Fever

"Fever! In the morning

Fever all through the night."*

You have started doing magic long (or not so long) ago. You have managed to have a balanced life, a good job, good health, perhaps a significant other (or others). People consider you lucky and some of you "luck" seems to rub on you friends and family. You're not a mystic, but rather someone that brings change to the world.
You have a good life and there isn't much that you want or need. You don't need to do much to maintain your life as it is.
And then it starts.
A longing. A desire. Something nagging you.
You're balanced and don't let people see that there is something worrying you, something you can't define.
You check and recheck our shields, traps and other defenses, and create a few new ones. You do divinations and give offerings and every pendulum and spirit says that nothing is after you.
The unrest deepens.
You  do a major working to get answers, and the only advice you are given is to do what you love.

Do what you love... what you love...

Slowly they start to show up in your life, like moths around a flame. People that need help. And you help them. You help one, and another and another, and you realize that you have never been so happy. You are doing magic, a lot of magic, you are doing what you love.

*music Fever, sung by Peggy Lee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EYxoAJ3Boyc

Magical Attack

One thing that will sooner or later happen to a magician is that he/she will be attacked.

That is inevitable and not a big problem, UNLESS…

…Unless the sorcerer/sorceress falls into the three most common traps.

1-      Becoming paranoid and shooting in all directions. Inevitably someone that can hurt him/her will be seriously pissed off and send something really nasty his/her way.

2-      Believing that one is invulnerable and totally out of reach of others.

Some years ago I witnessed a discussion about this between two friends of mine. She believed that it would be required something almost like the magical equivalent of a nuclear explosion to enter her shield. His answer was to create a very small servitor that went totally unnoticed and wrote on her shield “a… was here !”.  I am NOT joking.

3-      Believing in all the media hype, drama and propaganda and expecting a magical attack to be something thunderous, with dozens of demons popping up and Death Himself/Herself/Itself  to show up in a chariot pulled by hundreds of lost souls to drag the victim to hell.

A good magical attack is usually far less dramatic, unless the caster is seriously trying to cause waves and show power not only to it’s victim but also to others that may be witnessing it (and by others I don’t mean just other magical users, but also other type of entities).

Effective magical attack against a magician/witch/sorcerer is usually far more subtle (Most people don’t bother with subtleties when dealing with muggles).

As an example let me tell you something that happened to me.

First of all for a couple of days I couldn’t sleep, which should have warned me that something was wrong. I do not loose sleep and if I am agitated I simply choose and use one of several techniques to calm me down and get me to sleep in a matter of minutes. I didn’t even remember I knew those techniques.

Two minutes before the alarm clock started to ring I switched it off and decided to get out of the bed. I closed my eyes, opened them, dragged myself out of the bed, and started walking towards the door, closed my eyes, opened them, dragged myself out of the bed, and started walking towards the door, closed my eyes, opened them, dragged myself out of the bed, and started walking towards the door, closed my eyes, opened them, dragged myself out of the bed, and started walking towards the door, closed my eyes, opened them, dragged myself out of the bed, and started walking towards the door. After a while I realized that I had seen and done it before and that each time I got out of the bed the room become darker and darker. I willed myself to wake up, but still travelled to the bed and out of it for two or three times more.  I woke up in pain, panting as if I had run a marathon.

Took a very hot shower, because I was freezing,

Went to take breakfast, and although it wasn’t a healthy breakfast at least I didn’t eat the tons of food that I wanted to.

Got out of the house and went to the office. By the time I arrived there already knew something.

Care to guess what ?

Read back what I wrote. Fatigue, cold, hunger…

I was being vamped, either by another magician or by a spirit or construct sent by a magician.

Now pay attention, please.

A good attack always strikes simultaneously on several levels.

Knowing that, I took advantage of being the first to arrive to the office and banished, banished, banished and banished. Cleaned the place as much as possible in the little time I had to prevent surprises that could have been there for me and to make sure that there was harmony between my colleagues and me.

By lunch time I had already decided that I would wait for whatever was feeding of me with a few astral friends and that I had to bless everything in my life to help eradicate whatever could have been sent my way.

I also took a decision that most of you will consider unwise. I decided not to strike back against the magician that had attacked me.

The reason is simple. Most will stop when realizing that their attack was detected and eliminated and I had more important things to do than a game of magical attack ping pong. I hit you, you hit me, I hit you… waste of time.

However I am no saint. If I am attacked again by that person, I will retaliate with extreme prejudice. And then he may see Death Herself getting out of Her Chariot and picking him up to take him to greener pastures.