There is a moment for beginners in magic that is incredibly valuable and important: which is when the phenomenon or being one is imagining moves by itself.

When it takes an action, on its own initiative, that surprises.

This can be the point where magical practice begins to self-catalyze. An ignition.

It's the opposite of that sickening moment of Recognition of the Uncanny Valley, where one realizes that one has mis-recognized a being as real when they are a zombie, a robot, or maybe just a malicious person seeking to deceive.

This instead is the moment one recognizes that something one thought to be a visualization is a real phenomenon, unfolding with its own momentum, that a puppet or doll is a person, a conscious presence, company.

I am not alone.

For a beginner, this first moment can collapse a tall, teetering tower of doubt. One of the once grand-seeming pylons holding the wild at bay.

When the dust clears, there is, not a certainty? But a confidence in direction. And an open horizon.