Brynn Stokes

Magic: A Belief That Can Never Die

Time has a way of folding back in on itself. Like a spring coiled up- poised to release-

or layers upon layers of rock filled with fossil records of our past, time connects itself in

lines, swirls and paths that can only be detected by those who are willing to look. The

connections are vague and sometimes invisible to the uninterested eye, but throughout many

years and stemming from many groups of peoples, one of these many idiocultures has left a

mark arguably greater than any other: magic. In this paper, I will argue not only the

significant importance of magic in cultures across the group and throughout the folds of time,

but also how prevalent it is today.

Morgain states that the scholarly study of magic is difficult because in all probability,

the scholars are not practitioners. This is true in some ways; there are few people who can

understand the inner workings of a practise with its roots so deep in the soil of so many

cultures. As magic practitioners and believers, those of the likes of ancient Pagan beliefs in as

early as the 11th century, Gaelic faeries and curses, and the worship of nature and the ever-

giving earth in the Haida Nation. These three cultures- which may as well have been chosen

from a hat filled with the names of hundreds of other magic-wielding peoples- have distinct

foundations in the practice of magic and built entire belief systems off of it.

I did not understand magic until I was hiking in the hills of Scotland in the summer of

2018. In Cairngorm National Park I rounded the corner of a loch and suddenly I could see it.

Blinded by my own cultural beliefs and practices, I could finally understand why people

believe there is magic in those lands. As the wind blew across my cheeks, it could have just

as easily been breath of a faerie or whisper of an all-knowing goddess. I will analyse not just

the reasons for the belief magic in these different places but uncover and dissect the lasting
effects that the practise of magic has had on these peoples. Magic intertwines the past and the

present and I will slowly peel back the layers to uncover the clues that magic and its

practitioners have left in their wake.

Annotated Bibliography

To read more about magic across history and culture, Rachel Morgain, in her article published in the
Australian Journal of Anthropology, dissects the history of pagan theology. The article, titled “The
Alchemy of Life: Magic, Anthropology, and Human Nature in Pagan Theology” (vol. 24, 2013, 290-
309).