The magic system

The Five Rings Magic System: A quick break-down.

I developed an original magic system to use while writing the Five Rings trilogy. It attempts to arrange the age-old classical elements in a specific order.

The idea is that where ever energy gathers, it arranges itself into five distinct rings.

In the story, there are users that can manipulate the energies in each of these rings, called mystics.

The first ring—the innermost ring—is fire.
The second ring is earth.
The third ring is water.
The fourth ring is air.
And the outermost ring is the seven rays of creation.

What’s cool about this pattern is examples of it can actually be seen over and over again in real life. The order of our solar system, the makeup of our planet Earth, and even the rules of the changing states of matter follow the conventions of the five rings system.

The five rings exist both physically and metaphysically. They intersect at the third ring. As a result, our world is a mixture of the physical and metaphysical.

I’ve found this theory can offer explanations where there otherwise would be none.

For more information on my magic system, please check out these posts:

The Five Rings system -part 1-
The Five Rings system -part 2-
The Five Rings system -part 3-
The Five Rings system -part 4-
Seeing what otherwise cannot be seen
The 1st Ring: Fire
The 2nd Ring: Earth
The 3rd Ring: Water
The 4th Ring: Air
The 5th Ring: Seven Rays

A Real-world Application of the Five Rings Magic System:

Do ghosts really exist?
If so, why do they exist?
Why aren’t they solid like us?
Are they trapped here?
Why didn’t they ‘pass on’?

This is a mystery that has always had us scratching our heads, because it’s not a topic that can be approached very scientifically.

Metaphysically, the second ring is Purgatory. It is earth, rocks, solids, the dirt we stand on, and physical non-living things.

If somebody dies and is not ready to go to Heaven, but was not bad enough in life to warrant Hell, the Christian view-point is that they go to Purgatory to cleanse themselves—to ‘purge’ themselves—learning from their worldly mistakes to prepare to go to Heaven, the fifth ring; a process that could take hours, years, or even centuries. This belief is deeply rooted in our societies, therefore it exists and is highly influential in our collective unconscious, the fourth ring.

No matter how isolated a society is, their mythologies and theories develop similarly to other societies. This is because human ideas are all derived from the same metaphysical collective unconscious. It links us all. When we bear children, they aren’t working from a blank slate; they don’t think like cavemen. As the collective unconscious grows, we also grow more inquisitive; more intelligent. Our brains have evolved; literally changed shape and size. We are more accepting and open-minded with each new generation. Likewise, we adapt to a changing environment based on lives spent. For instance, we eat more processed foods so even our teeth change shape; all based on information stored in the collective unconscious.

According to the five rings system, the idea that people go to Purgatory is the metaphysical equivalent to an earlier idea that people attached themselves to physical objects; they had a fixation with worldly possessions.

When people die, they lose an electric charge that, so far, no scientist has been able to explain. The five rings system says that this phenomenon is the soul separating from the body.

Souls are energy. So where does this energy come from? Where does it go? Does it disperse like normal energy or does it remain whole?

Studies show that ghosts manifest themselves using any surrounding energy. Heat is energy. So before a sighting, there are usually ‘cold spots’; unexplainable drops in temperature where the entity pulled heat from the surrounding air.

Studies also show that certain elements are often present where paranormal phenomenon occurs. For instance, naturally flowing water, electro-magnetic fields, and large deposits of limestone are three examples of elements typically present around haunts.

Limestone is an interesting one. It is clearly second ring stuff. It is a rock that easily absorbs and stores energy. Limestone is usually associated with residual haunts (where ghosts are not aware of you, but re-enact the same scenes over and over again). If your soul is energy and can metaphysically go to Purgatory, can it also physically get absorbed into deposits of limestone?

It seems souls can attach themselves to certain locations such as the house they grew up in, certain objects important to them, or even certain people. An ancient Chinese ghost story talks of a girl who was so attached to her jade comb, her soul inhabited it when she died. You might have heard of accounts where someone picks up an antique from a garage sale, goes home, and finds their house to be haunted … until they get rid of that object. Fascinating stuff. A little scary, too.

So according to the five rings system, ghosts are souls stuck in physical objects (second ring), struggling to get out of Purgatory to the “ideal”, the fifth ring. But what they are doing instead is projecting themselves up one plane to the physical plane.