Is magic real?

Prompted by an interesting conversation last night, the question, as the title suggests was is magic real? and if so, can magic have an effect external to the magician, or is any effect only internal? In order to address these questions it may be useful to first consider what magic might be. We are not talking here about stage magic, the mis-direction and sleight of hand conjuring tricks of the entertainer, but about classical magic. As Aleister Crowley proposed, changing the world by application of the force of will of the magician, altering reality to suit the purpose of the individual or group working magic. This gives us a start point in terms of definition. Magic is an act of will specifically to effect a change. There are alternatives. If we look back to Flamel, Dee, Nostradamus and the alchemists we see magic specifically used for two distinct purposes, firstly the transmutation of base metal to gold, and secondly for prognostication. Personally I believe that the current idea that alchemical research used the transmutation as an analogy for the transmutation of humanity to a higher state of development is at best only a tangetial aim. The aim as stated at the time was purely commercial in application. Similarly, the idea of prognostication was to create a commercial advantage for the person paying for the work. So here we see magic used specifically for a commercial and practical purpose.

These are just two examples of thoughts on what magic is, but there are others. So, from these it appears that historically magic has been presented as a practical art, specifically real, and with a real world application, more a tool perhaps than anything particularly mystical. The same can be suggested for the use of magic by folk healers. The image of the cunning man or woman in rural societies using magic to heal and in some cases harm.

In both of these cases it is possible to argue that there is no fundamental need for magic to actually work in a practical sense. This may sound counter intuitive, but I will attempt to explain. There is a phenomena known in modern medical practice called the placebo effect. It is possible to achieve a real and significant effect in terms of improving a patients health by convincing the patient that they are taking a real medicine when in fact they are taking a non-active substitute. The full mechanism for the effect is not completely understood but the inference is that the human body is quite good at healing itself, given the right conditions, and more importantly the right mental conditions. In a similar way, it is possible to suggest that the effects of magic may be real and significant whilst magic itself may be a mental creation. A question for another day perhaps is whether this matters.

So, to return to the original question, I would argue that the effects of magic can be real and measured in the right circumstances, but whether magic itself is real is much more difficult to argue. Of course, this does leave another additional question, since placebos have been shown not to work if the patient knows they are receiving a placebo. If magic is only real in effect, but that effect relies on a belief in magic, would questioning that belief reduce or even remove the effect?