MAGIC – got to love plagiarism

Magical thinking in anthropology, psychology, and cognitive science is nonscientific causal reasoning that often includes such ideas as associative thinking, the ability of the mind to affect the physical world (see the philosophical problem of mental causation), and correlation mistaken for causation. Symbolic expression may be brought into play, as well as the use of metaphor, metonym, and synchronicity. Practitioners of magic are often portrayed as irrational, but some theorists maintain that the magician’s goals are not necessarily physical, and that magical practices are, in some cases, genuinely efficacious.

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