Edain McCoy, in Making Magick (a work on natural magick), quotes 19th century ceremonial magician Aleister Crowley's definition of magick: "Magick is the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity to will." She then writes, "The use of the word 'science' in Crowley's definition is telling. The natural laws of the universe are fixed. They cannot be defied, even through magick. Therefore all magickal energy has to conform to these laws."

Starhawk, in The Spiral Dance, states that the witch's view of the universe "as an interplay of moving forces·corresponds to an amazing degree with the view of modern physics·."

Amber K, in True Magick, tells us that "Magick is based on certain premises called 'Laws of Magick'·akin to the laws of physics·. We might sum up the laws of magick by saying that energy is abundant, everything is connected, possibilities are infinite, the path lies within you." Although there are some differences in the above observations, the authors assert in common a necessary relationship between magical theory and scientific theory, most often referring to the laws of physics. These magicoscientific theoretical systems are supported by a proliferation of theoretical work over the last thirty years, linking the "new" physics and other contemporary scientific disciplines with the eastern spiritual cosmologies of Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism, spiritual systems that have become increasingly popular in the west in the last half-century.

Fascinated by and to some degree skeptical of the claims that Wiccan magic works according to natural law, my nine-year journey as a witch has included reading the "new sciences," wanting to believe that our worldview is as organic as it claims to be. What I've heard from Dianics is that a witch's cosmology is the foundation of her magic, and that a witch's cosmology can be anything she imagines it to be. De-Anna Alba, in her book The Cauldron of Change, offers a theory of magic that is in harmony with this Dianic take on things: She says, "At its roots, the ability to do Magick (to create our own reality) exists because we believe it does. There is some evidence to support our belief.

The most convincing evidence comes from the scientific realm of particle physics, and is called the Heisenberg Principle of Uncertainty." She explains, "We can either see the speed at which (sub-atomic particles) travel or we can see their location. We cannot see both at once. Which phenomenon gets seen is entirely dependent on which the observer chooses to see. It is not determined by the particles themselves. It is determined by the observer. If we can make these choices at the sub-atomic level, at the level of the building blocks of nature, surely we can use those building blocks to create whatever reality we wish."

In terms of the laws of physics, four basic universal forces have been identified: electromagnetism, gravity, strong nuclear forces and weak nuclear forces. The concept of polarity magic is derived from electromagnetic theory and is thus validated as a "laws of nature" magical system. Electricity travels between positive and negative poles, a fact of physical reality, though certainly some adept at some time has reversed or interrupted the flow of electrical energy, just as some adepts have seemingly defied the law of gravity by levitating.

The law of physics I am most attracted to comes from superstring theory (see The Elegant Universe by Brian R. Greene, for example), a fairly recent theory that promises to solve a troubling puzzle in the new physics - the seeming incompatibility of relativity theory (macrocosmic reality, how time and space curve) and quantum mechanics (microcosmic reality, how things work inside the atom, at the sub-atomic level). While I do not yet understand string theory enough to describe how it overcomes this puzzle and gives the key to making both relativity and quantum mechanics work within a unified theory, I can tell you this: it describes the physics of what witches call "sympathetic magic," the form of magic many claim as the basis of Dianic practice.

Superstring theory (being cautiously touted by some physicists as the T.O.E. or Theory of Everything) tells us that the subatomic particles identified as the basic building blocks of nature are not quite what we think. Instead of being distinct pieces of matter with varying properties, particles are actually strings or membranes of energy, all identical but vibrating at different frequencies. The varying frequency rates determine the manifest aspects of matter that we experience as being distinct, separate, different.

To use superstring theory as a "laws of nature" basis of sympathetic magic, one could say that in this magical system the practitioner works to come into alignment with, or attune to, the vibrational frequencies of that which one wishes to manifest. In this theory, we also have a scientific basis for understanding the law of cause and effect: whatever we put out (the vibrational frequencies we generate) comes back to us (attract to them other membranes vibrating at the same frequency).

If this theory of vibrational attunement is correct, one could derive from it a cautionary tale for all practitioners of magic: be careful of your cosmology, because it too has its causality and resonating effects. Specifically, there are two issues we might do well to consider: first, is there a more efficacious basis for our magic than the one we are currently using? second, insisting on any one theoretical framework as a required basis for magic ignores all the other possibilities and puts neopagans in the unenviable place of fundamentalists who say something like, "It is so because our tradition says it is so. All who disbelieve are not true believers."

I have tried to find evidence within natural law for or against balance as a necessary part of magic. While my search has been anything but exhaustive, the most telling statement I have found regarding balance comes from geobiology, Gaia theory and the work of Elisabet Sahtouris (Gaia, the Human Journey from Chaos to Cosmos, a book which is out of print but now available online, with new chapters and a new title, Earthdance, Living Systems in Evolution). In an early chapter she describes the origin of the universe and tells us that the spiral, one of the basic universal energy forms and one found in many creation myths, describes the shape of galaxies and their predecessors, protogalaxies. These spirals of stardust occur because of imbalance! "A modern scientist·sees such protogalaxies as the natural result of imbalances and forces in the great cosmic energy field - a swirling of disorderly or chaotic matter into orderly or cosmic patterns·." The basic movement of matter is such that heavy and light atoms move away from each other, creating an imbalance in the distribution of matter that results in the spiral shape found in galaxies, whirlpools, tornadoes, hurricanes and DNA strands.

Systems theory talks of complexity, of the dynamics that structure systems. From a systems perspective, balance and imbalance are points on a continuum, energies of fluctuation that support living systems, where order arises out of chaos, and chaos out of order, a living dance of energy in motion. A magical theory that values balance over other points on a continuum of fluctuation is a magical theory that may be truncated, that may miss the complexities of natural systems.

Is Goddess religion truly "women's business" as some of our pagan forefathers believed? Merlin Stone, in When God Was a Woman, quotes historian Jacquetta Hawkes on the freedoms of women in classical Greece, referring to "the liberation of the ancient cults (where) respectable matrons and girls in large companies would spend whole nights on the bare hills in dances which stimulated ecstasy, and in intoxication, perhaps partly alcoholic, but mainly mystical (with) husbands (who) disapproved, but, it is said, did not like to interfere in religious matters."

Finally, a look at where we are coming from and where we are headed seems an appropriate conclusion to this discussion. We are the human products of the Piscean Age, an age characterized by dualism and "either/or" thinking. Theories based on pairs of opposites have proliferated and taken root during this time. The coming Age of Aquarius brings a perspective that promises to move us beyond a "pairs of opposites" view of the world. There is disagreement about the exact dates of the Age of Aquarius, but most believe we are living on the cusp of it. Fortunately, we pagans have a model for the Aquarian Age - the encompassing nature of Goddess, She who is soother of souls, destroyer, queen, hand-maiden, full moon and dark, brilliant sun, the shadow times of dawn and dusk, the manifest world, the void. She is Dark Goddess, Death Mother, Midwife, Light-Bearer. She is whole unto herself, the ground of being. She carries all potential, male, female, hermaphrodite and other. She manifests all living through sexual and asexual reproduction. She is black, white, the colors of the rainbow, and all shades of gray.

In Goddess mythocosmology, She weaves the web of life, an interconnection of distinct nodes, the whole made of its parts, of polarity-balance-chaos, of maiden-mother-crone, of born-generating-dying god. The wave of the future is inclusion, egalitarianism, complexity and continuum. We pagans, of all stripes, will do well to ride it. A "whatever floats your boat" approach to differences in magical theories and practices may help us get the boat into the water.