Mr. Mysteries' So-True Histories Episode 25 - Magical Mysteries and Misgivings

Hello Eager Learners! I am Mr. Mysteries, formerly of the Learned League, and this is my KARENcast series on the history of our Reality, Reality 69. Our last episode focused on the varigated threats and dangers that rear their heads in this day and age. This episode will focus on a very esoteric yet key aspect of our Reality, functional magic.   Some argue that the presence of accessible magic in this reality should be viewed as an even more significant deviation from Reality 1, but given that when magic first arose cannot be accurately dated while the NAP is a clear point in time, you can see why the GDP is pegged there. If certain individuals and entities are to be believed, our Reality has always had the capacity to allow for magic, although its expression makes it difficult, if not impossible, to successfully identify the first successful magic-users.   It is interesting to note that in many way magic manifests almost as an opposite to science and the scientific method. For many mages, learning how others were able to evoke particular effects can be useful to develop the concept of their particular method of function. While science benefits from the advantage of reproducibility, magic seems to almost always require some degree of unique customization to each practitioner. This has lead to the development of untold numbers of practices, schools, paths, dogmas, koans, rites, councils, covens, and other gatherings of users that share similar although rarely identical approaches. This is even further complicated by the influence of dimensional Exos that have been known to strike deals with various humans through out history in exchange for magical training. It is well known that in many other dimensions magic is much more rigid or standardizable that in this Reality.   Much like the march of science has lead to increasing sophisticated tools over time, the exploration of the seemingly infinite approaches to magic has led to the creation of powerful and dangerous tools as well. These items are labelled as Artifacts, although depending on whom is asked there seem to be as many subdivisions under that broad header as there are approaches to magic itself. Unlike a microscope or particle replicator, these Artifacts often demonstrate aspects of personality or adherence to philosophical ideal that can make them problematic, if not downright dangerous, for many people to use. There are also an alarming number of items that appear to be Artifacts, but are in fact an container for a formerly living magic users.   It should be no surprise that in the last couple of decades, particularly after it became known that magic was the direct cause of the NAP, the megacorporations in particular have spent a huge amount of capital on magical research. While this has lead to increased access to extradimensional spaces and interesting protective security measures, large scale magic often takes too much time, too many similarly aligned adepts, or too elaborate a ritual to have a lot of significant impacts on major conflicts. Some magic users have skill and power enough to be individually effective in combat, but those are only a small percentage of those individuals gifted with the ability to control magic.   Some researchers classify that ability as a form of Neohuman expression, although that is a point of contention for many. It is certain that not everyone is capable of performing magic, and those individuals that express both Neohuman powers and true magical capability are truly few and far between. This distinction is difficult to achieve primarily because many magical effects are capable of replicating Neohuman expressions to the point that if the source is unknown they can be indistinguishable.   Out next episode will focus on some of the notable magical events of history, including the Vampire Wars and the Reckoning.