Breaking the Spell in 2023
Renouncing magic for a dirty faith.
The allure of magic is more significant than you suspected.
Over the holidays, I walked into Barnes & Noble for the first time in a while. I, unfortunately, didn’t find what I was looking for, but I did notice a small change in the layout of the store that I couldn’t help but think was emblematic of our times.
I grew up spending many hours at this particular Barnes & Noble, and, while the Christian section would never have been considered expansive, it was still well stocked enough to be able to find good books to read. But when I walked in the other day, there were two things I noticed:
While the Christian section still occupied the same shelf space that it always had, more than half of the shelf space was stocked with Christian romance novels. Instead of the small corner it used to occupy, many of the theology and Christian living books were replaced with romance novels. Even the section with “normal” theology and Christian living books was mostly dominated by a handful of celebrity Christian’s ghostwritten books.
In the very center of the store on the shelf that faced outward to be a prominent, feature display was an entire shelf of new age, pagan, and Wiccan books. Tarot cards. Ouji boards. I can’t believe I’m even typing this because I sound like a mom in Satanic Panic of the 80’s. But besides the #BookTok picks on the tables spread throughout the store, this shelf is the most prominently displayed shelf. Clearly, there’s a market in the pagan revival.
I’m not going to write about the pagan revival I’m convinced we’re living in (among, unbelievably, both young progressives and older conservatives), or the dangers of witchcraft or whatever. I don’t think that’s my lane to write in and it’d be difficult to do it well without coming across as fear-mongering, which is not my M.O.
I only bring it up as an observation that magic seems to be making a comeback. The shelf I saw at Barnes & Noble isn’t the only indicator of such a resurgence. Go look up #WitchTok.
Tech Magic
It certainly seems surprising that the most technologically and scientifically advanced society in the world with a culture aimed fast and furious toward progress would all of a sudden have the desire to explore magic, but it really isn’t surprising if you think about it. Magic is the logical next step of technology. Magic is technology, and technology is magic.
These things are each other in that they both extend our control over our lives, others, and our surroundings in ways that are, quite literally, super-natural. There is nothing natural about my ability to be in Texas and talk with someone in Missouri or Colorado. There is nothing natural about tapping glass and having food show up at my house. There is nothing natural about being able to stream myself live to whoever wants to watch at any given time from wherever I am at any given moment. Nothing about this—all of this, even what you’re doing right now in reading this—is natural. We’ve already created the devices that allow us to transcend our limitations.
To quote Andy Crouch quoting Arthur C. Clark, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,”
The friction between input and output is nearly zero. It takes next to nothing to do nearly everything. Dictators can fall and Capitols can be stormed because of tweets. The cost of engagement is cheap, but the return is exponential.
The Church of Magic
What happens when this quest for magic infiltrates our spiritual lives? Well, you probably get much of the pop evangelicalism of the last 30 years. Before you have the new age spiritualists of both the younger and older varieties, you have an evangelical culture that has bought into a magical view of the Christian life in which you are magically saved, magically sanctified, and will one day magically be like Christ. It all happens like Thanos’s snap. Magically, in an instant. All you need are the right stones.
For pop evangelicals, prayer and Bible reading get turned into the magical stones one snaps in order to produce a magical result. Say a Bible verse, and you’ll magically be comforted. Say a prayer, and God will have to magically answer it. Religious practices are turned into spiritual technologies to produce a magical result for my self-actualization.
What makes it magic is its orientation toward self-service. The purpose of the Bible verse is to comfort me. The purpose of the prayer is to make God do something. Our use of these practices is to influence ourselves or our emotional state to get something that we want out of it—just like magic. Instead of allowing these things to be used as tools by God to act upon us, we wield them as tools to act upon God. When the Christian faith becomes one more toolbox to choose from in order to reach my highest potential, why not grab some tarot cards and crystals at Barnes & Noble?
There’s nothing wrong with being comforted by scripture or bringing a request to God, but we have to ask what our fundamental posture is in the relationship. Are we using God for our own self-actualization or are we worshipping God in a posture of self-denial?
Renouncing Magic
At the very end of Harry Potter, when Harry is in rightful possession of the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand among witches and wizards, he has the opportunity to keep it for himself. To right wrongs and to end enemies. Instead, he breaks it and throws it off the bridge at Hogwarts into the canyon. He had ultimate power in his hands to be used for his own purposes, and he refused. Even in a world where magic is the norm among his people, he knew that power used for his own purposes is no power at all. But love lays down its power for a friend.
In 2023, I want to renounce magic. Expect nothing from God that he hasn’t promised. To not use God for my own gain, but allow myself to be shaped and formed by him for the sake of others. To pray the prayers of others throughout church history to be connected to something beyond myself. To read scripture not simply to be comforted, but to be confronted by God himself.
Robert Mulholland defines spiritual formation as, “the process of being formed into the image of Christ for the sake of others.” My self-actualization won’t lead to love. But denying myself will lead to a Christ-actualized that will always be others-oriented. There’s nothing magical about it. It’s the way things were designed to be from the beginning.
There’s a faith that has its feet on the ground and dirt under its fingernails. That knows that theology is more than theories, scripture is more than a spellbook, and prayers are more than incantations. That there are stakes involved with seeking a god other than the one true God, and no other god is more enticing to the post-modern, therapeutic sensibility than the god of the self.
Give me the carpenter Christ who had sweat on his brow and walked among us. The spiritualizing magicians can keep their wands.