Okay, I just watched the short anime, Little Witch Academy, a post-Potter take on the magic school genre, featuring a "Sorceror's Stone", a snobby trio of pupils and a ragamuffin trio to put up against them, including our heroine, Akko. So far, so generic.
Except... when we listen in on their lessons, the teacher begins by mentioning that their school is built on a confluence of ley lines, as advocated by Alfred Watkins (and, indeed, The Old Straight Track is mentioned on the blackboard). Rowling's magical authorities are mostly invented (Nicholas Flamel excepted), but Watkins is of course very real. Once again I'm impressed and curious at the titbits of Western magical lore that have found their way to Japan. Ley lines don't form a major part of the plot, so it's an interesting insertion.
But then the teacher reads a quotation from a book called "Wizardly Eudaemonics" by one T. S. Daniels, to the effect that those that cannot control magic will be destroyed by magic. Watkins being a real person, it seems reasonable to wonder whether Daniels is too, but I've never heard of him or her, nor does Google supply a ready answer.
Any ideas what may be being referred to here?
- Wizardly Daemonology
Though, I wonder why they invented a name at all? (That it's an English one is less of a surprise: Britain seems to be associated with magical knowledge.) I wonder whether it's some kind of in-joke.
As for it being an in-joke, do you think the Japanese are aware of Paul Daniels? Surely not...
For men only, with a 30-day guide to looking better and feeling younger
https://books.google.com/books?id=kYUKAQAAMAAJ
Jack La Lanne, Jim Allen - 1973 - Snippet view
You and Eudemonics Eudemonics. The word means "the art of happiness." And the art of happiness is pretty much what this book is all about. Eudemonics. And you. What are some of the reasons you have to be happy right at this moment?