The failure to properly channel the Winds of Magic in an amount the wizard can handle can prove disastrous.
Channelling is the term used by Human wizards of many different magical traditions to refer to the actual process of manipulating the Chaos energies of the Winds of Magic. Channeling is sometimes called the "eighth sense" by Imperial Magisters of the Colleges of Magic. It is questionable whether channelling is truly a sense (even an Aethyric one), or whether it is an in-born or learned ability. Essentially, this is the most dangerous of all the Aethyric senses, because it is this one that allows someone to actually manipulate and unleash the Winds of Magic.[1a]
This can manifest itself in countless ways, from minor Poltergeist activity around the affected person, right up to Daemonic possession or spontaneous combustion. Whatever part of the mind or personality that allows a Human to interact with magic is more highly developed in a person who can channel. The result is that they can actually draw to themselves, focus, and direct a Wind of Magic, mentally manipulating and making the energies of Chaos have a tangible effect upon the environment around them.[1a]
Naturally, people with this ability in small villages or very superstitious and pious regions often find themselves on the receiving end of a lynching or witch-hunt. For one untrained in such matters, it is almost impossible for them not to create supernatural effects around themselves unintentionally.[1a]
If this was not dangerous enough, unwitting magic-users can often harm themselves or be harmed by some Aethyric entity that they either have created through their own fears or have attracted by their uncontrolled use of magic. Just as someone who can channel may touch magic, so too can the embodiments of magic touch them in return. Many are the stories and folktales of people troubled by violent Poltergeists and Daemons who were invisible and intangible to all except their victim.[1a]
There is no fixed order in which a Human may possess or gain the three Aethyric Senses of intuition or Aethyric Attunement, witchsight and channeling. Some have one or two of them, very rarely someone might have all three without any training. Those individuals who can channel without having either of the other two Aethyric senses are unfortunate indeed, for it is doubtful that they will ever know how and why it is that they seemed so cursed by misfortune and supernatural creatures. Sadly, these few are the ones who are most readily and frequently targeted by the Sigmarite Holy Order of Templars, as their apparent Chaos corruption is the hardest of all to hide and the most dangerous to those around them.[1a][1b]