I’ve started reading The Science of the Craft by William H. Keith, which is a look at how quantum physics relates to magic and so-called “occult phenomena”. The review of elementary physics was very interesting, and helped to remind me just how much I enjoyed physics in school. But the weirdness of light being both a particle and wave, and reality being changed through the act of being observed, and the possibility of multiple realities just plain makes my head spin. Of course, I don’t even think that electricity should work and planes certainly shouldn’t be able to fly.

So how does magic work within the structure of quantum physics? Well, I haven’t gotten to that part yet. But I do have some ideas, since this is something that I have thought about before.

So, my first thought comes from the idea of multiple realities covering all possible outcomes. The act of casting a spell or preforming a magical rite shifts us from our reality to the reality where the outcome we want actually occurs. During a spell or rite, a key component is to strongly visualize the outcome, and I think that this may be the observer effect of quantum physics, where observing the event makes it real.

Okay, I’m no scientist and my ideas may be way off. (I can just see one particular reader of mine cringing, since he is a physicist.) Maybe magic is just magic. But since I consider myself a rational person (stop laughing!), I feel a little better thinking that science and magic just may be the same thing.