Definitions of terms used in Magical Thinking in America

NATURAL: Having a real or physical existence as opposed to one that is spiritual, intellectual, or fictitious.

SUPERNATURAL: A being, location, object, or event that exists outside physical law; a dimension that is a product of the human brain, and which exists nowhere else.

MAGIC: A fundamental mode of human thought, which seeks to control physical reality through ritual and formulae. Homeopathic magic imitates the desired outcome. Contagious magic utilizes objects that have been in contact with the target individual.

ANIMISM: A stage in which the world is seen in terms of human consciousness; creatures and objects are regarded as having souls, spirits, or awareness.

RELIGION: Religion is the ritual presentation of the culture myth –Joseph Campbell
Magic and animism are fundamental to religion. Modern "-isms" such as Nazism, Socialism, Capitalism, New Age-ism. Politics and advertising also fit the definition.

MIND: The sum of an organism's or group's reactions to the environment. Instinct is the source of automatic reactions; other reactions are cultivated. Emotions comprise the fundamental mind.

CULTURE: The sum of an organism's or group's interactions with the environment. These may be instinctual, learned, or invented. All living things have mind and culture; mind and culture aren't exclusive to humans. A bacterium both reacts to and interacts with its environment.

CONSCIOUSNESS: A term that is defined and used so broadly that it has become all but useless. (See sections on co-consciousness and supernatural consciousness.)

HYPOTHESIS: A rational explanation of an event or observation that must be supported or rejected through further observation and experimentation. Results must be confirmed by other scientists.

SCIENTIFIC LAW: A statement of fact that explains an action or set of actions, often expressed as a mathematical equation. Scientific laws must be simple, true, universal, and essential to science.

THEORY: A scientific Theory is founded on proven hypotheses and explains a group of related phenomena. It must be verified by independent research. The popular phrase “just a theory” suggests that a Theory is no more than a guess. This expression adds to the confusion among the public as to the value of scientific knowledge.

PRIMATE: Compared to other mammals of similar size, primates have large brains are slow to mature. They have long life spans and their offspring have a high survival rate. Lemurs, monkeys, and great apes (man) are primates; there are over 300 primate species.

HOMINID: Any of various primates of the family Hominidae, whose only living members are modern humans. Hominids are characterized by an upright gait, an increase in brain size and intelligence compared with other primates, a flattened face, and reduction in the size of the teeth and jaw. Besides the modern species Homo sapiens, hominids also include extinct species such as Homo erectus and the extinct genus Australopithecus. The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2002.

All art lies.

The power of art is that it convinces the human brain that any idea, no matter how ridiculous, corresponds to reality.

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The connection of art and language to the persistence of the supernatural mind is easy to demonstrate. There are no blue deer or orange pigs in nature, and yet humans have no difficulty imagining or creating these nonexistent creatures in words and images. Our thought landscape is populated by ideas of this type, which persist because of the unquestioning acceptance of images presented to the brain, without regard to the reality of those images. The representation of supernatural ideas as concrete objects, such as angels, super heroes, and imaginary deities confers an illusion of reality on physically impossible objects. Advertising, the media, the fashion and cosmetics industries, and the frankly supernatural activities of religion, politics, and government manipulate the magical mind for sales, profit, and power.
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Magic is in the mind .

Religions large and small are cluttered with magical practices, as are social organizations, governments and corporations, because magical thinking is the default mode of the human brain. Child development experts confine magical thinking to a stage of childhood, but in practice it never goes away; magic is fundamental to how the human brain interprets and interacts with the environment. Essential to the practice of magic is the belief that the power to manipulate reality resides within the individual, who attempts to do so by means of incantation or ritual. Magic is a precise activity. Words and actions must be repeated accurately, or the desired outcome will not be obtained.

The instinctive use of magic ritual is often a reaction to stress. A person preparing for a job interview may pay special attention to his or her appearance, wear a lucky shirt, carry an amulet, and repeat affirmations learned from a success guru. This ritual behavior may reduce stress and thus help the interview go well, but it will not make the candidate more qualified, nor magically shuffle his or her application to the top of the pile.

The contagious magic evinced by sports fans, from wearing replica jerseys to collecting autographs and memorabilia, is obvious and widespread. The desire to meet a top athlete is a manifestation of the universal belief that power can be transferred from person to person, either by simple proximity, or by obtaining an object that has been in contact with that person. The obsession with celebrities and religious figures results from the principles of magic, and is no different than the ancient adoration of the gladiator, or the quest for the supposed relics of saints. Magical thinking is woven into layers of culture that have accrued over thousands of years. Desire for personal power, and over others is fundamental to being human.

In true magic, power resides not in a god or gods, but within the individual, who must precisely manipulate words and objects in order to obtain results. The later addition of deities marks a profound shift in power away from the individual. Instead of being the locus of power, the individual becomes a supplicant to an unseen power. How did this shift come about? The underlying thinking might go like this: man makes things, but man cannot make the sky, or rain, or a tree. Something that is like a man, only much greater, must make these. Whatever causes storms, rain, and lightning, must be very powerful and it must live in the sky. This radical change benefits humans; magic depends on the power of the individual, but what if he or she is weak? If a powerful being can be put to work on one's behalf by flattery, pledges of obedience, and sacrifice, respite from life's problems might be achieved.

The gods began their existence as real ancestors. We know this because people ply the gods with objects that people like, especially food and luxuries that supernatural beings obviously don't need. The steps from ancestor to god are somewhat straightforward: when a person dies, the 'life' essence of the person automatically becomes supernatural. The person that we knew no longer exists, but he or she must have gone somewhere; there must be a world where only the dead go. It can take time for the missing essence to make the magical transition to the land of the dead (because they remain vivid in the memories of the living) and cultures have various techniques to ensure that the dead don't return to harass the living.

Death is universally feared: the dead ought to remain dead. Thanks to the strength of human memory, dead people persist in the mind, and significantly, in one's dreams. We forget that dreams had no rational explanation until recently, and people reacted negatively to the walking, talking 'ghosts' that visited them during sleep. Inhumation, especially with red pigment that represents the blood of childbirth, is meant to insure rebirth in another world, as much as it is done to protect the body from scavengers. Cremation prevents reoccupation of the body by the spirit-ghost.

The invention of a heaven or afterlife that promises a happy and eternal reunion with the ancestors, family, and in-laws, and perhaps with one's entire clan, such as Christianity offers, combines ancestor worship with an attractive location in the supernatural realm, a nice place in eternity that is intended to keep the dead, dead. Today's concept of heaven as a perpetual family reunion is a sentimental Victorian creation.

Literal rebirth, as shaped by Hindu religion, may also arise from the eerie fear that the dead will return to terrorize the living. Ensuring that life is miserable can be useful in a caste-bound society. A wealthy person would surely want to live again. A poor but optimistic person might see rebirth as an opportunity to be better off, to climb a step on the social pyramid. The negative positioning of rebirth confines the mass of humanity to a future of recurring misery. For the poor there is no point in wanting a better life; it's better to be permanently dead.

The gathering of ancestors into pantheons was a process of practical consolidation as human populations increased and spread, clashed and united. The Ancient Romans were particularly adept at conflating other gods with their own; importantly, magic ritual persisted through the time of empire in private and public life, and was codified in the Roman Catholic Church.

Pantheons were insurance providers
In the ancient world, travelers greeted each other with the question, "Which gods do you worship?" Deities were compared, traded, and adopted in recognition that strangers had something of value to offer. An exchange of earthly ideas and useful articles also took place, and a more comfortable daily life was obtained through expanded availability of materials, tools, foods, and skills.

Pantheons were the ancient world's insurance providers. Diverse deities protected women, children, tradesmen, sailors, butchers, farmers, and soldiers, regardless of status. No pre-existing condition prevented a person from finding a god, goddess, or spirit protector. Each person or group had a sympathetic listener, who might increase one's chances for a favorable outcome to life’s ventures, large and small. The non-racist and religiously inclusive mind of the Romans was a powerful factor in the success of their multicultural empire, which abolished barriers to travel, trade, and information across the Mediterranean world, and in Europe and North Africa. More people wanted to be included in the Roman Empire than wanted out.
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Monotheism ruined all that.