Magic is the word of choice for otherwise inexplicable outcomes.

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That was the title of song by the Lovin’ Spoonful in 1965. The magic they were singing about was less of the occult and more of the festival. It was about good-time-groovy-freeing-your-soul-with-rock-and-roll.

It wasn’t the pivotal song that kicked off the sixties. It was symptomatic of that coming era, as were so many other songs of the time.

Do you believe in magic in a young girl's heart? How the music can free her, whenever it starts And it's magic, if the music is groovy It makes you feel happy like an old-time movie I'll tell you about the magic, and it'll free your soul But it's like trying to tell a stranger 'bout rock and roll.

In earlier times - and in earlier times still - magic was a much more serious business. It was about conjuring to purpose, often to malevolent purpose. It was the tool of preference for witches, voodoo priests, and necromancers.

Shady practitioners like, Madam Blavatsky and Anton LaVey continued their ancient spells of abracadabra into the twentieth century, even though abracadabra was losing it’s old-time catche. Moderns increasingly thought of magic as parlor-tricks or nonsense.

The sixties brought magic back to popularity, but with a makeover.

From the Hippie culture on, magic was the word of choice for otherwise inexplicable outcomes, nearly always happy outcomes. The darkness that traditionally shrouded magic was transformed into rainbows and unicorns.

Now, well into the twenty-first century, magic - or more to the point, magical thinking has replaced orthodoxy, science, and common sense.

Bevis’s typical rejoinder to Butthead’s scoffing was the insolent line, “It could happen”! Stupid expressions like, “It could happen”, excuse magical thinking. Many things could happen, but some things are more likely to happen. Possible, lacks the credibility of, probable.

If anything is possible; then, the word is useless. It means nothing.

Magic is an equally useless word - as vague as its current companion, spiritual. I haven’t the slightest idea what either word signifies. I doubt anyone does. Spiritual people, dabbling in magic, have no idea what they believe.

Both words are tautological crutches that support empty imaginings.

Belief in magic corrupts purpose, much the way certain foods fill you up but leave you hungry an hour later.

Maybe I’m being too skeptical - after all - “It could happen”!

By K. L. Shipley

Website: https://www.eclecticessays