Is magic natural or artificial?

[SabahTheLoner]

Magic as energy, not the ritual or psychological aspects.

Popularly, magic is seen as a current, perhaps even more than one current. This would imply two things; magic has a natural flow, and it has a source. This might be enough to deem that magic is natural, however it is within magic we attribute images and associations with various workings. This would imply that we somehow add to the current. But the current could also be somehow man-made, perhaps emotionally. Just because something happens naturally doesn't mean it's cause was not man-made.

So just how much magic is naturally there and how much magic is from our own use of spiritual power?

 

[Quintessence]

As I do not accept the dichotomy the question is predicated on, I would not ask it and couldn't begin to answer it. Some esoteric traditions follow the "humans are not nature" or "anything that humans impacted is artificial," but I am not one of them. I'm too much of an ecologist and too much of a Druid to believe in that narrative.

Setting that aside and pretending to believe in the great divide for a moment, I still couldn't begin to answer the question. I know of no way of quantifying energy in such a way to answer any sort of "how much" question. If it could be quantified like that, the idea would be part of the sciences by now instead of in esotericism, right? So then, perhaps, it is worth asking why we ask the question, and why the answer would matter? If we believe that energy from "nature" and energy from "humans" are not the same thing, why does it matter if the energy is from one source or the other? How would it be different?

Not sure I can answer those questions either, since I don't believe in the dichotomy... haha.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Magic as energy, not the ritual or psychological aspects.

Popularly, magic is seen as a current, perhaps even more than one current. This would imply two things; magic has a natural flow, and it has a source. This might be enough to deem that magic is natural, however it is within magic we attribute images and associations with various workings. This would imply that we somehow add to the current. But the current could also be somehow man-made, perhaps emotionally. Just because something happens naturally doesn't mean it's cause was not man-made.

So just how much magic is naturally there and how much magic is from our own use of spiritual power?

The two can't be separated. The energy used to do whatever is connected how you think, act, and what you experience. That energy and experience auras because of it is all energy. I don't like the term magic but whichever term, we are energy. We are magic.