The Magickal Record | 2002 - 2015

Something Is eating Our Magick!

A disturbing discovery shocked Magickal scientists last week. Until today there wasn't even such a thing as Magikal scientists. It all started when 23-year-old Mage Bridgette Hagertty attempted to cast an "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust" to spread the remains of her deceased dog. She found that she couldn't despite not having used any Magick that day. She says:

"As soon as I entered the place I knew something was off. It felt like an itchy dry sucking feeling. Like it was taking something- I don't know what- away from me and I'd never be whole again. I was so confused and it was so unnerving that I left right away and then I drove back to my house to scatter old Perri's ashes in my own backyard. When I tried the spell again there it worked perfectly. It was strange so I called up some of my friends and asked around. One of them knows Mitali Bunce and now here we are having the whole thing investigated and I and a lot of my friends are curious to see the results."

The place mentioned has been coined a "Dead Spot". A Place where there's no Magick, different from Quiet Zones. Plenty of Normals live in the area, but there isn't any Magick. The team analysing the spot says it seems as if there was Magick here but it's been sucked away. How or by what they don't know. Dr. Richard Manning, the head of the team investigating the incident told our reports:

"As soon as I walked into the spot I could feel it, in fact even before we were at the exact location I could feel it. The crushing mundanity. The lack of Magick. It felt like I was being bled dry and emptied like the spot was so mundane and so desperate for something that it was going to take that something from me." It was then that Dr. Manning coined the name for the phenomenon: "The Insidious Humdrum" He continues "Because that's what it is, an insidious humdrum, a mundanity that creeps into your very soul. It was eating away at me looking for something. It was hard to stay in that place and not leave immediately. When we tried diagnostic spells they failed just as Mrs. Hagertty's had so we've had to go and do things manually which is both an annoying yet refreshing change. Either way, it is important that we document this phenomenon and learn all we can''

He is right about that. The few Mages who know about this are already in a panic. Is this an isolated incident or a prediction of more to come? Will the hole heal itself or is the Magick gone forever? And if our Magical atmosphere is growing thin what do we do to repair it? Is Magick a limited resource and if so how can we conserve it?

These are the questions that our team is investigating. Martin Bunce however has another theory.

"It's the theory of carrying capacity." He says, "Many of us will know this from Biology but the carrying capacity of an area determines the size of the population that can exist or will be tolerated there. Biological carrying capacity is an equilibrium between the availability of habitat and the number of animals of a given species the habitat can support over time. That's how it is for all species, including Mages. Magick is our resource. If there is only a set amount of Magick and a growing population of Mages the population is going to have to even out eventually. Let me say it less scientifically. What if, Magick is like fossil fuels no, not fossil fuels, like water? There is only so much accessible drinkable water on earth, but there are lots of humans so in overpopulated areas water is spread thin and sometimes runs out or dries up completely. However, water does get recycled back into the system via the water cycle. I think that that's how it is with Magick. There are too many of us using too much Magick and not enough Magick. But just like water when a Mage dies their Magick gets recycled back into the Magickal atmosphere. But back to carrying capacity. If we want to avoid levelling out our population we must expand our carrying capacity, or how much Magick is in the Magickal atmosphere. Just like how we try to tap into sources of drinking water that aren't yet considered accessible. Some who have heard my theories suggest taking Magick from lesser powerful creatures who can't speak Magick. I don't personally agree with this practice seeing as many of those beings are protected by the Magickal Species Act. Taking Magick from those creatures would effectively be killing them and the Magickal ecosystem needs them, we need them. However, it's better than some alternatives I've heard." Some of these alternatives he says include the "idea that was passed around the table was harvesting Magick from unprotected Dark Creatures, many say this would solve our dark creature problem but is Magick safe to use? There's just so much we don't know that we can't make any decisions just yet"

The proposed Magick harvesting ideas that Dr. Bunce mentioned have become popular through the Magickal academic community but many still raise questions. Is dark creature Magick really safe to use, if it is how would we even go about harvesting it? How will we know if it's safe? How will we know it isn't? What happens if it isn't safe? And more importantly, who will test it and how?

Is this ethical?