The White Magician is a seeker after wisdom who attempts to find the hidden treasures of truth. He traditionally calls upon God, angels, and elemental spirits to supply his power. He is the African Witch-Doctor, the village Cunning Man, the Psychic Healer. In most cultures he is believed to possess a special indwelling power or spirit, or a special connection with such a spirit. If he succumbs to the temptation to practice magic for selfish or immoral ends, his power will leave him . . .
I wonder if there is some kind of power or spirit in me? Maybe it’s like the gifts of the Holy Spirit that the Bible talks about. Maybe white magic is my gift. But I can’t use it for selfish things. I’m glad I put that honesty stuff in out Pact.
White Magicians always refuse to work for reward, except perhaps for the cost of materials used in an amulet or charm, as they realize that accepting payment would make them cater to the client’s wishes, what she wanted to hear, instead of what she needed to know . . .
That sounds important. I only want to do magic that is real and true, and I don’t want to make money doing it.
At school during recess, Penny and I started to test each other on the
traverse bars and stuff.
“Come on, Ariel! You’re not that old yet! Faster! Swing, swing, swing, swing. Back, swing, swing, swing. Again! swing, swing, swing.”
After six times back and forth, I finally fell off, dead tired. Penny hopped on, did eight trips, then died beside me in the sand.
“You’re good at that!” I said. “And faster than me. I bet you’ll be good in the trees!”
The next day we ran around the field together. The gardener had told me it was a third of a mile, so we went around three times. We started doing it about every other day, and we were setting stronger.
The other kids began to tease us. After running one day, Penny turned to me and said, “Why are we doing this, anyway? Everybody is starting to call us wierdos!”
“Because,” I said, “to do magic you have to be strong and quick! And you have to not care what people think about you, because they will always think you’re weird if you’re different from them. Remember Jesus? They thought he was so weird they killed him. See what I mean?”
“Yeah,” she said with wide eyes.
“Don’t forget, they’re probably jealous, too. You and me can run faster and farther than anyone else in our school.”
“I never thought of that. Wow.”
We walked off the playground together. Just before we had to go in different directions, I said, “Next Wednesday is Beltane. It was celebrated with bonfires. Can you come over, have dinner with us, and then we can make a campfire in the backyard, eat smores, and I’ll teach you some stuff about magic?”
“I think so!” Penny said.
“Great! See you later!”
It was supposed to he a newly-kindled fire made from sacred oak wood.
We had to settle for kitchen matches and alder sticks. I hoped the Spirit of Fire would understand.
“There are four elements in magic. Earth, air, fire, and water.” I opened the marshmallows. “We have to become masters of each element. This
summer, I want to learn how to make fire without matches.”
Penny broke up a chocolate bar. “Would mastering water be like learning how to swim?”
“Yeah. Maybe other things in the water, too. Graham cracker, please.”
“What should we call ourselves?” Penny asked.
“I don’t know. White Magicians, maybe?” I put a marshmallow on my stick. “Remember, we only do good magic. I learned an ancient rule —
whatever harm you do to someone with magic returns to you three times over.”
“Yuk! Are we going to have wands and stuff?”
“Maybe someday,” I said, “but I bet wands are hard to make. We have our book of magic, the one that we made our Pact in. It’s called a Grimoire, and they are always hand written. As we learn things that aren’t easy to remember, we can write them in the book. It’s your book now, too, so if you want to put something in it, you can.”
Penny looked thoughtful. “Let’s have a page for each of the elements, and then we can write things about them that we learn, like swimming for mastering water.”
“Sounds good.” I grabbed a chocolate square and built a smore. “If we can do good magic, our power comes from understanding nature and knowing God and the Spirits. If we don’t work with nature and God, we can’t do anything. You go to church, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but it’s pretty boring.”
“Mine can be too. But we need to learn all we can about God and learn to talk to Him,” I said.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Yep. He’s in charge. If we can’t talk to him, we can’t do magic. My marshmallow’s on fire!” I blew it out and squished it between graham crackers.
“I guess I kind of believe in God,” Penny said, “but I don’t know why He’s supposed to be so boring!”
“He won’t be boring in our Grove! But magic will be harder than going to church. We have to become strong and wise.”
“More chocolate,” Penny requested.
“Here. And we have a magical knife. Or we will when it is blessed by each of the four Elemental Spirits. It’s called the Athame,” I said, pulling the knife from the pawn shop out of my coat pocket, “and tonight we will offer it to the first of them.”
I took the blade from its sheath, laid it on my lap, and said the words I had worked for days to memorize.
“I consecrate thee, O knife of steel, by the Spirit of Fire, that thou shall be potent in thy magical work, that thou shall always serve God, and that thou shall spill my blood instead if I ever attempt to harm another with thee.”
Then I slowly picked up the knife and waved it three times through the leaping flames of the fire.