To understand magic, one you must throw away the vision that most of us have been given for the idea of magic. So take out the images of creepy stage magicians and harry potter within your psyche.
Magic may just be another human technology. Lets just make a HUGE assumption and say that the person reading this right now is more than the body they are "contained" within.
Ok now that you're in the mindset of "driving" your meat suit, lets think about the technology you're given to deal with. Your eyes help you see "physical" space, your hands and feet help you "feel" the same space. Let's not even mention how complex your skin is, with all of its nerve endings helping you consciously and unconsciously sense the physical environment.
These "tools" are great, but are they just input for something else to process? Western science indicates that brain doesn't sense but rather receives senses. Once those senses are “received” the brain classifies and decides what to do about the input it has received (With your help of course! Remember we are still driving a meat suit). Below is a very serious and profession " Cartesian model of pain".
Some of us can actually model this entire event without actually experiencing it. We can call this "thinking ", but getting to far into this mechanism will start a discussion on the origin of thought and its probably best we stay away from this for now.
Back on track, if you look at the brain as a computing mechanism you just witnessed an input -processing -> output transaction. Where the outside reality is the input , your brain/nervous system coupling is the “processing” and your thoughts/decisions are the output. First off congrats you are now ready to “learn to code”.
for those interested check out this song made by the NTFLX series "StoryBots"
No I am not making a political statement. I am pointing out that you know that there is an input flow into the brain, That should raise the questions : How do we reverse the flow of information ? How does the brain go from the receiver of information to the creator/driver of information ? Is that what Magic is ?
Maybe Aliester Crowley should have touted “As within, so comes out”. He may have been a “genius” but that doesn’t excuse the silly hats.