I dunno, supposely someone took out a magical hit on Kirk and he got got. I think Herr Diapershitter has the backing of the demiurge or something.

Counterpoint: Etsy witches

His wards deflected it onto Charlie Kirk

For me, the best proof that magic does indeed work in a sense, is the Pulitzer prize photo of the burning monk from Tibet, and in general the self-immolating budhists.

It's a proof that once you get your subconsious under reins, you can affect your life to an extreme degree. Budhists learn to do it through sheer training and willpower, western magic does it through rituals, belief and symbols, but I think the goal (and the mechanism that makes it work) is the same.

Of course, it means that it's limited just to things you can reasonably affect, so no i.e cursing people.

But, if a ritual nudges your subconscious to i.e. make you study more instead of procrastrinating and you thus pass the test, it did work after all. It's just not as flashy as people expect.

This is my theory about how it works, and at least for me it makes sense. Plus, it's fun!

Something not happening isn’t proof that it doesn’t happen or can’t happen. If anything it’s only proof that if that thing could happen, we don’t yet understand how.

Would you apply this rationale to things besides magic and religion? Do you generally believe that if something doesn’t happen the way you expect it, when you expect it, then it can never happen?

Sure, but I see it turned the opposite way: you can tell we don't have magic because clearly there is stagnation where magic would strike deals (even with small, mutual, safe, local wishes).

I'm thinking something like

wish magic to ease human suffering/desperation is an incredibly lucrative businesses model within magic societies, though human business actions are also a devastating source of magic pollution/imbalance which feeds+attracts invasive magical wildlife (from beneficial dream moss to creatures best avoided). Unpredictable magical effects are noted to happen alongside extreme weather events, which is often just as dangerous to magical beings who are unprepared.

Some humans still decry even the nicest magic spells (and beings) as evil even after malicious spells were banned interdimensionally (in fact, it seems some humans are angry about that decision), but the most common of questionable spells just turns escapism into escape. The regulations are fairly strict and clear, and most modern wish casters draw from a vast sum of knowledge (both magical and human) to provide a more favorable return. Greedy wishes (if not outright ignored) pretty much always still turns out as you'd expect though.

The one thing that most humans fail to comprehend about magic in general is that it flows not unlike other natural forces, and that wish casters simply attempt to direct it. Natural magical forces often have a much better track record of influencing human affairs just by chance alone (it has been said that a summer amnesia wave prevented nuclear war last year, but this has not been confirmed as no one involved could recall that day).

(And yes, I know that probably hits some plot points of at least 4 of those anime cartoons and probably at least 1 Junji Ito story and/or older folklore. Or maybe it'd just be countless new episodes of.... The Twilight Zone / The Scary Door)

I'm sure the curses are working.

There are more people praying for him than cursing him: so far he has escaped a fried chicken demise.