Magick
Magick, or magic is an inherent energy radiating from Earth and all living things. Analytical traditions and cultures have studied this energy in depth. Others simply accept its existence and work with it. Many languages have specific names for this energy. English does not. This increases the confusion when discussing magick - an already vast and confusing topic. In the same manner that English, a language so rich in descriptive adjectives, has but one word for snow, while Inuit has many, one word for love, while Sanskrit has many, so English has but one word, magic, to define its various aspects. Harry Houdini, Harry Potter, Helena Blavatsky, Aleister Crowley, and countless anonymous village wise-women are all lumped together as masters of magic, as if it were a monolithic art.
Magick is that power that radiates from all life. The ancient Egyptians called it heka. In Africa, the Yoruba call it ashe. The most familiar word may be the Polynesian mana. In Morocco, this radiant energy is known as baraka. For lack of a better word, let's just call it magick power.
This magick power, this capacity for magic, radiates from all living beings to a greater or lesser extent. In fact, it is the existence of this power that defines what, in magickal terms, is considered "alive", a very different criterion than that required by a coroner's report. In magickal terms, death is not the absence of life. Absence of power equals absence of life. A corpse, although no one denies the person is dead in the conventional sense, is still very much alive, as is the pine box and, most especially, the iron coffin nails. The average plastic bottle, however, lacks life. Confused? More about this crucial concept later.