Magic

[Guest guest]

Bob, and Everyone,

 

What is magic?

 

I'll give you my definition, but would really

like to hear what each of you have to say

about it, since you've been talking about

it recently, and I often find it to be an

undefined or poorly defined term.

 

My interest, by the way, is more than idle

as I'm going to be giving a talk on Daoist

Sex Magic at the conference in Rothenburg

next month.

 

For anyone who wants to join in or follow

this discussion, I suggest you begin by

looking at the word in a good dictionary.

The entry at dictionary.com is pretty good.

 

Look also at the derivation of the word.

 

It has to do with greatness.

 

It seems to me that a large part of the

definition, both denotative and connotative,

is related to explanations. If we have an

explanation for any given cause and effect

relationship, then it does not seem to be

magic. Magic appears when explanations are

not present.

 

In fact, one of the primary responses that

people tend to feel when confronted by

anything magic is to ask " How did he/she

do that? "

 

And of course the prime rule of magicians

is not to reveal how the trick is done.

 

Once a suitable explanation for how result

X obtains from cause Y is known, then the

action ceases to be considered or experienced

as magic.

 

Yet consider that virtually every explanation

that humankind has ever come up with for

the vast bulk of phenomena has been proven

by later humans to be wrong...or at least

inadequate.

 

It doesn't seem to matter if our explanations

are correct or not as long as they seem to

be correct and we accept that there is an

adequate explanation, then it is not magic...

at least not according to the " definition "

that I've suggested her. Does this change

when we take into account later generations

are almost certainly going to continue to

advance the frontiers of knowledge and to

discover that what those curious ancient

people of the late 20th and early 21st centuries

held to be the explanations of phenomena

were certainly all cockeyed nonsense?

 

Bucky Fuller defined wealth in two categories:

physical and metaphysical. Physical wealth,

he pointed out, according to the second law

of thermodynamics, can never be reduced.

Matter/energe cannot be uncreated, only

rearranged. The basic substance of things

is therefore the physical wealth of the

universe and as it appears to our understanding

now, it cannot be destroyed. [There is another

view of this, naturally enough, which anyone

interested can check out by typing the phrase

" decay of the false vacuum " into their

favorite search engine and then pouring over

the search results. But we'll leave that for

another time.]

 

Metaphysical wealth, he held, was always

increasing, as even if were to discover

today that everything we thought true

up until yesterday was wrong, we would

still know more today than yesterday

since we were now able to evaluate all

knowledge. Thus, Bucky pointed out in

his Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth

that we humans are always and inescably

becoming richer and richer, with a physical

wealth that cannot be destroyed and a

metaphysical wealth that is always increasing.

 

Does this mean that magic might someday

disappear from human experience?

 

I'm following up on this because I believe,

as you both have suggested, that magic and

medicine are closely related. I find that

traditional Chinese medicine has a particularly

intimate relationship with magic.

 

And I would sincerely like to hear people's

views on this topic, as it will help me

to focus my own thoughts for this talk

I have to give on Daoist Sex Magic.

 

Sorry if the foregoing is a bit scattered,

I could claim that the current chaos of

Beijing has rattled my already rattled

brain. Things are getting pretty strange

here as fear of SARS continues to generate

mass hysteria and curiously irrational

behavior on the part of a growing number

of individuals. But that's another story,

too. And I'll leave it at that for now.

 

Ken