Magic?

In the arts, in creativity (in everything, perhaps), when we don't know why something works, we ascribe it to metaphysical causation using the language of magic. We were moved. We were inspired from the outside. Struck as if by lightning, we channelled something. Something possessed us. We had a conversation with the work, and on and on...

But really, it's mumbo jumbo. We did something and it worked out well, and we don't really know why exactly. And if we're good artists, we have no idea why it worked out so well frequently.

People ask, "How was this done?" Good question, don't know… but the question must be answered, and the reply is couched in the words and terms of magic - vague and slightly spooky with a hint of religion and a touch of the godhead.

In all cultures and at all times, it has been this way. And not just in the arts, but in all aspects of life, whenever we discuss that which we don't understand or fully control in any field, explanations become fantastic and unstuck from any empirical reality. We release our Chakras and let our Chi flow. The miracle cure, the miracle victory, the athlete that went deep inside himself for that extra bit. These are linguistic games for saving face: it's hard to say, "I've no clue." God did it. The patient got better. The ball just made it in.

Maybe it really is something metaphysical, magical, which instruments can't measure and science can't find, that lead to the result. We'd like to think things are causal, not phenomenal. We'd love for success to be repeatable, teachable. So artists (engineers, coaches, etc.) invent shamanistic practices in order to gain power over what might essentially be a random product: the magic engenders ceremony and ritual.

It is curious how we approach this scientifically. A Shaman thinks he has a cure, and codifies a ceremony, a practice, a series of steps and procedures along with a list of must have materials, which result in the wanted effect. Call it a spell. Call it a hex. Or call it a recipe, or directions. We cannot resist the urge to control the magic through some sort of "technique." Magic, after all, is too important to leave to its own ends. We need it repeatable, re-appliable - under our control, in the same way we mix concrete.

So we envision auras and feelings of health, and the Kundalini serpent, and we put on our lucky underpants, blow a kiss at the picture of our departed mother, brew our tea just so, lay out our brushes and paints in a consistent pattern, and hope the magic is there. Our chakras release, the muse visits, the actor is possessed, the block of marble shows us what is hidden inside.

Is there, in fact, magic? Is creativity a magical act and art of a magical essence?

The signs point to "no." There are no pictures of ghosts that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt. There isn't a psychic out winning countless lotteries. There is a lot of heresay, but the hard evidence is simply not there. When we act, or paint, or write, there is only us with whatever form the arena in which we create might take (the canvas, the stage, the screen, the blank sheet music), and the audience (the spectator, the gallery visitor, the fan, the collector, the kid wearing headphones).

But one would be stupid to try to do anything creative or artistic and not hope for some magic, ask for magic, pray for magic, for won't be any good without it. Magic is what everyone wants to see. At the ball game, the theatre, the gallery, the marriage, the cinema, in the chance meeting on the street, we're never without the hope of a little magic for inspiration, for the superhuman miracle.

But we cannot rely on that which isn't there. If we are evoking magic, and it doesn't exist, then the art we create is coming from some other means, and in effect we're in the backseat pretending to drive the car, and by coincidence it's going where we want it to. This is no way to live/create. We need to drive our own car.

If there is to be a discussion of the role of magic in creativity in art, to proceed intellectually, we have to adopt the viewpoint that there is no magic to discuss.

So what is, in fact there? The only thing I can find are decisions, that we make decisions, and the decisions work out.

The work of the artist lies within the scope of our decision making, and what we ascribe to magic and the unknown is the flow of decision making. It's magic when we flow from decision to decision, and decidedly earthbound and pedestrian when we sit there blocked.

To gain control of the "magic" we have to first observe the process by which we decide to do what we do, and then invent or appropriate tactics by which we maintain a consistent chain of decision making. It has to be that simple, and without magic, what else can it be?