Now I wonder: if golems are earth-affiliate, is there such a thing as a water- fire- or air- golem? (Add metal- or wood- for a five element system...)
I believe there is. I was taught by some powerful spirits about golem types, and how they're organized magically. Each golem type has a preferred substance type that the magic works best with, or best compensates for, but some types are substance-agnostic to some degree. Each has an energy cost associated with it, and works best with particular energy types (depending on the physical laws of that realm).
The Breath of Life would, to me, symbolize the permission of, and empowerment from, Diety to Subject to enable the animating magic to work.
On a different tack, one thing about science and magic that I like to repeat, I heard here first: you can do them to each other. If you do magic to science, you generally get technology (enabling the theory to do work). If you do science to magic, you generally get knowledge (enabling wisdom to guide you). That said, it helps if you have the ability to test something; if that's not available, you can hypothesize all you like, but you can't prove the theory. Sometimes it is ignorance that prevents the test, sometimes it is lack of tools to witness the measure.
So if one were to theorize regarding the magic that best animates different elements or substances, all one needs then is the necessary tools and permissions, so that the magic works and can be observed. That would indeed be science helping to guide a greater understanding of miracles.
Of course, if one doesn't even know that permission may be necessary for some kinds of magic to be effective, that too is a limit.
no subject
I believe there is. I was taught by some powerful spirits about golem types, and how they're organized magically. Each golem type has a preferred substance type that the magic works best with, or best compensates for, but some types are substance-agnostic to some degree. Each has an energy cost associated with it, and works best with particular energy types (depending on the physical laws of that realm).
The Breath of Life would, to me, symbolize the permission of, and empowerment from, Diety to Subject to enable the animating magic to work.
On a different tack, one thing about science and magic that I like to repeat, I heard here first: you can do them to each other. If you do magic to science, you generally get technology (enabling the theory to do work). If you do science to magic, you generally get knowledge (enabling wisdom to guide you). That said, it helps if you have the ability to test something; if that's not available, you can hypothesize all you like, but you can't prove the theory. Sometimes it is ignorance that prevents the test, sometimes it is lack of tools to witness the measure.
So if one were to theorize regarding the magic that best animates different elements or substances, all one needs then is the necessary tools and permissions, so that the magic works and can be observed. That would indeed be science helping to guide a greater understanding of miracles.
Of course, if one doesn't even know that permission may be necessary for some kinds of magic to be effective, that too is a limit.