The phenomenology of magic experiences
The phenomenology of magic experiences

Summary/Abstract: The existence of peculiar behavioural patterns whereby people endorse the fact that reality has invisible dimensions is irrefutable. The feeling that a higher ranking world exists which is, in certain ways, similar to ours, but has total command over what happens on Earth, governs the inner universe of certain people, who thus become obsessed with worrying not to upset in the least bit the entities populating that higher level of reality. This condition – wherein “magic thinking” emerges – being brought to an extreme, the people suffering from it fall prey to very serious obsessive-compulsive disease forms. The present study explores in its essence this “magic” condition, pointing out that such phenomena appear in connection with beliefs in the sacred, sorcery, magic, charms, superstitions, etc., and probably as a consequence also of some deeply embedded ancestral memories related to the sacred. Because rituals – felt to be necessary in order to preserve or recover harmony in mans’ relationship with the sacred – have been persistently repeated over and over again throughout human (pre-)history, the whole complex of “magic” experiences may have been biologically and psychologically encoded through heredity. This means that, through repeated functioning, the cerebral structures may have physiologically encrypted – at the interface between brain and mind, in discrete molecules and tissues – their interconnections with the mental-psychic functions. All phenomena related to the sacred can thus by no means be ignored in psychopathology, creativity in general being inescapably connected with these invisible dimensions ruling, or just influencing, to a larger or smaller degree all of human life.

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