what is magic, and why does it work?
by vinay gupta
Wed, 30 Jul 1997 18:09:11 -0400

In trying to define magic, one is really drawing a line between a posited "magic" and the "mundane" which must also exist, if we're playing by the commonly accepted rules of logic.

Therefore I believe that "magic" is the experience of persuading the field of perception in which we all exist to assume changed forms by means which are not explicitly ruled "mundane" by the surrounding culture. Everything is magical until somebody tells us different.

I believe that all magical action is taken on an invisibly shifting boundry, the liminal edge between the ordinary and the impossible. This boundry changes with experience, habit, and the excercise of the amazing human ability to get familiar with things. Given time and repeated experience, even the most "supernatural" act can become the excercise of a natural facility rather than an act of magic.

For example, reading was once a profoundly magical ability which gave godlike powers to those elect few who were trained. Today it is a casual ability for the vast majority of people in the USA. I believe our world is made of things once magical which we now experience as mundane.

If, for the moment, you'll experience the definition of "magic" as "action on the liminal edge between the ordinary and the impossible", the second question now comes to the fore : how does such an action work?

It's tempting to me to define various sub-classes of magic; entatitive, energetic, what have you... to go down the path of classification and analysis. On reflection, however, I think this misses the point and hides the obvious: magic works because we are creatures of will.

All beings have a set of innate abilities with which they alter their perceptual environments to meet their desires. For late twentieth century western humans, the subset of these abilities ruled "mundane" includes the five senses, the discursive mind, some kinds of physical sensation and a few other odds and ends, with exact specifics varying from social group to social group. It is expected that a person's self-definition does not extend beyond their skin.

However, it is not rocket science to reach just a little beyond these predefined boundries into faculties which are usually forgotten about or inhibited by our usual surroundings. Energy perception, subtle intuitions into cause and effect, dialog with non-human or non-corporeal lifeforms and the like can all be learned, if one is willing to investigate a little.

If we push hard enough or listen gently enough, behind any one of the boundries of the rational we can find new magic, magic by virtue of the very fact that it is beyond the boundry. Just off the edge of what we acknowledge as possible is an infinite sea of magical reality.