Magic and Christianity

“The use of means (such as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power over natural forces.” — Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Magic is a very controversial concept for me. As a Christian, it has always been a forbidden art, and because I have experienced plenty of supernatural things in my life, it has been something I believed to avoid. The reason is simply that, as far as I understood magic (which is meagre), there is almost always a leaning on the power of some “ancient god” in order for a spell to work.

My experience with the supernatural has been with demons; I will write a post on my experiences as I’m sure many who read my blog would be interested, but for now I want to speak about magic, and specifically, I want to unpack some things that I have been mulling over when it comes to magic and Christianity.

I believe that magic is a natural occurrence amongst all peoples, it just depends on how you use it. Understand I am not approving or condemning magic practice, but as I understand it if you are not willing to PAY the price for messing with unknown forces you may want to steer away from it entirely.

I want to start my controversial post by stating Magic is Energy

The capacity or power to do work, such as the capacity to move an object (of a given mass) by the application of force. Energy can exist in a variety of forms, such as electrical, mechanical, chemical, thermal, or nuclear, and can be transformed from one form to another. — Dictionary.com

So I am saying that magic is a form of energy, just like electrical, mechanical, chemical, etc… So what is magical energy? I believe magical energy is thought energy.

In order to do anything in our natural world, human beings think. We design plans. We use thoughts to manipulate our world to our likings. We reason with others, we evoke emotional connections to manipulate, all of this is through thought.

We invent machines. We write novels. We create a myriad of things that are the result of thought. Mental energy transmuted into physicality.

Why does God forbid magic if he gave us the capacity to think? For one reason: so we will lean on him.

Worry:

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Philippians 4:6

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?” Matthew 6:25

Worry is thought. Thoughts of doubt. Thoughts that things will go wrong. An inability to trust, that things will be fine. I mention worry because I am a firm believer that what I think about WILL happen, for better or worse.

I believe that is why God doesn’t want us to worry because He is in charge of all. The natural forces/laws of His creation dictate that magic exists and that when we worry, we rob ourselves of His blessings.

Now worry doesn’t ultimately screw us. It is when we decide that the worry WILL happen is when the magic begins. Faith that it will happen.

Faith:

“By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.” Hebrews 11:3

“Jesus replied, ‘Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done.’” Matthew 21:21

Jesus said I can throw a mountain into the sea. That is incredibly strange. There is a myriad of other things that I believe more possible than throwing a mountain into a sea, like becoming a best-selling author, helping people across the globe, starting my own company… Anything is possible for those who have FAITH. But we doubt. We worry that things will go wrong. Where you place your faith is what will be. If you believe you can, you will.

These have been the things I’ve been thinking about. They may not be so controversial, but I think that a lot of Christians believe they have to wait on God to act when in reality if they ventured out and had faith that everything would be fine, they could create miracles. Even if things don’t go our way, the way we expect, that is an opportunity to persevere and see where God leads it.

Faith is magic, but it is because many Christians (and people in general) have such a shallow understanding of the world around them that they dismiss the very existence of magic, or worse perceive it as luck and not a God-given gift.