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“Of course. But you have to wonder how many people do these things out of habit, built up in the culture over generations, and how many people really believe the habits produce magical effects.”
“And we’ll find out about that in a little bit when I open the line for calls. But let me ask you something: What about me?”
“I’m sorry, I’m not sure I understand the question.”
I hadn’t prepped him for this part. So
metimes I was a little bit mean to my guests. They still agreed to come on the show. Served ’em right. “I’m a werewolf. I’ve got incontrovertible, public, and well-documented proof of that condition, validated by the NIH. I’ve had vampires on my show. I’ve talked to people claiming to be magicians, and some of them I’m totally willing to vouch that they are. While the NIH has identified lycanthropy as a disease, modern medical science hasn’t been able to explain it. So. This inexplicable sliver that you have to acknowledge as existing. Is it really magic? Not a metaphor, not habit, not superstition, but really some effect that contradicts our understanding of how the world works.” Whew. I took a big breath, because I’d managed to get that all out at once.
He chuckled nervously. “Well, we’ve gone a little bit outside my disciplines at this point. I certainly can’t argue with you. But if something’s out there, I’m sure someone’s studying it. Maybe even writing a PhD thesis on it.”
“I plan on getting ahold of that thesis just as soon as I can. Sorry for putting you on the spot, Professor. I’m just trying to get us a neutral baseline before the conversation goes completely out of control. Which it always does. Let’s go to the phones. Hello, you’re on the air.”
With great condescension, a man started in. “Hi, Kitty. Thanks for taking my call. With all due respect for your guest, this is exactly the kind of attitude that’s held human civilization back, that’s kept our species from taking the next step toward enlightenment—”
Away we went.
I had to butt in. “Here’s what I’m wondering: In this day and age, with the revelations of the last couple of years, isn’t it a mistake to think of magic and science as two different things, as polar opposites, and never the twain shall meet? Shouldn’t practitioners of both be working together toward greater understanding? What if there really is a scientific explanation for the weirder bits of magic? What if magic can explain the weirder bits of science?”
A rather intense-sounding woman called in to agree with me. “Because really, I think we need both points of view to understand how the world works. Like this—I’ve always wondered, what if it’s not the four-leaf clover that brings good luck, but belief in the four-leaf clover that causes some kind of mental, psychic effect that causes good luck?”
“Hey, I like that idea,” I said. “The problem that science always has with this sort of thing is how do you prove it? How do you measure luck? How do you prove the mental effect? So far, no one’s come up with a good experimental model to record and verify these events.”
Sometimes my show actually sounded smart, rather than outrageous and sensationalist. I was hoping with Professor Olafson on board that we’d be leaning more toward NPR than Jerry Springer. So far, so good. But it couldn’t possibly last, and it didn’t.
“Next caller, hello. What have you got?”
“I want to talk about what’s going on with Speedy Mart.” The caller was male. He talked a little too fast, a little too hushed, like he kept looking over his shoulder. One of the paranoid ones.
“Excuse me?” I said. “What does a convenience-store chain have to do with magic?”
“There’s a pattern. If you mark them all on a map, then cross-reference with the locations of violent crimes, like armed robbery, there’s an overlap.”
“It’s a twenty-four-hour convenience store. Places like that get robbed all the time. Of course there’s a correspondence.”
“No—there’s more. You overlay both of those sets of points on a map of ley lines, and bingo.”
“Bingo?”
“They match,” the caller said, and I wondered what I was missing. “Every Speedy Mart franchise is built on the intersection of ley lines.”
“Okay. That’s spooky. If anyone could agree on whether ley lines exist or where they really are.”
“What do you mean, whether they exist!” He sounded offended and put out. Of course he did.
“I mean there’s no quantitative data that anyone can agree on.”
“How can you be such a skeptic? I thought this was supposed to be a show about how magic is real.”
“This is supposed to be a show about how to tell the real from the fake. I’m going to say ‘prove it’ every time someone lays one on me.”
“Yeah, well, check out my web site and you’ll find everything you need to know. It’s w-w-w dot—” I totally cut him off.
“Here’s the thing,” I said, long overdue for a rant. “People are always saying that to me—how can I possibly be a skeptic given what I am? Given how much I know about what’s really out there, how can I turn my nose up at any half-baked belief that crosses my desk? Really, it’s easy, because so many of them are half-baked. They’re formulated by people who don’t know what they’re talking about, or by people trying to con other people and make a few bucks. The fact that some of this is real makes it even more important to be on our guard, to be that much more skeptical, so we can separate truth and fiction. Blind faith is still blind, and I try not to be.”
“Houdini,” Professor Olafson said. I’d almost forgotten about him, despite his occasional commentary.
“Houdini?”
