Inherited Magic

[Eldros]

What would happen to a child of a witch or wizard and an ordinary person?

There are more possibilities - either the child will have magic but may lack any manifestations or the magic might skip the next generation...
The child can have no or very weak manifestation of the magical power or he might become a strong magician.
Let us consider one possible scenario - the witch gives birth to her daughter from a human. The daughter does have some magic but is quite weak. After that the girl gives birth to her son from a human too, and the son lacks any magic manifestation. But then his daughter begins to show some magical abilities.
So, magic can skip a generation and reappear later.

What do you think? Can it skip a generation, or does it disappear if a witch/wizard has a child with a human?

 

[MorganBlack]

In Vodou, Mexican Brujeria, and Indigenous New World traditions support the idea that a person can be born with what they call a " spiritual court" - composed of inherited spirit allies through family blood.

In Haitian Vodou your spiritual court is a matrix of ancestors, spirits that surround you, most , but not all, from birth. The lwa eritaj are the ancestral spirits that are passed down through a family line.

Modern pagans has stated adopting this term - spiritual court - about a decade ago, but I should point out person’s spiritual court is not chosen . There is no pick-and-mix - "do whatever' because are not chosen by the individual. They are inherited through blood descent and form a matrix of ancestors and spirits,that surround you from birth, or that become attached through life experiences.

The court is deeply tied to the family's lakou or homestead - and the land itself. It's more a relational obligation, and not so much a personal toolkit. Refusing to serve one's inherited lwa eritaj is not an option as they can become a persecuting power, and become a source of illness and misfortune for the person and their family.

Also the inheritance is not always a guaranteed. It can weaken and the active practice of magic can indeed skip generations, requiring a new personal connection to be revive them.

In Pagan and Anglo witchcraft spaces a" Spirit Court" is more defined as your personal pantheon of spirit allies who work closely with you as a cohesive spiritual team. This "court" can include deities, angels, demons, fae, ancestors, djinn, animal guides. All good but these are chosen, more like a sorcerer might. Here the practitioner is the one who builds it and then act as the High Priest or Priestess of their own spiritual house, but it is mostly unconnected to their ancestral history and lands.

Anyway, this is why a Norse Pagan living in the Florida Everglades makes no sense to me. The Everglades has no winter, and instead has hurricanes, mosquitoes, swamps and the warm Caribbean waters. In Heathen practice, the landwights are spirits of a specific place - the rivers, mountains, and forests of Scandinavia. They are already in a complicated relationship with the land. Florida as part of the former Spanish Caribbean, was part of the Spanish Empire, longer than it has been part of the US.

 

[Eldros]

In Vodou, Mexican Brujeria, and Indigenous New World traditions support the idea that a person can be born with what they call a " spiritual court" - composed of inherited spirit allies through family blood.

In Haitian Vodou your spiritual court is a matrix of ancestors, spirits that surround you, most , but not all, from birth. The lwa eritaj are the ancestral spirits that are passed down through a family line.

Modern pagans has stated adopting this term - spiritual court - about a decade ago, but I should point out person’s spiritual court is not chosen . There is no pick-and-mix - "do whatever' because are not chosen by the individual. They are inherited through blood descent and form a matrix of ancestors and spirits,that surround you from birth, or that become attached through life experiences.

The court is deeply tied to the family's lakou or homestead - and the land itself. It's more a relational obligation, and not so much a personal toolkit. Refusing to serve one's inherited lwa eritaj is not an option as they can become a persecuting power, and become a source of illness and misfortune for the person and their family.

Also the inheritance is not always a guaranteed. It can weaken and the active practice of magic can indeed skip generations, requiring a new personal connection to be revive them.

In Pagan and Anglo witchcraft spaces a" Spirit Court" is more defined as your personal pantheon of spirit allies who work closely with you as a cohesive spiritual team. This "court" can include deities, angels, demons, fae, ancestors, djinn, animal guides. All good but these are chosen, more like a sorcerer might. Here the practitioner is the one who builds it and then act as the High Priest or Priestess of their own spiritual house, but it is mostly unconnected to their ancestral history and lands.

Anyway, this is why a Norse Pagan living in the Florida Everglades makes no sense to me. The Everglades has no winter, and instead has hurricanes, mosquitoes, swamps and the warm Caribbean waters. In Heathen practice, the landwights are spirits of a specific place - the rivers, mountains, and forests of Scandinavia. They are already in a complicated relationship with the land. Florida as part of the former Spanish Caribbean, was part of the Spanish Empire, longer than it has been part of the US.

So in some traditions, spiritual inheritance can weaken or even skip a generation rather than just disappear.
That actually fits pretty well with what I was thinking about magical heredity - maybe the ability can just lie dormant for a while and show up again later...

 

[Accipeveldare]

What would happen to a child of a witch or wizard and an ordinary person?

There are more possibilities - either the child will have magic but may lack any manifestations or the magic might skip the next generation...
The child can have no or very weak manifestation of the magical power or he might become a strong magician.
Let us consider one possible scenario - the witch gives birth to her daughter from a human. The daughter does have some magic but is quite weak. After that the girl gives birth to her son from a human too, and the son lacks any magic manifestation. But then his daughter begins to show some magical abilities.
So, magic can skip a generation and reappear later.

What do you think? Can it skip a generation, or does it disappear if a witch/wizard has a child with a human?

I was fairly sure magick is something anyone can tap into with the level of potency if practiced properly. The only thing i would consider "inherited" magick would be if a magician had a child and passed down his/her knowledge to them.

 

[Digiquo]

Magic depends on faculties of the mind to be effective, and brains develop based off of gene expression the same as any other physical part of your body. That doesn't mean the brain necessarily loses its innate plasticity and ability to radically change throughout its development and even later into life though. So my opinion is some people are more likely to be born with a brain that is already primed for magical operations, and some people's brains are not, but because brains can be changed with deliberate exercises towards that purpose, nobody is truly without magical potential.
EDIT: This is mostly in regards to deliberate magical practice. Most people can and do use magic nearly daily in my opinion without ever really understanding what they're doing. Learning about what magic is and how to redirect those forces towards less primitive goals is what I'm primarily referring to.

 

[ewiz]

Real life isn't like Harry Potter or some other fantasy. Wizards and witches are all ordinary human people.

 

[Dyn Hysbys]

Magic is a skillset, a mindset, for many it's a Web of relationship. It's not some sort of genetic 'gift' or mystical Red Thread (a euphemism for bloodline in some witch trads).
There's so much Charmed bs in occultism.