What is Magic? Is magic real? Is it scientific?

The Default Modern View of Magic

In today’s mainstream culture, the word magic is almost entirely associated with fiction, fantasy, and entertainment.

Ask the average person what magic is, and they’ll likely point to Harry Potter, stage magicians, or mythical powers that allow people to fly, cast fireballs, or summon spirits from thin air. Magic is seen as something unreal, a childish fantasy, or at best a metaphor for wonder—not something that actually exists.

This modern mindset is rooted in a worldview shaped by scientific materialism—the belief that reality is fundamentally physical, objective, and measurable. From this perspective:

• Everything that exists must be explainable by current or future science
• Consciousness is a byproduct of the brain, not a force in itself
• Only what can be seen, measured, and replicated is considered “real”
• Anything that doesn’t fit this framework—miracles, synchronicities, spirits, psychic phenomena—is either delusion, coincidence, or superstition

In this worldview, magic is the opposite of science. Magic is what people once believed before we discovered the real, rational laws of the universe. Traditional or indigenous cultures that practice magic are seen as primitive or uneducated, holding on to outdated beliefs simply because they lack access to modern knowledge.

In short, the prevailing assumption is:

“Magic isn’t real. The world is made of matter. Everything can be explained—if not now, then eventually—by science.”

And so, the modern person often lives in what might be called a disenchanted world—a world where mystery has been replaced with mechanism, and spirit with substance. A world where everything is either explainable, controllable, or meaningless.

But what if this wasn’t the whole truth?

What if magic isn’t the opposite of science—but its origin?

What if the ancients weren’t deluded—but initiated into something deeper?

What if the world is not disenchanted—but we have forgotten how to see?

The colloquial definition

Magic is a word that, like many other words in our language, such as god, religion, science, and others; is often misunderstood. In asking 100 people what magic is you will get 100 different answers - and likely all of them, unless you happen to pick out someone with occult knowledge, will be inaccurate.

Most will probably give the answer that magic is a fictional, imaginary thing found in stories like Harry Potter. That it is a mystical power that doesn’t follow the laws of physics and that it doesn’t exist in the “real” world. That magic is only something from fairy tales. Many would say that our modern science disproves magic - but as usual, our modern only disproves a very childish and ignorant version and definition of the idea….

The Dictionary Definition of Magic

As a Noun:

1a. The use of means (such as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power over natural forces

1b. Magic rites or incantations

2a. An extraordinary power or influence seemingly from a supernatural source

2b. Something that seems to cast a spell: enchantment

3. The art of producing illusions by sleight of hand (as in stage magic)

As an Adjective:

1. Of or relating to magic

2a. Having seemingly supernatural qualities or powers

2b. Giving a feeling of enchantment

As a Verb:

magicked; magicking — To produce, remove, or influence by magic

(e.g., She magicked the coin into his hand.)

The Etymology of “Magic”

The word magic has ancient roots that trace a long and fascinating lineage through languages, cultures, and esoteric traditions.

The English words magic, mage, and magician all derive from the Latin magus (meaning “magician” or “wise man”), which came through the Greek magos (μάγος), referring to members of the Magian priestly caste of ancient Persia. These Magi were regarded as learned scholars, astrologers, and ritual specialists, and their name became synonymous with magical power and secret knowledge.

The Greek magos itself was borrowed from the Old Persian maguš (𐎶𐎦𐎢𐏁), meaning “magician” or “priest,” a term believed to originate from the Proto-Indo-European root magh- — “to be able,” “to have power.”

Through the Middle Ages, the word passed into Middle English as magique, influenced by Middle French magique, from Latin magice, and ultimately Greek magikē (feminine of magikos, “magical”). The Greek magikē likely carried the connotation of tekhnē—meaning “art” or “craft”—implying that magic was a skilled practice or sacred art.

This etymological stream displaced several older Old English terms once used for magical practices, including wiccecræft (“witchcraft”), drycræft (“druid-craft,” from dry, Irish drui, meaning “priest” or “seer”), ġealdor (“incantation”), galder, and dwimmer (“illusion” or “phantasm”).

The term magi appears in English around 1200, used to describe “skilled magicians” or “astrologers,” especially referencing the Three Magi of the Biblical nativity story—wise men from the East who followed the stars and practiced a sacred science.

Thus, from its earliest roots, the word magic has always implied not mere trickery or illusion, but power, knowledge, and sacred skill—the ability to act upon hidden laws of nature and spirit. It belonged to those initiated into the mysteries of the cosmos: the Magi, the Wise.

The Hermetic Magician & Occultists Understanding

For the Hermetic magician and occultist, magic is something very real and very powerful. It is a science, an art, a philosophy, a religion, and a technology..

To the initiated, that is those who have a deeper understanding of metaphysics and the occult truths of reality, magic is very real.

Metaphysics, Psychology, Creative Will,

Our modern world is one where knowledge of the occult (meaning secret and hidden) laws of existence is not taught or known except for those who seek it out.

Many would reject that there is anything beyond the physical, material world. Magic is a sophisticated understanding of metaphysics and psychology.

Metaphysics is simply physics without the math. It is the physics of consciousness and energy It is a very sophisticated psychology - in that it works with consciousness and it a technology of how to change consciousness and therefore reality and the world

The Human Being as the Child of God & Co-Creator with Divinity

As a human being, you are created in the image of The Creator. You are the Child of God. God creates only alike himself. Therefore the human being has the power to create in a divine way. For most modern humans, this is crazy talk - but throughout human history there have been individuals who have demonstrated magical powers - in India they are called Siddhis and are well catalogued. Also, every culture on earth believed in and practiced magic up until our modern age. (And there is still a minority who practice it in our modern western world)

You, the human being, is capable of great acts of imagination and will. A single person can create something, express something that effects the entire world. In a broader sense, this is a magical act.

Everything is Consciousness/Spirit - All is Subjective

Understanding that everything we experience is experienced in CONSCIOUSNESS, in subjectivity. THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE REALITY Our reality-experience is totally shaped by our beliefs and perceptions. In ages past, people believed in magic and experienced the magical, mystical, and supernatural as commonplace. Perhaps our modern disbelief is itself a form of belief that precludes us from seeing what we think doesn’t exist….

The Physics and Metaphysics of Consciousness/Existence

Those who deny the reality of magic simply do not understand the physics of existence. How everything is a phenomena of energy, vibration, frequency, emotion, thought, intention, and only on the very surface does it appear as action and manifestation in physical form.

The teachings of the magi simply and clearly explain how our physical reality experience is made out of our beliefs, perceptions, emotions, thoughts, and actions.

The Supernatural

Magic is not supernatural - there cannot be anything “above or beyond nature”. Miracles are not outside of nature - miracles are the natural way of things - humans are just usually very un-miracle minded…. There cannot be anything outside of the laws of nature, outside of God. If magic is real, then it is using occult or hidden laws and powers of man and nature.

Jesus turning water to wine - if this is real and actually happened - then he didn’t do anything supernatural, he perhaps understood or had occult power to change one substance into another through means most do not understand….

Ceremonial Magic

Enacting a sacred ceremony and ritual that is designed to transform one’s consciousness, to induce a higher state of being, to invoke or “call in” divine energies, to evoke or “call out” that which is within you.

The act of deliberate conscious creation of one’s reality.

3 Ways That To Think of Magic

1. As a total spiritual path of Astrotheurgy and Hermeticism intended to bring enlightenment and ascension of consciousness - “High Magick”: Theurgy
2. As the understandings, techniques, methods, occult knowledge, practices, rituals, etc. to practically create and influence and make changes in one’s self and life experience - “Low Magick”: Thaumaturgy
3. As seeing and participating in an enchanted cosmos and world in which everything is spirit and soul and miraculous.

Magic as a Spiritual Path of Awakening, Liberation, & Empowerment

“The yoga of the west” “The western path to enlightenment” “The method of science the aim of religion” - Crowley

A curriculum and course of study and practice, of climbing the initiatory tree of life….

It is an experimental science where the magician becomes one’s own experiment and one’s life is the laboratory. It proceeds in a very scientific manner, yet delves into the unseen and goes beyond what our current scientific paradigm allows. It is a synthesis of science and art, philosophy and religion, subjective and objective, left brain and right brain, action and contemplation. One gathers all of one’s faculties and directs them all towards a wholistic assault upon the Holy Castle.

The ancient path of Astrotheurgy is a path of Magick as a spiritual Way. Theurgy means "divine working".

Invoking divine powers into oneself so that one becomes more and more alike divinity and rises up in consciousness….

Magic as a means of Creation, Power, Change,

• not about being a spiritual path, a technology of creation, change, effect, power, influence…..

the manipulation of natural forces and the performance of magical feats through esoteric knowledge and ritual practice.

the manipulation of natural forces to produce tangible effects in the physical world

“Aleister Crowley, in his Magick (Book 4), emphasizes the importance of understanding these differences, noting that while theurgic practices seek to align the practitioner with divine will, thaumaturgy allows the practitioner to exert their will over the material world through the application of esoteric knowledge and ritual.”

As the explanation for how something happens and the miraculousness of everything

• a seed grows into a tree by a magical process

“Miracles are natural. When they do not occur, something has gone wrong.” - ACIM

Seeing everything as it truly is - miraculous and magical - as it arises from pure spirit and

Miracles, mystery and synchronicities are the normal order of things, and the belief in (and therefore perception of) a disenchanted world is the anomaly.

Note that some use the spelling of Magick to differentiate it from the magic of fiction and of the stage magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat and sawing people in half. I do not believe that it is necessary to spell it this way as I prefer to reclaim the original spelling.

Models of Magic

• spirit model - angels, demons, spirits, animism
• energy model - Qi, astral light, chakras, qi gong…
• psychological model - hypnosis, subconscious
• cybernetic model - quantum model - informational - all is information and can be tapped into
• Meta-Model

All models have some truth - and they can all be reconciled

All are valid, all are true from a perspective One can believe in any of them and get results

If you do not believe in the spirit or energy models because you operate from a scientific materialist paradigm - you can still understand magic from the psychological or cybernetic model

These models have shifted with the changes in human understanding

The Meta-Model

Magic works because - there really are spirits and intelligences everywhere that a magician can invoke and work with and command. - the magician can build up Qi and subtle energy and direct it and this creates changes in the physical reality. - the magician undergoes a system of training, ritualization, practice, and inner transformation - a sophisticated psychological technology that helps them change their perceptions, beliefs, emotions, speech and actions - as well as those of others. This assists them in changing their reality-experience

All of them can be true simultaneously, just depending on what level of reality and perspective you are looking from.

Is it real, or all in your head?

“It’s all in your head, you just have no idea how big your head is.” - Lon Milo Duquette

To truly be a wizard or magician, to practice magic and live magically, to enter into the realm of an enchanted universe one must go beyond the current atheistic scientific materialist paradigm of our age. You must get your metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology right. Perhaps reality is not what we are taught it is. Perhaps the universe is living and alive, is animistic and full of beings and spirits, is multidimensional and holographic. Perhaps the human being is the Son of God and is therefore a demi-god capable of poweful divine creation, we have just forgotten who we are and gotten indoctrinated into believing in our own powerlessness… Perhaps we are a dreamer within a dream, and we are also simultaneously the dreamer OF the dream….

Definitions of Magic by Magicians and Occultists

Many practitioners and researchers of magic have attempted to give a definition that defines what magic is.

I will first give my working definition and then share some definitions and descriptions of others.

My Definition

Understanding the essential nature of reality and the structure of existence - that one is a divine creator being and physical “reality” is a multi-dimensional, holographic consciousness simulation.

Practicing Magic is therefore the understanding of Nature and the structure of existence and the mastery and conscious directing of one’s beliefs, emotions, thoughts, and actions in order to create or mold one’s reality in accordance with one’s imagination and will. The goal of magic is the application of these understandings to empower oneself as a divine creator and awaken to the truth of existence.

• Alternative Definitions: Practices, methods, techniques, understandings towards awakening one’s consciousness and becoming an empowered creator with the ultimate aim of union with the divine.

Magic is the science and the technology of humanity’s ancient past and also of the near-future. It is a total and wholistic science/art that works with one’s consciousness to create direct changes within oneself and therefore one’s reality-experience

Utilizing one’s infinite Imagination in concert with the liberated Will to consciously create one’s reality-experience in accordance with the awakened heart.

Magic is:

• Using the understanding of the occult laws and truth of nature/reality/existence/energy/consciousness. i.e. Knowing Thyself, the Truth of one’s divine creator-hood
• while consciously utilizing various techniques and technologies such as: imagination, visualization, desire, intention, will, action, symbolism, association, self-hypnosis, etc….
• to work with one’s consciousness to shift, alter, and create realities,
• using whatever actions, rituals or tools necessary to create permission slips to support the reality of one’s preferred beliefs
• Using occult technologies and methods to contact and work with and command Spirits who are capable of bringing about changes and manifestations in the physical reality world.
• All towards the realization of one’s Mastery, divinity, and alignment with Truth so as to become an instrument of …..

Definitions & Descriptions of Magic

Understanding the Natural Sciences of Nature/Life: The Highest Science - Occult Understanding in Action: Cause & Effect

"It is thought that natural magic is nothing else but the highest power of natural sciences, which therefore is called the height of natural philosophy, and the most absolute consummation thereof, and that which is the active part of natural philosophy, which by the help of natural virtues, from a mutual, and opportune application of them, brings forth operations even to admiration... "...from thence arise wonderful miracles, not so much by art as by nature, to which art becomes an assistant whilst it works these things. "...making use of those things which are prepared by nature, by applying active things to passive, produce oftentimes effects before the time ordained by nature, which the vulgar think are miracles, which indeed are natural works..." - Agrippa, Of Natural Magic

In one sense Magick may be defined as the name given to Science by the vulgar.” —Aleister Crowley

“Magic is the Highest, most Absolute, and most Divine Knowledge of Natural Philosophy, advanced in its works and wonderful operations by a right understanding of the inward and occult virtue of things; so that true Agents being applied to proper Patients, strange and admirable effects will thereby be produced. Whence magicians are profound and diligent searchers into Nature; they, because of their skill, know how to anticipate an effect, the which to the vulgar shall seem to be a miracle.”

• The Goetia of the Lemegeton of King Solomon.

Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will

"Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will." - Crowley

“Magick is the science and art of causing change to occur in consciousness in conformity with will.” - Dion Fortune

“Magick is the science and art “of causing change (in consciousness) to occur in conformity with will, using means not currently understood by traditional Western science.” - Donald Michael Kraig

"Magic is the art of effecting changes in consciousness at will."

• William Butler

“The application of will—directed through a process of repetitive, ritualized or concentrated thought and emotion—to manifest a desired change, effect or result in reality.”

• Mickey Megistus

“A magical act may be defined as causing reality to conform to will.”

• Phil Hine

Art of applying understanding in Action

"Magick is the Science of understanding oneself and one's conditions. It is the Art of applying that understanding in action."

"Every intentional act is a Magical act."

"Magick is merely to be and to do."

• Aleister Crowley

Attuning & Being in Harmony with the Way of the Universe

“Real magic is attuning your spirit and intention with the holon of the universe by gaining a deeper awareness of its parts.”

• Clea Danaan, Sacred Land

Co-creation with divinity as children of god

“Human beings are co-partners with deity in the project of being. This is the basis of all magic.”

• Terrence McKenna

“Magic is the felt sense that our role in the cosmos is co-creative.”

• Gordon White - https://runesoup.com/2023/04/towards-a-definition-of-magic/
• This definition is not so much a description of what it is and how it works as a science, but is more of a description of the magical worldview.

"Magic is the divinity of man achieved in union with faith..." "To practice magic is to be a quack; to know magic is to be a sage."

• Eliphas Levi

While it is not entirely satisfactory either, my definition of magic is “the art and science of becoming a co-creator with a Supreme God.”

• Nick Farrell

Changes through causes and means that we can’t yet explain

“Magick is what we call various ways of making changes in ourselves and the world by means that cannot be explained by currently accepted theories and understandings of science and society.”

• Oberon Zell Ravenheart

“But magic doesn’t mean “no cause.” It just means that we haven’t yet developed scientifically acceptable theories to explain these effects.”

• Dean Radin

“Magic is a set of techniques (skills which you can develop) which allow you to create a change in the world around you and yourself by means that are not understood by scientists, religionists, or psychologists.”

• Nicholas Graham

Manipulation of Subtle Energy

“…a science and an art comprising a system of concepts and methods for the build-up of human emotion, altering the electrochemical balance of the metabolism, using associative techniques and devices to concentrate and focus this emotional energy, thus modulating the energy broadcast by the human body, usually to affect other energy patters, whether animate or inanimate, but occasionally to affect the personal energy patterns.”

• Isaac Bonewits

Causing change by directing energy with one’s will.

• Kerr Cuhulain, Full Contact Magick

Visualization, Imagination

“…the conscious application of imagination and focused attention to bring about a desired goal through visualization”

• Ellen Evert Hopman

As probability enhancement, synchronicity, altering chance…

“…coincidence control.”

• Oberon Ravenheart

“…probability enhancement.”

• Anodea Judith

“Everything works by magick; science represents a small domain of magick where coincidences have a relatively high probability of occurrence. Half of the skills in magick consist of identifying probabilities worth enhancing.”

• Peter Carroll, PsyberMagick: Advanced Ideas in Chaos Magick

Knowledge and Skill of Occult Power

"Magic is a comprehensive knowledge of all nature." - Francis Barrett

"Magic is the science of the control of the secret forces of nature." - S.L. MacGregor Mathers

“Magical ability possesses great power, full of the highest mysteries, contemplating profound secret things, natures, powers, qualities, substances, and virtues, combined with the understanding of all of nature. It instructs us on how things are different from each other and how they agree. Wonderful effects are produced from magic, uniting virtues by applying things with each other and by accepting their congruity, and everywhere binds and marries inferior and superior gifts and virtues. This is the most perfect and highest science, the highest and most sacred philosophy. Finally, it is the absolute consummation of the noblest philosophy, for all regulative philosophy is divided into natural science, mathematics, and theology.”

“Therefore, whoever means to study these faculties, if they are not educated in natural philosophy—in which the qualities of things are declared and in which one can reveal hidden qualities of anything that exists—and if they are not a worker in mathematics and in the aspects and figures of the stars, from which anything with a sublime virtue and quality depends, and if they are not skilled in theology, where immaterial substances are shown, which all are dispensed and administered, they cannot understand the rationale of magic. Indeed, there is no perfect work in magic or any work that is truly magical that does not embrace these three faculties.”

• Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim

a psychological art form

“Magic is a psychological art form not a belief system (unless, of course you consider the concept of ’cause and effect’ to be a belief system).”

• Lon Milo DuQuette

“Magic is a series of psychological techniques so devised as to enable us to probe more deeply into ourselves.”

• Israel Regardie

Transcending our beliefs and limitations - Shifting Perception & Belief

“Magic is a set of techniques and approaches which can be used to extend the limits of Achievable Reality. Our sense of Achievable Reality is the limitations which we believe bind us into a narrow range of actions and successes – what we believe to be possible for us at any one time. In this context, the purpose of magic is to simultaneously explore those boundaries and attempt to push them back – to widen the ‘sphere’ of possible action.”

• Phil Hine, Condensed Chaos

"Magic is unlimiting experience" - Florence Farr

"The work of magic involves transformation, and the first transformation is the shift of perception."

• Marion Weinstein

“Magick is the art of belief.”

• Ludrikos Muttleyos

Changing the focus of consciousness

“Magick is just the art of changing the focus of consciousness at will.”

• Robert Anton Wilson

the systematic cultivation of enhanced consciousness or non-ordinary awareness & its deployment in the world

“Sorcery: the systematic cultivation of enhanced consciousness or non-ordinary awareness & its deployment in the world of deeds & objects to bring about desired results.“

• Hakim Bey

“Real magick is not merely an assortment of skills and techniques. It’s more like an open minded attitude, a blend of interest and dedication, which allows each honest mage to observe, to learn, to adapt, and to invent unique ways of changing identity and reality from within.”

• Jan Fries

“Unless a man be born a magician, and God have destined him even from his birth to the work, so that spirits do willingly come of their own accord – which doth happen to few – a man must use only of those things herein set down, or written in our other books of occult philosophy, as means to fix the mind upon the work to be done; for it is in the power of the mind itself that spirits do come and go, and magical works are done, and all things in nature are but as uses to induce the will to rest upon the point desired.”

• Cornelius Agrippa

the art of affecting matter through Spirit

“Magic is the art of affecting the manifest through the Unmanifest. The manifest is all that can be seen, touched, perceived, manipulated, imagined, or understood. The Unmanifest is none of these things. It is the place, or rather the non-place, from which everything issues. All that comes into being comes from the Unmanifest. All that passes away goes back to the Unmanifest.”

• Donald Tyson

“Magick … may be defined as the process of projecting psychic energy into physical reality where it can then take shape as a spirit. The higher spirits, such as angels, derive from superconsciousness, the oversoul in which the mind exists as a part, whereas the lower spirits, such as demons, derive from subconsciousness, the repressed fears and traumatic experiences of the practitioner.”

• Frater W.I.T.

Unifying Desire and Belief: Will - Know Thyself and Accomplish your True Will

“Courage is the criterion of belief. To back one horse and fancy another means willing one thing and believing another. Magic (faith) is simply a means of unifying Desire and Belief. The subconscious mind is employed to create your belief and unite it to a real desire.”

• Austin Osman Spare

“The true practice of magic depends on the legitimacy of the individual human will. The magician wills something to occur which under ordinary circumstances would not occur, and thereby demonstrates the reality of his or her own individuality. Magicians make the world dance according to their tunes, religionists seek to find the tune of the world and have it teach them how to dance.“

• Crystal Dawn and Stephen Flowers, Carnal Alchemy

“Magick is the practice of imposing one’s will upon reality in order to create change. The changes created by magick can take place in the outside world, but the most potent changes occur inside the self – changing attitudes, expanding abilities, pushing accepted limits – all through the exercise of willpower.

• Michelle Belanger

“Magick provides the tools to accomplish two things: First is to “know thyself” — to use techniques like journaling, meditation, ritual, and invocation to identify your personal strengths and successes – and thereby discover your true Will. The second is to use the same tools to accomplish your Will.”

• Richard Kaczynski

special use of powers and faculties within the psyche

Magίck is the production of desired effects, whether within the person of the magician or exterior to it, by means of a deliberate and special use of powers and faculties within the psyche. This may include effects produced by the agency of entities or energies which do not belong to the psyche of the magician: but if the action is to be described as magick it must be entirely under the command, and according to the will, of the magician. Outside of this condition wonders can take place, and continually do so: they may be miracles, they may be effects of spontaneous psychism, they may be caused by possession or by medίumshίp, but they cannot be said to be caused magically.

• denning and Phillips

As a Spiritual Path Towards God

“My definition of magic is that it’s a ritual or meditation that enables individuals to move along their spiritual path towards God. It’s the goal of all humans to find God and to be present with him. Magic is a gradual process and a development of one’s spiritual nature to become attuned to God. This movement toward God will continue to build in strength until the goal of reaching cosmic consciousness and oneness with God is finally attained in its fullest expression.”

• John DeSalvo, The Lost Art of Enochian Magic

Sources & Resouces

Models of Magic by Frater U.D. - https://www.sacred-texts.com/bos/bos065.htmhttp://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/chaos/texts/model.html