Is there a place for magic in the modern world?

I wonder if there is anyone who isn’t aware of a concept of magic? It pervades almost every aspect of life from language through entertainment and sport to being woven into the fabric of existence depending on your point of view. Something nice happens and it is described in English as “Magic”, we see a glorious sunrise and it is magically beautiful, one of the most popular book and film series of all time is about magic and wizards, fairy stories, even the name suggests magic before you get to the stories themselves. It seems to be built in at a fundamental level, but just because the concept is almost ubiquitous does this equate to magic having a place in the way we live our lives? I guess this comes down to how you perceive magic. There is a vast range of beliefs around magic, ad it can be quite tricky to pin it down to a definition, as definitions tend to be limited by language, and to be fluid over time.

The modern wizard stories give us an idea of magic that is to an extent shared by what would be considered practical users of magic, modern equivalents to mediaeval alchemists and mystics. That idea is that magic is the ability to uses ones own will to effect a change in the real World. This idea is a concept that is linked to phenomena such as telekinesis, the old spoon bending tricks so popular in the 1970’s in the West. I would suggest that for many people magic of this type is considered in the same way as science fiction, or aliens. This, to me at least, is interesting and I raise it because it has been suggested to me by a number of people.

If we think about what is going on here, we see an idea that magic is considered as being on a par with science fiction. Now science fiction when done well takes hard scientific fact and explores possibilities around it, weaving stories and tales but maintaining some semblance of  scientific credibility. Even the alien stories have at least a core of credibility within them, tending in the main to be at least theoretically plausible. For magic to be considered in the same light suggests that underlying the stories of magic there is a belief that magic in some sense exists. However, we live in an age when science is leaving less and less room for non-scientific explanations.

Let us suppose that what we consider to be magic, for example the ability to heal remotely is scientifically verified and the mechanism by which it operates is understood. Would this make the ability any less magical? If you think of a great film, seen at the cinema, something that is beautifully shot with a fabulous story and visuals, that can be described as a magical experience even though we know that no magic is involved. We know the methods and principles behind making those images come to life on the screen yet we can become completely immersed in the pseudo-reality of the film. The same could be suggested to apply to more “magical” constructs I think, in the sense that understanding how and why something happens can be suspended in the mind to allow for simple enjoyment of the experience.

My own opinion is that the idea of magic enhances experience of life rather than acting as a barrier to progress. I am quite sure that scientists like Professor Dawkins would consider this to be heresy but non-the-less I see no obvious insurmountable conflict between understanding the nature of sub-atomic particles and believing in fairies at the bottom of the garden. I think I would be far more concerned on a personal level with a world that lacked any sense of wonder, where everything was fully understood and enjoyment was conditional on that understanding….