Magical thinking
Magical thinking is a term used by historians of religion to describe one kind of non-scientific causal reasoning. Scholars like James George Frazer and Bronislaw K. Malinowski emphasized that magic is more like science than religion, and that societies with magical beliefs often had separate religious beliefs and practices. Like science, magic is concerned with causal relations.
According to Frazer, magical thinking depends on two laws: the law of similarity (an effect resembles its cause), and the law of contagion (things which were once in physical contact maintain a connection even after physical contact has been broken). Others have described these two laws as examples of "analogical reasoning" (rather than logical reasoning).
Typically, people use magic to attempt explain things that science has not yet explained, or to attempt to control things that science cannot. The classic example is of the collapsing roof, described in E. E. Evans-Pritchard's Witchcraft, Magic, and Oracles Among the Azande, in which the Azande claimed that a roof fell on a particular person because of a magical spell cast by another person. The Azande did understand a scientific explanation for the collapsing room (that termites had eaten through the supporting posts), but pointed out that this scientific explanation could not explain why the roof happened to collapse at precisely the same moment that the particular man was resting beneath it. Thus, from the point of view of the practitioners, magic explains what scientists would call "coincidences" or "contingency". From the point of view of outside observers, magic is a way of making coincidences meaningful in social terms.
Adherents of magical belief systems often do not recognize their beliefs as being magical. In the East, many coincidences and contingencies are explained in terms of karma in which a person's actions in a past life affects current events.
A common form of magical thinking is that one's own thoughts can influence events, either beneficially, by creating good luck, or for the worse, as in divine punishment for "bad thoughts" (a phenomena Freud reflected on in his essay, "the Uncanny").
Another form of magical thinking occurs when people believe that words can directly affect the world. This can mean avoiding talking about certain subjects ("speak of the devil and he'll appear"), using euphemisms instead of certain words, or believing that to know the "true name" of something gives one power over it, or that certain chants, prayers or mystical phrases will change things.
Opponents of magical thinking state that it has an adverse effect on a person's faith in himself. Rather than acknowledging his or her own success upon accomplishing a particular task, the person credits a "magical" source as the reason why he or she achieved this particular goal, thus increasing dependence on "magic" rather than on oneself. Critics also note that while people are quick to give credit to magical thinking for their successes, they seldom blame their failures upon it, instead increasing their own pessimism by taking credit for their own failures but not their own successes. This is known as confirmation bias, a psychological effect where people notice everything that confirms their beliefs and ignore everything that goes against them.
Noting the great similarity of magical thinking in all types of human societies and eras of recorded history, some cognitive scientists suggest that these ways of thinking are intrinsic to humanity. Many articles in neuroscience have shown that the human brain excels at pattern matching, but that humans do not have a good filter for distinguishing between perceived patterns and actual patterns. Thus, people often are led to see "relationships" between actions that don't actually exist, creating a magical belief.
There is much current scientific research in cognitive science that supports this view. For example, people tend to seek confirmation of their hypotheses, rather than seeking refutation as in the scientific method. This is known as confirmation bias. People are also reluctant to change their beliefs, even when presented with evidence, and often prefer to believe contradictory things rather than change pre-existing beliefs. This phenomenon is known as cognitive dissonance.
Members of the general public rarely have a deep understanding of statistics or probability. For instance, statistically, it is unavoidable that there will be one day in a year when the most car accidents happen in a certain place. There will also be a day in the year when the least accidents happen. People however focus on the day the most accidents happen and conclude it must be 'jinxed'. Probability, or chance, is also generally poorly understood. It can be calculated that if you take just 23 people, the chance that two have their birthday on the same day is 50%. Yet, people at a party who meet someone that shares their birthday will often think this is uncanny.
Magical thinking is often intensified in mental illnesses such as obsessive-compulsive disorder or clinical depression.
Phillips Stevens writes "Many of today's complementary or alternative systems of healing involve magical beliefs, manifesting ways of thinking based in principles of cosmology and causality that are timeless and absolutely universal. So similar are some of these principles among all human populations that some cognitive scientists have suggested that they are innate to the human species, and this suggestion is being strengthened by current scientific research... Some of the principles of magical beliefs described above are evident in currently popular belief systems. A clear example is homeopathy; the fundamental principle of its founder, Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), similia similibus curentur ("let likes cure likes"), is an explicit expression of a magical principle, of the sort called sympathetic magic by Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough.
The placebo effect may help to explain the persistent interest in
alternative medicine, especially as conventional medicine has largely
ignored the role of the patient's mental state and faith in the treatment
in affecting the outcome.
Many of the alternative medicine practices
such as homeopathy appear to be little more than placebo treatments,
yet it is well known in medicine that the placebo effect is associated
with real physiological healing. Therefore, to the degree that the placebo
effect causes real healing, and to the degree that conventional medicine
continues to ignore methods of stimulating the placebo response,
alternative medicine may continue to serve a purpose as a vehicle for
this type of healing.
In the absence to date of any evidence for real magic, skeptics believe that magical thinking is responsible for the belief in magic and other paranormal phenomena.
See also: Skepticism, Alternative medicine, CSICOP, social construction, superstition, Clarke's Third LawOverview
Magical thinking exists in most people
Magical thinking in mental illness
Magical thinking in alternative medicine
Science and magical claims