A primary concept in the Traditional Craft of the British Isles, Cunning Fire is difficult to define. On one level, accessed Cunning Fire enables man to act like the gods for it provides the special ability of man to create language, literature, music, technology, and to change the world for better or worse, and thus change fate.

On another level, it is the awakened awareness within the magical practitioner, of an inner awareness that the spirit of the gods (energy) exists naturally in all of Nature, including man. In a more profound sense, it is the achieving of heightened spiritual union, of intimate divine healing, of supreme creative awareness, and the very communion with the divine, with the consciousness of the universe. This enables the ability to access this very energy source at will and to use it as needed.

To the initiated or those that achieve realisation, or enlightenment, it is manifest in humans as spiritual light, which is said to allow the enlightened to see through the darkness of human ignorance.

W. B. Yeats used the term Fire in the Head to refer to Cunning Fire in his poetry.

Note that this British traditionalist concept of magic is not accepted by Wicca or Neo-Pagans, because their magical system has been influenced by non-British sources.