Questioning the Magic

Topic: Magic, Interpretive Drift
Source: A discussion with a friend with deep roots in what I would refer to as the stranger side of holistic healing. He has a tendency to believe in things such as the magic and truth of such predictive arts as tarot cards while I argued that they just allowed people to look at their current scenario in life with the cards acting as metaphors or personifications of things  from ones own life.
Relation: Ideas rooted in magic deal with mentally influencing things on one “plane” of reality to cause an effect in your own plane. This is discussed in Robinsons chapter 4 and is one of the aspects of modern magic that I always argue about with this aforementioned friend. Additionally he provides a great example of interpretive drift as he has only recently changed his view on magic as he became involved in a holistic healing community.
Description: This was back over the week of  Marh 11^th – 18^th as it was spring break and I was with a few of my good friends from Portland. One of these individuals is a true magic believer and is a proud supporter of anecdotal evidence. We discussed the concepts of magic and the possibility of that reality being the actual reality and that only some of us can tap into. Tarot cards were used as the best way of keeping tabs on your position in this reality. It was a difficult conversation to keep going as my observation based analytical based perspective clashes immensely with the views of modern magic
Commentary & Analysis: Throughout the conversation there is always the issue with magic and even religion of how do we know what we know. This is epistemology and the ideals surrounding it question the existence of magic. As we cannot prove magic exists with science (this has been attempted many times and always fails), then the only conclusion I can draw as a scientist is that magic does not exist. However in spite of this statistical failure, friends of mine still believe that they can influence the planes above to give them an upper hand in life.  Now I argued that this may be due to interpretive drift as he has recently absorbed the views of his new holistic healing community and failed to notice his views were changing. That would explain why he was so taken a back when his close friends from highschool rejected his views on the paranormal. However this also illustrates the perspective shifts that occur from believing in magic. For one it has taken what we consider mere coincidences as being outcomes from a cascade of magical dealings across planes. I felt that this was an interesting as it makes everything in the magic believers life about them. As the discussion moved to tarot cards I felt strongly that the only reason they can affect your life is that the cards give new meaning and faces to the people that are the characters in ones own story of life. This wouldn’t make the cards necessarily magical but more so a tool of self analysis that could be used without any belief in magic at all. However the argument from magic sake is that these cards and their arrangement are predictive in nature and can help one make the correct decisions in life. While this is still about the same thing the argument from magic makes the process much more magical and dramatic with both the reader and the person being read both intimately involved in focusing energy into the cards to get a good reading. That also brings up the inherent chance involved with such things as analyzing life via a deck of cards. When a bad hand is drawn many people will ignore it as a unlucky draw but if it’s a good hand then its magic at work. These inconsistencies are missing from a scientific and analytical point of view. The biggest and hardest hurdle to overcome is the constant lack of science validating any form of magical power no matter how hard some individuals believe in it. Until the data shows something I will always question how others believe in something so unfounded.