Human existence is made up of cycles within cycles: cycles of desire leading to experience. Sometimes we experience what we desire, sometimes not. Sometimes it takes seconds, sometimes years, sometimes forever. Some desires are part of a plan of ours, leading to the experience of a bigger desire: a cycle within a cycle. The way the cycle works is the same however big or small: we desire; we form a conscious or pre-conscious thought; we imagine, speak or act; we experience - after a time from nothing to eternity; we judge our experience against our desire.
Imagination is a very quick and simple way to get an
experience, and it can be very real: close your eyes, relax and
imagine you're in a sunny kitchen smelling of delicious cooking.
Pick up an orange. Cut it. Bite it!
We can cause others to experience directly through our speech
and writing: as I have just done. The storyteller reciting
vivid scenes is able to create any experience that can be
described. A play can transport you to a reality that never
really existed.
However, most of us like our senses to experience what we
desire in a more vivid, immediate way: we'd like to stand on
the side of that mountain breathing the crisp air, not see a
painting of it. To get the world around us to deliver the
experiences we desire, we can either act ourselves or we can
ask someone.
If we act ourselves, we may use some skill or knowledge that
breaks the cycle down to smaller cycles (planning, using a tool).
Or we may ask another person to help us, who is better able to
deliver an experience, and they may take a broad description of
what we want (a big cycle) and deliver our experience without
our even knowing what the smaller cycles were that caused it to
happen.
(Sometimes a little cash may change hands, but we earned it
doing something for another person in our turn. Cycles within
cycles: we work to live and, if we are lucky, live to work, in
our personal grand life plan.)
We obviously prefer to work in bigger cycles: for example, to
let someone else or a skill we have acquired take care of the
details.
Good Enough?
At the end of the day, we judge the experiences we are having against our desires. We usually just know if something is right for us - if it's good enough to satisfy our desires. Through whatever process the experience was created in our minds (our own imagination, from a listening to a story, watching a play, playing a game, riding a horse), we judge whether we are satisfied, and the cycle continues accordingly.
There are many examples where lower levels of detail or sensory
completeness are really good enough for us (maybe for the time
being). A painting of something can be good enough to satisfy
our desire to know what it looks like - as good as seeing it in
real life. Or it may not be. It depends on the level of detail
we're after. It may be enough to hear second hand what our friend said
instead of talking face-to-face. As children, racing on a
push-along toy could help us believe we were in the Grand
National - it was good enough. As adults, we may come out of
the theatre feeling slightly changed by the experience - even
though it was nothing more than people dressed up, pretending.
Second-hand, retold experiences can take on the vividness of a
real experience. Pure imagination can make our mouth water
imagining eating an orange.
Wizardry
Now, one technique that can be used to empower the desire-to-experience cycle is good, old-fashioned wizardry. The incantations and spells of this magic could give a wizard something like omniscience and omnipotence (all-seeing, all-powerful):
A good spell could do one of many things: zap enemies; knock
over mountains; transport the wizard across time or space;
allow the wizard to stay in his castle but see across time or
space; create things; create places; create life.
A wizard, witch or magician, or the holder of a genie lamp or
fairy wand holds the power to achieve arbitrary results:
Spells can be cast from recipes and incantations in a book
of wizardry or witchcraft. A little fairy dust or tap of
a wand, along with a mental image of the desire will lead
to immediate results without messy cauldrons, slime, etc.
Arbitrary wishes may expressed to the captive genie. Mary
Poppins appeared unique in her minimalist powers: able to tidy
a room with just an assertive nod at each of the offending items.
What we have here is a very effective desire-to-experience
cycle enhancer, with two interesting features:
- A given form of magical powers allows the owner to experience more than they would naturally; to step beyond the constraints of their given bodies and abilities.
- A given form of magical powers has only one, common means of expressing desires (incantations, spells, recipes, wishes, dust, nods, wands). Good magic makes it as easy as wishing itself.