Every Little Thing You Do Is Magic(k)

It can feel really liberating to break societal rules insisting upon rationality and “grown-up” behavior. Engaging in activities that, on the surface, appear irrational, frivolous, illogical or childish, but also playful and spontaneous, might just help you relax the grip of linear thinking and break through feelings of limitation. Most of us unthinkingly live by arbitrary, rigid rules of what is and isn’t supposed to be possible, without taking the time to examine their validity. Doing something unexpected, inexplicable and/or whimsical once in a while can stimulate your psyche in ways that could potentially improve your creativity, boost your mood and rejuvenate your outlook. The subjective effects are hard to deny, especially if you’ve personally experienced them. But a lot of people will tell you that changing things up like this seems to affect objective reality as well. While engaging in speculation is tempting, often these effects are easily attributed to ordinary processes. People’s experiences shape their behavior – what they think, what they do, what they make, and how they treat others. Let’s say you write a word on an object and leave it out to be found by someone else. Randomly happening upon, for example, a pocket stapler that proclaims “LOVE IS EVERYWHERE,” or an orange that urges the finder to “QUESTION AUTHORITY” will probably have some effect on the person who discovers it. But it doesn’t stop there. The discovery may cause that person to do or say something they otherwise wouldn’t have, which then may influence the people they interact with to do or say something differently, which in turn might affect still other people in all kinds of ways. A carefully arranged pile of colorful plastic gemstones left on a table at the DMV office could bring wonder, joy, or bafflement to any random strangers that find it.

Experiencing surprise and delight at unexpected times and in unlikely places can totally turn your day around. And acts like these increase the amount of novelty we experience in our daily lives, which has been demonstrated to stimulate creativity, boost mood, improve cognition and rejuvenate relationships. After you find that stapler that says “LOVE IS EVERYWHERE,” who knows? It just might restore your flagging faith in humanity! More prosaically, perhaps it would lead you to stop somewhere and buy staples. It might get you thinking about what things you could staple, to what, and where. Maybe you decide to put fliers up to sell your unused exercise bike and use the money to pay for a set of oil paints, an easel and an art class. Or maybe seeing those words softens you up and gets you to call an uncle you haven’t spoken to in twenty years because of a long-forgotten argument. Some might be cynical about the “butterfly effect,” the idea that even the tiniest action can have huge ripple effects, but, bad Ashton Kutcher films aside, it’s actually a scientific concept utilized in meteorology and quantum mechanics. Isn’t it worth at least considering the possibility that every little thing you do matters? That every action you take makes a difference? The thought that there is balance in the universe, that “we only get what we give” (New Radicals) or that “the love you take is equal to the love you make” (The Beatles), is very attractive and satisfying. The related idea of paying it forward also seems to imply that the ripple effects of your actions eventually come back to affect you. Now, do you really get back everything that you put out there? Is it like Newton’s Third Law of Motion, an equal and opposite reaction? Or is it more like the popular truism among magic practitioners – that whatever you send into the world comes back to you threefold? I don’t know. But I do know that what you put out there goes OUT THERE. And it undeniably impacts the people and the world around you. And they impact you. It’s a complex system, and for sure you are affecting that system with every little thing you do. How much? Who can say. But, it seems to me, infusing your actions with playfulness and spontaneity, embracing the unexpected and taking joy in stirring the pot and mixing it up, particularly with an attitude of love, gratitude and compassion, is only going to make the universe a better place. Yes, every little thing you do is magic.

But what is magic(k)? (The final “k” is often used by people who take things like spellcasting at least semi-seriously to distinguish themselves from stage magicians.) Real or not, one way of understanding magick as a practice is to see it as a form of play for grown-ups. One important function of play is rehearsal, and many athletes, musicians and public speakers understand and utilize the power of rehearsal by engaging in clear visualization of desired outcomes. The phrase “fake it till you make it” is often employed by a wide variety of advice-giving professionals, from therapists to life coaches, and many people do find that acting as if something is true seems to increase the likelihood that it will come to be. Additionally, it’s now widely accepted that believing you can accomplish something, even something extremely challenging, makes you much more likely to do so. This is another fact well-known to many athletes, performers and speakers, and to a number of people who’ve recovered from serious illnesses or injuries. Interestingly, the use of carefully chosen words and phrases to focus intention and instill the belief that a desired outcome will manifest is a common magickal technique, and it’s not actually that different from the type of affirmations and positive self-talk that have come into wide use in recent years. Combining precisely detailed rehearsal (ideally visual, sound and tactile elements) with affirmation seems to further increase the likelihood of success. Whether you’re playing tennis, dancing ballet, recovering from surgery or even casting spells, integrating clear visualization of desired results with positive self-talk seems to yield the best outcomes. You can take magick literally, or simply use it as a metaphorical technique that allows you to focus and amplify your emotional energy to help you get things done, but either way the important thing is the outcome. And for a lot of people, the idea of drawing on an unseen cosmic force in order to better accomplish difficult tasks and realize dreams, is incredibly compelling and resonant.

Now, could it be that symbolic actions that no one else is aware of, like affirmations, rituals and spells, can somehow affect events in material reality through non-material means? We certainly don’t know that it’s not true. In the words of Shel Silverstein, “Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.” For me personally, maintaining an open-minded agnosticism about these things has proven to be inspirational and generative. Yes, you can view magick strictly as a psychological tool that uses metaphor and mythology to enhance focus and motivation, and obtain excellent results. You may well find that doing this brings you joy, connection, knowledge, and success. This is very much worth pursuing. However, allowing yourself to suspend your disbelief has the potential to greatly enhance both the experience and the results. Just entertaining the possibility that magick might actually be real seems to make it more likely to work. Human beings have a remarkable capacity to hold multiple viewpoints at once. As Walt Whitman famously wrote, “I am large, I contain multitudes.” You can, on one level, think of a ritual as a purely psychological exercise that enables you to focus intention and emotional energy in order to maximize your ability to act effectively. Viewed this way, it’s just you taking some practical steps to optimize your focus, motivation, creativity, energy, enthusiasm, and persistence. And yet, on another level, while you’re immersed in the ritual, you may find it becomes an even more effective exercise if you are able to temporarily literally believe that magick is real and that it’s working on a metaphysical level.

You can understand magick ultimately as a psychological “power tool,” or a lens that employs metaphor to focus and amplify emotional energy, while experiencing it in the moment as if you are actually casting a real spell that has the power to bring you success. And that could be the end of it, for you. For some out there (more than one might expect), the literal and unironic belief in magick is a given, and for others it’s nothing more than a metaphor. But there is a third option: to embrace the not-knowing, the ambiguity, the liminal quality of something that might be the case. The in-between. The marginal. Maintaining an openness to mystery and wonder can be a potent tool for stimulating creativity. If you’re trying to make something out of nothing, feeling like you have the option of tapping into a cosmic pool of limitless possibility is a great motivator. In addition, whether we’re actively engaging in creative work or not, cultivating and nurturing our sense of mystery and wonder can render everyday life more rich, vivid, vital and joyful. Young children live like this all the time, and maybe we would do well to take a cue from them. I don’t know if magick exerts some kind of mysterious influence on events in the outside world, beyond the effects it has on the thoughts, feelings and actions of those who practice it. But I allow for the possibility that it might. Hamlet’s injunction to Horatio — “There are more things in heaven and earth…than are dreamt of in your philosophy” — comes to mind. I like the way that openness feels. Like a doorway to unlimited potential.