The Magic of Intention & Circumstance

"We are made by belief. As we believes, so we are."

— The Bhagavad Gita

The Unbreakable Law

It doesn't matter what kind of magic it is. Both High Magic and Lore are subject to the primacy of the Magic of Intention and Circumstance.
Magic is magic; it is infinite possibility. It is undescriable. Beautiful and terrible and subject more to whim and art than to order or understanding. It is unknowable and unassuming and omnipresent.
What we know about magic is far less than what we can observe or feel - or assume.

What We Know:

• Magic exists
• Magic often defies our expectations and exceeds the limitations we ascribe to it
• Magic is always affected by intention and circumstance
• Without the Magic of Intention and Circumstance, magic as we know would not exist.

What we don't know about magic is vast, and is another matter entirely.

The Magic of Intention

The intent of a magician when casting a spell or using magic is paramount over everything else, including what the spell is supposed to be and outside influences.
Intention is created and influenced by many aspects of a magician's mind - which is why the more self-discipline a magicians has, the more powerful they are. The better a magician can frame and control their intent, the more effective their magic becomes. Or, rather, the more predictable and understandable their results become.
This is an unalterable fact of magic, because Intent rules over all.
This is the inherent nature of why spells are taught as they are taught. When a magician believes, completely and totally, that X words and Y movement produce Z result, every time, the spell becomes a fact. The spell will always respond to that belief. The same kind of subconscious belief that between one step and the next, gravity will not fail or change, and both feet will land firmly upon the ground beneath them.
The general theory is that the clearer a magician's goal for a spell is, the better their intent. This is true - when all other things are equal or absent.
A magician's emotions are always a factor and can change the effect of a spell. Great fear or anger or joy - or really, any emotion, can and will change the effect or result of a spell. The absence of any emotion will change it just as much.
Intent also comes from will. The stronger the will of a magician, the stronger their intent is impressed upon the magic. Creating the belief that a spell, done a specific way creates a specific result every time is a way to compensate for the difference in how will is measured or exercised in different magigicans.
Subconcious expectations, desires, understandings, beliefs, and feelings also deeply influence intent. If a frail magician believes their frailty also applies to their magic, then a spell will be weaker. If they do not believe their physical form affects their magic, then it will not.
Fatigue plays into this. The more fatigued a magician is, the less focus they have.
All of this, of course, comes back to the structured form of High Magic and why it is more accessible and more easily learned and understood than the more instinctual magics of Lore.

The Magic of Circumstance

The circumstances surrounding the use of magic will effect the outcome and nature of the spell. This is superseded only by the Magic of Intention.
The best example of this is when a spell is cast underwater. If a magician uses a fire spell under water, the circumstance of being surrounded by water can change the nature of the spell.
Instead of a bolt of fire, it might be a jet of superheated water. Just like fire warms the air around it, that water will heat the water around it.
If someone casts a bolt of lightning, the water can conduct that lightning into devastatingly powerful attacks, or they can electrocute themselves as well as their targets.
A darkness spell cast in night may block out ambient light - or may appear as 'darklight' or as a shadow.
Circumstance always comes into play, unless overridden by intent. A magician with sufficient intent can cast a bolt of fire through water or keep a bolt of lightning from being effected by water.
Magicians with the correct intent can use circumstance to their advantage. Muggleborn magicians often use their knowledge of physics or other science to change the effects of their spells. They can turn a ray of light into a laser or can conjure things unknown to wizards.
The only limits magic truly has come from magicians.

Special Applications

There are some Disciplines of magic where Intention and Circumstances have specific applications or effects. The following are the most common, but a hardly fully inclusive.

Accidental Magic

Circumstance often comes into play with accidental magic, when intent is strong, but not clear and not specifically directed to creating a magical effect. This usually occurs at a young age, before a magician learns how to control magic or knows what spells do what.
Those raised in the magical world often have accidental magic that mimics the effects of spells, because that is what they expect, but their intent is not often focused enough to avoid or overcome circumstance affecting it.

Instinctive (Reactive) Magic

Even the most highly trained, highly disciplined magicians will sometimes react by rote or instinct - often as a reaction to something.
While these reactions can come from training, such as deflecting or shielding a spell, these reactions can also be instinctive - based on any other emotion.
In these cases, Circumstance often seems to apply more than intent, merely because intent is based soley on subconscious or trained reactions. The subconscious intent supersedes - a magician blocking a spell, for example, will fall back on the shielding or deflection technique they are most comfortable or skilled with.
Training allows intent to overrule circumstance almost entirely, but when strong emotion, pain, fatigue, or other elements are stronger than training, the circumstances affect things more than most magicians realize.
For example - a wizard instinctively casting a lightning spell underwater to protect themselves from an attack would not electrocute themselves, but might get a more powerful and longer ranged attack than they do when casting normally.
A wizard attempting to warm themselves will not burn themselves (or others), but can end up using a warming charm that affects an area instead of just themselves or creating a fire instead. This can also manifest as heating nearby metal or conjuring a ball of fire hanging in mid-air.
This is, again, why the most knowledgeable and self-disciplined magicians have the most effective and consistent results from their magic.
A self-disciplined magician freezing in the cold would not likey set snow on fire (though they could), because they would think of snow as frozen water - which puts out fires. They would be more likley to conjue a small ball of fire in the air which warms an area lilke a real fire would.
Instinctive magic is often very powerful or very weak, simply because of the intent and knowledge of the magician casting.

Potions

Potions, like all magic, are affected by Intention and Circumstance. The nature of potions means that a potion does not become a potion without the direct and clear intent for it to be a potion.
A potion also requires at least one magical ingredient - even though magical intent can create magical effect on any mixture, it's effect will be determined by circumstance (ingredients) rather than by intent (as with a recipe). The intent is often represented now just by the mind of the magician, but by the ingredients chosen.
Note: Any time transmutation occurs, it is no longer a potion but alchemy and falls under the province of Lore as opposed to High Magic.

Type

Metaphysical, Arcane