How Magic Really Works

Finding common ground between science and magic depends, of course, on how we define magic. The simplest interpretation of magical practices is that they are bad science. But who can really say what is 'good science'? Many innovative ideas have taken years to be accepted by the scientific community. Does that mean they suddenly transform from magic to science? Does magic thrive at the frontiers of research where there is ignorance and intellectual dispute?

Another definition of magic talks of an 'art' that, by the use of spells, supposedly invokes supernatural powers to influence events. But this depends on how we define 'natural' in the first place. Are all things in the universe 'natural'? Perhaps magic has more to do with explanation than understanding, so that supernatural powers are simply those that lie beyond current human understanding.

Perhaps, instead, the boundary between natural and supernatural lies in the human mind. After all, the perspection of what constitutes 'magic' depends on the individual observer. What seems magic to one person may seen pedestrian to another. If an aborigine utters a spell before planting each and every harvest to protect crops from the elements, this ritual may have come to seem so mundane to him as to lack magic. Equally, an urban dweller may be amazed when he catches his first glimpse of the shimmering green and red streets of the aurora australia, an atmospheric light show in the Southern Hemisphere. Do those vast curtains in the sky count as magic?

Many things or events continue to strike me as profoundly magic, even though I know how to explain them. They include gazing up at an unobstructed view of the cotton clouds against a sky-blue drap; the peacefulness of quiet nights when the world is asleep; and after a particularly difficult day, resting in the assuring embrace of a loved one. These events are magical because they are beyond the familiar, commonplace, and everyday.