What is magic and how is magic performed

Magic is a concept without a clear definition, but the following definitions will cover most instances: Magic is a willful action that gives some purposful effects, that do not follow known laws of nature, and are done without any known physical connection between the actor and the object acted upon, that can explain the effects of the action. Sometimes it is thought that magic occurs even by the will of the actor alone without any mechanism through which the will acts whatsoever.

In another definition, magic is a willfull action excerted by some persons or instances that is performed by use of physical channels, physical laws or physical energies not accessible to ordinary persons or instances. It is then thought that the mind of that person controles these special physical channels. Often the word psycical or spiritual is prefered instead of the desinance physical to tag these channels or energies.

An even laxer definition of the word magic is this: Any action performed by a person in such a way that a seer or listerer do not sense the mechanism of the action, does not know about the mechanism or does not understand what possible mechaism can make that action, is magic. The magic of most magicians performing to entertain falls into this last definition.

Magic is often excerted by means of certain ritualistic actions or object that can canalize the will of the magician into the physical or spiritual channels that ultimately effect the magical effects. These ritualistic actions or objects do not however work in a way that is understandable by ordinary physical, psychological or chemical laws.

Magic is by itself neither good or evil. When magic is used for good perposes, it is calle white magic. Magic having bad purposes are usually called black magic. Magic with the purpose of hurting somebody, even if the ultimate purpose is thought to be good, is also called black magic.

Some persons are said to possess the abilities to perform magic. Sometimes people think that such abilities is a gift from some god or spiritualk being, either good or evil. Other times it is thought that a person can develop magical abiiities automatically or aquire magical abilities by training or meditation.

Here is a list of practices, religions, cults or spiritual beings people often think give magical power: Alchemy, higher genius, mysticism, occult, matrix, tarot, Dion Fortune, sound, light, Judaism, mandala, Steiner, Jung, paganism, khemetic, kabalah, ceremony, ritual, theurgy, thaumaturgy, aromatherapy, reiki, occult , celtic, mystical christianity, Regardie, Alice Bailey, Ted Andrews, healing, chakra, Unitarian Universalism, crystals, Christ, Lucifer, color, angels, Thelema, astral, higher self, Gardenarian, spirit guides, daemons, tree of life, mandala, Wicca, Sophia, Sumerian, goddess, acupuncture, Christ-Consciousness, Freya, Golden Dawn, Rosicrucian, Crowley, thaumaturgy, Jehovah, fairies, Christo-Wicca, nutrition, coven, Voudon, Lemurian, Alexandrian, Christianity, Atlantian, Western Mystery Tradition, shamanism, new age, sacred geometry, numerology, theosophy, anthroposophy, astrology, native american rituals.


How magic is performed

The kind o magic used by magic performers or magician artists is made by ordinary well-known physical laws in combination with psychological skills.

Those kinds of magic that are performed by known physical laws, but in a way people usually do not understand, can of cource be learned in an ordinatry way. In the market you can buy magic sets or separate tricks of this kind with all the necessary equipment and instructions. Sometimes these tricks are easy to lern, other require conciderable training before they can be done in a persuasive way.

The mechanism of such tricks is often extremely simple. The tricks can use springs that very swiftly pull something out of sight, double bottoms that can hide things, great mirrors that give the illusion of something being at another place than they really are, objects that have properties like a spring so that they quickly can collapse or expand, very thin threads, magnetism, gas-filled ultra-light objects that can hower lika a baloon, and so on.

A common method o performing a magical illusion is simply to do things so quickly that the audience does not see the transition, but only the original state and the result. Such transitions or movements can be done by springs that swiftly get things to collapse, to be pulled away, to expand or to pop up. Inflation or deflation by means of air and gas can also be performed very swiftlly.

Boxes with bouble bottoms or chambers with a double inner wall are often used to hide something between the two bottom or wall parts. It is difficult for the audience to see that a box or chamber is more shallow than it should be at a distance.

A techique often used to illudate a magical transformation is simply to change one verion of an object with another with some transformed properies. If the change is done very fast, and the auience is distracted by some stimulus, it is very difficult to see that one object actually is being changes out with another.

Many magic tricks seem to involve persons from the audience. Basically these tricks are performed like the following: The magician asks persons form the audience to volonteer, and he chooses one of the persons. The person is asked to think about something and write this down. Then the magician shall guess what the person have thought about, and of cource he guesses right. The explanation is simply that the person chosen is someone that is collaborating with the magician and writes something down that he has been instructed to by the magician. Most of these tricks involve gimmicks that make them appear more complicated and spectacular that the simple scheme explained here, but the basic principle is still the same.

One simple reason why it is so difficult for people to understand how a trick is done, is simply that most people have been thought by society that persons generally do not lie and that things generally are what they appear to be. When they for example see a howering object, they simply do not make themselves to think there is a thread when they do not see any thread, and they generally do not think that a person apparently being from the audience really is a collaborator.

People in the society are systematically socialized to be naive by authorities of all kinds, and this naivity is used by magicians when they perform. The magician will often himself act as if he were a person of authority, and this behaviour amplifies the naivity.

He will also often use visual effects that pull the attention away from mechanisms he uses and towards the resulting effects of the trick, such as spotlight, colors, darkness, spectacular movements and so on.

Card tricks are often done in a very simple manner. As help for the trick, the magician can for example use cards with values on both sides, or with two back-sides. Replacing cards or the whole stack of cards so swiftly that nobody sees the replacement movement is another method.

Magicians of today use of course modern techique. Holografic pictures can for example be projected from two projectors in the air. In order to make the picture clearer, some thin smoke in the air can be used.



About Harry Potter and the Harry Potter culture

Generally about Harry Potter

The author of the Harry Potter books is the British female author Johanne K. Eawling (J. K. Rawling). She got the idea when she sat thinking on a train from Manchester to London i 1990., and during that train journey the main ideas about the the charactor Harry Potter, environmental settings and intrigues of the books were worked out.

The stories of the book are taking place in the late part of the 20th century.

The first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, sets the foundation of all of the stories. There is a secret vizardian world, and the parents of Harry potter are prominent members of that world. However the evil wizard, Lord Voldemort are plaguing the wizarian community, and the family of Harry Potter are hiding from this evil person. The crual wixard discovers the Potter family's hidden refuge, killis Harry's parents, Lily and James Potter. When however he tries also to kill Harry, cruel formular rebounds on himself and destroys his body, but his spirit survives and are still capable of performing cruel magic against Harry and the community.

Hagrid, a 'half-giant', delivers Harry to his only living relatives, the cruel and magic-phobic Dursleys. This family comprizes the badly mooded nearly neck-less Uncle Vernon, the long-necked Aunt Petunia, and their spolied overweighted son Dudley. They attempt unsuccessfully to make Harry magically poerless and punish him for enything that can be attributed to Harry's magical abilities.

However, as his eleventh birthday approaches, Harry has his first contact with the magical world when he receives letters from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which are delivered by owls. However, his uncle intercepts the letters. On his birthday, Hagrid, Hogwarts' gamekeeper, appears and informs Harry that he is a wizard and has been invited to attend the school. Each book chronicles one year in Harry's life, which is mostly spent at Hogwarts. There he learns to use any type of magic and brew magic potions. He also gets into a lot of fights with the cruel wizard, with his companions and with other evil beings in the secret wizardian realm.


Harry Potter books

So far these Harrry Potter books have been published:

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (26 June 1997) (titled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2 July 1998)

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (8 July 1999)

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (8 July 2000)

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (21 June 2003)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (16 July 2005)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (21 July 2007)

All seven books in the series have been released in the English language as audiobooks. The UK editions are performed by Stephen Fry, while the American versions are performed by Jim Dale.