Magical Power Defined

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House of the Rose: Book II, House of Memory by Michaela August. (awe-struck.net, 2006, E-book.)

Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher. (RoC, May, 2006, Hardcover.)

A Kiss of Fate by Mary Jo Putney. (Ballantine Books, July, 2004, Hardcover.)

Traitor To The Blood by Barb and J.C. Hendee. (RoC, January, 2006, Hardcover.)

Deryni Checkmate by Katherine Kurtz. (Ace reprint, December, 2005, Hardcover.)

Have you ever really thought about why we frown on one person being judge, jury, and executioner? Wouldn’t it be more efficient to just get the job done?

     Such an individual chosen to wield these disparate powers would be feared only by people who really deserved a penalty. Execution need not be death; it could be impoverishment through fines or the surgical removal of some skill or talent such as telepathy. And only the guilty would suffer the penalty—right?

     So why separate these three functions? Because the five or more parties involved, miscreant, victim, judge, jury, and executioner, plus all the lawyers and police, all have different views of the universe—different ideas of what causes what to happen, and how things happen, and why people do things, or fail to do them. Each and every human being has their own personalized, individual philosophy or “model of the universe” built inside their minds.

     We are each born with a unique astrological natal chart that creates a kind of diffraction pattern through which we perceive reality. So even though we all live in the same reality, we perceive it differently. Prophets and sages throughout time have come up with various religious systems of values to unite us on common grounds despite our individual differences of perception.

     And indeed communities can be formed around such value systems—the closer to objective reality a value system is, the more likely it is to endure through the ages.

     So each individual, or group of individuals, can look at the same hard facts, see totally different things, and draw different conclusions. A good example of this would be how some people believe that reducing taxes increases government revenues, and some people believe that increasing taxes increases government revenues.

     So when we demand that many different individuals be involved in judging a miscreant and imposing a penalty, we are attempting to take an average among many views of reality, and call that consensus the true reality. We then use the power of the group to discipline the individual.

     As children, we all start out as victims of parental will imposing alien, external standards upon us. “Eat your peas before dessert.” “Clean up your room.” All these unreasonable demands are met with an automatic resistance.

     Powerless, we yearn for that power, independence, and freedom to make our own rules and laws. By the manner in which we perceive the will of others imposed upon us, we learn how to impose our will upon others.

     Ultimately, that is power—the ability to set the agenda regardless of what anyone else thinks, feels or does. But as we grow up and learn right from wrong (never mind the disagreements over what is right), we all want to “make the world right.” We want to fix things, and make others see the “right” way to think, feel and act.

     And so we communicate, as discussed last month. The basis of all magical power is The Word and the focused intention behind it. But here’s where the problem of being human comes in. The same words mean something different to each individual because no two people have the same model of the universe in their minds. Thus our innate, basic need to communicate is always thwarted. When Neptune is in action, as it is now, transiting the USA’s Natal Moon, we can believe we are communicating, but it often turns out that we’re not.

     The frustrated need to communicate often leads to violence. Visualize two three-year olds. “It’s mine!” “No!” Then the hitting begins. Internationally, Iran vs. the USA. “We have a right!” “No you don’t!” Power diplomacy begins.

     Now suppose you had the magical power to change another person’s internal model of the universe, to erase traumatic memories that cause certain behaviors, to adjust the way they see reality to conform to your own way?

     Could you use that power? To what end? What would be the consequences? Could it work? For how long?

House of the Rose: Book II, House of Memory takes us to thirteenth century France and England, to an alternate history where the above questions are posed dramatically.

     In this universe, God does not exist, but an ancient pantheon of reincarnating gods does. One of the leaders has gained power, and now controls the process of awakening memories of past lives in her fellow gods. Each time she awakens one of her fellows, she alters their memory.

     I reviewed Book I of the House of The Rose in my September, 2005, column. And I still highly recommend this series for it gets deeper and deeper into questions of what is reality, and when do we have the right to use a power to alter perceived reality in another. The drama is rich, deep, and far reaching. The characters are believable and understandable, and the background plausible. There will be a third book, Broken Gods, out in 2007. This is top of the e-book field.

Jim Butcher’s long-running series, The Dresden Files, which I reviewed in the March, 2004, column, is going strong. None of the eight books is a disappointment, and now this past summer, the series is a SciFi Channel pilot. I can only hope it becomes a TV series, and somehow escapes having the underlying philosophy changed. Here is an example of what is so good about this non-stop, blood-n-gore action series:

     “Power,” he said, waving a hand in an all-encompassing gesture. “All power is the same. Magic. Physical strength. Economic strength. Political strength. It all serves a single purpose—it gives its possessor a broader spectrum of choices. It creates alternative courses of action.” ¹

     You may recognize that as close to what I’ve said here over the years. The Dresden Files novels demonstrate how having a greater range of choices can lead to a wider range of mistakes, mishaps, and ultimately the danger of acting on your own version of the facts, with your own ideas of what is right.

     Dresden knows the Laws of Magic preclude imposing your will over that of another human being. He knows he can’t use magic to kill humans. Most of his opponents are not human though, and we’ll come back to that, for this series is very much like Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel in its structure of reality.

In Kiss of Fate, we are in ancient Scotland, at war with England. A Scottish Lord with secret powers and high moral principles falls in love with a woman who believes she has not inherited any power, and marries her. The kiss of love brings her a vivid picture of the future—the power of fore-knowledge. She acts on that knowledge, imprisoning her new husband to prevent international catastrophe. If you have sure knowledge of the future, do you have the right, even perhaps the responsibility, to act on that knowledge?

In Traitor To The Blood, we revisit the universe of the Noble Dead by Barb & J.C. Hendee, previously reviewed here in August, 2003, and October, 2004. Here the story continues revealing the behind the scenes manipulators, the world where vampire and dhampir (vampire hunter) clash, and the complexities introduced by a half-elf trained as an assassin. Here is a relationship that endures even the communication of the truth, as discussed last month.

     Traitor To The Blood is about people gaining power over other people, the effect that power abuse can have on a child, what adults can do about those memories, and maybe it is also about what love truly is. It is surely about the kind of bonded commitment that endures all, even the communication of the truth.

     To me, that is the real source of all serious power—communication of truth creating relationships that can withstand sharing a model of the universe..

Ace Books is re-releasing some of Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni novels. Volume 2, Deryni Checkmate, came out revised and expanded by the author in December, 2005. If you haven’t yet delved into the world of Deryni Magic, you should give this series a good look. I’ve been reviewing it in this column since 1993. The plots all revolve around who should or could be King, about royal politics, which I find boring, and Church politics which I find irrelevant.

     Even with all that, the characters steal the show. These are real people you will want to know all about in every detail, and the novels span generations, introducing you to the far reaching consequences of the hard choices made by apparently heroic individuals. You will love them, and then have to judge whether they did right—or not.

Remember, all books touched on in this column have an unqualified five-star rating, unless otherwise noted.

¹Page 245, hardcover edition.

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Send books for review in this column to: Jacqueline Lichtenberg, email jl@simegen.com for instructions.

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