Questioning Existence

We pretty much know the phrase, "I think, there for I am", am I right?  A little overview on this: if I recall correctly, it was Rene Descartes who made this quote, and it was a summation of a rather long trail of thought, based on the question "Does anything truly exist?"  After all, how can we be sure that the air we breathe really is air and is actually real?  We could say scientists told us, but who are those scientists?  Maybe our teachers told us, but who told your teachers, and who told the instructors of your teachers?  How can we tell if something we touch, feel, see, smell, hear or taste be real?

We currently are tied to a world of statistics and stocked knowledge from various experiments and observations from the past and present, but statistics and even numbers as a whole are abstract concepts, and how can you say those past observations are true, when you cannot even verify your own observations outside of the basic senses and analysis using abstract concepts and past assumptions?

How do we know we even exist?

This is where the quote comes in.  The fact that there is at least one being in the entire universe that is capable of doubting anyone's existence makes that being real.  If that being is capable of questioning his own existence at all, he would also be considered real because a being cannot doubt his or her existence if he or she isn't real.  Now with that in mind, because I have the mental capacity and the ability to doubt my own existence, I am able to verify that I am actually a being that exists.

I think, therefore I am.

What does this have to do with magick?  Well, the existence of everything outside ourselves is verified by our own ability to verify our own existence.  If we are not sure who we are, how can we say everything we know and see is real... and so how can we say everything around us is real?  Magick maybe flowing throughout the universe (assuming there's only universe and not multiverse), or maybe it isn't and it's all a bunch of hogwash, but the fact that we have the capacity to even think of it and question its existence makes magick very real at least in our minds/hearts/whatever.  And that question of existence, the fact that it's in our thinking/feeling process at all, makes it even more "real".

Think of it this way: Santa Clause for some people is real, but no documentation of a real Saint Nicholas or Santa Clause as a person has been circulated anywhere, is there?  We may have a holiday dedicated to him (just like we have a holiday for another mythical "saint": Saint Valentine), but that still doesn't make him real per se.  What truly makes Santa Clause real is the fact that people cherish him and made him as real as he can get... so even if he *was* just a figment of our imaginations, the fact that people are able to make their "imaginations" something perceptible (by means of celebrations, effigies, costumes, etc.) pretty much makes him real.

A more controversial case in point: The life and death of Jesus Christ may have been well-documented in the bible, but outside of it his divinity - nay his very existence - has been but a question mark, especially considering the Roman Catholic Church pretty much burned all known existing copies of gospels and scriptures that, although made by others who (supposedly) lived in the time of Jesus, didn't coincide with the decisions of the counsels at the time.  So how do we know He's real?  Well, in the words of Jesus Himself : "Blessed are those who do not see, yet believe" (if I remembered that correctly).  Basically even if He never really existed as a physical being, the fact that His teachings, followers, etc. not only existed but had a huge impact on the world, shaping it to what it is now makes Him just as real as any person would... since any person can affect other persons, and eventually chain react into changing the world.

And we know this is true because that "any person" is able to question his or her own existence.

So is magick real?  It's been affecting our universe since the time of its conception, it's affected our past, it simmers in the minds and hearts of our youth, and it's the topic at hand, am I right?

So yes it's real, real enough to be discussed in the first place :)