Psychology Today has an article (h/t Arts & Letters Daily) on several nearly universal types of magical thinking. What is interesting to me is that, at the end, the piece notes that several of these types have strongly beneficial effects -- and may have moreso in the future.
They also notice several ways in which science has proven that some aspects of magical thinking are actually borne out in reality. I would add two more: we know that particles entangled can instantaneously convey information, no matter how far apart they get subsequently -- what happens to one, in effect, happens to another. This supports the thought that "anything can be sacred / anything can be cursed."
But most, I want to add to this:
7. The world is alive.The worse that she did, for your mother was wrong. Loving a thing can make it alive.To believe that the universe is sympathetic to our wishes is to believe that it has a mind or a soul, however rudimentary. We often see inanimate objects as infused with a life force. After watching The Velveteen Rabbit as a kid, I desperately wanted my own plush bear to come alive. When I asked my mom if loving something enough can make it real, she said no. It broke my heart.
Though the scientific proof of this fact is not yet with us, the empirical proof of it is solid. The extension of qi into the sword is a thing anyone can experience. Go and see.
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