# High magic? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 9, 2003, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-magic/187130 "2003-07-09T01:03:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Scorpio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Scorpio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scorpio)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-magic/187130/1 "2003-07-09T01:03:36Z")
> [@](#): > > From the endlessly inventive mind of one of fantasy’s all-time greats, comes a spellbinding new adventure of high magic, treachery and bloody > war High magic? As opposed to low magic? Sober magic? Is this actually a category of magic in fantasy novels and if so, what defines it? Or did the blurb mean high fantasy? ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-magic/187130/2 "2003-07-09T01:06:38Z")
Well, there is a book called “High Magick’s Aid”, by, I _think_ Gerald Gardner. I’ll try to come back with a link, ISP permitting. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-magic/187130/3 "2003-07-09T01:10:17Z")
> [@](#): > > High Magic’s Aid. (1949) This is a novel which is set in Medieval England, based very closely on Margaret Murray’s works and the magical system described in The Key of Solomon. Gardner sold copies of this book at his Witchcraft Museum on the Isle of Man. The fictional setting was necessitated by the harsh laws against witchcraft which were still on the books as of 1949, and (reputedly) secrecy requirements placed on him by the traditionalist coven which he had joined. Although High Magic’s Aid may not quite succeed as a historical novel, it is quite readble and is a significant document in the evolution of modern Wicca. [http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/gardner.htm](http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/gardner.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-magic/187130/4 "2003-07-09T01:11:09Z")
As opposed to low, or common, or “easy” magic. At least, that’d be my guess. What book was this from, anyway? ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-magic/187130/5 "2003-07-09T01:13:55Z")
Total WAG, since I don’t know the work in question, but “high magic” generally refers to ritual-spellcasting-type magic in most of the fantasy work I’ve read. That’s as opposed to alchemy, non-spell-based divination (astrology, runes, cards, entrails, whatever), hedge wizardry, earth magic, theurgy (religious magic), innately magical creatures, and so forth. Essentially, it’s meant to invoke images of a swords & sorcery style, although that varies. ---
**Author:** ![Scorpio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Scorpio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scorpio)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-magic/187130/6 "2003-07-09T01:51:31Z")
Thanks for the link, Celyn. Sorry, I should have said - it’s Fiest, Jimmy the Hand. Definite sword and sorcery epic fantasy type stuff. I find the magic in a lot of fantasy novels these days to be too easy, even if it does qualify as high magic. In older books, the wizards had to work at it, or at least felt a bit tired after using it. These days, it’s all god-like power with no downside. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Tambo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@Mr\_Tambo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Tambo)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-magic/187130/7 "2003-07-09T01:57:44Z")
Ahh, people who write blurbs for these things tend to chuck around definitions like that. We could discourse endlessly on the exact meaning of ‘high magic’, ‘low magic’, ‘heroic fantasy’, ‘high fantasy’, ‘swords and sorcery’, ‘dark fantasy’, ‘space opera’, ‘cyberpunk’ and so on. They all really mean very little; I think the best books transcend genres, tropes and trappings anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-magic/187130/8 "2003-07-09T05:10:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Scorpio \* > \*\*Thanks for the link, Celyn. > > Sorry, I should have said - it’s Fiest, Jimmy the Hand. Definite sword and sorcery epic fantasy type stuff. > > I find the magic in a lot of fantasy novels these days to be too easy, even if it does qualify as high magic. In older books, the wizards had to work at it, or at least felt a bit tired after using it. These days, it’s all god-like power with no downside. \*\* In this case, the blurb may be referring to the Lesser and Greater Path magics, which are nearly opposite of my above guess–Greater Path seems to be mostly raw enery manipulation, while Lesser Path involves more ritual and magical devices. Then again, maybe the hack that wrote the description just didn’t have a clue. Have you read any of Mercedes Lackey’s work? I don’t know what you’d think of the rest of her style, but it sounds like her take on magic would suit you. “It takes more effort to do something magically than to just do it.” The early Tarma and Kethry stories in particular–in the first one I ever read, Keth nearly passes out from working a spell to keep their shelter a little warmer. Another instance left a guy bedridden for days after an exercise of power that Milamber would regard as fairly trivial.