I've got a chapter in a book I'm probably never going to publish about this. It's long. tl;dr: hell yeah cast a lot of spells for one thing, that's a great idea. Upg alert, etc.
Compound Magic: Many Hands Make Light Work
Compound magic is the phrase I’m using to discuss two similar ideas.
The idea is that if working one act of magic can affect our physical world to any degree, then working multiple acts of magic on the same subject can affect it to a greater degree.
This works at both the macro and micro levels.
By “macro,” I mean casting entire spells to influence various situations.
If you’re casting a home prosperity spell, casting multiple prosperity spells tends to be more beneficial than casting only one. Following our Witch-as-Monarch metaphor, you can cast spells that are like geologists seeking resources, like road-builders to strengthen trade routes, or like festival celebrations to revitalize your citizens.
More literally, if there is a situation that is resistant to change or in need of serious transformation, you can build a spellcasting altar dedicated to that single issue.
Spellcasting altars are useful in the practical sense that if you’ve got a whole altar for it, you might not forget that it’s something you wanted to work on.
They’re also very useful in the magical sense that as you dedicate a new “counsel room” to this topic and begin filling it with advisors, knights, heroes, spies, managers, and agents, and then continuously empower your Allies to work on your behalf through dedicated spellwork, all of these powers begin to compound and support each other.
In other words: the action of casting multiple spells can have additive or supportive effect which helps all the spells work better.
Not only this, but spells can begin to file away the rust on a situation and get the gears working - but run out of energy before the mechanism is truly brought to life.
If a single spell didn’t appear to manifest as desired, that doesn’t mean it didn’t do anything. It could mean that the situation was improved behind the scenes, laying a better foundation for success for your next spell.
Therefore, compound magic also means cleverly assigning spells to loosen up a situation and prepare it for change, to banish potential roadblocks, to protect the desired outcome, to empower the desired aspects of the situation, to bind the unwanted aspects, and so forth. In this manner, casting compound magic doesn’t necessarily mean to cast prosperity-generating spells over and over – it can also mean to cast banishings, protections, cleansings, and so forth, in the pursuit of prosperity.
This may all sound like a lot of work, but recall that we’re talking about very resistant situations, or situations in need of a lot of transformation before they suit your tastes. However, I hope you’ll agree with me that this concept in general actually really helps take a load off, because:
If your strategy is to work multiple acts of magic, then no single act of magic you work ever has to be perfect, or even exceptional.
Spellcasting anxiety is very real, and in my opinion boils down to the worry not only that unless everything is perfect then everything is ruined, but furthermore, that if any single spell doesn’t work it means the practitioner is a fraud.
If you instead adopt the mindset that it’s quite alright to need to work three or four acts of magic to influence a sticky situation, each spell feels less like you’re an actor making your debut performance in front of a judgmental audience, and much more like you’re going to try and treat the problem with a vinegar spray first, but if that doesn’t lift the bonds that’s quite alright because you’ve got a baking soda scrub to try next.
This isn’t to say that I think every single situation is going to require multiple spells to make the magic “work.” Far from it. But I don’t find there to be any utility at all in assuming every situation should be fixable by only one spell, and if that spell fails then there’s something wrong.
Overall, I find that the witch who often engages in acts of magic to keep the home safe and prosperous will find that this compound effect begins to work organically, and that over time all acts of magic eventually lead to an enchanted life, to greater or lesser degrees.
On the “micro” side of this concept we can examine the enchantment of a single object or formula.
Instead of considering that we can use multiple spells to influence a situation, we can see that we can work many smaller acts of magic over time to produce a single powerful spell.
Think about woodburning a very hard, difficult piece of wood. During the first session you may only get an outline of the design before you’re exhausted and in need of a break. The wood is still imprinted upon, but it’s far from the completed project you envisioned.
During the next woodburning session, and the next, the design is slowly filled in until it meets your standards of satisfaction.
This is conceptually very similar to re-casting the same enchantment over and over on a single object until desired results are obtained.
This is extremely useful for the pragmatic witch who may not have the ability to plan out spells on specific times and days, or who must act now without every ideal ingredient on hand.
And not only that, but it’s also useful for the witch who would just like to have some fun with magic and doesn’t want to twiddle their thumbs waiting for the most ideal possible moment to act.
If a witch would like to work up a pot of Noontide Shield Oil (pg. 34), but the working felt less than lustrous, the formula can simply be re-enchanted again next Sunday to deepen and solidify the enchantment. Or, suppose the original oil had to be worked in less than ideal conditions, or perhaps even with entire ingredients missing: the missing ingredients can be added later on, the spell re-cast over the same vessel in more ideal conditions, and so forth.
The same goes for any spell vessel, formula, charmed ingredient, or enchanted object.
These things can be fully re-enchanted by performing the original spell over again, switching focus from adding ingredients to empowering and instructing ingredients already added.
But they can also be encouraged in more minor ways, especially through regular feeding (pg. 9).
I think it’s important to note here that we’re basically talking about cooking. A chicken soup where you have to omit the chicken, and then shred up rotisserie leftovers and just add it to the broth when having leftovers, is not going to produce identical results as if you had been able to cook the chicken in the soup.
Either way, you’ve still got chicken soup - it's just that an enchantment made in the most ideal conditions is not going to be identical to an enchantment made in non-ideal conditions and later fortified.
So I don’t believe that it’s correct to say that ideal conditions don’t matter. I think they do matter, and that practitioners will notice an appreciable improvement if they are able to work with ideal circumstances.
But I also believe it’s correct to say that if you continuously re-cast enchantments towards the same objects and formulas over and over again, while supplementing missing or lacking factors, over time that enchantment deepens and becomes more permanent and more powerful.
Just like macro compound magic, I think that this helps reduce the difficulty in working powerful enchantments. You don’t have to work yourself up to exhaustion casting a single powerful enchantment that wipes out your ability to work magic for three days. You can meter your energy and pour out small amounts of your power, when needed or as desired, and slowly build up powerful magics around you.
Then, when an important “macro” situation arises, consider how it would feel to be able to reach for a variety spell vessels and formulas you’ve already been empowering for months, keeping them fresh and alive through periodic attention and feeding. Things begin to feel much less like a witch alone in a room, and much more like an empowered monarch surrounded by Allies.
