It's actually hard for me not to believe...

People say magic-- or "magick" as is the in-vogue way of spelling it (I can't stand that, personally)-- they say it isn't real because there is no evidence.

I find myself having a hard time not believing in it.

I think the problem is that, when they find evidence-- when they figure it out-- the skeptics claim it wasn't magic after all... there was a scientific explanation.

Here is their first problem-- they seem to think that magic cannot have a scientific explanation.

Of course it does... and should.

I'm not talking about movie magic, or tv magic, or folklore magic or fiction; I'm talking about real magic through the ages.

Healing with herbs. They didn't know the herbs had biochemicals in them, or how our bodies could be affected by them. They just realized that if they made a poultice of spagnum moss and put it on a nasty cut, the cut healed better and had less chance of getting infected.

They didn't know about neuro-linguistic programming, or self-fulfilled prophecies, or the effects that color, sounds and scents can have on our psyche, or how things like semi-meditative states left the human mind very suggestive. They just knew that if they drummed and burned a certain incense and painted the hunter with red clay by the fire light as they chanted words of power, the hunter would perform better. He was pumped up for the job, psyched up like an Olympic athelete gets psyched up before a game.

The problem is that people think figuring out how magic works means somehow that it didn't exist. No, figuring out how magic works proves that it did exist.

I think there are still things to figure out. Still energies and phenomena of physics and all that stuff I don't have a real great grasp on and workings of the human brain... I think there still are mysteries about these things left that we will someday find out more about.


I remember when I went to a ritual... oh, had to be about 15 years ago. I wasn't entirely new to Wicca or Witchcraft, but fairly. It was a sabbat, and there were a couple hundred people-- at least-- present. Well, I'd been sick with a cold/bronchitis and wasn't quite over it, and taking cough syrup and all that. In the ritual, we started to cast a group spell, which was very powerful as everyone was very passionate about it. And we were supposed to visualize raising our own energy, and began to do so.

And I began to feel a little tired, fuzzy-headed, you know? And as people before me began dancing around to raise energy, I got tingly. I had to step back and lean against a wall. Then we were supposed to raise our energy to join together. And when people did that, I felt like electricity was charging through my body or something. I felt myself slide down the wall, still leaning against it. My vision just faded out and all the sounds faded. I don't know how long it was, probably not more than a minute or two, but I heard a voice calling me as if I were picking up really bad reception on a staticy radio. I opened my eyes and my vision came back and a friend was kneeling down calling me, trying to revive me. I felt so weak and trembly and fuzzy.

I'd never fainted before in my life. Was it coincidence that I fainted, beginning to feel tingly when the energy was being raised individually, and getting completely faint when it was all joined together? Maybe. But my life is peppered with those kinds of instances, so it's hard for me to believe that there is not something more to them.

And when it comes down to it, I'm a fairly level-headed person. I'm not gullible about things, I don't tend to believe easily, I usually have a healthy dose of scepticism. I'm not gullible. But for some reason, as I've said, when it comes to magic, granted not everything people hear about it is true... but it's hard for me not to believe there is something more out there to learn about it.

As I've said, I'm not one to argue or try to prove magic. If someone doesn't believe, I don't really care. That's their peroggative. Maybe they're right. But... well, maybe they're not. All I can say to the sceptics are, I have reasonable doubt and just can't write it all off.

And to those who think magic is all evil devil-worship hocus-pocus instant-gratification all-powerful-like?... well, I can't agree with them either. They are like the sceptics, the opposite side of the coin. They are misinterpreting and they are misunderstanding and they are misrepresenting.