What is Magic? - Magic is the act of willing a miracle through the power of believing.

What is Magic?

Magic is the act of willing a miracle through the power of believing.

When I was little I could levitate. No joke. I could float in air, as long as I was between two walls. I would start out between the two hallway walls and then jump to catch my legs and arms between the walls. Then I would climb until I could touch the ceiling with my little hands and close my eyes. I would hold myself there praying and talking to God saying, “I am ready. I will float today. I believe in You.” Slowly, I could not feel the wall anymore and I would casually start to levitate in the place that I had climbed to. I believed that God had not only given me the ability to be an abnormally flexible child, but the ability to float. Really, I was not committing an act of magic, but instead I was just climbing up the wall, holding myself there until my feet became numb, and praying to a man that I believed in, but I wholeheartedly believed that I was truly floating.

The reason I tell you this story is because magic will not happen unless you have something to believe in. “The question of whether people could actually achieve anything though magic is entirely different from the question of whether they thought they could.” (Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of the Witches)) I had such great faith in God that I believed He had given me a magical power that no one else possessed, therefore producing the miracle of a floating child. As I see it, magic is the act of willing a miracle through the power of believing.

When people believe wholeheartedly that they are able to do something, they are able to accomplish anything they perceive. Joan of Arc was able to accomplish acts of magic with no real scientific reasoning behind their thoughts. Joan of Arc believed that she was talking to God to lead the French to victory. (Warner, Marina) This story is not much different than a young child believing they could levitate. Both Joan and the child believed that they had these unnatural powers that were willed to them by a higher power. Some may interpret the skills of understanding battle or floating as magic and others my interpret them as a miracle, but in both instances the willing belief in a higher being was present and strong.

Whether you believe in magic, miracles, a higher power, or not, "most philosophers regard belief in magic as a quaint superstition that has been replaced by some more rational understanding of cause and effect.” (Auxier) I believe that these philosophers regard this belief of magic because they need to have a reasoning behind every thought. Unlike myself, there are people out there that will need a reason for everything as they do not believe that there are some things that happen that do not need an explanation of why they happened. There are many instances that have no real explanation behind them for happening, yet they are widely known. These stories all have magic, will, miracles, and belief behind them.

An example of one of these stories would be out of the Book of John in the Bible. In this book, Jesus went to a party with his mother, Mary. Mary believed in the power which Jesus possessed and asked him if he would provide food and drink for the people attending as there was no food or drink left. Jesus willed his power, which could be substituted to thinking that his power was magic, to turn water into wine and produce more bread and fish. (Aitken) In this story, Jesus had many believers and used his will and magic to produce a miracle. None of this can be explained by science or by philosophy, yet it was an act that happened.

Magic, miracles, will and believe will keep surrounding us as humans, as will the obsession with explaining instances that do not have a rational answer. According to an article in Philosophy Now, “magic is going on all the time, usually unconsciously.” (Fuller) I believe that this unconscious act has to do with the power of will and magic.

“Page and Crowley… shared a fascination with ‘will’….as magic is an art of bringing the will to bear on what is.” (Auxier) Page and Crowley believed in anything that actually happened, yet they needed an explanation for everything. They believed in cause and effects due to their scientific background. Instead of believing in a higher being, Page and Crowley have similar thoughts to the ones expressed thus far, yet they believed in science as a God. They noticed that these magical actions were happening and, through determination, they found answers in their scientific knowledge much like how I find answers in my religious believes.

We all have that child inside of us that believed that anything could happen simply because it could. Grass could be blue and trains could fly. Nothing was logical, but everything made sense. We were never forced to rationalize how we felt as a child and everything we believed was true to our beliefs. Magic was all around us simply because we believed that miracles will happen.  Magic was, and still is all around us. It is the act of willing a miracle through the power of believing.

Works Cited

Aitken, Robert. The Holy Bible. American Bible Society ed. New York: Arno, 1968. Print.

Auxier, Randall. Magic Pages and Mythic Plants. Print.

Fuller, Mike. "The Logic of Magic." The Logic of Magic. Philosophy Now, 1 Oct. 2015. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.

Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of the Witches). 1486. Print.

Warner, Marina. The Trial of Joan of Arc. Evesham: Arthur James, 1996. Print. 

Ethical Torture and God on Earth

He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death…and if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor, to slay him; thou shall be put to death …but if any harm follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe….

Exodus 21:12, 14, 23-25   ("Exodus 21, American Standard Version (ASV).")

Joan of Arc was burned at the stake on May 30, 1431. (Trial of Joan of Arc - Sections of Introduction) According to biblical teachings at the time, the people who burned her, should have been burned themselves, but they were not. This was because the people who had deemed her as dead did this because they believed that they were acting correctly in the eyes of the Lord. They were the ones who were sent to rid the world from the evil, but why was a nineteen year old who started hearing voices from God when she was thirteen tried for witchcraft and heresy? ("Joan of Arc.")

Joan of Arc believed that God had chosen her to lead France in the battles against the English. (Trial of Joan of Arc) As we know, she has not been one of the only people to believe that God has led them to do things or that they are a manifestation of God even in the dark ages. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn claim to be a direct descent around 1614.  (The Golden Dawn - Introduction to the First Edition) Some better known “manifestations of God” include Charles Manson and David Koresh.

So how do we really know if someone has been set by God to carry out His word? Better off yet, how do we know the truth from a lie when interrogating someone? I truly believe that there is no correct or best practice to this answer, but currently the police use tactics like the Reid Technique which is better known as “good cop, bad cop”, informal questioning, or lying. (Mince-Didier, Ave)

Another way that is used around the world to get a confession is torture. “Governments around the world are two-faced on torture – prohibiting it in law, but facilitating it in practice” says Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, speaking at the launch of their new ‘Stop Torture’ campaign. The Amnesty put out a survey to 144 different countries and found that “The vast majority of respondent (82%) believe there should be clear laws against torture, however more than a third (36%) still thought torture could be justified in certain circumstances.” ("World Without Torture.")  What does this say about our world? That torture is justified as long as the truth is known?

 

If this is the case, why do we just not administer a truth serum to every criminal put on trial? Yes these mind-altering drugs do actually exist and are not just a thing for the movies, but they are not as effective as they are in the movies. They do not completely inhibit the criminal’s ability to lie. They actually show the speed at which your body sends messages from your spinal cord to your brain which make it difficult to perform a high-functioning task like walking straight or lying. (Orwig, Jessica.) According to Washington Post reporter David Brown: "In the 21st century, however, the answer appears to be: No. There is no pharmaceutical compound today whose proven effect is the consistent or predictable enhancement of truth-telling." (Brown, David)

 

So with this being known, when is it ethical to use torture to get an answer from people? In a BBC report they describe a “ticking bomb problem”. In this scenario a terrorist group says they have concealed a nuclear bomb and the authorities have captured the leader of this group. The leader says that he knows where the bomb is but he will take the location of the bomb to his death. The situation has drastically increased and torture is guaranteed to produce the information needed to ensure the authorities find and disable the bomb. So would it be ethical to torture the group leader to find out where the bomb is and save thousands of lives or is it unethical to torture him and have thousands die as a result? “In this situation torturing the terrorist is unethical and can’t be justified, but I can be understood, and it can be forgiven and is seen as the right thing to do.” (BBC News)

At the age of 77, Charles Manson was placed into solitary confinement. (Killoran, Ellen) In a United Nations report, solitary confinement is classified as “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and even torture” ("Special Rapporteur on Torture…) This is a man who brainwashed people into believing that he was God and lead these people to torture and kill others, yet there are people who believe that it in unethical to torture this man by putting him in a cell with his own thoughts so that, just like a small child being reprimanded, he will be able to sit there and think about what he had done.

Is torture ethical? Are these people reincarnations of God? Did Joan of Arc speak with God? I believe that we will never truly know the 100% right or wrong answer to this question and it is all up to interpretation per the situation.

Works Cited

BBC News. BBC, 2014. Web. 4 Oct. 2015.

Brown, David. "Some Believe 'Truth Serums' Will Come Back." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 20 Nov. 2006. Web. 5 Oct. 2015.

"Exodus 21, American Standard Version (ASV)." Exodus 21, American Standard Version (ASV). Web. 4 Oct. 2015.

"Joan of Arc." History.com. A&E Television Networks. Web. 4 Oct. 2015.

Killoran, Ellen. "Charles Manson Parole 2012: At 77, Notorious Criminal Still Has Family Of Supporters." International Business Times. IBT Media, 9 Apr. 2012. Web. 4 Oct. 2015.

Mince-Didier, Ave. "Tactics Police Use to Get a Confession | Criminal Law." CriminalDefenseLawyer.com. NOLO Local Defense Lawyers. Web. 4 Oct. 2015.

Orwig, Jessica. "The Real Truth Behind How 'Truth-Telling' Drugs Actually Work." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 10 Oct. 2014. Web. 4 Oct. 2015.

"Special Rapporteur on Torture Tells Third Committee Use of Prolonged Solitary Confinement on Rise, Calls for Global Ban on Practice | Meetings Coverage and Press Releases." UN News Center. UN, 18 Oct. 2011. Web. 4 Oct. 2015.

The Golden Dawn - Introduction to the First Edition. 14-18, 45-48. Print.

Trial of Joan of Arc - Sections of Introduction. 1-3, 26-32. Print.

"World Without Torture." World Without Torture. RSS, 13 May 2014. Web. 4 Oct. 2015.