Real Magic: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Science, and a Guide to the Secret Power of the Universe Paperback – April 10, 2018

Dean Radin, one of the world's foremost parapsychologists has written a very ambitious book which explores magic from a scientific point of view, demonstrates its validity through a number of his own ingenious experiments, outlines its history and relationship with science, religion and philosophy and attempts to explain both its power and limitations.For many people magical events are terrifying or unsettling, upsetting their rational conceptions of being able to explain and control their lives yet most people believe in some kind of paranormal phenomena (psi) and many indulge in positive thinking hoping to influence themselves and their environment. But psi and magic are essentially the same. Radin explains that psi is a real phenomenon because, after 150 years of research, " telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and psychokinetic effects have all been independently repeated in laboratories around the world".Over two thousand years ago, Plato and then later neo-Platonism proposed that there was a deep connection between mind and matter and that man could access a higher consciousness through his own "divine spark" from which he could directly influence the physical world. This was a world view which supported the development of magic and was also adopted by the esoteric traditions of religion like Gnosticism, Kabbala, Sufism, Shaivism, Tantric Yoga and Buddhism. It was also studied by scientists like Paracelsus and Isaac Newton. Perceived as very real threats to the church's monopoly over the truth, all forms of magic were considered heresy and outlawed by the Catholic church in the 13th century. In the early twentieth century, Max Weber celebrated the disenchantment of western society from all supernatural concepts (including magic and religion), as a liberation from the beliefs of savages. Paradoxically while Weber celebrated ,the very foundations of 19th century science, based on the assumptions of realism, causality and locality, were being undermined and eroded by quantum theory and Einstein's theory of relativity. For example, as Radin points out " from quantum theory we also know that “spooky action at a distance” definitely exists, so the commonsense meaning of locality is a special case of a more comprehensive world view." Today we have a new church, the "church of science", where the editor of Nature referred to Rubert Sheldrake's first book "A New science of Life" as the best candidate for burning while the editor of a journal on psychology retracted the publication of one of Radin's experiments and refused to publish a further paper because proving psi was real was like showing "pigs could fly". The church of science is fighting hard to preserve the dying dogmas of materialism at the same time that some quantum physicists are pointing to the evidence for retrocausation (the future influencing the present) and for panpsychism (the idea that matter at all levels, including fundamental particles, has an inherent property of sentience, or mind.)Against this background, Radin conducted a number of experiments to test the New Age belief -"You create your own reality" which is the core of magic practice.Radin elaborates "The essence of magic boils down to the application of two ordinary mental skills: attention and intention. The strength of the magical outcome is modulated by four factors: belief, imagination, emotion, and clarity."In one study, Radin showed that force of will produced objectively measurable changes in plant growth with odds against chance of 38 trillion to 1.Another study by Radin showed that intention influences RNG (random number generator) outputs not by “pushing” the RNG by force but rather through a goal-oriented or teleological effect. This accords with magical lore that " one way to manifest a goal through force of will is to affirm that the goal has already been accomplished". Our intentions seem to cause a gravitational space-time warp.A third study with 80 million trials of precognition of card selection by a computer showed that precognitive perceptions are influenced by the probable (and not the actual) future.A fourth study demonstrated Global Consciousness, where 32 quantum noise generators(QNG) (sampling random electronic noise for 5 days) showed a common (non-random) spike within minutes of the surprising results of the 2016 US presidential elections. The odds against chance are 226 million to 1. This suggests "that when millions of minds intently focus on the same event it causes a ripple in the fabric of space-time" because the samples over time should be independent in a random system and the QNG devices should be acting as separate objects.Further studies by Radin show how a controlled use of a positive magical technique influenced the fingertip volume and heart rate of the targeted volunteer.There is enough proof that magic is real but what are its limitations? Psi ability is normally distributed in the population just like any other ability so we all have some ability but we can't all be psychic super stars. Psi is produced by our unconscious so if there is a conflict between our conscious will and our unconscious, our psi ability may be blocked by self-defeating behavior. Beliefs influence psi ability and our cynicism may block us. Most importantly though my will may be the opposite of your will so the net result is a natural tendency for inertia and stability in the universe. On the other hand, when millions of people have the same emotion, they resonate together and that ripple is strong enough to make random events more coherent. For most of the time everyday reality remains solid and predictable.Radin concludes that we need to start taking magic seriously.I recommend you to take this book seriously.You won't be disappointed.

I've been watching Dean Radin on multiple shows on GaiaTV and love what he has to say. So I just HAD to read this book! Was not disappointed!

It feels like ages ago that I bought this book. Just realized its only been two months. I guess that's just what happens when everything you believe in flips inside out.There's a section in the book that describes how to summon using sigils, for example finding a $10 dollar bill. I decided I'm going to humor Dean Radin and I created a sigil to acquire a glass cup for practicing telekinesis. I had recently bought another book on telekinesis and had success moving the tin foil around in the direction of my choosing ... when it was out in open air. The next step is to put the foil under a glass cup. I had a mason jar around so I used that instead, but with the jar, I could not move the darned foil at all. My belief whether true or not was that the glass in the mason jar was too thick. This was around the time when I finished reading the section in Dean's book about creating sigils to get something you might want. Well, I wanted a glass cup with thin walls so I could practice telekinesis. All ludicrous ideas. Regardless, I followed the instructions in the book, and forgot about it.About two weeks ago, I decided on my morning walk to not listen to podcasts like I normally do and instead just listen to the air. I get strange feelings to move in a different direction, so I just go along with it. I continue to do this for a while and lo and behold in the streets in a cardboard box were four glass cups, with very thin walls just like I wanted.Of course that could be all happenstance, but it was a lucky coincidence at the least. What wasn't a coincidence was that after trying to move the foil under glass for over a month now, I was able to move it. Not once, not twice. I'm writing this because I've been able to move it for the third time. Its not much, but I can say that it was turned far beyond any point of doubt.I already made up my mind that I was going to post a review if the summoned telekinesis cup came to me, but decided to hold back until I could turn the foil (if I could even turn the foil at all).Well both things came to pass. Magic is real, and I can't thank Dean Radin enough for bringing much needed light onto this shunned science.

This author purports that psi magic is real. He goes on a few rants of how psychic phenomena has been picked on. However he does give a convincing argument of its validity. I found the book to be interesting and enlightening. A recommended read for,sure.