#like saying that the flame is more willing to participate than a battery

[chronichlesofnillory]

"Is the flame there to be a source of energy for the practitioner? If so, an LED light will not suffice"

This is so interesting to me and I sat for probably almost 10 minutes rolling around with this in my mind because I think OP is right that you have to make considerations about things, about how our minds view the world and energy.

Someone made a comment about the battery being the energy to which OP responded "haven’t had much success using batteries as sources during spells. I’d be curious to test things out with different types of electric energy, though, and see how they compare."

You know this is so just so fun to think about tbh and as I can feel myself drawing closer to magic again I'm thinking about how in the 9 months I've been a little more apart from it I've changed enough that how I come back to it will change too. Maybe the chaos magic tempo finally caught up to me after rolling around in my brain for those 9 months and I'm thinking to myself that maybe in a more traditional practice than yeah fire would seem to be more powerful than an LED battery because our brains have a better grasp of the combustion that goes on with a flame than with a LED battery. How the warmth given off from a flame feels more powerful and more "available" to manipulate than the almost nonexistent hum from a LED battery. How throughout different traditions the concept of "energy manipulation" or energy work in general is so different. It's easier for me to talk to a flame than a battery, the flame feels more alive and more like it's willing to participate with me in the working than a battery even though I know that a battery actually has more potential energy.

This post was really great and it's really got me thinking about how differently people can all approach the same concepts. How our brains all work so differently and in turn shape the way we connect to magic as a whole and then wield and shape it.

Thinking about the role of the flame in magic. When it's not available, sometimes people recommend to replace a real candle with an LED candle or some other form of light, but that is very ineffective. We need to consider the role of the flame in the context of the spell and working.

Is the flame there to be a source of energy for the practitioner? If so, an LED light will not suffice. The flame could possibly be replaced by something like a jar of water which has been shaken in a circular fashion to create a spinning motion, thereby generating its own kinetic energy. An LED light, despite drawing power, does not draw sufficient power. I also believe the sense of movement of the flame, which draws the mind to it, is a factor (which, if there is movement in water, would also service this purpose).

Is the flame there to cleanse? If so, it can be easily replaced with smoke, salt, water (in certain situations, but for newer practitioners I would opt for the other two).

Is the flame there to destroy? In this case, other methods of destruction can be substituted, such as ripping, smashing, cutting, dissolving, etc.

In some cases the flame serves multiple functions, in which case using multiple substitutions at once is necessary.

The hardest to substitute, in theory, could be when the flame serves to be itself: the element of fire. Thankfully, most of the time, we have access to the biggest flame of all: the Sun.