shape the energy around them with wild intent with explosive results! These dangers are present in those without innate talent but they are less prevalent. Those who are practiced in the arts of magic will rarely be seen with these sprites around them mostly because they learn how to vent excess energy in a healthy way.

Now; onto the Mind. As a preface to this part, there are dangers involved in this one that are just as pressing as in the Heart as it is not just the Heart that can go out of control. Magic connected to the Mind involves strict thought, analysis, and at times, calculation. You could be deep into a logic puzzle trying to figure out how to recreate it so you can take it apart from the inside out only to realize that those magical sprites attributed to emotional response are gathering around you. It is a deep concentration, the dive into the mind that attracts the energy.

Thus, there are two basic cores of magic. Heart and Mind but that is magic that we do and we know. There is also magic that comes from spirits and Fae. We certainly don't know how that works or even what spirits and Fae really are. Fae in particular are a mystery because they take physical form and at times meld into our society. They've done so for so long that it is that unusual to see a unicorn, jackalope or other typically mystical hybrid wandering around as if nothing was happening simply due to them having fae blood in them. The reason I bring this up is that I want to come to understand every little portion of magic, not just the surface level and not just what I am given to learn at this academy.

For now, I wish to return to the topic of Heart and Mind. The Heart requires emotional discharge. You feel something during the incantation, during the ritual, the motion, or whatever it is you use to call the energy and you turn that feeling out into the world. It is much more complicated than that but emotion is a hard thing to understand and even more difficult to explain in a short paper. The Mind requires your focus, it demands it. You think about what you're doing and how it affects this existence, plucking at strings and weaving energy together until you get the desired result. Yet again, more complex than I'm making it seem but that's the general gist of both. There are some disciplines that are easier for those with a strong heart to learn but some that they have trouble learning and vice versa. Despite that fact, there are those who can grow past these weaknesses with the right attitude. Heart and mind can be combined but really, it is about what the caster is comfortable with.

Heart and Mind are what we know, what we understand but there are many things we do not. As I already stated, Fae and Spirits are mysteries including how they use magic. They do not share their secrets freely and even when they do, it is usually with those that will take them to their grave or a secret they wanted you to know all along but I believe there is something else other than that Heart and Mind. There is a universal connecting factor that grounds us to mystical forces, that serves as our tether. It is how many draw magic from sources and yet, they refer to that as an act of the mind. I don't know. There are too many factors to consider which is why nearly everything can be categorized into either Heart or Mind but I think that is too reductive. Each method deserves exploration to see if the way magic is controlled is separate from the Heart and Mind that we have come to understand. Still, this paper is not about my theories of magic nor is it a soapbox for me to stand on and start yelling about academic stubbornness as the last time I did that I got in trouble.

Oh, there is one other thing that I would like to explore here. Those with an innate connection to magical forces may be gifted in Heart or Mind but sometimes there is pressure put on those who appear to have those innate abilities when in reality those abilities appeared due to traumatic experiences. A surge of emotional distress so powerful that it could cause someone to become afflicted by some sort of magical power or thoughts that go so unrestrained that the same result happens. It is often considered an affliction because it is harder to control but I will state my educated opinion here plainly that these folk are not weak but rather, they simply need the right guidance to cope with what they've experienced and then use it. Those who can survive what they've endured and learn how to utilize it; are often the most powerful magi and there are several examples of those magic that have been discovered retroactively. Magi who we thought were simply gifted turned out to be survivors of pain. It is why I believe psychological studies in relation to the arcane are important and believe that anyone who doesn't think so; master of the arts or not, is stupid.

In closing; the heart and the mind are both important pieces of who we are no matter which we use to conduct our magic. Often, I neglect my heart and I find myself in trouble for it. Either because my emotional radar is off balance and I misread situations or the sudden onset of emotions that I had been ignoring hits me like a charging boar at the end of the day. Mind and Heart are two parts of ourselves that must be tended even with preference to one or the other. Those who say that one can exist without the other are foolish, even those who are smart enough to be professors that claim that logic and empirical data are the only things we need to pay attention to.

Mara then looked up from the desk and tapped her chin with her pen, "I wonder if I'll get in trouble again for vaguely referencing that hard-headed buffoon...Ah well, it'll be worth it when he's bursting cheek to cheek with anger."