Real Magic:
Ancient Wisdom, Modern Science,
and a Guide to the Secret Power of the Universe
By
Dean Radin, Ph.D.

Reviewed by Henry Reed, Ph.D.

"Magic is real. Let's deal with it." These are the author's closing words, not his opening line. Yet here is where the author states what I believe to be the purpose of this book. I have read all of Dean Radin's earlier books. I'm a devoted fan of the cleverness of his experiments. He makes me want to be a better scientist. Now he makes me want to be a better, more creative inventor. I find this book to be his most creative--and emotional! His writing is noted for its sense of humor, and it appears here. The emotion I'm talking about is not explicit--there are no rants or diatribes. If I had the electronic edition of his book I could easily search for the exclamation mark (!) but I doubt I'd find many. His discourse is calm, the emotion is more implicit in the underlying purpose of the book and the assumptions that motivate it.

First of all, he is dealing with something more akin to an emotional fact than to a rational one. He takes a creative approach in an attempt to right a wrong. It's like rational emotive therapy for the history of science. It's like the legal activist demonstrating that the DNA evidence that convicted the prisoner sentenced for life was processed in error and the prisoner is set free. Magic has gotten a bum rap--it's time to set it free and rehabilitate its image. It's having a hard time finding a decent job.

What exactly does Radin mean by magic? Not the stage illusions, but real magic, and I will quote him:

"Real magic falls into three categories: mental influence of the physical world, perception of events distance in space or time, and interactions with nonphysical entities."

 Sounds like psychic phenomena to me. Exactly! Radin grabs real magic and places it in its rightful context: scientific exploration of the "paranormal." He later proclaims, "Magic can be reframed as the academic study of the full capacities of consciousness in light of the rising interest in informational descriptions of reality." Note that last part... physics is less interested in the physical as the basis of reality and more interested in the informational basis of reality, making magic seem more reasonable.

I see his reframing as an emotional rescue operation. Like a therapist explaining how our current irrational behavior stems from a trauma way back that developed its own defense mechanisms, Radin tells us a very interesting story, meant to be healing, about how real, natural magic got demonized, arrested and cast away, only now to be called upon as a needed cure for what ails us today. He tells a fascinating story in a manner you'll enjoy. I can but sketch out what he does for us by what he shares from history. I enjoyed reading Radin's account of the long journey of real magic--from the initial, pre-historic taste of the mushroom ages ago to the excitement of The Secret today--as the story of the evolution of esoteric branch science, about to be re-united with its sibling, the exoteric branch we think of as real science. 

Primitive human’s encounters with entheogens, psychoactive plants and mushrooms, gave rise to the mystery schools. One of the great mystery teachers was Plato, who perhaps first expressed the philosophical concept of magic. In his famous parable of the caves he tells a compelling story to suggest that the world is really different from how it appears, that the senses deceive us as to the nature of reality.  Here was the beginning of the development of what would later be known as the esoteric view of religion, the "perennial philosophy," proclaiming the underlying unity of mental and physical (inner and outer). That progressive, evolutionary movement encounters two fateful antagonists. The Church denounced esotericism as paganism, and science denounced it as superstitious. Yet even scientific pioneers such as Isaac Newton, and contemporaries, kept their hand (secretly) in esoteric pursuits. At a later date, the Gnostic Gospels would be outed. What would come as a prelude would be Martin Luther's letter, relativizing the origin of religious truth. The threat of the Inquisition was met by the creation of esoteric social embraces such as the Rosicrucians and the invention of the secret society, the alternative reality, the magical life, punishable by torture and death. Decriminalization was gradual, and that allowed for more public pioneers of the esoteric as Swedenborg and Mesmer, leading up to such celebrity figures of alternative truths as Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Science, the Fox sisters and Spiritualism, Madame Blavatsky and Theosophy, and then generally into New Thought and the 20th century luminaries pertaining to the "naturalization of magic": Alistair Crowley, Dion Fortune, Rudolf Steiner, George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, Carl Gustav Jung, and Peter Carroll. Mr. Carroll was a British magician who developed the idea of magic as science and the science of magic. It might be noted that (synchronisitically?) the turn of the century also brought the birth of quantum mechanics, the evaporation of the atom-thing into a wavy-energy-dance, and the fickle nature of reality, sensitive to the observer's viewpoint. In some way, science and magic were finding common ground. And as Radin might exclaim, "Exactly!" And adding another level of affirmation to this co-mingling of domains, the plethora of modern "channelers," from Edgar Cayce to Seth and beyond, generally describe the nature of reality in a manner similar to the emerging consciousness based, informational perspective of modern physics.

What new insight Radin's fascinating story brings is not only about how the history of magic is an unbroken discovery process. It is also about the extent of the traumatic punishments, condemnations, ridicule, and other forms of torture that befell on folks who continued to profess beliefs or experiences related to the paranormal. It is as if the memory of the suffering of those tortured for heresy, or from the Salem witch trials, haunts the unconscious of the modern person. Even today it is easy to meet someone who feels potentially persecuted for their psychical perspective. It's a subtle thing, but real. Sometimes it's not so subtle. Just ask around--the animus against the reality of ESP can be vindictive. The Trumpisms of the Amazing Randi are but the news-baiting tip of the iceberg of denial. Radin doesn't say it in so many words, but clearly, the form of therapy that he adopts assumes that the culprit, the underlying wound, to be an emotionally devastating affront to one's sense of oneself. (I remember being told at Princeton that I'd have no tenure future should I pursue my ESP interests. Soon after I left the psychology department, the P.E.A.R. lab was set up in Princeton's School of Engineering to study psychokinesis.)

Radin brings a rational emotive therapy to these motivated prejudices, warped perceptions and defensive habits of faulty thought as he very carefully rescues real magic from the drama of fake news and proceeds to demonstrate its rigorous scientific foundation. Here Radin can draw upon a generation of laboratory research into things psychical, as well as his own unique demonstrations. In a nod to his previous books, Radin points out areas of research where Psi-magic has definitely proven true and effective (except to committed skeptics). He then goes on to describe some newer lines of research that appear promising. I'll just mention one of Radin's unique studies: blessing chocolate has a measurable, beneficial effect upon the experience of the consumer of that chocolate. It's magic and it's science. Deal with it.

He echoes Edgar Cayce's comment that developing psychic ability is like music: most anyone can learn how to play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star on the piano, but it is the rare individual who has the talent to become a professional musician (Radin was a concert violinist before becoming a professional scientist). In a chapter like I've never seen anywhere else, Radin answers the question of "if ESP is real, why can't I make a million bucks at Las Vegas?" Radin answers that question by postulating three factors: "reality inertia, lack of talent, and the unconscious." You can read more about that, in an unusual discourse, like I've never read before. I might add that some of reality inertia lies in the unconscious, and not everyone is in favor of stuff you want, especially when you are trying to win at zero-sum games, turning someone else into a loser as you win.

Radin would prefer that we develop a science of magic. What is the methodology of scientific magic? It begins with a certain headspace, a state of consciousness that is most reliably developed through meditation. Radin makes a case for "gnosis," or the ability to experience the merger of the personal consciousness with the universal consciousness, the "I am that I am" of non-dual awareness. It is through development of the skills of attention and intention that one can practice magic. The next step is to become comfortable with the realization that the materialistic paradigm, separating mind from matter, is not the only way to imagine reality, so that you can become comfortable thinking within the consciousness paradigm. Radin outlines the elements of the emerging new paradigm to show how much thinking has to change. The next step would be the ethical realization that we are all our relations, there are no "others," and begin to direct our efforts in serving that truth (rather than the "survival of the fittest").

It's an important book. If I were forced to voice some criticism, it could only be in the context of wishing he had more pages to provide more information. Specifically, it would seem within his creative skills to come up with what Rupert Sheldrake has called, "An experiment that would change the world." What practical application of magic could provide the healing balm to its past suspicious if not offensive odor? How might we heal ourselves of our ambivalence about magic and begin to use it more constructively and via an enlarged and enlightened imagination? In an opening reverie, for example, Radin imagines our being able to shape the weather (as indigenous healer Rolling Thunder claimed he could do). In what may later be interpreted as an unconscious act of precognition, Radin imagines our youth playing fanciful havoc with their psychic ability. Interesting new research indicates that while it was the Boomers who broke the taboo of sharing dreams publically, it seems, according to a recently published survey, to be the Millenials who make a habit of it. The youth of today seem to be developing little patience for the apparent blindness of many grownups to some of the realities coming down the pike, if not already exploding in our school rooms. In my own work with dreams, for example, I've explored using "dream telepathy" as an approach to group healing and bonding, as a way to create empathy among people of different backgrounds. I'm sure that Radin, thinking to study the effect of blessing chocolate, will be able to come up with the magic that makes us all active believers.

Like I said, Real Magic is perhaps Dean Radin's most emotional book, even though short of exclamation marks. It has to do with what he sees as a problem, and his concern to address and hopefully heal it. He wants to end what he calls the "woo woo" factor, so as to free up otherwise resistant talent to develop the science of magic to improve human life. I'll quote his concluding paragraph:

"Many scientific and scholarly disciplines are slowly coming around to the idea that consciousness is far more important than previously imagined. This shift of opinion, combined with the idea that reality is a form of information, provides a renewed appreciation of ancient esoteric Legends about magic. If we can get past the supernatural connotations, the religious figures in prohibitions, and the occult baggage, then through the scientific study of magic we have the potential to make rapid progress and gaining a better understanding of who and what we are. If we can’t escape or pass, then we may be running headlong into extinction.

Magic is real.

Let’s deal with it."