Magical Mystery Moments
“MAGIC MOMENTS” : Magic moments, when two hearts are carin’ // Magic moments, mem’ries we’ve been sharing … Time can’t erase the memory of // These magic moments filled with love … Magic moments filled with love [Songwriters: Burt Bacharach / Hal David. “Magic Moments” lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC]
“There’s a magic and mystery in positive events.” –Sonja Lyubomirsky, PhD, psychologist
The term magic has a variety of meanings, hence there is no widely agreed upon definition of what it is or how it can be used. However, some treat magic as a personal phenomenon intended to meet individual needs, as opposed to a social phenomenon serving a collective purpose. The explanatory power of magic should not be underestimated, however. Both in the past and in the modern world, magical belief systems can provide explanations for otherwise difficult or impossible to understand phenomena while providing a spiritual and metaphysical grounding for the individual. [See “Magic” in Wikipedia.]
“It’s a mystery!” –Tom Stoppard, Shakespeare in Love
“…moments of epiphany, or revelation, of radiance…with meaning essentially wordless, for words are always qualifications and limitations.” –Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
“Persons who come for therapy do so because they lack power; they complain that they cannot achieve. … Patients want ‘magical knowledge,’ and no matter how correctly the therapist explains that insight is not magic, it still feels that way to the person when an insight ‘dawns.’” –Rollo May, “Faust in the Twentieth Century” in The Cry for Myth (1991).
“There is no myth which is not the unveiling of a ‘mystery,’ the revelation of a primordial event which inaugurated either a constituent structure of reality or a kind of human behavior. [But] when no longer assumed to be a revelation of the ‘mysteries,’ the myth becomes ‘decadent,’ obscured; it turns into a tale or a legend.” –Mircea Eliade, “Preface” in Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries (1957)
“MEMORY”: Midnight // Not a sound from the pavement // Has the moon lost her memory // She is smiling alone // In the lamplight… Memory // All alone in the moonlight // …I remember the time I knew what happiness was // Let the memory live again // … Tonight will be a memory too // And a new day will begin // … –Andrew Lloyd Webber, T. S. Eliot, Trevor Nunn, Zdenek Hruby • © Universal Music Publishing Group, Imagem Music Inc.
Magical Mystery Tour
Memories of a Time 
Hmmmm. Just a moment of collective unconscious, I think.
Great to read and reflect, I liked Campbell’s quote the best. that’s my experience too!
From the perspective of a parent and teacher, magic and myth are two necessary elements in growth. When we discover the truth behind new lessons, we stumble upon greater mysteries and that is what fuels our need to know more. “magical belief systems can provide explanations for otherwise difficult or impossible to understand phenomena” – I love teaching mythology and the purpose behind each myth (i.e. what natural occurrence it explained). Never has it failed to capture the attention of those being taught and rarely has it failed to create an emotional link between myself and those that created the myth hundreds of years ago.
Said like a true follower of Josephine Campbell
Hmmm. Curious about the impetus behind this post. Did you have an epiphany recently?