Magic is the art of using thoughts, intentions, desires, symbols, and sounds to manipulate reality. The existence of magic is fundamentally factual. The purpose of true magic is to gain a better understanding of one's self and the reality in which one exists, in order to cultivate one's own spiritual/psychological well-being.

Manifestation through Suggestion

When I wish to pick up my glass of water, the desire and thought somehow cause my arm to move towards the glass and pick it up. My body is made up entirely of material things, little cells and microscopic organisms. These seemingly disparate particulars—these cells, and the organelles, and atoms within them, which are apparently each entirely autonomous and independent at the individual level—take on a collective identity at the macro level and form a person. This collective identity somehow assumes consciousness and then uses cognition to manipulate reality. I think of the mass of particles and cells that constitute my arm moving in the direction of the glass, add intention to that conception, and my arm moves as I desire it to. How exactly is it that the intangible thought results in the manipulation of matter to bring about the desired result? Well, magic. At the most fundamental level, every action entails the manifestation of something through suggestion. Whether or not you believe in the manifestation of things through suggestion, every single thing you do is precisely this sort of magic.

Manifestation Through Incantation

Language is fundamentally magic. Suppose that I see a glass of water on the table. I ask someone to bring me the glass of water, and they do. I have now cast a successful spell. I have now uttered a magical incantation with the intention of manifesting something in the real world, and the incantation has successfully brought about my intention.

Manifestation Through Symbols

Written language can work in the same way. Suppose that I send my co-worker an instant message and ask them to come to my desk, and then they do. I have used a magic symbol, which I have inscribed with meaning and intentionality, to manifest something in the external world.

Collective Consciousness & Culture

Influential and popular individuals can say things or write things that will have a definite impact on the world around them. If the Chairman of the Federal Reserve writes a paper saying that the stock market will crash, the very fact that the Chairman has said so will cause it to be so. A sort of self-fulfilling prophesy will occur. If the President of the United States declares that America is going to war with Russia, then America will go to war with Russia. The incantations of powerful people affect the collective consciousness of society in such a way that their declarations tend to become reality. Their utterance ends up manifesting the situation in the real world. This is especially the case if the individual making the utterance is popular and charismatic. When Abraham Lincoln called for the abolition of slavery, the power of his persona brought about his desire. When Dr. King called for equal rights for African Americans, his incantation set about events in the real world that fundamentally changed the world in the direction of his desires. Such magic has been done for good and for evil. Hitler was able to manifest the horrors of the Holocaust through verbal incantation. When a popular figure casts a spell, assigning meaning and intentionality to words and letting those words ring out into the air, the people pick up on it and reverberate it, and the repetition of the incantation brings about a shift in social consciousness and changes the culture of society in such a way as to bring about actions that will manifest a state of affairs like the one that the unwitting magician wished to manifest.

What Stereotypical Magickians Actually Do

On one level, magick works by tapping into those areas of the human mind that are usually subconscious. The realm of imagination is brought to the surface so that it can be explored by the conscious mind. This is done for the sake of "spiritual advancement," or self-improvement. The goal is to improve one's own psychological well-being by gaining an understanding of oneself. The magician, the psychonaut, and the shaman all seek to follow the age old maxim "Know thyself." By gaining a better understanding of yourself and the reasons you behave the way you do, you can be empowered to change the way you behave. Certain forms of magic, like casting sigils or spells, seem to work off the power of suggestion, and they work on the person who performs the ritual. If a person casts a spell to be more productive, the ritual is the process of planting that thought and intention into the subconscious mind, which makes it easier for the person to develop habits that increase productivity. In this way, magic often works as a sort of self-hypnosis. If one channels spirits, angels, or demons, they are generally projecting a mental construct in their imagination from the subconscious sphere into the conscious sphere. Unfortunately, people aren't always aware of what they are doing, so they often mistake these mental entities for beings that live outside of their own minds. This phenomenon can be seen as analogous to the practice of crafting "tulpas" in modern magick; the tulpamancer simply has a better understanding of exactly what it is that they are doing.

The tricky part is that we don't really understand how this all works. We know that thought or suggestion can induce the motion of matter. We experience this every day. We know that we have the ability to think about doing something and cause the physical material of our body to do it. Usually, the area of control seems to be limited to the confines of our own bodies. However, this does raise the question of whether or not more general psychokinesis might be possible. Psychokinesis does actually happen. People do use their mind to control matter. We experience this on a regular basis. I think with intention about picking up the phone, and the lump of material particles that constitutes "my arm" magically picks up my phone. That's psychokinesis. That's literally fucking magic! The world around us operates on the level of magic at the most basic level. We don't currently understand how the mind can manipulate matter. And since we don't understand how this works in the instances when it obviously does occur, we can't entirely rule out the possibility of it occurring on the macro level. It is at least theoretically possible to use the same sort of power of suggestion that induces the motion of your body in order to manipulate the physical world beyond your body and the objects directly connected to it. I think that "real" magic of this sort is probably quite rare, if it occurs at all, but the scientific mind must remain open to the possibility insofar as there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that such magic cannot occur. Many magickians would probably tell you that the bulk of what they do operates on a psychological level; however, a great many of them will also tell you that they have had experiences that seem to suggest that something broader might be possible.