Magical Thinking

Many 'takes' exist in print regarding the concept of magical thinking. Joan Didion wrote 'The Year of Magical Thinking' after her husband's sudden death . . . poignantly describing her feelings during and after his death. Augusten Burroughs wrote 'Magical Thinking' - short stories of his life experiences which are alternately horrifying and alarming . . . and will cause anyone who reads them to nod in recognition.

Magical thinking generally is defined as causal reasoning which may include ideas that connections, having once been made, will always be in place; or a perception that correlation can occur again and again, such as wearing as ‘lucky’ pair of socks after winning a race while wearing them, so that one’s chances of winning increase. Magical thinking bestows a kind of symbolic power, providing feelings of possibilities, hope, and control.

Laws of probability are believed to govern the occurrence of certain patterns or coincidences. Magical thinking is thought to result upon failure to understand these laws. It has been said that magic is more like science then it is like religion; that societies with magical beliefs often have separate religious beliefs and practices.

Magical thinking is a common phase in child development. Children tend to connect their physical worlds with themselves, their internal consciousness. Adults may attempt to use it to explain something which has caused pain or grief, linking events mentally in such a way as to ‘make it allright’ somehow. To find an answer, where none exists.

One example is described by E.E. Evans-Pritchard’s Witchcraft, Magic, and Oracles Among the Azande, in which the Azande claim that a roof fell on a particular person because of a magical spell cast (unwittingly) by another person. The Azande knew perfectly well the scientific explanation for the collapsing room (that termites had eaten through the supporting posts), but pointed out that this scientific explanation could not explain why the roof happened to collapse at precisely the same moment that the particular man was resting beneath it. The magic (spell) explains why two independent chains of causation intersected. So, magic explains coincidences, making them meaningful.

A completely logical manner of thinking, according to scientific belief, would exclude magical thinking. So, karma, positive thinking, motivation, prayers for healing, mantras, and the like would necessarily fall into a magical thinking category. If we understand and accept our boundaries, there can be no such thing. Perhaps that is why it exists. It is likely that so long as humans exist, so will magical thinking.