Magic is Like Cake

I am a magically inclined autistic individual. Pattern recognition and working out sorting the differences in categories is my forte. Sorting magics in the social media era has been an interesting mindfuck. Like everything on social media, the pretty magic gets the most traction. The photoshopped picture of a woman in all black, with black smoke through the air in the local cemetery gets far more traction on social media than the person walking around the cemetery singing to the forgotten deceased. The beautifully laid out tarot spread with flower petals and crystals artfully laid around it is going to get a lot more traction than the elder walking through the field drowsing for a well.

It has always bothered me.

I simultaneously understand that we are attracted to the aesthetically pleasing while I also understand that, typically, if the energy is being spent on the photoshoot, there's less to spend on the working itself. It has been a difficult task to readjust my thinking in order to enjoy and learn from all aspects of magic work in this social media area. We like what looks good. It is human nature.

What else looks good? Cake. Some cakes….

The aesthetically pleasing also happens to be some of the more accessible magic workings. “Come on witches! First of the month, blow your cinnamon out the door!” is very accessible. Conjuring a spirit is not. Controversial thing: Not everyone can do all magic work. Some people will never be able to do specific work, say... spirit possession, contacting the dead, working with a specific divination method. The more specialized something is, the less amount of people are able to successfully do it. This is not a superior/inferior or good/bad thing. It’s a skill and accessibility matters. Similar to cake. Most people have access to a box of cake mix. Not everyone can make a life-like, life-size, Bluey cake. However, both the boxed cake mix, made in a regular pan and the life-like, life-size Bluey cake... they’re both cake, they can both be delicious, they’re both edible. Cake, magic, needs to be accessible. Unlike with cake, where more elaborate designs often mean less accessibility, pretty magic tends to be the most accessible kind. I cannot make a seven layer wedding cake. I can make a delicious carrot cake, from a box or from scratch. Sometimes I don’t have the patience or energy to make it from scratch and a box cake will do just fine. Not everyone has the skill, time or energy to build a seven layer wedding cake. Sometimes they need the Betty Crocker cake mix and IT’S STILL CAKE. Sometimes you don’t have the skill, time or energy to build a complex magical working so you use a pre-made spellkit from the spook store, IT’S STILL MAGIC.

The difference here is that the accessible magic is typically aesthetically pleasing whereas the advanced cake is aesthetically pleasing. If you are magically at the Betty Crocker cake mix level and you want to build a seven lawyer wedding cake, or a life-like, life-size Bluey cake… you’ll need to put in years and years of work on the techniques needed. Pastry school is a lot of basics built up over and over, and magic is no different.

The magic, or cake, is not better. Not in spirit. One is simply more accessible, so more people can access it. Naturally, the more accessible, the more traction. The less accessible the less traction. 

Accessible magic is needed. Advanced magic is needed.