Rational people know how to define magic—magic is
illusion, sleight of hand, at best the fine art of tricks, at worst
fraudulence—or so goes the definition usually taught to schoolchildren.
Another interpretation dismisses magic as supernatural fantasy and
wishful thinking—the stuff of fairy tales, Mother Goose, and mythology;
tales for children and hence of little value; its only purpose
entertainment; its only possible truth metaphoric. A third interpretation
is more malevolent, with occult masters—the proverbial evil wizards and
wicked sorceresses—attempting to maintain control over gullible and
innocent plain folk, their tools fear and superstition, not true magic,
which, of course, rationalists argue, doesn’t exist anyway. Yet another
explanation suggests that magic works solely by psychological means, a
sort of self-hypnosis. According to this theory, usually offered by oldschool anthropologists and psychologists, the poor benighted native’s
very belief in something, such as a death curse or a traditional healing,
is what causes it to come true. Magic happens because you believe in the
system not because the system works or even exists, although
explanations for why, if their powers of belief are so all-powerful, the
natives remain poor and benighted, and forced to tolerate outside observers, are rarely offered.