Fredrick Turner

Reflections


What is Magic?

THREE

Eugene was much wiser.

From my point of view, this entire enterprise of setting forth acceptable (or even correct) definitions for words is fairly successful with labels such as “cat,” “sky,” and “tree.” One merely has to point. When it comes to heavily-loaded concept words, however, such as “love,” “justice,” “energy,” or “magic,” things get sticky indeed.
Magic, for instance, is a word that would take several volumes to untangle. And then next month someone will come along with a different interpretation, based on some new archaeological discovery or some new and unexpected way of looking at things, and the whole process begins all over again – and the tangles begin anew.

Eugene Burger, The Experience of Magic, Kaufman and Greenberg, 1989