morning.”
“Goodnight, Jerry,” Alma said. “Mitch.” She twisted around on the bed, crossing her stockinged feet beneath her. Mitch gave her a two fingered salute and pulled the door closed.
Lewis came around and sat down in the chair, still hunting for words. “I don’t understand how these things can be real,” he said quietly. “It flies in the face of science.”
Alma shook her head. “No, it doesn’t.” She took a deep breath, as if considering. “Do you understand how an aircraft works?”
Lewis nodded. “Yes. I mean, I understand about lift and thrust, about airspeed and wind direction and all of that. That’s science.”
“And it’s new,” Alma said. “People forty years ago didn’t understand it, much less people five hundred years ago. The principles of flight were always there, but we didn’t understand how to use them yet.” She sat up straighter, her bare feet in their silk casings tucked under her legs. “But people could observe birds. Probably people have done that since the dawn of time! They could see how birds flew and they could imagine flying. They could observe how baby birds learn to fly, how they glide first and how they tilt their wings to provide lift. Leonardo da Vinci designed a glider that works. He just didn’t have an engine to give him sufficient airspeed to actually build a plane.” Alma smiled. “He didn’t understand the principles, but he knew what he saw and he could experiment based on what worked.”
“Ok,” Lewis said slowly. “So what does that have to do with magic?”
“To Leonardo, flying was magic. If somebody from the fifteenth century saw one of our planes they would think it was supernatural. But it isn’t. It’s just that we know more than they did.” Alma reached for his hand. “But we don’t know everything. We know a tiny little fraction of everything there is to understand about the universe. And a lot of the things we don’t understand seem supernatural to us. Like Leonardo, we can observe and we can theorize and we can use to a limited extent the things our observations teach us, but we can’t explain it all. Not yet. Hermetics is sometimes called scientific magic, and that’s why. We use the empirical knowledge accumulated by different generations and different cultures and we try to understand why it works. Sometimes we can reproduce results and sometimes we can’t. Sometimes we can see why a formula has power, and sometimes we don’t know anything except that it does. And every century, every decade, we understand better. We understand more about the ‘supernatural,’ about the way the world works beyond what science can currently explain. Does that make sense?”
“I suppose,” Lewis said slowly. “But I don’t understand…. How can a person influence electrical energy?”
“We are energy,” Alma said. “We all have electrical energy in our bodies.” She looked down at their interlaced hands, turned hers in his so that their palms were together. “Hold still.” She let go of his hand and moved hers back, three inches between their palms. “Now tell me what you feel.” Slowly she moved her hand closer, quarter inch by quarter inch, until only three quarters of an inch remained between. She looked up at Lewis with a smile that was pure trouble. “What do you feel?”
He stared at their hands, ordinary, not quite touching. “It feels warm,” he said. The warmth was growing between their palms even though they didn’t touch. “Really warm.”
“That’s what happens when your electrical field interacts with mine,” she said. “You can feel it. That’s what energy feels like. That’s the thing we’re manipulating.”
Warm, and stronger than he’d expected, right there against the heart of his palm…. And then stronger, like pressure, like she’d pressed her palm to his, though she hadn’t moved. He looked at Alma, at the faint pleased expression of concentration on her face, the same one
“Goodnight, Jerry,” Alma said. “Mitch.” She twisted around on the bed, crossing her stockinged feet beneath her. Mitch gave her a two fingered salute and pulled the door closed.
Lewis came around and sat down in the chair, still hunting for words. “I don’t understand how these things can be real,” he said quietly. “It flies in the face of science.”
Alma shook her head. “No, it doesn’t.” She took a deep breath, as if considering. “Do you understand how an aircraft works?”
Lewis nodded. “Yes. I mean, I understand about lift and thrust, about airspeed and wind direction and all of that. That’s science.”
“And it’s new,” Alma said. “People forty years ago didn’t understand it, much less people five hundred years ago. The principles of flight were always there, but we didn’t understand how to use them yet.” She sat up straighter, her bare feet in their silk casings tucked under her legs. “But people could observe birds. Probably people have done that since the dawn of time! They could see how birds flew and they could imagine flying. They could observe how baby birds learn to fly, how they glide first and how they tilt their wings to provide lift. Leonardo da Vinci designed a glider that works. He just didn’t have an engine to give him sufficient airspeed to actually build a plane.” Alma smiled. “He didn’t understand the principles, but he knew what he saw and he could experiment based on what worked.”
“Ok,” Lewis said slowly. “So what does that have to do with magic?”
“To Leonardo, flying was magic. If somebody from the fifteenth century saw one of our planes they would think it was supernatural. But it isn’t. It’s just that we know more than they did.” Alma reached for his hand. “But we don’t know everything. We know a tiny little fraction of everything there is to understand about the universe. And a lot of the things we don’t understand seem supernatural to us. Like Leonardo, we can observe and we can theorize and we can use to a limited extent the things our observations teach us, but we can’t explain it all. Not yet. Hermetics is sometimes called scientific magic, and that’s why. We use the empirical knowledge accumulated by different generations and different cultures and we try to understand why it works. Sometimes we can reproduce results and sometimes we can’t. Sometimes we can see why a formula has power, and sometimes we don’t know anything except that it does. And every century, every decade, we understand better. We understand more about the ‘supernatural,’ about the way the world works beyond what science can currently explain. Does that make sense?”
“I suppose,” Lewis said slowly. “But I don’t understand…. How can a person influence electrical energy?”
“We are energy,” Alma said. “We all have electrical energy in our bodies.” She looked down at their interlaced hands, turned hers in his so that their palms were together. “Hold still.” She let go of his hand and moved hers back, three inches between their palms. “Now tell me what you feel.” Slowly she moved her hand closer, quarter inch by quarter inch, until only three quarters of an inch remained between. She looked up at Lewis with a smile that was pure trouble. “What do you feel?”
He stared at their hands, ordinary, not quite touching. “It feels warm,” he said. The warmth was growing between their palms even though they didn’t touch. “Really warm.”
“That’s what happens when your electrical field interacts with mine,” she said. “You can feel it. That’s what energy feels like. That’s the thing we’re manipulating.”
Warm, and stronger than he’d expected, right there against the heart of his palm…. And then stronger, like pressure, like she’d pressed her palm to his, though she hadn’t moved. He looked at Alma, at the faint pleased expression of concentration on her face, the same one
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