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:
“But these young scholars, who invade our hills,
Bold as the engineer who fells the wood,
And travelling often in the cut he makes,
Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not
And all their botany is Latin names.
The old men studied magic in the flowers.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Religion differs from magic in that it is not concerned with control or manipulation of the powers confronted. Rather it means submission to, trust in, and adoration of, what is apprehended as the divine nature of ultimate reality.”
—Joachim Wach (1898–1955)
“Has the world ever been changed by anything save the thought and its magic vehicle the Word?”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)