Practitioners, aging, and healing. What triggers it?

[Jack of Hearts]

  From what I've noticed all of practitioners who have been shown to have a long life span and faster/better healing compared to mortals have been skilled magic users. So what about the practitioners with low to moderate skill? Do they have these abilities as well? And what about the specific examples like the street wolves? Will they live to be hundreds of years old if they aren't killed? Or people like Charity who were born with the magical talent but stopped using it? Will she outlive her children and husband if she isn't killed? (Except for Molly) What exactly causes a practitioner to be granted the abilities of a longer life span and better healing?.... Thoughts?

[LordDresden2]

  From what I've noticed all of practitioners who have been shown to have a long life span and faster/better healing compared to mortals have been skilled magic users. So what about the practitioners with low to moderate skill? Do they have these abilities as well? And what about the specific examples like the street wolves? Will they live to be hundreds of years old if they aren't killed? Or people like Charity who were born with the magical talent but stopped using it? Will she outlive her children and husband if she isn't killed? (Except for Molly) What exactly causes a practitioner to be granted the abilities of a longer life span and better healing?.... Thoughts?

Anybody who uses magic much gets some benefit (unless something about the magic itself messes them up, which is probably possible with the nasty forms).  But the minor talents and minor practitioners get minor benefits.  The stronger you are, and the more you study it and use it and refine it, the better the side effects.

So a minor practitioner might lives a little longer, and age a little slower, and heal a little better, but probably nothing too noticeable, it might easily just be mistaken for good genes.

That sort of thing.  As the power levels rise so do the benefits, until you get to Council level and potential life spans of 400 years.

[groinkick]

  From what I've noticed all of practitioners who have been shown to have a long life span and faster/better healing compared to mortals have been skilled magic users. So what about the practitioners with low to moderate skill? Do they have these abilities as well? And what about the specific examples like the street wolves? Will they live to be hundreds of years old if they aren't killed? Or people like Charity who were born with the magical talent but stopped using it? Will she outlive her children and husband if she isn't killed? (Except for Molly) What exactly causes a practitioner to be granted the abilities of a longer life span and better healing?.... Thoughts?

Pretty sure a full fledged wizard heals pretty much the same as other wizards.  Charity ended her connection to magic and should age like a normal person.  The Alphas heal better than wizards because of their shape shifting.  When one of them was cut by a knife thrown by Marcone the wound healed almost instantly.  I don't know how they will age.  They may not age at all if they keep their shape shifting at a high level.

[WereElephant]

They may not age at all if they keep their shape shifting at a high level.

Come on, would Mr. Butcher be that nice to recurring support characters?

[Quantus]

The Healing, in particular, is all bout how much you USE your magic, not just your "power level" (see WOJ below), it's about how much and how often you are channeling the Raw Energy of Life itself through your body.  Binder is the best example we have right now:  He look middle-aged but is well over 100 years old, yet he can use a cell phone.  But he is also an example of a middling talent that /uses/ that talent on a daily basis. 

2011 Bitten by Books Q&A
I’ve been wondering, is a magic-users longevity/ability to repair themselves due to their use of magic, or is it because they are able to access magic at all?
It’s because they /use/ magic.
Charity Carpenter was able to use magic at one point; will she have an extended life?
Not unless she takes it up again, which would be extremely difficult and which she doesn’t want to do.
And is the longevity tied to strength levels, as in do stronger wizards live longer?
Indeed. In the Dresden Files universe, magic is the essence of creation itself. Constant exposure to it through use changes the person who uses it in a number of ways, not all of them as obvious as physical recovery and longevity. The more exposure, the more dramatic the changes.

[LordDresden2]

The Healing, in particular, is all bout how much you USE your magic, not just your "power level" (see WOJ below), it's about how much and how often you are channeling the Raw Energy of Life itself through your body.

Of course those are closely connected.  As JB has noted, if Harry set aside training and didn't cast a spell for 20 years, at the end of it he might still  be able to throw some kind of magic, but he'd no longer be Council-level, he'd have to train back up
to that level to be a high-end power again.

Generally, in humans, high power levels are going to be connected to high use levels.

[Quantus]

Of course those are closely connected.  As JB has noted, if Harry set aside training and didn't cast a spell for 20 years, at the end of it he might still  be able to throw some kind of magic, but he'd no longer be Council-level, he'd have to train back up
to that level to be a high-end power again.

Generally, in humans, high power levels are going to be connected to high use levels.

True.  My point was in the other direction though: even a low to mid-level practitioner can get a lot of the healing and antiAging benefits even if they Arent a Council-level talent.  But they have to make up for it the sort of work-horse quantity that Binder does.  There is a good chance that Binder casts more spells-per-day than most Council wizards; every problem is a Nail for his Summoning Hammer, and each individual minion he summons is a discrete spell.