Dear Internauts,
Welcome to another edition of Odist answers random questions on Quora!
This week's question (stated as posted by anon OP)—
Is magic real, or are its proponents crazy or lying for money?
Firstly, you could do to not go throwing around the term crazy quite so loosely. No offense intended, but it does tend to get folks in trouble with labeling anyone they disagree with or can’t understand under a vague, amateurish label of mental illness.
Even if magic isn’t ‘real’ doesn’t mean that those who believe in it are lying for money or are identifiable as having a kind of mental illness.
Those who believe in miracles and divine intervention and the power of prayer to affect the material world could certainly be considered deficient in some mental capacity and have often been called crazy, but the amount of those who believe such things and continue to live in functionally non-inhibited ways leads to most not receiving any such diagnosis.
Though plenty of people throughout history have been cruel and greedy enough to lie and cheat others out of their money, time, devotion, and other resources in the name of supernatural power. Healing, intercession with the departed, placating various gods of the weather or harvest, for instance. One could say that the organization of most religious institutions does tend to promise a whole lot while requiring financial giving and tax breaks in order to continue functioning.
However, I’ve found in most of those cases, religious people generally do believe that the funds go to important causes and that their work produces or will produce the promised results in some form or other.
Does this kind of faith equal mental instability? As far as I know for contemporary psychology, that’s all really a matter of degrees and how much one applies faith to the level of destructive or senseless actions they do regardless of what they specifically believe. More than that, though, it has to do with which particular religious beliefs are the most popular and politically powerful in that area. In the States we’ve got a very vocal and influential group of conservative evangelical Christians, whereas in some places a mediator between nature spirits is given a big leadership role, and in probably the majority of the world, there is this idea that one’s clothing is in direct correlation to one’s moral fortitude.
As for “magic” though, there’s the famous Arthur C. Clarke quote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” This of course, is only one way of defining what actually qualifies as magic. Throughout history, we’ve often used some form of that term to refer to acts and occurrences which our current understanding cannot explain rationally. As our understanding has expanded, our need to categorize things under the label of magical (or a parallel mystic term) tends to shrink.
Most things about distant space and quantum physics and mathematics that are far beyond my understanding, but I’ve seen enough to be practically convinced that others do have an explanation for them, at least to an extent I can begin to study. Still, those subjects and more have plenty that even the most studied experts don’t know.
Mystery, however, doesn’t equal magic. Understanding the difference can often seem like grown-up cynicism when it’s really just a particular choice to believe on faith that the way we think the world works will continue to be the way the world works at least to the extent that we can put one foot in front of the other and expect not to fall into an endless void. The moment we do find that endless void, though, we don’t jump in by imagining an angel or phoenix will catch us and we don’t set up an altar to the void-god and sacrifice chickens to it. Well, some of us, but we’re human and we’re complicated. Instead, we declare our interest in it through awe-inspired exploration, study, and experimentation.
Those who believe in the kinds of things that are generally considered magical will have certain troubles interacting with our non-magical world. But I know that just because some folks can have social interaction that seems magical to my anxiety-ridden mind doesn’t mean that I just need to pray more or tithe more or give a blood sacrifice or find the frequency of mystic gems. The pills I take to help with my anxiety aren’t magic either, even though I don’t fully understand exactly how they kinda balance the chemicals in my head.
There are and have been so many charlatans out to take your money by manipulating the gullible and vulnerable. It is shameful and horrid how many people are tricked out of the resources they need by the promise of some faith healer or medium or homeopathic pseudoscience.
No, magic is not real any more than the monster under your bed is real. It exists in your mind for good or ill until you actually go check and then it’s no longer magic.
Some may say this ruins something good and why can’t I just leave people to believe what they want and base their lives off star signs and wear charms and beat their kids for wearing jeans to church. If magic or whatever is something that is important to you and helps you be happy, then go on believing. The problem is when your belief hurts others, especially those who are already vulnerable and trampled on by society.
I say that learning more about the way the world around us works doesn’t diminish its awesome nature but opens it up all the more.
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Thanks for reading.
In the wake of the you-know-what not working out, I've continued to write music for a tentative project that may hopefully happen later this fall. Keep your ears open.
Peace,
Odist
