Magic Is Might: The Dark Arts and the Workings of Human Magic
I was going to post an excerpt from my half-finished Severus and Voldemort essay, but instead it became an essay of its own.
Magic Is Might: The Dark Arts and the Workings of Human Magic
In her latest post, “ Seclusion and the Dark Arts,” terri brilliantly brings together the two main strands of Voldemort’s and the Death Eaters’ interests, overturning Secrecy and dark magic, theorizing that they were seeking to make useable again the old communal magics that shamans and village magic-workers would have used to tap into the emotion-driven power of muggles to boost their own magical ability.
In my comment in reply I wrote, “You've also anticipated an argument I'll be making in Indestructible when I talk about Severus and Voldemort and flight being one of the dark arts.”
My thinking about the nature of unsupported human flight, the reasons it may have taken so long to be developed, and what role it played in Severus and Voldemort’s relationship led me to formulate some ideas about the nature of the dark arts more generally. And now terri’s essay has pushed it all into much clearer focus for me.
We’ve got a number of terms for the working of human magic, and they all mean something specific. Which has implications for understanding what Tom might have thought regarding the nature of human magic and the relationship of muggles to magic-users. Whether or not he was even correct in his suppositions.
Though he may have been.
Terri writes:
The Dark Arts comprise many things; that’s part of the problem with defining them.
But we’ve hypothesized they include, 1), (all or most) Old Magic. Pre-wand, pre-domesticated magic.
And 2), (all or most) magic powered by emotion.
And who says the emotion must be the caster’s?
[…]
Why should practitioners and students of the Dark Arts be preferentially attracted to ending Secrecy, or be suspected of doing so?
Because the Dark Arts include magic spells and rituals that can no longer be used under Seclusion (or that are believed to be now unusable). Because that magic was originally designed to be used with, and either for or against, Muggles. To draw on Muggle crowd emotions.
To amplify the power available to the magic-user, at least temporarily.
Possibly to a huge extent.
Old magic, emotion- and will-based, permitting vastly more powerful acts of magic than are workable under Seclusion today. Because wizards cannot make use of the emotions of muggle crowds, cannot draw on their numbers and energy, now that wizards and magic must remain concealed from muggles.
But it’s potentially more than that. Depending on just how much of human magic-working in general can be reliably divorced from the influence of human psychological states, and how far this is true even of wizardry itself.
Neither of which might, possibly, be quite so complete as we-or wizards-seem to think.
*
Allow me to make a brief detour here away from consideration of the dark arts themselves to propose a basic classification system.
A while ago, in her essay “ Sorcerers,” swythyv noted that most of the characters in canon get the name of the law restricting underage magic incorrect, speaking of the “the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underaged Magic,” or “Underaged Wizardry.” When in fact the actual wording is, “the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underaged Sorcery.”
Sorcery, she proposes, is the broadest term for human magic-working-and is, apparently, a subject that wizards seem a little…hesitant to consciously and overtly recognize. Children’s legally-excused acts of accidental magic are pure sorcery, though not called such, whereas the juvenile working of wanded wizardry outside of Hogwarts is restricted.
I’m going to adopt this definition, though I’m going to alter and deviate a bit from her further breakdown of the other types of human magic.
So.
Sorcery encompasses all forms of human magic, deliberate and inadvertent, wanded and not, controlled and uncontrolled.
Wizardry, as we’ve long theorized meanwhile, is controlled, usually wanded magic that relies on technical mastery (incantations and wandwork) over emotional involvement or will. “Domesticated” magic, in terri’s word. Magic that is far less frightening to today’s average witch or wizard than any other form.
Wizardry was gradually developed out of the earlier, more chaotic and less technical dark magic. The exact boundaries of this class of magic are a bit blurry at the edges, but in general let’s go with terri’s breakdown above for the moment, and say that dark magic (in the non-crude sense) encompasses:
Dark magic, in the present day, can also be understood to include all forms of human magic that are obscure. Or obscured. Not commonly taught or easily available and learned. This would include in one sense Saint Albus’ restrictions to the Hogwarts curriculum, but also in another sense the traditional cloaking of powerful knowledge in obscure language and symbols that we see in disciplines like alchemy.
It also includes another, rare, form of magic as well. But we’ll get to that in a bit.
*
Now, we’ve been using the terms “dark magic” and “dark arts” interchangeably, and at first glance it seems as if characters in the books do as well. But I’m not sure that it’s necessarily the case that they are actually true synonyms, given the present-day slipperiness and confusion of terminology surrounding all mentions of things “dark,” as per “Dark Magic Doth Never Prosper.”
Rather, I think that the dark arts are, strictly speaking, a subset of dark magic more broadly. Those forms of dark magic that, unlike wizardry, still require the involvement of the caster (whether wanded or not), but that are relatively stable, defined, and well-understood, and so are not as chaotic as the wilder, inadvertent, and unconscious forms of magic are. The precursor class of wanded magic to wizardry, historically.
The dark arts are so called because they are arts. Specific, known ways of doing things that are roughly bounded and repeatable, but still dependent upon the involvement of the individual caster (at minimum). Not quite the science of wizardry, but with certain kinds of fundamental principles of their own nonetheless. Thus Professor Snape’s description of them in HBP:
"The Dark Arts are many, varied, ever-changing and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible. Your defences must therefore be as flexible and inventive as the Arts you seek to undo."
The dark arts are broader in reach than wizardry and allow for a greater range of continual invention and expansion than wizardry does. Wizardry is confined only to types of magic, and specific effects, that can be achieved via some form of technical input (though with nonverbal casting I think we see a place where wizardry edges up against dark magic). The dark arts, on the other hand, are as expansive as human ingenuity, will, and desire allow. Any witch or wizard who goes into inventing new spells and magical doings is going to be dabbling in both dark magic and the dark arts, whether or not their inventions ultimately end up as strict wizardry or just an addition to the arts.
This also makes sense of the term “Defense Against the Dark Arts.” Even with Albus and company’s terminological shiftiness, it doesn’t quite make sense to think of defending against “dark magic” as such. Whereas one might very well wish to know how to defend oneself against specific uses and types of dark magic, and against those employing more flexible, non-wizardry (and thus potentially unknown or unpredictable) magics in combat.
The dark arts would include a variety of established, well-understood magics we see in canon, some of which may not, given the recent lexical confusion, get labeled as dark but that are not collapsible into wizardry, including:
A dark charm seems to require a wand and incantation, but not a particular wand movement, and they are highly dependent on the caster’s attitude, as Lupin tells us in POA:
“The charm that repels a Boggart is simple, yet it requires force of mind. You see, the thing that really finishes a Boggart is laughter. What you need to do is force it to assume a shape that you find amusing.” [Chapter 7]
"And how do you conjure it?"
"With an incantation, which will work only if you are concentrating, with all your might, on a single, very happy memory." [Chapter 12]
They’re one of our edge cases, places where controlled, wanded wizardry and the older dark arts brush up against each other, showing the historical development of magic. Apparently only certain things, or kinds of things, can be done with wizardry, or at least done effectively.
Ritual magic, like Tom’s rebirthday process and the old communal magics, are of course another class of dark magic. Some of the more established types of ritual would be arts themselves, but one-off and experimental rituals would also exist.
Swythyv lists alchemy as separate from dark magic, citing its relation to Ancient Magic and the Mysteries and suggesting it’s a parallel to wizardry’s relation to dark magic. But Ancient Magic strikes me as extending beyond the bounds of sorcery and encompassing broader forces, not as a class of human magic as such. And alchemy very much requires the psychological and spiritual involvement of the caster. Therefore I consider alchemy a dark art, not a parallel to wizardry - indeed, it’s probably one of the oldest and most well-established of the formal arts, making use of an earlier form of working magic than wanded wizardry.
The Mysteries of the DOM would then be, essentially, a more formal and general name for human research into broader magical forces, into dark magic, Ancient Magic, and so on.
The two obscure mental magics of occlumency and legilimency may also be considered dark arts, or they may be understood as something of a class of their own within dark magic. I suspect, however, that the actual magic of them is rigorous enough and similar enough to the workings of the other established arts that they can relatively easily be classed simply as further examples of the dark arts.
We’ll come back to the actual workings of the dark arts in a bit. First let’s finish up our classification.
*
Potions, meanwhile, is a curious subject to fit into our classification.
It seems at first to be another class of magic, but it appears at first glance for the most part to be as technically-demanding as wizardry, at least in the present day. Plus we have theorizing here and there about “dark potions,” and would such a term make sense, etc. And Tom made use of a potion, or something very like a potion, in his rebirthday ceremony.
Potions, I suspect, is something of another kind of magic, a form of it long pre-dating wizardry but anticipating some of its effects and developing in parallel to it. The term “dark” neither strictly applies nor strictly doesn’t apply to it or its products. Because potion-brewing is a method, not a class, of magic. Its products can be somewhat “dark,” and it can form a method of working magic within some of the dark arts. But it’s not a dark art itself, nor a form of wizardry.
Wizardry refers to controlled, technical magic performed with a wand. Potions are another method of controlling the magical forces altogether-in general somewhat more technical and less dependent on the practitioner than pure dark arts are, but ranging across that line that separates strict dark magic from wizardry and allowing for effects that are difficult or impossible to achieve with either.
Potions can be - and these days often are - as technically complex and dependent as wizardry is, or even moreso, but the method of channeling the magic is different (through a solid stirring rod) and is more difficult to do and control, requiring, not perhaps exactly the emotional involvement of the caster in the potion itself, but a certain focus and force of will behind it. What the cored wand replaced for working magics previously falling under the umbrella of (what we now call) the dark arts.
Neville’s problem in potions was a subconscious refusal to acknowledge, control, and properly engage and channel his magical power. Thus it came out haphazardly and at times spectacularly. Just as his attempts to perform wizardry with a wand were haphazard and sometimes uncontrolled. Only the innate magic of the ingredients amplified the effects in potions class.
But some potions - like Tom’s rebirthday one - are less dependent on niceties of measurement and proper preparation of ingredients, and more on the intent and involvement of the practitioner. They’re “darker” in a loose sense; but still dependent on outside requirements in a way that separate dark arts themselves, strictly speaking as defined against wizardry, aren’t.
What sort of magic is this, then? Neither purely technical, nor strictly practitioner-based acts of will or emotion, but a little, it seems, of both?
Perhaps it would be helpful here to turn to another term, one that we’ve been neglecting.
Potions are a craft magic. One of the oldest, most extensive, and best-understood of the traditional forms of witchcraft. A form of magic that hasn’t been completely subsumed into or replaced by wizardry, or with that development, entirely relegated to the dark arts.
Though with the dominance of wizardry over older forms of magic, the general dependence upon the wand, and the growing confusion of the wizard in the street over what “dark” means in relation to magic-as well as, quite likely, the widespread influence of sexist thinking and the Seclusion-induced lack of need for village wisewomen and the like-witchcraft seems to be regarded as the also-ran of the wizarding world. Even its best-known branch, brewing. Something our dear Professor Snape seems to take almost, just a little, as something of a personal affront…
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potionmaking," he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word -- like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic….”
Given his appreciation for beauty, verbal dexterity, and the nature of both of his magical specialties, I can’t help but see the Artist as one of our professor’s archetypes. An archetype that blends together at the edges with its close cousins the Artisan and the Crafter.
Nor is it surprising that someone with an affinity for potions would also end up with an interest in and knowledge of the dark arts, or vice-versa (especially considering the relevance of both to healing, another key interest of our professor’s). They fit quite well together, witchcraft never having quite divorced itself so radically from older magics as wizardry has. The craft element and focus on working with external material foci other than a wand have long provided enough stabilization and psychic-emotional distance in their working that they didn’t need to take the route that the narrow, cored-wand-dependent arts that became wizardry did.
Indeed, might the development of the cored wand and the resultant increased ease of casting even the most psychologically-damaging spells have gradually led to the need for such a break? Channelling magic in that pure and potent a fashion having a more pronounced effect upon the caster over time, but this taking both a certain amount of historical time to be recognized and an effective way of at least partially remedying the problem to be found… Are we certain that the widespread use and dependence upon cored-wand-wizardry really has had no significant detrimental psychological effect upon magic-users this whole time? Or is it, perhaps, just subtler and lower-key?
Because the use of external material components or foci that are not quite so directly and profoundly linked with a magic-user’s core as is a wand I think is a feature of both traditional and modern-day witchcraft. I suspect that Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology are both really forms of witchcraft. As are whatever forms of non-strictly-wand-based magic that may go into the creation of certain kinds of magical objects, and any other forms of craft and artisanal magic. (Though given the economic situation of the post-Seclusion WW, I have to agree with swythyv that there’s a reason this stuff isn’t taught much at Hogwarts. Trade secrets, whose protection is now vitally important for all those small shopkeepers given that only other wizards and witches are their customers. Passed down through families. To the (of course) disadvantage of muggleborns.)
The general subject of “divination,” meanwhile, both makes use of forms of witchcraft-tea leaves, astrology, crystal-gazing, etc.-and includes one example of that other form of magic that I think also falls under the classification of dark magic, which I alluded to earlier: magical gifts. Individual talents that cannot (the nonsense in DH aside) be picked up purely through study or necessarily easily controlled. The Seer’s gift of prophecy (interacting with the prophecy demons), which is in-born and rare just like the parselmouth’s ability to speak to snakes… Or Voldemort’s ability to possess living creatures.
Wizardry, strictly speaking, consists of our technical wanded arts: non-dark Charms, Tranfiguration, and Duelling magic/Defense magic where this isn’t a mere euphemism for the dark arts-jinxes and hexes, most likely, with the strongest spells, curses, more likely to require emotional involvement and willed intent, and so to be generally dark (whitehound’s idea, though it’s not strictly necessary here).
This leaves our theoretical magics and classes of magical knowledge, rather than praxis: ancient runes, arithmancy, and astronomy (and if we include them as magic, history of magic and muggle studies). They seem to be generally subsumed under the heading of wizardry today, but really they form a knowledge base implicitly shared by the various classes and methods of working magic.
Though the performance of wanded spells within wizardry generally seems to require little of them. Witchcraft and most of the forms of dark magic, however? Do rely on this knowledge. Written letters, numbers, stars and celestial movements. Organizing principles and ways of retaining, encoding, and transmitting knowledge. Structural features of the human-inhabited world, beyond those of speech and gesture that are inherent to wizardry.
*
Now, back to the dark arts.
We keep talking about how dark magic, and the dark arts in more regulated form, require the emotional, psychological or spiritual involvement of the caster. I added the broader terms to the discussion deliberately, because we’re not dealing only with emotion here, strictly speaking.
Simple emotion, as we saw in Harry’s patronus lessons and in his attempts to cast the Cruciatus, isn’t enough. It’ll give you a feeble, brief flash of effect, but nothing solid or lasting.
So what is it, exactly, that you need to properly perform the dark arts?
Emotional involvement of the caster of any dark art or similar magic affects the working of it, but doesn’t encompass the real nature of what’s actually going on internally. But emotions can certainly get in the way.
Here I’m going to be using excerpts from my coming discussion of Voldemort and Severus and my theory of flight:
*** I suspect that a facility with occlumency and its underlying base skills may help in the practical application of the theory behind human flight. At least at first in developing the necessary mindset, and probably in continuing practice, by allowing one to manage or block out inconvenient, ah, distractions. Such as fear and other emotions that might get in the way of what one is trying to do.
We don’t see or hear of any of our three flight school entrants ever making use of any sort of incantation, wandwork, or other external (magical) technical means in working this particular form of magic; indeed, one did not even yet have a wand when she developed and practiced her form of proto-flight. It might be necessary, or at least helpful, to be carrying a wand when one engages in true sustained flight - though like the animagus transformation it may also be something one can do wandless with enough effort and motivation. But some particular use of a wand is manifestly not needed in the actual performance of the magic, judging by our glimpses of it in action.
It’s fairly clearly a direct act of will on the part of the caster, the flier. One desires to fly, and if one knows how to do it and has the requisite willpower, one flies. Thus my designation of it as dark arts, rather than technical wizardry.
Will and directed intent are two key drivers of the magic, rather than adherence to external technical forms.
But there must be more to it than that, or else a good portion of those various poor sods we see falling from brooms and other high places would be flying right and left. But none of them, nor apparently anyone before Severus - and before him Lily, somewhat - ever did manage to move from the ‘falling’ part to the ‘not falling’ part, much less the ‘flying’ part. No matter how fervently and wholeheartedly they must have willed and intended it.
So what else is needed?
Well, what did Bellatrix tell us was the key for casting our most prominent examples of dark magic?
“You need to mean them, Potter!”
You need to want it, yes. And clearly intend it.
But that’s not enough. You need to genuinely mean it.
Could we perhaps say, to believe it?
“If I can see it, then I can do it
If I just believe it, there's nothing to it
I believe I can fly
I believe I can touch the sky…”
I expect that the third component is belief. Genuine, deep-seated belief that one can catch oneself, one can fly, one is flying. That it is possible both in general and for oneself specifically.
Willpower, intent, and belief.
Go back to the three D’s of apparation: destination - that’s intent; determination - there’s your willpower; deliberation - contemplation, perhaps, of the image of oneself already being at the destination? Believing it? Only…misstated somewhat, by trainers who were never properly taught the theoretical basics of the dark arts, or even perhaps that apparition is a dark art in the first place? (Or at the very least, knew better than to suggest anything of the kind in Albus Dumbledore’s Hogwarts.)
To quote for a moment from another book on the art of flight:
“Can you teach me to fly like that?” Jonathan Seagull trembled to conquer another unknown.
“Of course, if you wish to learn.”
“I wish. When can we start?”
“We could start now, if you’d like.”
“I want to learn to fly like that,” Jonathan said, and a strange light glowed in his eyes. “Tell me what to do.”
Chiang spoke slowly and watched the younger gull ever so carefully. “To fly as fast as thought, to anywhere that is,” he said, “you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived…”
(-- Jonathan Livingston Seagull)
Belief in one’s own power, one’s own abilities, in the existence of the reality one desires, because one desires it. Belief in oneself, that one can do it, that one is doing it, has done it. The knowledge that one already can do it. Like the Olympic runner mentally running through every step of the course, over and over, until the image of hirself winning becomes as solid as reality. Belief as firm as knowledge before the reality, in order to create that reality.
A belief, a knowledge, that for simple evolutionary reasons is likely very difficult to spontaneously generate when one is rushing headlong at the ground, one would think. The very opposite belief would quite naturally be an overwhelming thought at the moment in question. Rendering the most obvious and intuitive path to learning to fly -- get oneself airborne and then try to stay up -- rather counter-productive. Except, of course, for a gifted occlumens capable, at need, of strictly managing his own fears and doubts and beliefs at moments of immense stress. Once he understands just how he needs to do so.
Flying is an act of faith.
Which suddenly makes sense of how an untrained/self-trained child, ignorant of the existence of the wizarding world and the formal workings of magic, could have independently invented the precursor skill to sustained human flight when generations of formally trained adult witches and wizards thought it impossible.
Nobody ever told her she couldn’t do it.
And she likely already knew she could do things other people thought impossible, sometimes without even consciously trying. She was quite confident in her own abilities, young Lily was, no? That “brimful of confidence” line didn’t apply just to young Severus there, I don’t think.
All one needs to do is imagine that, as often happens with kids on swings, Lily one day went a little too high, a little too fast, when she leaped or fell from the swing. And her magic spontaneously kicked in to save her, just as it kicked in to let her son jump onto a roof.
And after that, Lily knew she could fall lightly, almost fly. She had faith in her ability to do it, possibly because she’d been able to repeat other weird tricks before when she put her mind to it. (Though it’s just possible that this was her first spontaneous act of magic, the one that led her to keep experimenting…) Wanting it hard enough and intending it clearly enough. And so eventually she did it, without trouble, again and again.
Imagine Severus’ face when, looking back on that memory for clues or perhaps simply in reminiscence, it suddenly clicked for him.
I wonder how many tries it took him, and how many unhappy meetings with the ground, before he was able to summon up the requisite faith in his own abilities and catch himself before he crashed again. Probably a few, given his general track record. But he did manage it.
And I do think that Severus was the one to have at last managed it precisely because he had that early memory of Lily. Because he knew that it could be done.
He already had faith in the possibility of flight.
He just needed to develop the requisite faith in himself. In his own ability to do it. ***
So.
“You need to mean them, Potter!”
Anger, or happiness, or what have you, isn’t going to power the magic properly. The emotional energy of additional participants might help to amplify the effects somewhat, but it can’t work or sustain the magic on its own. You need something more. You need to mean it.
I think that the dark arts-any somewhat-defined, repeatable class of dark magic-generally fit the broad model of caster-based magic we see active in apparition and that I have proposed here for flight. A dark art generally requires a set of three internal components to be properly engaged and related to each other:
“Destination, determination, deliberation.”
Destination - that’s clarity of intent. You have to know what, specifically, you’re aiming to achieve and picture it clearly. This gives shape to the magic.
Determination - that’s sustained willpower. Your engine, powering the magic. Emotion is a thin substitute for this (or really for all three components).
Deliberation - this is where, I suspect, a lot of Hogwarts grads struggle with the magic. Because the word doesn’t communicate what is actually required of the caster. What “deliberation” really means here is belief. Contemplation of oneself already at the destination. Faith in the possibility and the reality of the desired effect, of the magic’s efficacy. The spark that transforms a willed intention into a reality.
In the archaic Masonic phrase much favored by modern neo-pagans: “so mote it be.” An idea transformed into something that might be.
*
And belief in the efficacy of magic is the other thing, of course, that Seclusion has affected on a large scale.
Neo-pagans and the families of muggleborn and halfblood wizards aside, most muggles simply don’t believe in magic anymore. Magic’s departure from the pages of overt history allowed science to become the predominant way of conceptualizing, understanding, and working with the world. And so the range of what muggles think possible -- of what they understand and believe might be -- shrunk to what science says is possible. Absent the wild, reality-bending effects of magic.
Voldemort can kidnap as many muggles as he likes, and take the time to prove to them individually or in small groups the existence and effectiveness of magic-or, that is, of whatever it is he’s using to torture them. But to get the really powerful effects of old times, lasting effects, he needs, not only numbers, but real belief on the part of the muggles.
Not just their emotions, though that will do in a pinch for a brief amplification. But their ongoing faith in the existence and power of magic, and of its wielders.
And that is something that only the widescale, effective overturning of Secrecy can bring him. Public demonstrations of both the existence and the might of magic, to counteract the dominance of a scientific-based understanding of the world.
And he might not need or want the muggles just for certain large-scale ritual magics, either, though certainly that alone would be motive enough for him. But if there was any suggestion, anywhere, in any of the old lore Voldemort combed through that the widespread belief in magic of old times had affected also smaller workings, or the efficacy of magic in general - that it was tied in a broader way to the surrounding level of belief, or could be influenced or amplified even apart from specific rituals…
The more the muggles know about magic, the more it is demonstrated to (and upon) them, potentially the greater the effect, always?
It need not even be true. Just a possibility that had occurred to him. A thought that the rather pathetic, quotidian and piecemeal working of magic today might be something that could be counteracted by breaking Secrecy and exposing the muggles to magic on a large scale.
Until all the muggles believe again. Allowing wizards to regain their old status and powers…
Er, or maybe a bit more than that. Now that wizards are organized. And I mean, knowing Voldemort...
Magic Is Might: The Dark Arts and the Workings of Human Magic
In her latest post, “ Seclusion and the Dark Arts,” terri brilliantly brings together the two main strands of Voldemort’s and the Death Eaters’ interests, overturning Secrecy and dark magic, theorizing that they were seeking to make useable again the old communal magics that shamans and village magic-workers would have used to tap into the emotion-driven power of muggles to boost their own magical ability.
In my comment in reply I wrote, “You've also anticipated an argument I'll be making in Indestructible when I talk about Severus and Voldemort and flight being one of the dark arts.”
My thinking about the nature of unsupported human flight, the reasons it may have taken so long to be developed, and what role it played in Severus and Voldemort’s relationship led me to formulate some ideas about the nature of the dark arts more generally. And now terri’s essay has pushed it all into much clearer focus for me.
We’ve got a number of terms for the working of human magic, and they all mean something specific. Which has implications for understanding what Tom might have thought regarding the nature of human magic and the relationship of muggles to magic-users. Whether or not he was even correct in his suppositions.
Though he may have been.
Terri writes:
The Dark Arts comprise many things; that’s part of the problem with defining them.
But we’ve hypothesized they include, 1), (all or most) Old Magic. Pre-wand, pre-domesticated magic.
And 2), (all or most) magic powered by emotion.
And who says the emotion must be the caster’s?
[…]
Why should practitioners and students of the Dark Arts be preferentially attracted to ending Secrecy, or be suspected of doing so?
Because the Dark Arts include magic spells and rituals that can no longer be used under Seclusion (or that are believed to be now unusable). Because that magic was originally designed to be used with, and either for or against, Muggles. To draw on Muggle crowd emotions.
To amplify the power available to the magic-user, at least temporarily.
Possibly to a huge extent.
Old magic, emotion- and will-based, permitting vastly more powerful acts of magic than are workable under Seclusion today. Because wizards cannot make use of the emotions of muggle crowds, cannot draw on their numbers and energy, now that wizards and magic must remain concealed from muggles.
But it’s potentially more than that. Depending on just how much of human magic-working in general can be reliably divorced from the influence of human psychological states, and how far this is true even of wizardry itself.
Neither of which might, possibly, be quite so complete as we-or wizards-seem to think.
*
Allow me to make a brief detour here away from consideration of the dark arts themselves to propose a basic classification system.
A while ago, in her essay “ Sorcerers,” swythyv noted that most of the characters in canon get the name of the law restricting underage magic incorrect, speaking of the “the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underaged Magic,” or “Underaged Wizardry.” When in fact the actual wording is, “the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underaged Sorcery.”
Sorcery, she proposes, is the broadest term for human magic-working-and is, apparently, a subject that wizards seem a little…hesitant to consciously and overtly recognize. Children’s legally-excused acts of accidental magic are pure sorcery, though not called such, whereas the juvenile working of wanded wizardry outside of Hogwarts is restricted.
I’m going to adopt this definition, though I’m going to alter and deviate a bit from her further breakdown of the other types of human magic.
So.
Sorcery encompasses all forms of human magic, deliberate and inadvertent, wanded and not, controlled and uncontrolled.
Wizardry, as we’ve long theorized meanwhile, is controlled, usually wanded magic that relies on technical mastery (incantations and wandwork) over emotional involvement or will. “Domesticated” magic, in terri’s word. Magic that is far less frightening to today’s average witch or wizard than any other form.
Wizardry was gradually developed out of the earlier, more chaotic and less technical dark magic. The exact boundaries of this class of magic are a bit blurry at the edges, but in general let’s go with terri’s breakdown above for the moment, and say that dark magic (in the non-crude sense) encompasses:
- all forms of old magic, pre-domesticated wizardry
- all forms of magic that are emotion-based - or, more precisely, that require the psychological or spiritual involvement of the caster, and possibly others
Dark magic, in the present day, can also be understood to include all forms of human magic that are obscure. Or obscured. Not commonly taught or easily available and learned. This would include in one sense Saint Albus’ restrictions to the Hogwarts curriculum, but also in another sense the traditional cloaking of powerful knowledge in obscure language and symbols that we see in disciplines like alchemy.
It also includes another, rare, form of magic as well. But we’ll get to that in a bit.
*
Now, we’ve been using the terms “dark magic” and “dark arts” interchangeably, and at first glance it seems as if characters in the books do as well. But I’m not sure that it’s necessarily the case that they are actually true synonyms, given the present-day slipperiness and confusion of terminology surrounding all mentions of things “dark,” as per “Dark Magic Doth Never Prosper.”
Rather, I think that the dark arts are, strictly speaking, a subset of dark magic more broadly. Those forms of dark magic that, unlike wizardry, still require the involvement of the caster (whether wanded or not), but that are relatively stable, defined, and well-understood, and so are not as chaotic as the wilder, inadvertent, and unconscious forms of magic are. The precursor class of wanded magic to wizardry, historically.
The dark arts are so called because they are arts. Specific, known ways of doing things that are roughly bounded and repeatable, but still dependent upon the involvement of the individual caster (at minimum). Not quite the science of wizardry, but with certain kinds of fundamental principles of their own nonetheless. Thus Professor Snape’s description of them in HBP:
"The Dark Arts are many, varied, ever-changing and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible. Your defences must therefore be as flexible and inventive as the Arts you seek to undo."
The dark arts are broader in reach than wizardry and allow for a greater range of continual invention and expansion than wizardry does. Wizardry is confined only to types of magic, and specific effects, that can be achieved via some form of technical input (though with nonverbal casting I think we see a place where wizardry edges up against dark magic). The dark arts, on the other hand, are as expansive as human ingenuity, will, and desire allow. Any witch or wizard who goes into inventing new spells and magical doings is going to be dabbling in both dark magic and the dark arts, whether or not their inventions ultimately end up as strict wizardry or just an addition to the arts.
This also makes sense of the term “Defense Against the Dark Arts.” Even with Albus and company’s terminological shiftiness, it doesn’t quite make sense to think of defending against “dark magic” as such. Whereas one might very well wish to know how to defend oneself against specific uses and types of dark magic, and against those employing more flexible, non-wizardry (and thus potentially unknown or unpredictable) magics in combat.
The dark arts would include a variety of established, well-understood magics we see in canon, some of which may not, given the recent lexical confusion, get labeled as dark but that are not collapsible into wizardry, including:
- the animagus transformation (I owe swythyv for this insight)
- the patronus spell, the Riddikulus spell, etc.
- the Unforgivables (of course)
- apparition
- alchemy
- unsupported flight (more on this later)
A dark charm seems to require a wand and incantation, but not a particular wand movement, and they are highly dependent on the caster’s attitude, as Lupin tells us in POA:
“The charm that repels a Boggart is simple, yet it requires force of mind. You see, the thing that really finishes a Boggart is laughter. What you need to do is force it to assume a shape that you find amusing.” [Chapter 7]
"And how do you conjure it?"
"With an incantation, which will work only if you are concentrating, with all your might, on a single, very happy memory." [Chapter 12]
They’re one of our edge cases, places where controlled, wanded wizardry and the older dark arts brush up against each other, showing the historical development of magic. Apparently only certain things, or kinds of things, can be done with wizardry, or at least done effectively.
Ritual magic, like Tom’s rebirthday process and the old communal magics, are of course another class of dark magic. Some of the more established types of ritual would be arts themselves, but one-off and experimental rituals would also exist.
Swythyv lists alchemy as separate from dark magic, citing its relation to Ancient Magic and the Mysteries and suggesting it’s a parallel to wizardry’s relation to dark magic. But Ancient Magic strikes me as extending beyond the bounds of sorcery and encompassing broader forces, not as a class of human magic as such. And alchemy very much requires the psychological and spiritual involvement of the caster. Therefore I consider alchemy a dark art, not a parallel to wizardry - indeed, it’s probably one of the oldest and most well-established of the formal arts, making use of an earlier form of working magic than wanded wizardry.
The Mysteries of the DOM would then be, essentially, a more formal and general name for human research into broader magical forces, into dark magic, Ancient Magic, and so on.
The two obscure mental magics of occlumency and legilimency may also be considered dark arts, or they may be understood as something of a class of their own within dark magic. I suspect, however, that the actual magic of them is rigorous enough and similar enough to the workings of the other established arts that they can relatively easily be classed simply as further examples of the dark arts.
We’ll come back to the actual workings of the dark arts in a bit. First let’s finish up our classification.
*
Potions, meanwhile, is a curious subject to fit into our classification.
It seems at first to be another class of magic, but it appears at first glance for the most part to be as technically-demanding as wizardry, at least in the present day. Plus we have theorizing here and there about “dark potions,” and would such a term make sense, etc. And Tom made use of a potion, or something very like a potion, in his rebirthday ceremony.
Potions, I suspect, is something of another kind of magic, a form of it long pre-dating wizardry but anticipating some of its effects and developing in parallel to it. The term “dark” neither strictly applies nor strictly doesn’t apply to it or its products. Because potion-brewing is a method, not a class, of magic. Its products can be somewhat “dark,” and it can form a method of working magic within some of the dark arts. But it’s not a dark art itself, nor a form of wizardry.
Wizardry refers to controlled, technical magic performed with a wand. Potions are another method of controlling the magical forces altogether-in general somewhat more technical and less dependent on the practitioner than pure dark arts are, but ranging across that line that separates strict dark magic from wizardry and allowing for effects that are difficult or impossible to achieve with either.
Potions can be - and these days often are - as technically complex and dependent as wizardry is, or even moreso, but the method of channeling the magic is different (through a solid stirring rod) and is more difficult to do and control, requiring, not perhaps exactly the emotional involvement of the caster in the potion itself, but a certain focus and force of will behind it. What the cored wand replaced for working magics previously falling under the umbrella of (what we now call) the dark arts.
Neville’s problem in potions was a subconscious refusal to acknowledge, control, and properly engage and channel his magical power. Thus it came out haphazardly and at times spectacularly. Just as his attempts to perform wizardry with a wand were haphazard and sometimes uncontrolled. Only the innate magic of the ingredients amplified the effects in potions class.
But some potions - like Tom’s rebirthday one - are less dependent on niceties of measurement and proper preparation of ingredients, and more on the intent and involvement of the practitioner. They’re “darker” in a loose sense; but still dependent on outside requirements in a way that separate dark arts themselves, strictly speaking as defined against wizardry, aren’t.
What sort of magic is this, then? Neither purely technical, nor strictly practitioner-based acts of will or emotion, but a little, it seems, of both?
Perhaps it would be helpful here to turn to another term, one that we’ve been neglecting.
Potions are a craft magic. One of the oldest, most extensive, and best-understood of the traditional forms of witchcraft. A form of magic that hasn’t been completely subsumed into or replaced by wizardry, or with that development, entirely relegated to the dark arts.
Though with the dominance of wizardry over older forms of magic, the general dependence upon the wand, and the growing confusion of the wizard in the street over what “dark” means in relation to magic-as well as, quite likely, the widespread influence of sexist thinking and the Seclusion-induced lack of need for village wisewomen and the like-witchcraft seems to be regarded as the also-ran of the wizarding world. Even its best-known branch, brewing. Something our dear Professor Snape seems to take almost, just a little, as something of a personal affront…
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potionmaking," he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word -- like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic….”
Given his appreciation for beauty, verbal dexterity, and the nature of both of his magical specialties, I can’t help but see the Artist as one of our professor’s archetypes. An archetype that blends together at the edges with its close cousins the Artisan and the Crafter.
Nor is it surprising that someone with an affinity for potions would also end up with an interest in and knowledge of the dark arts, or vice-versa (especially considering the relevance of both to healing, another key interest of our professor’s). They fit quite well together, witchcraft never having quite divorced itself so radically from older magics as wizardry has. The craft element and focus on working with external material foci other than a wand have long provided enough stabilization and psychic-emotional distance in their working that they didn’t need to take the route that the narrow, cored-wand-dependent arts that became wizardry did.
Indeed, might the development of the cored wand and the resultant increased ease of casting even the most psychologically-damaging spells have gradually led to the need for such a break? Channelling magic in that pure and potent a fashion having a more pronounced effect upon the caster over time, but this taking both a certain amount of historical time to be recognized and an effective way of at least partially remedying the problem to be found… Are we certain that the widespread use and dependence upon cored-wand-wizardry really has had no significant detrimental psychological effect upon magic-users this whole time? Or is it, perhaps, just subtler and lower-key?
Because the use of external material components or foci that are not quite so directly and profoundly linked with a magic-user’s core as is a wand I think is a feature of both traditional and modern-day witchcraft. I suspect that Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology are both really forms of witchcraft. As are whatever forms of non-strictly-wand-based magic that may go into the creation of certain kinds of magical objects, and any other forms of craft and artisanal magic. (Though given the economic situation of the post-Seclusion WW, I have to agree with swythyv that there’s a reason this stuff isn’t taught much at Hogwarts. Trade secrets, whose protection is now vitally important for all those small shopkeepers given that only other wizards and witches are their customers. Passed down through families. To the (of course) disadvantage of muggleborns.)
The general subject of “divination,” meanwhile, both makes use of forms of witchcraft-tea leaves, astrology, crystal-gazing, etc.-and includes one example of that other form of magic that I think also falls under the classification of dark magic, which I alluded to earlier: magical gifts. Individual talents that cannot (the nonsense in DH aside) be picked up purely through study or necessarily easily controlled. The Seer’s gift of prophecy (interacting with the prophecy demons), which is in-born and rare just like the parselmouth’s ability to speak to snakes… Or Voldemort’s ability to possess living creatures.
Wizardry, strictly speaking, consists of our technical wanded arts: non-dark Charms, Tranfiguration, and Duelling magic/Defense magic where this isn’t a mere euphemism for the dark arts-jinxes and hexes, most likely, with the strongest spells, curses, more likely to require emotional involvement and willed intent, and so to be generally dark (whitehound’s idea, though it’s not strictly necessary here).
This leaves our theoretical magics and classes of magical knowledge, rather than praxis: ancient runes, arithmancy, and astronomy (and if we include them as magic, history of magic and muggle studies). They seem to be generally subsumed under the heading of wizardry today, but really they form a knowledge base implicitly shared by the various classes and methods of working magic.
Though the performance of wanded spells within wizardry generally seems to require little of them. Witchcraft and most of the forms of dark magic, however? Do rely on this knowledge. Written letters, numbers, stars and celestial movements. Organizing principles and ways of retaining, encoding, and transmitting knowledge. Structural features of the human-inhabited world, beyond those of speech and gesture that are inherent to wizardry.
*
Now, back to the dark arts.
We keep talking about how dark magic, and the dark arts in more regulated form, require the emotional, psychological or spiritual involvement of the caster. I added the broader terms to the discussion deliberately, because we’re not dealing only with emotion here, strictly speaking.
Simple emotion, as we saw in Harry’s patronus lessons and in his attempts to cast the Cruciatus, isn’t enough. It’ll give you a feeble, brief flash of effect, but nothing solid or lasting.
So what is it, exactly, that you need to properly perform the dark arts?
Emotional involvement of the caster of any dark art or similar magic affects the working of it, but doesn’t encompass the real nature of what’s actually going on internally. But emotions can certainly get in the way.
Here I’m going to be using excerpts from my coming discussion of Voldemort and Severus and my theory of flight:
*** I suspect that a facility with occlumency and its underlying base skills may help in the practical application of the theory behind human flight. At least at first in developing the necessary mindset, and probably in continuing practice, by allowing one to manage or block out inconvenient, ah, distractions. Such as fear and other emotions that might get in the way of what one is trying to do.
We don’t see or hear of any of our three flight school entrants ever making use of any sort of incantation, wandwork, or other external (magical) technical means in working this particular form of magic; indeed, one did not even yet have a wand when she developed and practiced her form of proto-flight. It might be necessary, or at least helpful, to be carrying a wand when one engages in true sustained flight - though like the animagus transformation it may also be something one can do wandless with enough effort and motivation. But some particular use of a wand is manifestly not needed in the actual performance of the magic, judging by our glimpses of it in action.
It’s fairly clearly a direct act of will on the part of the caster, the flier. One desires to fly, and if one knows how to do it and has the requisite willpower, one flies. Thus my designation of it as dark arts, rather than technical wizardry.
Will and directed intent are two key drivers of the magic, rather than adherence to external technical forms.
But there must be more to it than that, or else a good portion of those various poor sods we see falling from brooms and other high places would be flying right and left. But none of them, nor apparently anyone before Severus - and before him Lily, somewhat - ever did manage to move from the ‘falling’ part to the ‘not falling’ part, much less the ‘flying’ part. No matter how fervently and wholeheartedly they must have willed and intended it.
So what else is needed?
Well, what did Bellatrix tell us was the key for casting our most prominent examples of dark magic?
“You need to mean them, Potter!”
You need to want it, yes. And clearly intend it.
But that’s not enough. You need to genuinely mean it.
Could we perhaps say, to believe it?
“If I can see it, then I can do it
If I just believe it, there's nothing to it
I believe I can fly
I believe I can touch the sky…”
I expect that the third component is belief. Genuine, deep-seated belief that one can catch oneself, one can fly, one is flying. That it is possible both in general and for oneself specifically.
Willpower, intent, and belief.
Go back to the three D’s of apparation: destination - that’s intent; determination - there’s your willpower; deliberation - contemplation, perhaps, of the image of oneself already being at the destination? Believing it? Only…misstated somewhat, by trainers who were never properly taught the theoretical basics of the dark arts, or even perhaps that apparition is a dark art in the first place? (Or at the very least, knew better than to suggest anything of the kind in Albus Dumbledore’s Hogwarts.)
To quote for a moment from another book on the art of flight:
“Can you teach me to fly like that?” Jonathan Seagull trembled to conquer another unknown.
“Of course, if you wish to learn.”
“I wish. When can we start?”
“We could start now, if you’d like.”
“I want to learn to fly like that,” Jonathan said, and a strange light glowed in his eyes. “Tell me what to do.”
Chiang spoke slowly and watched the younger gull ever so carefully. “To fly as fast as thought, to anywhere that is,” he said, “you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived…”
(-- Jonathan Livingston Seagull)
Belief in one’s own power, one’s own abilities, in the existence of the reality one desires, because one desires it. Belief in oneself, that one can do it, that one is doing it, has done it. The knowledge that one already can do it. Like the Olympic runner mentally running through every step of the course, over and over, until the image of hirself winning becomes as solid as reality. Belief as firm as knowledge before the reality, in order to create that reality.
A belief, a knowledge, that for simple evolutionary reasons is likely very difficult to spontaneously generate when one is rushing headlong at the ground, one would think. The very opposite belief would quite naturally be an overwhelming thought at the moment in question. Rendering the most obvious and intuitive path to learning to fly -- get oneself airborne and then try to stay up -- rather counter-productive. Except, of course, for a gifted occlumens capable, at need, of strictly managing his own fears and doubts and beliefs at moments of immense stress. Once he understands just how he needs to do so.
Flying is an act of faith.
Which suddenly makes sense of how an untrained/self-trained child, ignorant of the existence of the wizarding world and the formal workings of magic, could have independently invented the precursor skill to sustained human flight when generations of formally trained adult witches and wizards thought it impossible.
Nobody ever told her she couldn’t do it.
And she likely already knew she could do things other people thought impossible, sometimes without even consciously trying. She was quite confident in her own abilities, young Lily was, no? That “brimful of confidence” line didn’t apply just to young Severus there, I don’t think.
All one needs to do is imagine that, as often happens with kids on swings, Lily one day went a little too high, a little too fast, when she leaped or fell from the swing. And her magic spontaneously kicked in to save her, just as it kicked in to let her son jump onto a roof.
And after that, Lily knew she could fall lightly, almost fly. She had faith in her ability to do it, possibly because she’d been able to repeat other weird tricks before when she put her mind to it. (Though it’s just possible that this was her first spontaneous act of magic, the one that led her to keep experimenting…) Wanting it hard enough and intending it clearly enough. And so eventually she did it, without trouble, again and again.
Imagine Severus’ face when, looking back on that memory for clues or perhaps simply in reminiscence, it suddenly clicked for him.
I wonder how many tries it took him, and how many unhappy meetings with the ground, before he was able to summon up the requisite faith in his own abilities and catch himself before he crashed again. Probably a few, given his general track record. But he did manage it.
And I do think that Severus was the one to have at last managed it precisely because he had that early memory of Lily. Because he knew that it could be done.
He already had faith in the possibility of flight.
He just needed to develop the requisite faith in himself. In his own ability to do it. ***
So.
“You need to mean them, Potter!”
Anger, or happiness, or what have you, isn’t going to power the magic properly. The emotional energy of additional participants might help to amplify the effects somewhat, but it can’t work or sustain the magic on its own. You need something more. You need to mean it.
I think that the dark arts-any somewhat-defined, repeatable class of dark magic-generally fit the broad model of caster-based magic we see active in apparition and that I have proposed here for flight. A dark art generally requires a set of three internal components to be properly engaged and related to each other:
“Destination, determination, deliberation.”
Destination - that’s clarity of intent. You have to know what, specifically, you’re aiming to achieve and picture it clearly. This gives shape to the magic.
Determination - that’s sustained willpower. Your engine, powering the magic. Emotion is a thin substitute for this (or really for all three components).
Deliberation - this is where, I suspect, a lot of Hogwarts grads struggle with the magic. Because the word doesn’t communicate what is actually required of the caster. What “deliberation” really means here is belief. Contemplation of oneself already at the destination. Faith in the possibility and the reality of the desired effect, of the magic’s efficacy. The spark that transforms a willed intention into a reality.
In the archaic Masonic phrase much favored by modern neo-pagans: “so mote it be.” An idea transformed into something that might be.
*
And belief in the efficacy of magic is the other thing, of course, that Seclusion has affected on a large scale.
Neo-pagans and the families of muggleborn and halfblood wizards aside, most muggles simply don’t believe in magic anymore. Magic’s departure from the pages of overt history allowed science to become the predominant way of conceptualizing, understanding, and working with the world. And so the range of what muggles think possible -- of what they understand and believe might be -- shrunk to what science says is possible. Absent the wild, reality-bending effects of magic.
Voldemort can kidnap as many muggles as he likes, and take the time to prove to them individually or in small groups the existence and effectiveness of magic-or, that is, of whatever it is he’s using to torture them. But to get the really powerful effects of old times, lasting effects, he needs, not only numbers, but real belief on the part of the muggles.
Not just their emotions, though that will do in a pinch for a brief amplification. But their ongoing faith in the existence and power of magic, and of its wielders.
And that is something that only the widescale, effective overturning of Secrecy can bring him. Public demonstrations of both the existence and the might of magic, to counteract the dominance of a scientific-based understanding of the world.
And he might not need or want the muggles just for certain large-scale ritual magics, either, though certainly that alone would be motive enough for him. But if there was any suggestion, anywhere, in any of the old lore Voldemort combed through that the widespread belief in magic of old times had affected also smaller workings, or the efficacy of magic in general - that it was tied in a broader way to the surrounding level of belief, or could be influenced or amplified even apart from specific rituals…
The more the muggles know about magic, the more it is demonstrated to (and upon) them, potentially the greater the effect, always?
It need not even be true. Just a possibility that had occurred to him. A thought that the rather pathetic, quotidian and piecemeal working of magic today might be something that could be counteracted by breaking Secrecy and exposing the muggles to magic on a large scale.
Until all the muggles believe again. Allowing wizards to regain their old status and powers…
Er, or maybe a bit more than that. Now that wizards are organized. And I mean, knowing Voldemort...