People accused of doing magical thinking are basically being accused of doing something awful. Like Republicans telling us that if we cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires, working class and middle class citizens will prosper because of it. Of course, they actually know better. So, it isn’t really magical thinking. It is really evil magical thinking.
But when I am actually guilty of magical thinking, it is more along the lines of me pinning my hopes on an intuition brought about by calculations in my overcrowded imagination that are probably horribly miscalculated but that I need to turn out to be accurate and miraculously pull me out of my current difficulty. And then, because I intuit really, really hard… it turns out all right.
Magic is after all, merely what we call science and situations where something amazing is created, but we have no idea at all how and why.
Our movies nowadays are really quite chock full of magical thinking. Wish-fulfillment, fantasy, and violence-laden revenge stories are what fill the cinema with seekers of escapism and relaxation. That is magical thinking of an epic sort. Go see the Black Panther movie and “Wakanda forever” solves racism.
So, what is the point of this little essay? What am I actually thinking about the subject of magical thinking? Well, I needed a topic today to keep my every-day-in-April posting goal alive. And magically…
Catch a Falling Star 
Mickey, good post. Some more magical thinking comes from these teleevangelists. My personal favorite is “Don’t pay off your debt, send me the money and we will pray it goes away.” This plea comes from a man with multiple homes and airplanes. Keith
Yep, I know them. Mr Copeland, Mr Osteen, and some of those gentlemen live here in Texas where they sheer most of their sheep.
Good examples. John Oliver has a great piece on how easy it is to set up a religion and make money off it. He actually did it for the show.
Yes, I saw that episode. I have also seen the huge church complexes near Waco and San Antonio. Big one in Dallas too.