IS magic equivalent to modern chemistry / science?

[nonnie]

I watched the scene with REGINA and HENRY and it reminded me of my chemistry class where we made various substances in test tubes and flasks. It got me thinking is magic nothing more then chemistry using natural substances instead of chemical from the periodic table.

Any thoughts on the subject?
Which one do you think is stronger? Magic or Chemistry ? Chemistry or Magic?

Nonnie

[Myril]

At some point there was no difference between what we now call as science chemistry and what is called magic. For some it is probably still the same (hey, wasn’t that the class where everything smelled ugly and everybody looked funny but no one had a clue what the teacher was doing?). But seriously, in history that difference wasn’t always made. Alchemy was seen as an art of magic (and not just in a bad sense). It wasn’t all hocus-pocus but the basis for modern chemistry and medicine.

Here in the show think different forms of magic exist and are practiced. Now, is the alchemist version of magic, like Regina practices it making the sleeping curse, stronger than chemistry? No, it is mostly chemistry. But it’s not the only form of magic you can find or experience. True love’s kiss hardly can be explained by any alchemist cooking. Is magic stronger than science in general? Depends on what you believe in.

What is magic anyway?

¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯

[timespacer]

This is a really good question. I think in the fictional world of OUAT, where magic exists, magic is a form of science, in the sense that it is the method which investigates how the world works. Magic users then apply that knowledge to manipulate objects (levitate a rock, cast a sleeping curse,…) just as doctors and engineers in our world apply scientific knowledge to manipulate objects (build an airplane, cure a disease,…) Objects in that world have magical properties and the study of magic consists of learning the properties of those objects, just as objects in our world have physical properties and science consists of learning about those properties. We don’t know a lot about how magic is practiced in the OUAT universe, but one big difference seems to be that the knowledge of it is somewhat restricted to a few who have great power, while science has to be shared. Research doesn’t become “science” unless it is published openly so that anyone else can test it and verify it, but it seems many magic spells in OUAT are known only to a few.

Even here, as Myril points out, investigations of nature in medieval times were considered “magic” and chemistry eventually developed from alchemy just as astronomy developed from astrology.

Here’s a more long-winded discussion of the topic which I posted elsewhere in discussing the possible significance of Henry’s name:
The name Henry has a strong connection to the history of magical themes when expressed in its German form, Heinrich. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (Sometimes given in Latinized form as “Henricus”) was a sixteenth century German theologian who wrote several influential works on magic (Coincidently for a show which features such strong female characters as Emma, Regina, and Snow White, he also wrote a book which argued for the moral and theological superiority of women, entitled Declamatio De Nobilitate Et Praecellentia Foeminei Sexus, or in English Declaration on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex). His book De Incertitudine Et Vanitate Scientiarum Atque Artium Declamatio Invectiva (Declaration Attacking the Uncertainty and Vanity of the Sciences and the Arts ) revived some of the ancient Greek ideas of skepticism toward unverifiable claims of “ultimate truth” presented by authorities and prefigured later thinkers such as David Hume. Henry’s skepticism toward Regina’s claims of truth seems to echoe these ideas. Agrippa’s most famous work, De Occulta Philosophia Libri Tres ( Three Books of Occult Philosophy ) was an important stepping stone from the magical worldview of medieval times to the scientific view that began to take shape in the Renaissance. Although he was writing in a pre-scientific age and describing a worldview that was based upon magic, he would have an influence on later ideas because Agrippa argued that the world had been endowed by God with “natural magic.” Disease, for example, could be treated by herbal medicines which were seen as having magical properties. This was in contrast to the medieval view that illness was a punishment sent by God which could only be cured by prayer. Much of our modern understanding of the world would evolve from such contemplations of “magic”; botany would evolve from studies attempting to determine the magical properties of plants, astronomy would emerge from the superstition of astrology, and chemistry from the magical quests of alchemy. The flowering of the sciences would eventually grow from the key idea of the Scientific Method: that ideas must be tested by independent experiment and open debate. But at first there was still a strong sense of the medieval idea that mysteries of the world could be explained by magical knowledge that was only available to a few. The human tendency to attribute the unfamiliar to “magic” was stated by novelist Arthur C. Clarke as Clarke’s Third Law:
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

More than a century after the death of Agrippa, Isaac Newton would be born and would become the Enlightenment symbol of a rational understanding of the world when his famous work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) created the foundation of the science of physics which persists to this day. But Newton actually spent more time working on alchemy than he did on physics and he devoted more time to studies of theology than he did to alchemy. John Maynard Keynes said
“Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians…”

[obisgirl]

It was interesting to see a world (before we came to Storybrooke) where magic didn’t exist (The Doctor’s black and white horror world). Magic will never become science. I did see that gif set of Regina showing Henry some magic in a test tube and I thought, Chemistry class with Regina 🙂

Then again, Jedi is an accepted real religion in the U.K. So in terms of Once, within Storybrooke at least, magic could become the new science.

[gypsy]

Mixing the ‘magic’ heart with Dr Frankenstein’s ‘science’, I think was alluding to Alchemy.

In Shelley’s novel, Dr F was studying Alchemy…he abandoned his studies to persue his ‘bringing back the dead’ theory and make it a reality.

Alchemy is chemistry, mixed with a little mythology, religion, sprirituality and, to some degree, magic.

[Grimmsister]

I wish modern chemistry was equivalent to magic. Boy that would make some interesting chemistry classes… I can think of a few I would have liked to mix a frog potion for.

I think magic is stronger. Chemistry can’t make cupcakes out of thin air or make tree branches shoot out to capture people.
I think its great though, that the show establishes Love as the strongest kind of magic, ’cause I think that is one of the few things in real life that is in a way equivalent to magic.

[abowlingball]

The Doc thinks magic don’t exist in his world but it does. Mr. Gold said as much.

[marilou]

I cannot remember the exact quote; however, someone somewhere once said something among the lines of:

“any science that is advanced enough appears to be magical” – or something like that.

so I’ll just stand by that and assumed that people who practice magic on the show simply manipulates the elements in a way that we don’t yet understand, after all, if someone from the medievals times was to somehow look upon what is happening everyday in 2012, it would not be long before he starts screaming “WITCHCRAFT!”

[Grimmsister]

Good points about chemistry looking like magic when you don’t understand it, only difference is a chemistry magician have to have a good idea about the physics and mathmatics behind what he is doing, where as a magical magician don’t really have to, do they ? think of taking the hearts, they more sort of feel their way with that..

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