magic

I’ve been thinking about magic a lot for the past few days. Likely because I’ve been reading Harry-Draco fanfic (yeah, I’m a little late to the party, but it’s so much fun—check out Carry On by Rainbow Rowell), but also because I’ve been reading other fun, fantasy-type writing where the characters have or use magic. (See, A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness or The Lightning-Struck Heart by TJ Klune—get the audio on that last one.)

In these books and others, those who are magic practice it. So not only are they magical beings, but they also do magic. Magicians/witches/sorcerers/whatever cast spells by saying words or using special ingredients or weaving invisible ribbons of energy or whatever. There’s no limit to an author’s imagination as to how magic can be invoked and used.

But I’m still curious as to what is magic, really, and why are am I so perpetually interested in it? In other words, how come I keep reading these books? What’s got me hooked?

I looked up the word “magic,” and as usual, Merriam-Webster let me down. Definition 1b of “magic” is “magic rites or incantations.”

Thanks. That’s super helpful. (I should send a note to their customer service to request they not define a word using the word itself.)

But I can glean a definition from reading over the first few entries. The overall concept seems to be that magic is a “supernatural power over natural forces” or “an extraordinary influence that appears to come from a supernatural source.”

So, what does that mean? What is “natural,” and what is “supernatural”?

I can guess what natural is (I’m disinclined to look it up, because I’m sure the dictionary will say, of or relating to nature), but supernatural means “attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.” (Thanks, Google.)

I’m picking apart that definition, too.

I’ve always thought that just because things are beyond scientific understanding now doesn’t mean they always will be. Maybe we don’t have the instruments or formula or concepts to explain everything that happens, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t or couldn’t happen. Indeed, misunderstood science could be another generation’s magic, no? If you don’t understand that electricity runs in your house and touch a wire, it could seem like magical power. But it’s not, it’s just electricity. Similarly, headache medication may not be totally explainable if you don’t know why it works. It just works. Like magic.

So perhaps it’s easiest to just say magic is something that doesn’t obey the laws of nature, whatever those are. (Note: I have yet to see a codification of the laws of nature.)

Okay, almost to my point.

Yes, I’m being very picky about looking at the definition of magic.

I mean, I get it on a gut level—a cultural level. You wave a magic wand, and something appears.

But magic also means something patently fake. You do a magic trick, and something happens that the audience doesn’t expect and doesn’t see the magician do.

Thus, magic means opposite things at once, no?

Because one definition of magic refers to something “real” (even fictionally real, if that makes sense), and another is explicitly an illusion.

The similarity is that magic has an “unnatural” result, unexpected for all but the magician, whether fictional or on stage.

Separate from stories and parlor tricks, I’ve also heard of the psychological concept of “magical thinking”—that if we think a certain way, something will happen. It’s superstition—that “unrelated events are causally connected despite the absence of any plausible causal link between them.” (Thanks, Wikipedia, for that definition.)

So, magic is a (fictional) real power or an (intentional) illusion or an (unintentional) delusion.

I find this fascinating, because it’s three wildly different things at once.

In stories, magic is “real.” We want it to be real. It’s not a trick or a delusion to the wizard.

Stories often make us want to be able to do magical things—clean up with the flick of a wrist, teleport, whatever. But in those stories, the characters actually do magic, and it’s as true as them falling in love or being frightened by zombies or solving a murder mystery.

(Perhaps that last sentence only makes sense to a writer, because to me all the characters running around in a story are “real.” In other news, I realize this post is close to getting me involuntarily committed.)

Separate and apart from fictional magic, if you watch a magician at a show, you know it isn’t real, but you don’t know how he or she does it. The performer pulls out the card or snips the string or has a bunny appear, and you know it’s fake. You just don’t know the mechanism.

Finally, if you’re succumbing to magical thinking, you have no idea it isn’t real. I know in the past I’ve had this—if I just keep up doing something, then something else I don’t want won’t happen. Step on a crack and break your mother’s back and similar sentiments are magical thinking.

So, focusing on the first, “real” magic, and not the illusion or the delusion, what’s the appeal of all these stories? Why do I want to read about magic so badly?

Is it simply because it’s fun? That’s good enough of a reason for me, but I think there’s something deeper going on here. Something more enduring. (And that’s what I always like to mine in my blog posts.)

Magic gives us a vehicle to escape our realities, a universal human desire. This is why we read books, watch movies, take drugs, and spend hours on social media. Sometimes life’s just too much, and we fantasize about what our life would be like if it were anything different than what it is right now.

And hell, I understand that. It’s why I read (and write) romance. I’m a big fan of escapism.

But magic is inherently delightful—you get what you want, immediately. It’s wish fulfillment. It’s being able to speak our desires into life. Who wouldn’t want that? It’s the Mirror of Erised, but actually getting it.

Still.

Can’t we speak our deepest desires into being in real life as well?

I’m sitting in a studio right now that I’ve rented to use for writing. I’ve wanted my own space to write in for decades. (I usually write in a corner of our bedroom.)

But I feel like I’ve magicked this place out of thin air. It has gorgeous light, rough brick walls, and the exact industrial metal desk I would have bought if I would have had to go look for one. It’s in an old orange packing house. I’m writing from what used to be Sunkist HQ, and I love it.

Did I magic this place?

Of course not, but it feels that way. It feels like an escape. Like it’s supernatural in some ways because it hits all of the things I’ve been wishing for.

So, here’s where my real life mixes up with my wish fulfillment, and it’s frankly delightful. (Apologies if that sounds too Pollyannaish. I can swear a few times to get rid of the saccharine, if need be.)

But maybe the real-life magic is what I’m trying to talk about here.

I read stories with magic in them because I desperately want magic in my day-to-day life.

But I already have that magic. I already have things that aren’t explainable through natural laws. How does it happen that someone I haven’t thought about in years contacts me the very day I think about them? How is it that I wake up singing a song I haven’t listened to in years that has something to tell me? How is it that stories come to me? Is serendipity magic? I have no idea. Maybe it’s science that isn’t explained yet.

So, I’m suggesting that magic—the fictional “real” kind, not the illusion or the delusion—has its basis in reality, and if we look for it, it exists right now. That there are “supernatural” things we can’t explain that happen. Hell, that life itself—people breathing and talking and moving about—isn’t really explainable, and yet it’s happening. The origins of the universe are inherently natural and supernatural. And there’s something delightful about all that.

I also think part of the attraction of magic is the mystery. We don’t know why it happens in stories, it just does, but we want to know why. There’s nothing more attractive than a mystery. We all have a need to figure things out.

So maybe that’s why I like magic books. They’re fun, they remind me of my desires, and they give me the mysterious.

I’m inviting you to seek out the real and true magic your heart is secretly yearning for—whether it be a place to live, a new relationship, an activity—and look for all the ways that it can happen. I’m asking you to believe in magic. Not magic tricks. Not magical thinking. But in the ways you can transform your life in unexplainable ways.

I believe in you, and I know you can do it, because I’ve done it.

Note: I usually troll Unsplash for images to illustrate my blog posts, but here’s a pic of my studio with the word doc for this blog post up on my laptop. It might not look magical to you, but it feels magical to me.