Have any of you ever experienced REAL magic. Something that happened to you that was beyond all explanation. It doesn't have to be anything bizarre or grand (but it can be!). Maybe even just a brief moment when glancing at a complete stranger and something passed between you - but perhaps in some way it changed the course of your life.
I remember when I was younger I was always looking for one of these moments but I don't think I ever really found what I was looking for. Somewhere I seem to have lost my way, and I stopped looking. I got bogged down the drudgery of life. Work - mortgage - bills - work. All of a sudden I've woken up again (at 37 - not too late I hope) and I feel that I need to start my "real magic" quest again.
Mark

Just last night I was despondent that one of my discoveries had been exposed to the market by someone else and without my permission. I had not taken the thing to market myself for want of a solution to a problem in getting the trick started in performance.

I woke up with an answer to the basic problem that looks promising. And found a nice post here reminding folks that one of my coin discoveries is better remembered for what it is instead of the title dubbed by another 'borrower'.

Just instances of magic in the world. It can be tough to keep your eyes open for it at times.

And does anyone know how one's keys or glasses or hat keep disappearing for a minute or two after you set them down?

I've had weird coincidences happen if that's what you mean. Knowing people were having a baby--different women at different times without anyone saying. Having deja vus. Picking a number or a word/or thinking of it and then seeing it appear before me--either on TV or a bumpersticker, or someone on the radio talking about it.

I could think of some more stuff.

Ellen

Mark,

Your question reminds me of a story that I heard from a very talented storyteller years ago. It is a story about Hanukah. Everyone is familiar with this story: there was only enough oil to light the temple lamps for one day, instead of the seven days demanded by custom. They lit the lamps anyway. The lamps burned for seven days, which is accounted as a miracle.

The storyteller told us that he didn't think that the burning of a day's worth of oil over seven days was a miracle. The miracle is that people could find it in their hearts to light the lamps anyway, knowing that they had only a day's worth of oil.

There is a great deal of wisdom in this story. In the conventional interpretation, we watch a miracle as if it is a sort of special-effects movie, happening outside of ourselves. In this interpretation, the storyteller recognizes that the most meaningful moments in our lives are marked by a miraculous transformation of our hearts, in the face of impossible circumstances.

Viewed this way, I might say that I had heard of a promising young man with many talents and great dreams. For a long time, he plodded along, as if sleepwalking. One day, he woke up.

Perhaps you have read of people who survived concentration camps and went on to write great books. Perhaps in New York City there are firemen or policeman who have recently taken children to a carnival or done something to cheer up a friend, despite what they lived through in 2001. You probably know people who have lost loved ones, had their fortunes turn overnight, or suffer declines in their health. Have you seen any of these people reach out in kindness to strangers?

If you know how to see them, you are surrounded by miracles.

Yours,

Paul

I absolutely agree with Paul.
I personally believe that all Real Magic has a very logical and real Explanation but the everyday miracles allthough easy to explain are what we choose to do and choose to see and choose to appreciate and for that I don't think 87 is to old.

I disagree that all such incidents have what we currently call 'rational' explanations. I and members of my family have had precognitive and clairvoyant episodes that, to me, preclude current scientific explanation.

I cannot drag such incidents into a laboratory, but the fact that one cannot repeat a life's experience in a lab makes it no less real.

Steve

Steve,
The fact is that we cannot test your experience in a lab to prove that their is indeed a rational explanation but it has been done by many a scientist or psychologist before with similar situations.
No offense intended though.

I once did what should be, according to the laws of physics, impossible. When I was about 10 I went on a road trip with my mother, and I kid you not, we drove right through a rainbow. We were looking at it and admiring its beauty when suddenly woosh, there were colors all around (just for a split second) and afterwards the rainbow was behind the car rather than in front of it where it had just been. (This was on one of those straight country roads that stretch in both directions to the horizon.

It was really amazing.

If you did nt alter your sex it is scientifically explainable

ABC,

No offense taken.

I would be the first to say that 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof' in order to be verified by science.

At the same time, though, I do not believe that science covers every base.

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on this matter.

Steve