Magic
The Magic in the Wheel of Time series is known as the One Power; using the One Power is called channeling. The One Power is split into two sections: saidin and saidar. Men channel saidin, and women channel saidar. Not all people can channel. Specific flows of saidin or saidar are called weaves.
At the start of the series, saidin has been tainted by the Dark One for over three thousand years. Any man who channels it will eventually go insane and die. Because of this, the female Aes Sedai hunt down men who can channel and gentle (cut the man off from saidin) or kill them.
Also exists a power of evil, dubbed the True Power. The tapping of this power caused the bore into the Dark one's sanctum in the first place. Some higher levels of authority in the shadow have been granted access to this power by Shai'tan, and explain its use less as graceful, and more as ripping through the seams of fate and time itself, to force one's will on nature.
Read more about this topic: The Wheel Of Time
Famous quotes containing the word magic:
“Thou treacherous, base deserter of my flame,
False to my passion, fatal to my fame,
Through what mistaken magic dost thou prove
So true to lewdness, so untrue to love?”
—John Wilmot, Earl Of Rochester (1647–1680)
“The magic of procedure: do this after that and thus before so; then your wish will be granted.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“To play safe, I prefer to accept only one type of power: the power of art over trash, the triumph of magic over the brute.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)