Where Does Magic Come From?

Magical acts have gone by many names: the devil’s work, voodoo, sorcery, trickery, dark arts, and illusory stage tricks. What is considered magic appears to be determined by an observer’s own biases—whether they believe in the supernatural, and if so, whether magic is a force for good or evil. To understand magic and the way it functions in the world, it may be helpful to build a working definition for mutual understanding between practitioners, skeptics, and inquirers. For practical purposes, we can look toward what anthropologists have to say about it.

Historically, anthropologists beginning in the 19^th century understood magic as a “primitive error” of societies that lacked understanding between cause and effect, in other words, a bad science, as considered by Western rationalist paradigms.^[1] But in the 20^th and 21^st centuries, contemporary scholars like Susan Greenwood challenge and broaden the colloquial understanding of magic, which she understands as “participatory consciousness.”^[2] Magic, under this definition, can be felt by the vast majority of people; it can be as simple as feeling in tune with something greater than us, or actively participating and leading rituals that lead to direct contact with something more-than-human. A moment of stillness in nature can make one feel interconnected, attentive, and tranquil, and would therefore be regarded equally magical as pulling tarot cards. Magic does not boil down to beliefs or delusions. It comes down to embodied experiences that move and transform oneself.

This working definition seems innocuous enough, but what of magic’s validity? When thinking about it as objectively as we can, should we regard it as a delusion, especially if it cannot be proven through empirical and scientific means? Stanley Tambiah, another anthropologist of magic, would argue that the delusion lies in regarding magic as “casual,” as we would any other scientific event.^[3] In other words, magic is not meant to be put to the experiments of the scientific method. Magic, rather than causing, persuades participants, audiences, and unseen forces alike that a desired outcome is underway or inevitable. Its power lies not in mechanical causation. It lies in rhetorical force, collective assent, and culturally shared meanings that render certain words and actions compelling and effective. By Tambiah’s definition, magic is not meant to be verified as true or false, and there is little point in attempting to verify it. The significance lies in its analogy to our social relations.

The efficacy of magic lies not in the belief that such actions physically cause change, but in their ability to model, persuade, and enact a desired reality through analogy.

Defining magic by such disenchanted and cold terms can ruin the “magic” of magic, the mysterious quality that makes it escape any one definition. And we need not think of our own rituals and rites in these terms. However, there is value in examining magic through observational terms. By holistically thinking of magic as a participatory, embodied, and symbolic activity, we gain the realization that magic is both unique and ubiquitous. Each person holds their own relationship to magic that can manifest in an infinite number of ways. At the same time, magic is practiced by the entire population, and for those who have discipline around it, it can be experienced daily. It is not a relic of our premodern days, when weather patterns could only be explained by the will of the gods. It is a mechanism that is well and alive today that helps us look towards our desired futures—God willing, a sunny day over a rainy one. Magic can certainly feel supernatural. It is also utterly ordinary. Magic resists extinction in modernity because it’s not a product of anything backward or primitive about humanity, but because it is fundamental to making life worth living.

Tara Yazdan Panah is an essayist from Carlsbad, CA, and an Inglenook Features Writer. She is currently based in Cambridge, MA, where she works as a teaching fellow at Harvard Divinity School.