I wrote an essay a couple of months ago dissecting two archetypes of real magic.

When people hear I wrote on real magic, it's easy to think "pfft, how fanciful and unrealistic! I hope he's being metaphorical..."

But I'm dead serious.

Magic emerging in the physical world is not possible.

But in the social world, magic is absolutely real, common even.

Decisions made in the social world affect what happens in the physical world.

So magic absolutely affects the physical world.