Most theorists of chaos mathematics maintain that the behavior of complicated macroscopic systems remains causal and deterministic, although difficult if not impossible to predict. However they fail to reiterate their equations far enough to realize that the sensitivity to initial conditions for many systems must eventually extend down into the quantum domain.
Random events at the quantum level must therefore lead to random events in the macroscopic world. However, because of the exchange action in transactional time, something even stranger must also occur; chosen actions on the macroscopic level can cause non-random changes at the quantum level. Of course we accept part of this already; we can polarize light or make atomic nuclei disintegrate by doing clever things with lumps of matter, but temporal reversibility in transactional time entangles macroscopic action with the quantum past as well as the future.
The enchanter functions as a collection of superposed states entangled with the superposed states of his past and future universes. In theory, by changing his perception of the universe he can bring about changes in reality, with two provisos.
Suitable entanglements and suitable superpositions must exist. The magician will need a magical link; he cannot conjure successfully in complete isolation from the target, and the desired result must have some natural probability of occurrence, preferably not an excessively remote one.
In practice the magician will need to rely on some kind of butterfly effect to create substantial changes in the universe, and he will usually have to rely on his subconscious to intuit where these possibilities exist. Conversely, in divination the magician will usually have to rely on his subconscious to pick up the feedback from his personal futures. We currently understand only the tip of the iceberg of neuroscience, but I suspect that many of the functions of the brain depend on superposition and entanglement. Magicians have distilled from historical traditions a few pragmatic ‘sleight of mind' techniques for enhancing divination and enchantment, but they remain unreliable, if occasionally remarkable, phenomena. This essay merely attempts to explain the mechanisms that can allow what we call ‘magical' effects to propagate across time and space without invoking some sort of nebulous ether or whatever.
This metadynamic of enchantment does not require any kind of mysterious occult influence to pass between the enchanter and his target; it requires only that the known effect of entanglement and the dynamics of chaotic systems can extend into three-dimensional transactional time.
The General Metadynamics paradigm does suggest some modifications to our approach to practical magic.
In Divination it would suggest that the magician seeks to visualize the future situation in which he will know the answer. It may also help if the magician resolves to visualize sending the answer back to the time of divination when he has found the answer or confirmed his divination.
This may seem a very bizarre and pointless thing to do, but in a number of my best divinatory successes I decided that I just had to ‘complete the circle' as it were. So when I finally received confirmation that I had divined correctly, I made a point of acting out the peculiar scenarios in which I had divined myself getting the answer.
In practical terms you can adapt techniques like this:
0) Do not attempt to divine for future events that remain indeterminate at the time of divination. (This usually applies to roulette wheels and lottery devices.)
1) Resolve that whenever you receive the answer (by normal means) to a specific divinatory question, that you will do something highly specific like write the answer on a big sheet of paper, whirl on the spot, and scream a specific codeword whilst staring at the writing. Basically resolve to do anything that will turn your attention forcefully to the answer. Plenty of anecdotal evidence exists to support the view that extreme forms of gnosis often generate the best results.
2) During the Divination, visualize yourself performing the above actions.
3) Do not even think about not carrying out your original resolution afterward!
In Enchantment, General Metadynamics suggests that the magician should give much consideration beforehand as to how the desired effect could come to pass, and to the availability of magical links.
I do not advise conjuring against a static situation. In enchantment the magician tries to exploit changes by encouraging changes to manifest as desired. The magician thus needs to look for fluid situations or to provoke them deliberately. The rather delicate power of magic works best when deployed in situations balanced on a knife-edge, not on those set in stone.
For a magical link, nothing seems to beat physical contact or at least visual or vocal contact. Recorded images seem to work only to the extent that they provoke remembered images. The same usually applies to physical objects; they rarely remain significantly entangled with their origins or owners for long.
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