Real-Life Divine Magic

When I blogged about Super, Human Abilities a little more than a month ago, I purposefully spoke only of things we could do without God's help and related our abilities to super-powers, leaving alone the concept of magic. I did that because I knew that some time soon after that, I was going to want to blog about divine magic and what we can do in real life with divine help.

Now, when I talk about "divine magic," I specifically mean good divine magic, the kind that clerics and paladins use for their healing and defensive spells, not including nature magic or unholy magic, which are sometimes put under the same category of "divine." I also am not talking about arcane magic, the kind used by wizards and sorcerers. Today, I'm focussing solely on holy magic - magic from a good source to be used only for good purposes.

The primary use of holy magic is healing. With it, clerics and paladins can cause themselves and their allies to regain HP quickly, and overcome diseases, poisons, and even some curses with relative ease.

Similar to that, the blessings of God, extended through Priesthood Blessings, are most often used to heal the sick, injured, or afflicted. Most members of the church who find themselves in the hospital receive a Priesthood Blessing in addition to their medical care, to promote healing. There are many stories of such situations that had miraculous results. Sometimes the doctors are inspired to try something slightly out of the ordinary, and it works, and sometimes people are miraculously healed in ways the doctors can't explain. In both real life and fantasy fiction, divine magic most often results in healing.

Another good use for divine magic in fantasy stories is to ensure divine protection. Clerical and paladinic abilities include a strong repertoire of defensive spells that shield themselves and/or their allies from taking too much damage, especially from those with evil intentions.

Real life divine help can protect us from evil, too. Many of those who were in physical peril have said prayers for protection, and many of those people were spared, sometimes by miraculous means, even though sometimes, God in His infinite wisdom, withholds such blessings from others. While we're not often in any physical peril, we are almost constantly in spiritual peril, and the guidance of the Spirit can help to keep us safe. Through His influence, we can gain the strength to resist temptation and the wisdom to avoid it. And when we do occasionally fall into temptation, the Spirit can help us repent. I relate this to "spiritual healing."

One thing that real-life divine power is used for most frequently, and fantasy divine magic is sometimes used for as well, is revelation, or as the fantasy realms call it, divination. Whatever you call it, divination or revelation can inform you of things you could not have otherwise known. In both fantasy and reality, this is used for discovering hidden truths you could not otherwise have seen, discerning the truth of things you already observe, and sometimes even predicting the future.

Prophets sometimes tell of future events, and they often share with us the truth of things, both things we know about and things we didn't know about until they told us. The Spirit can give us personal revelation, too. Members of our church often receive promptings giving us advice and warnings of what we should or shouldn't do. Sometimes, the Spirit helps us learn new things and retain the information and wisdom that we've learned, especially when we ask for that kind of help.

The help that we get from God through His prophets and His Spirit really is magical, when you think about it, and it really is divine. It's the power by which we are enabled to become successful followers of God. It helps us to survive the world we live in, and it helps us be better Christians. For me, it helps me be a paladin.

But for any divine magic, either in the fantasy world or the real one, certain standards must be met. Paladins must maintain high standards or they'll lose their paladinic powers until a proper atonement has been made. In real life, we must strive to keep God's commandments to be worthy of His greatest blessings, and we must repent as frequently as we fall short (which is pretty much daily, if not hourly, for almost all of us, so don't feel discouraged if you fall short frequently. We all do. Just apologize to God, learn what you can from your mistake, and try to do better next time. That's all God really asks of us).

I love magic, both the real kind and the imaginary kind. I love that God is always nearby, ready to give us all the help that we need. I love that healing, protection, and revelation can come through God's Holy Spirit, and that once we all received the Gift of the Holy Ghost, we received a promise that we may always have that Spirit to be with us. We really do have 24/7 access to real-life divine magic, as long as we strive to be worthy of it, and I think that's fantastic.