So, when it comes to the discussion of any topic, there is the question of 'topicality' or what constitutes the definitional boundaries of the topic discussed. 'Magic' certainly exists a phenomena (appearance) in our world, that's why we are discussing it. 'Magic' is best defined as the practices of a collection of occult religious schools with discrete worldviews, including (but not limited to) a discrete cosmology, epistemology, anthropology, and a politic. We can largely define these occult religious schools as the singular religion known as
Western Esotericism. Like all religions, the doctrines and practices largely deal with symbols and a typology which are used to create an environment of catechesis by which the doctrines of the faith are internalized by the acolytes (Protestantism is partially defined by the removal of symbols and typology out of Christianity, so it is difficult for protestants to understand the impact and meaning of symbols. This is why I am not protestant.) Scientific Materialism (a philosophical school) lacks an epistemology capable of dealing with these topics (or much of anything.) These practices are carried through society in the same way a person carries any of their beliefs through society. Whether or not 'magic' has supernatural power is a question, but underneath the question on whether the philosophies of Western Esotericism has power capable of affecting societal change.
As Albert Pike wrote,
"
The Science is a real one only for those who admit and understand the philosophy and the religion; and its process will succeed only for the Adept who has attained the sovereignty of will, and so become the King of the elementary world: for the grand agent of the operation of the Sun, is that force described in the Symbol of Hermes, of the table of emerald; it is the universal magical power; the spiritual, fiery, motive power; it is the Od, according to the Hebrews, and the Astral light, according to others.
Therein is the secret fire, living and philosophical, of which all the Hermetic philosophers speak with the most mysterious reserve: the Universal Seed, the secret whereof they kept, and which they represented only under the figure of the Caduceus of Hermes."
And Hall,
“The practice of magic – either white or black – depends upon the ability of the adept to control the universal life force – that which Eliphas Levi calls the great magical agent or the astral light. By the manipulation of this fluidic essence the phenomena of transcendentalism are produced. The famous hermaphroditic Goat of Mendes was a composite creature formulated to symbolize this astral light. It is identical with Baphomet the mystic pantheos of those disciples of ceremonial magic, the Templars, who probably obtained it from the Arabians."
And Levi,
Black Magic is really only a graduated combination of sacrileges and murders designed for the permanent perversion of a human will and for the realization in a living man of the hideous phantom of the demon. It is therefore, properly speaking, the religion of the devil, the cultus of darkness, hatred of good carried to the height of paroxysm: it is the incarnation of death and the persistent creation of hell.
Let me give you a list of recommended reading on the topic (I will not give you books which are initiatory.);
The best book to understand the consequences of ideas (including those of 'magic') is C.S. Lewis's
The Abolition of Man.
Here is an excerpt, but I recommend the whole book.
I have described as a ‘magician’s bargain’ that process whereby man surrenders object after object, and finally himself, to Nature in return for power. And I meant what I said. The fact that the scientist has succeeded where the magician failed has put such a wide contrast between them in popular thought that the real story of the birth of Science is misunderstood. You will even find people who write about the sixteenth century as if Magic were a medieval survival and Science the new thing that came in to sweep it away. Those who have studied the period know better. There was very little magic in the Middle Ages: the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the high noon of magic. The serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavour are twins: one was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born of the same impulse. I allow that some (certainly not all) of the early scientists were actuated by a pure love of knowledge. But if we consider the temper of that age as a whole we can discern the impulse of which I speak.
There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the ‘wisdom’ of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious—such as digging up and mutilating the dead.
The best book for beginners on Christian Typology is
The Language of Creation
The foremost history on the topic of magic (in the modern sense) is Charles William's
Witchcraft
Other notable books that are relevant;
Christopher Partridge's
The Occult World
Christopher Partridge's The Re-Enchantment of the West (
volume 1 and
volume 2)
Seraphim Rose's
Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future
Seraphim Rose's
Nihilism
Damien Broderick’s
"Outside the Gates of Science"
Chris Carter’s “
Parapsychology and the Skeptics.”
Rupert Sheldrake's
The Sense of Being Stared At: And Other Unexplained Powers of Human Minds
Dean Radin Ph.D.'s
Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality
Robert McLuha's
Randi's Prize: What Sceptics Say about the Paranormal, Why They Are Wrong and Why It Matters
I will conclude with the writing of the venerable Seraphim Rose;
The omnivorousness of modern man, born of his need to find something to replace Christ — this attitude that underlies both his mania for experimentation and his celebrated ‘tolerance’ (which is quite limited, actually)—can only come to a natural end in magic, moral perversion, occultism, which might be defined as the ‘ultimate in experimentation.’ ...
Modern science has given itself totally to power… [The] viewpoint [of science and magic] is the same. Both are preoccupied with phenomena and their manipulation, with wonders, with results. Both are an attempt at wish fulfillment, an attempt to bend reality to one’s own will. The difference is simply this: science (modern science) is systematic magic; science has found a method, where magic works in fits and starts…. Yes, scientists can consider themselves rational (in the narrowest sense of the word) as long as they keep themselves buried in the laboratory, enslaved by technique. But to someone not so enslaved, someone capable of looking at things in a larger frame of reference — do not the results of science today resemble a magical landscape?
Edit: I personally do believe that magical practices can have supernatural effects, because these practices are built on a framework of communication with, control of, and worship of, supernatural entities we call demons. Does the average wiccan gain any outreaching supernatural power? No. Probably not usually. They receive illusions, deceptions, and delusions. Plenty of stories of people leaving the New Age due to bad experiences and psychological consequences with encountered entities. For example, yoga sometimes results in episodes of psychosis (connected with the opening of so-called chakras.) Not very many stories of these people being able to enact change in the world supernaturally, but they certainly think they do.
