What is this magic? Quackery? Hallucinations? A consequence of mental disorders? There are as many hypotheses proving the existence or non-existence of magic as there are people who have ever thought about it.
First, let's stop clinging to words. Well, "magic", so what? Just a branch of science, or an art form, or both. Accordingly, a person who does this professionally can be called a magician. You are not confused by concepts such as, say, "cybernetics" or "web design"? But a hundred years ago, no one would have simply understood what you mean.
In religious studies, the word "magic" denotes the entire totality of beliefs and the resulting actions aimed at changing the surrounding world. Followers of various religions, in turn, add that magic is either a gift from above or a curse. But for most people this word remains an empty sound, vaguely reminiscent of children's books and an inadequate neighbor from the nth floor, sticking to people with suggestions to “clean up the aura”.
A FAIRY TALE IS A LIE, YES HINTS IN IT
Let's start with the fact that not a single fairy tale has arisen from scratch and not a single writer, albeit a genius, is not able to invent something that does not exist in principle. Our brain assembles any “innovation” from “bricks” already known to it, collecting an individual mosaic - psychologists all over the world have long agreed with this. But no one thinks about where the “bricks” originally came from. If such things never existed, where would all this information come from? In every fairy tale there is a grain of truth, just a fairy tale smooths out sharp corners and omits the tedious details of intermediate actions. Who among us does not remember at least one fairy tale in which living and dead water are involved? Until recently, people believed that water can be neither living nor dead: H2O - it is H2O in Africa, chemistry is chemistry. But today it is scientifically proventhat water can absorb information and, in accordance with it, affect the surrounding world. Roughly speaking, if you scold a glass of water for a week, you can get poisoned with this water, and if you praise it for a week, you can be cured of some disease. Only yesterday, gentlemen scientists condescendingly laughed at the manipulations of traditional healers over jars of water, and today they invite these healers to cooperate and scrupulously study the contents of those jars. What seemed absurd yesterday is a scientific fact today …and today they invite these healers to cooperate and scrupulously study the contents of those same jars. What seemed absurd yesterday is a scientific fact today …and today they invite these healers to cooperate and scrupulously study the contents of those same jars. What seemed absurd yesterday is a scientific fact today …
By and large, not a single absurd statement is such. For a long time, a person did not believe that the earth was round, but now he takes this fact for granted. This is the nature of people - they do not know how to believe right away, they need proof. Scientists have already recognized the existence of some components of magical art - hypnosis, telepathy, telekinesis, various psychotechnics and others like them, but they categorically do not want to believe in magic at all. But if there is a part, there is a whole. It turns out that magic exists, but science has not yet found a way to convincingly prove its existence.
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THE GREAT POWER OF THOUGHT
To put it quite simply, magic is a change in the surrounding world with the help of forces invisible to the eye of the average man in the street. These forces are present everywhere, on them, like embroidery on a canvas, and the world is held, they bind together the particles that make up everything material, they are saturated with air, water and fire, they are hidden in the earth itself. In order to set these forces in motion, a single thought is enough, but the magician differs from an ordinary person in that he knows what incautious thoughts, words and emotions lead to.
But, excuse me, if everything is exactly like that, why haven't people still smashed this world into the smallest dust? Do not feed them with bread - let them quarrel. And what about espionage in the business world, and politics, and wars? Doesn't that affect anything? Affects, and how! Do you know what really saves us? Only that our thoughts are superficial, if they have a destructive beginning, then it affects us first of all. This is akin to burning a circus hoop drenched in alcohol: only the top layer, the winding, burns out - the hoop itself does not suffer. So it is here: slowly but surely the brawler and rude person burns his own health, but continues to live. For more radical action, he would need a serious concentration of thought, possible only after several years of hard work. And who wants to take such a difficult path to suicide?
MAGIC BLACK, WHITE AND OTHER DELUSIONS
Contrary to popular belief, magic does not carry any qualities, it is neutral. It is a tool that in itself can be neither bad nor good, nor kind or evil. This or that quality is given to an instrument by the hands in which it falls, and the mind that makes these hands act. For example, with a bit of imagination and skill, you can create a sculpture using a flamethrower, and an innocent ballpoint pen can serve as a murder weapon. Therefore, any attempts to paint magic in any color look awkward. The Order of Black Magic, the Church of White Magic, and other similar phrases that are full of book trays - if you think about it, they sound no more serious than the Society of Especially Dangerous Murderers with Baby Rattles or the High School of Guipure Bayonet Embroidery. It once occurred to someone that white is good and black is bad,this stereotype. Those who are in white are bright and kind, and those who are in black are criminals and wicked. But why then do monks wear black clothes? Are they all villains? And what in this case do the white robes of the Ku Klux Klan mean? It turns out that color is not the issue. And monochrome is inappropriate here. Magic is a box of paints, and what will be painted with them is entirely on the conscience of the one in whose hands the brush is.
WHAT IS MY FAITH
A real magician cannot be a skeptic: whoever is unable to agree with the faith of another is himself unable to sincerely believe, and without faith, as you know, miracles do not happen. Faith is the driving force of magic, especially religious faith.
At first glance, this statement seems absurd - after all, the religious tradition, as a rule, either denies magic, or declares the handiwork of the unclean and curses, or makes a vague division between “bad” magic and “good” miracles, available only to those initiated into this tradition. But here it is necessary to make a reservation: religious tradition has little to do with religious faith. Tradition is a set of rules, canons, rituals, it is a certain system of behavior, and faith is the basis of any religion, it is on the foundation of faith that the church is built, the temple - in the spiritual sense.
Religious faith presupposes belief in the existence of certain Higher Forces that created the world and people, as well as in the fact that these forces are invisibly present in the world and control it, that is, in supernatural, from the point of view of a materialist-layman, things. Magic is also a supernatural thing, and those who believe in the Higher Forces will not doubt the effectiveness of their magical exercises. From time immemorial, practitioners of the magical arts believed that they were one step closer to the gods than other people - after all, the world was created with the help of magic. In addition, interaction with the Higher Forces is a source of positive energies, a feeling of support from above, so necessary for a magician to work - without this feeling, he loses confidence in himself and weakens. Therefore, religious faith - faith in the Higher Forces and their participation in the fate of people - is an integral part of his life.
And it doesn't matter what religion the magician chose for himself. It doesn't matter what names his Higher Powers bear and what their biography is. It doesn't matter what land they come from and what language their prophets spoke in. Only the presence of faith is important. How the magician's appeals to the Higher Forces sound is insignificant: if there is faith, they will all be heard.
IN EVERY HOUSE A MAGIC STICK
… We live in a magical space - otherwise why do so many of us feel each other, being at a great distance, guess each other's thoughts, see the same dreams? How else to explain the strange connection between the evil visitor and the milk that turned sour after he left? We are all a bit of magicians - haven't you watched someone's most ardent wish come true or how the one for whom we have prayed for a long time returns from the war unharmed? We just really wanted it and believed in a happy outcome. It may happen infrequently, but if you manage your emotions and learn to “evoke” a sense of faith at will, you can work miracles. Research in the field of psychology has shown that this is not only possible, but also available to almost everyone with a developed imagination. And, of course, by willpower - you can't learn anything without it.
Magic exists. It's just that humanity is so carried away by the study of the material component of the world that it forgot about magic. Today's science, it seems, has already studied all visible, audible and tangible phenomena and cautiously approached the line beyond which the Unknown begins. We just have to wish her good luck.
Mikael STERN, religious scholar, psychologist