Magic
What is magic? Scholars, mystics, and religious leaders have disagreed, and the study of "Exotic Science" remains a field fraught with controversy, cranks, and inconclusive results. However, bit by bit pieces of arcane lore, forbidden and lost knowledge, and folk wisdom have been collected to give an idea of the full picture. Researchers of Exotic Science now believe that there are several fields, perhaps completely unrelated, that are collectively known as magic.
Perhaps the form of "magic" most well-documented by science is the area of psychic phenomena. There are various methods for detecting psychic sensitivity in Humans, and psychics can train themselves to make better use of their abilities. Basic psychic abilities include telepathy, naturally, but also remote viewing, hypnosis, telekinesis, and, at higher levels, flight, astral projection, phasing through solid objects, and even disintegration. However, more advanced abilities or prolonged mental strain may lead to cerebral hemorrhaging and death; the psychically sensitive are also more susceptible to mental damage when exposed to certain objects, beings, or energies whose origins are not wholly of this world – these are termed "cognitohazards" by the scientific community.
In fact, psychic phenomena have been so well-studied that some scholars of "Exotic Science" are convinced that all magic can be explained by applying psychic principles to it, but this thesis is highly controversial; while some "magical" phenomena can be explained through psychic abilities, many forms of magic can be practiced by those who are not psychically sensitive (the counterargument by proponents of the theory, that all Humans are subtly psychic, is unproven). The theory has its share of cranks, in any case.
The most common form of magic is "ritual magic", which is sometimes referred to by researchers as "traditional" or "folk" magic (or "folk medicine" when used in a healing context) or even "occultism", in addition to more popular terms (wizardry, sorcery, witchcraft, etc) – the sort of magic practiced by witch doctors, folk healers, and goth teenagers. Ritual magic operates under a broad umbrella of similar principles: they typically involve the use of material components in attempt to form of sympathetic magic, the use of resonant or auspicious locations or times in order to amplify the power of the spell, and a focus, naturally, on ritual, usually one which invokes some higher power, whether gods, spirits, or something similar.
This last point has led to significant controversy in the field of Exotic Science – are the gods real, or aren't they? Theories differ; many practitioners of traditional magic naturally insist they are calling on their deity – obviously, practitioners of other faiths, they say must be calling on the same gods, or demons, or perhaps all gods coexist (monotheists have rather more mental gymnastics to go through, though they usually call on saints and angels rather than God himself). Again, results have been inconclusive, as some spells can be replicated across cultures, while others remain specific to the cultures which originated them. Many students of Exotic Science have even developed rituals which do not invoke a higher power at all.
The applications of ritual magic are varied; its most useful application is in the form of magical healing and medicine. Once the scientific method has been applied, these rituals have been extremely successful; the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in particular has managed to combine traditional forms of medicine with their public health system on a scale not seen anywhere else in the world. The second most useful form of ritual magic is the field of curses or blessings. Known to students of Exotic Science as "probability manipulation", this field is chiefly concerned with calling down curses on enemies or blessing (and counter-curses) on allies, and laboratory tests seem to have confirmed their efficacy on scales that register in statistical deviations – hence the scientific euphemism. At their most powerful, curses can kill outright, but require more specialized circumstances to carry out, something that is common across most of the magical field. Divination, lastly, is a field considered more art than science, and prying information – let alone useful information – from the universe is something only a gifted few are capable of with any confirmed success.
Other applications of ritual magic include shapeshifting, flight, creating illusions, speaking with animals, communicating through dreams, and controlling the weather. This is not an exhaustive list.
Some magic practitioners also create magic items, ranging from simple charms to more complex tools, but charms are the most common, usually wards against danger, curses, or even bad luck. The applications of enchanting items to, for example, modern weapons and machines is of great interest to several powers.
There are also several martial arts originating in China and Japan, which, if not outright magical in nature, are definitely supernatural. Certain martial arts practitioners, after intense training using specialized and often secret techniques, can obtain superhuman levels of strength, speed, and durability, in addition to a number of other powers including flight and teleportation. These martial arts techniques are specific to a few styles which are in turn divided into schools, some of which are sealed off to outsiders and others of which are actively involved in various plots against each other or regional governments. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, again, has had the most success in training its population en masse in martial arts, and Japan is copying their example.
Then there are those individuals who are capable of changing the course of events or even causing supernatural phenomena seemingly through the power of will – and their own faith. Mystics, miracle workers, or prophets, these individuals always claim the support of a higher power, and their workings are difficult to document and almost impossible to study under laboratory conditions. Studies of these events ("anomalous supernatural occurrences" to those disinclined to call them miracles) have thus been spotty and they remain one of the least understood fields of Exotic Science, one that for many remains firmly in the realm of the divine, along with supposed sightings and encounters with gods, spirits, demons, angels, saints, and the afterlife.
Finally, there are those supernatural phenomena which are simply too dangerous or which require ethically dubious techniques – ranging from rituals involving blood magic, human sacrifice, and cannibalism, to the Hideous Mathematics which, according to certain eldritch tomes, can be used to contact entities from outside our dimension, to anything involving the binding or manipulating of the souls of the dead. Many of these techniques carry the death sentence in countries which have laws regarding magic, and in other places they are considered taboos worthy of death anyway. If such schools have their practitioners, they are surely insane cultists…or, perhaps, the agents of highly secretive and amoral government programs.
