Magical Practice: What is Magic?

    There’s a significant problem in tackling this question because nearly any definition I have found in my research has mistakenly emphasized only one dimension of magic.

    Aleister Crowley, in his 1929 work Magick in Theory and Practice, presented this formulation:

“MAGICK

is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with the Will."

(Formatting preserved)

    The late Nevill Drury, who penned The Watkins Dictionary of Magic and The Watkins Dictionary of the Esoteric, gives this definition:

“Magic The overarching name given to the body of techniques and ritual practices used to harness the secret powers of nature and to influence events for one’s own purpose.”

    We could provide other examples of definitions for the word from other sources, but they’re all in the same direction: They are all concerned with magic as a craft.

The Problem with Craft

    Alright, they’re all concerned with craft. This archive is concerned primarily with assisting fantasy storytellers with understanding historical inspiration. Aren’t a lot of fantasy writers obsessed with their magic systems? How do these definitions run against that grain?

    This approach is counterproductive because magic refers to a quality and an action. The craft falls under action but fails to communicate anything about quality. 

    Let’s look at a few examples of magic as quality.

Jack and the Beanstalk

    We all know the story of Jack and the Beanstalk: boy sells his starving family’s most valuable possession, and gets magic beans instead of what he was supposed to buy. His mother furiously throws them out the window, and the following day, they’ve grown into a giant beanstalk that reaches up into the clouds, with a giant and a goose that lays golden eggs, a golden harp, or something of that nature.

Art by Walter Crane (1845-1915)

    Where, in this story, is the “Science” (knowledge) and “Art” (trade/craft/skill) of magic? Where is the “technique” or “ritual practice?” What secret powers were “harnessed?” Who “influenced events for their own purposes?”

    The story hinges on Jack’s mother not appreciating the value of the beans because she thought her son was scammed. There is no intentionality to the end of the road to the giant’s home and the golden goose. There is no craft in the story; the beans are simply magic. 

    If the growth properties of the beans qualify as magic and the narrative does not convey craft, then a craft-exclusive definition of magic is unsuitable in the generic.

Magical Magnets

    The attractive power of magnets is now well-understood by science, and proper magnets no longer fall under the domain of the mystical, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other kinds of magnets in the magical record.

    Lecouteux’s source on this appears to be Aristoteles de lapidibus. Unfortunately, we cannot verify this, as the only English work we’ve found that might go over a translation of that text looks to be behind a paywall. (We’re not paying $58.00 for access to one paper.)

    Our example from that source text is what Lecouteux calls the “magnet of fingernails.” 

    The magnet of fingernails has a few bizarre properties. First is that it’s incredibly soft, yet impervious to being scratched by iron or diamond, but will crack when in contact with blood. 

    Second, and more importantly, it will rip your fingernails off.

    Why? No clue. What we know is that it pulls nail clippings to itself like iron filings to a regular magnet, and if it gets in contact with the nails still on your fingers, they’re coming off.

Say goodbye to these!

    This does not appear to be a manufactured material, meaning that the stone's fingernail-tearing field is intrinsic and that intrinsic magical properties extend beyond the genre of fairytales.

Mount Zimurc’s Burning Stone

    According to the European legends of the great Oriental Christian patriarch-king, Prester John, the zimur stones of Mount Zimurc burn continuously, so hot that they must be picked up with iron tongs. This legend likewise tells of a freezing stone with the opposite effects. The northern threshold of Prester John’s palace is made of freezing stone, and you must bear a burning stone to survive passage through it, while the southern entrance was created with the burning zimur, and one had to carry a freezing stone to survive the intense heat.

Image taken from Maddy's blogspot, information taken from Lecouteux. Actual source unknown to this compiler.

    The same stories claim that the zimur stone could be crafted into vessels that could cook food without fire.

    One might be inclined to argue that these properties are “natural” because they are intrinsic, like the magnet of fingernails. However, we cannot back up that assessment; modern science has not observed and verified such things. They contradict scientific understanding, not just because they are most certainly not real, but because they are irrationalities that defy normal cause and effect.

    This finally brings us to our definition of magic.

What is Magic?

    For our definition to be useful, we need to be all-inclusive of everything magical while being entirely exclusive of everything else. To this end we cannot define magic as a science in the modern sense, nor would parascience be a sufficient descriptor.

    The word demands two distinct definitions:

Magic (Generic) - That which circumvents the normal rules of cause and effect by virtue of novelty.

Magic (Craft) - The art of intentionally circumventing the normal rules of cause and effect by novel means.

    These definitions include everything described under magic as a craft and all irrational, parascientific, and inexplicable supernatural phenomena.

    This excludes the body of modern science, which (relevant to this discussion) refers to implementing novel means to determine normal cause and effect, which is not magic.

    This also excludes implementing knowledge of normal cause and effect to enact change in the world to alter the outcome of events or manifest one’s will, which would qualify as engineering.

Extracting Value

    These definitions of magic are all-inclusive, leaving room for the high-minded, systematized parascientific approach observed in some practices and employed by many a fantasy author while also allowing for recognition of the unique qualities and blunders that fall outside of intentional action.

    Storytellers with this in mind can make more deliberate decisions about how they go about systematizing or deconstructing magic in their own stories.

    When we next return to this topic, we’ll go over the broad strokes of how people practice and think of magic.

Bibliography

-Crowley, Aleister. Magick in Theory and Practice. 1929. 

-Drury, Nevill. The Watkins Dictionary of Magic. First South Asian ed., Watkins Publishing, 2007. 

-Lecouteux, Claude. A Lapidary of Sacred Stones: Their Magical and Medicinal Powers Based on the Earliest Sources. Inner Traditions, 2012. 

-Maddy. “The Legend of Prester John.” The Legend of Prester John ~, 5 Mar. 2016, https://maddy06.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-legend-of-prester-john.html.