Is Magic Real? Tracy Nicholas on Folklore, Nature and the Ways We Make Meaning

Sep 18

What if folklore isn’t something that belongs in old books, but something we are still living every day?

As part of my Conversations on Human Potential series, I spoke with folklorist, author and podcast host Tracy Nicholas, whose work sits at a fascinating intersection of folklore, mindful living, creativity, nature and belief. Tracy is an animist, which means that her relationship with nature is not simply one of appreciation. It is part of how she understands and moves through the world.

Her work explores how folklore can come off the page and become part of ordinary life again, and what our beliefs, rituals and stories might tell us about being human. She is also willing to ask a particularly interesting question:

Can we leave room for magic without leaving common sense behind?

Meet Tracy Nicholas

Tracy Nicholas is a folklore researcher, author and host of the Folkloring podcast.

Her work focuses on what she calls practical folklore: taking traditions, beliefs, stories and practices that are often treated as historical curiosities and looking at how they can still inform our lives today. She is also the theatre and film correspondent for The Folklore Podcast and is the author of Mind Over Magick, a book exploring the science, psychology and philosophy behind our ideas about magic.

What makes Tracy’s approach particularly interesting is that she isn’t asking people to suspend critical thinking. Quite the opposite. She is interested in what we can reasonably infer from what we already know to be true.

Where does psychology fit?

What part does belief play?

What happens when ritual changes how we think, feel or behave?

And where might there still be room for something we don’t fully understand?

Folklore Isn’t Just About the Past

We sometimes think of folklore as old stories, customs and superstitions preserved because they are historically interesting. But folklore is much more alive than that. It is the stories we tell. The traditions we repeat. The rituals we create. The ways we explain things we don’t completely understand.

Even many of the small habits and beliefs we barely notice can have roots stretching back generations.

Tracy’s work invites us to stop treating folklore as something separate from modern life and recognise that we are still creating and participating in folklore now.

The interesting question then becomes not simply, “Where did this belief come from?”

But: What does it do for us?

Why Humans Need Ritual, Story and Belief

One of the threads running through Tracy’s work is the human need to create meaning. Ritual can help us mark transitions. Stories can help us make sense of experiences we don’t fully understand. Beliefs can influence how we behave, what we notice and how we relate to the world around us. Modern culture can sometimes dismiss these things as irrational. But perhaps that misses the point.

Human beings have always used story, symbol, ritual and imagination to understand ourselves and our place within the world. The form may change. The underlying human need often doesn’t. And perhaps removing every ritual or story from life in the name of rationality doesn’t necessarily make us wiser. It may simply leave a gap.

Magic Without Abandoning Reality

Tracy’s book Mind Over Magick explores this territory directly.

Rather than presenting magic as a supernatural mechanism that simply delivers whatever we ask for, she looks at what science, psychology and philosophy can already tell us about why magical practices may feel powerful. That distinction matters.

There is a difference between believing that magic will somehow solve all our problems for us and recognising that ritual, intention, expectation, attention and belief can affect human experience. That still leaves plenty of mystery.

But it gives us somewhere more interesting to begin. Not: “You must believe this.” And not: “Anything we cannot currently explain must be nonsense.”

Instead: “What do we actually know, and what might that allow us to explore?”

I rather like that middle ground.

Our Relationship With Nature

Nature is also central to Tracy’s life and spiritual practice. As an animist, she approaches the natural world as something we are in relationship with rather than simply a collection of resources available for human use. That idea has much wider implications than spirituality.

Because however we explain that relationship, our current environmental challenges force us to confront a fairly uncomfortable reality: we have spent a long time behaving as though humanity exists separately from nature. We don’t.

The food we eat, water we drink, air we breathe and materials we build our lives around all come from living systems. Perhaps folklore and older traditions sometimes hold reminders of relationships we have become very good at forgetting.

Stories about particular trees.

Sacred places.

Seasonal celebrations.

Respect for animals.

Traditions around planting and harvest.

These may appear quaint when viewed only from a modern, industrial perspective. But underneath them can sit something far more significant: an understanding that humans belong within a living landscape.

Bringing Folklore Back Into Everyday Life

This is perhaps the part of Tracy’s work that interests me most. It isn’t about recreating the past. It is about asking what might still be useful. How could ritual create a moment of reflection? How might seasonal awareness reconnect us with natural cycles? What can old stories tell us about recurring human behaviour? What happens when creativity becomes part of our way of making meaning?

And what might change if we stopped treating nature as scenery and started experiencing ourselves as participants within it?

That doesn’t require us all to adopt the same beliefs.

It requires curiosity.

Becoming More Human May Mean Remembering Old Things

We often imagine human potential as something futuristic. New technology. Greater intelligence. Higher productivity. Better optimisation. But perhaps becoming more fully human is not only about what we can add. Perhaps some of it is about what we remember.

Story.

Imagination.

Ritual.

Relationship.

Creativity.

Our connection with place.

Our dependence on the natural world. The ability to live comfortably with questions that don’t always have immediate answers. Tracy’s work offers an interesting reminder that ancient and modern thinking don’t necessarily have to compete. We can ask difficult questions. We can use critical thinking. We can value science. And we can still leave some room for wonder.