Magic – Fantasy or Reality?

Today’s tour host is TC Southwell, who will be sharing an interview with me. Hop on over there to learn more about me and the Wizard of Ends fantasy novella series.

Magic – Fantasy or Reality?

There was once a time when I would have said that most people believe magic to be a thing of fantasy and mythology, and nothing more. However, in today’s world, the percentage who believe in magic as a real phenomenon cannot be so easily calculated, as the number of believers has grown considerably, yet magic is not generally accepted as real. Are people who believe in magic nuts, or is there something to it?

There are many who believe that magic is real, but misunderstood. It is not, they say, like it is in the movies, where sorcerers hurl fireballs at each other and turn people into toads. Rather, it is subtle and less dramatic, and takes time to work – often up to a month or more.

If we want to get technical, many things that modern humans take for granted, such as electricity, would have been viewed as magic by ancient humans. The use of chants, colours, scents and herbs has long been a part of magic, and these things are now scientifically proven to have an effect on the human body and mind. Thus, one could say that magic does exist, but, once science has discovered its inner workings, it is labelled ‘science’ rather than ‘magic’. Magic, therefore, could be described as something natural that science cannot yet explain.

Science and magic are both based on knowledge – science is the knowledge of nature and, according to some, magic is the knowledge of oneself and emotions. Similar could be said of magic and religion, with magic focussing on a person’s individual power and religion focussing on the power of an almighty creator.

According to some spiritualists and religious beliefs – e.g. Paganism or Wicca – magic is the ability to focus one’s intention and desire in order to influence the universal energies and alter reality. If this is true, it means that one does not have to understand exactly how the universe works in order to use its energy effectively. Others believe that magic causes a change in consciousness rather than a change in the outside world.

However, if magic is real, why don’t more people use it to better their lives? Conspiracy theorists would have us believe that world leaders prefer to keep this knowledge for themselves, for to share it would mean losing their power over the rest of us. Others will say that, if you don’t believe in magic, you won’t be able to use it, and still others believe that anything even remotely magical is the work of the Devil. There’s another school of belief that sounds more realistic to me: the universe works the way it works regardless of whether or not we believe in it, much like the Earth didn’t become flat because people believed it to be flat. This belief further states that our energy – our thoughts and intents – is what draws things to us, good or bad. This would explain why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer – the rich are constantly thinking of all the money they have, while the poor are constantly thinking about being without. If the latter is true, it means we all use magic daily, often to draw ‘bad luck’ to us – we just don’t realise it.

I think the reason most people don’t try to use magic is because it’s a thing of fiction… isn’t it? I imagine those who have tried have soon given up, not considering that, like anything else in life, practice makes perfect. No one learns a new skill overnight. There’s also the fact that magic is mostly practised in secret, as society in general deems it fictional.

It makes sense that, if magic is real – aka unproven science – magic users would work with this world’s energy and alter it to shape a desired outcome. Science has proven that humans have auras – an electromagnetic energy field surrounding our bodies – and that some inanimate objects, such as crystals, give off an energy reading too. Scientific experiments have also led to the conclusion that there must be a universal ‘intelligence field’ or some sort of energy that’s transferred between all members of any given species – when a certain number of mice have learnt to navigate a maze, inexplicably, all the others can navigate it too, even if they have never been inside it before.

Humans are constantly discovering how the universe and everything in it works. Science has made many ‘impossible’ things possible – one only has to look at all our medical advancements to see this. Once, ‘black magic’ was believed to be at work as many died from illness. Now, those illnesses are considered non-fatal and are certainly not deemed to be caused by magic. Magic, too, will make possible countless things that modern humans believe to be impossible. If you want a sneak peek into the future of science aka magic, grab any recent science fiction novel and delve in. Like Jules Verne, who, in his 1865 novel, From Earth to the Moon, wrote about the moon landing in detail, myriad other science fiction authors have made unintentional predictions, as will many more, I believe.

Have you included things in your sci-fi/fantasy stories that don’t exist, but that could conceivably become a reality one day? Please share them in the comments – and feel free to leave a link to the book in question while you’re at it.

Images courtesy of Pixabay.