How does magic work?

I don’t mean stage magic or “illusions” but real life honest to god magic. Specifically magic words. How do they work? If you blow the incantation the spell doesn’t go off as planned so are the words themselves, the audible vibrations, magical or are they communicating with some other entity that hears and obeys and does the do for the magician?

So, two questions, I guess:

How does magic work/what is it that is actually happening to effect a desired change? and what role does an incantation play in the facilitation of that effect?

Abracapokus.
Pokuscadabra.

Ask a dozen practitioners, and you’ll get 15 answers.

I recommend Donald Michael Kraig’s Modern Magick for an introduction into western esoteric (Golden Dawn, OTO, et al) magickal theory and Ray Buckland’s Buckland’s Complete Book Of Witchcraft (aka: “Bucky’s Big Blue Book”) for religious theory and practice of Wicca and related neopagan religions.

A friend who believes in that stuff pointed out to me that magic and magick are two different things. (I have since made her disappear)

They don’t.

I don’t think there’s any kind of factual answer for this. If there was, that person would be a millionaire, at any rate. Ask to see the money before accepting an answer as genuine.

Are you asking what model of the mechanism of magic was employed historically, by those who believed in such things, or in fictional accounts, or so on?

Or are you really a believer in the nontrivial effectiveness of magical spells and incantations, and wondering how they work? If the latter, well, I don’t mean to be snarky, at least not excessively so, but this seems entirely the wrong board from which to expect sympathy to such a view.

Sort of. Crowley had some reasoning about the “k” indicating the Feminine Divine, and so that’s why many practitioners and scholars use “magick” to refer specifically to western esoteric practices. I use it to annoy people, and because I can’t be arsed to spell “illusionist” all the time. It’s a way to differentiate the spiritual/religious thing from stage magic, or illusion. Although, oddly enough, I know at least half a dozen magicians who are also magickians…

I think if you misspeak the incantations you awake the army of deadites.

Depends on the kind of magic(k). Some relies on a greater power (a god or demon or spirit or something), and sometimes those critters are really anal about getting the pronunciation right. If you flub the incantation, they’re going to slap you for it.
Other types depend on your own powers, or the power of rocks and trees and stuff. Usually screwing up the words don’t matter if you have enough confidence in your own ability.
Oak trees don’t care what you call them, but some of the Tuatha Dé Danann get a little cranky sometimes.

I spent all my money on blow and booze or I’d be happy to show it to you.

Magic relies on narrativium. (A steal from Pratchett et al.)

Not exactly… if there’s evidence to support the view, great. If the view is a matter of belief or faith which cannot be proved or disproved, and the poster is clear about that, also great.

It’s when someone starts claiming that there’s evidence to support a view, and then does not provide the evidence so that the phenomenon can be independently replicated, that’s when things get a bit sticky.

Religion itself has a good reception here; I’ve learned more about religion on these boards that I have enywhere else in my life. However, claiming religious beliefs are science is a big no-no.

Au contraire. We just need to define the question a little better.

Change: How do magic words work? to How are magic words understood to work by those who use them? Now we need cultural data.

If the question is “universally, for all reality,” the answer is “they don’t.” The scientific method has never been able to support a hypothesis claiming words have power to act independently.

Within specific cultures, there are a number of explanations. One popular use of magic words in contemporary America is prayer. Spoken words are addressed to a deity, who is the one that will carry out the required action. This is method can also be used as in Dr. Faustus to invoke a spirit who will carry out the summoner’s bidding (or eat him because he got a word wrong, or whatever). There are a number of different types of prayer. Sometimes the location is important (e.g. in a church); sometimes a gesture accompanies it (e.g. folded hands); sometimes the words are poetic or formulaic (e.g. rote prayers); sometimes they have other features to enhance their sacrality and thus their power (e.g. a sacred language like Latin or Hebrew; a source in the Bible).

Everyday folk magic often works by principles of sympathetic magic, for which you could do worse than read Frazer’s Golden Bough. Some magical acts are accompanied by charms, verbal performances which are supposed to cause magical actions. Sometimes these words describe the actions to be performed, echoing and amplifying the gesture. The Anglo-Saxon bee charm against swarming has the recited throw gravel at the swarming bees (kids: do not try this at home), and as the rocks fall to earth, so the bees will settle down. The charm describes this. Again, there is often poetry to this. Fantasy writers seem to all agree that magic spells should rhyme, and this is also found in folk tradition. Sometimes nonsense or foreign words are inserted here, too.

There’s also noa names, taboo words whose utterance can have negative consequences. Famously, the bear in many languages (e.g. Russian медведь myedvyed’ literally means ‘honey-eater,’ presumably because the inherited Indo-European bear word was just too scary. In Sanskrit it became the name of a kind of demon). Sometimes this is situational: pigs at sea are to be called “land-dolphins” [made-up example, sorry, but similar things are known], but at home you can call them pigs. This idea underlies the “bad words” we’re taught not to say in polite society.

I could go on, but the phenomenon has been extensively studied by folklorists, anthropologists, and linguists. Most communities who believe in magic words will have some of these features, but it really is strongly dependent on your culture’s ideas of magic and of poetry. As far as abstract reality goes, I’m afraid you won’t find an answer. Sorry.

Ribbit.

Magic words are actually a mnemonic that help trigger the mental processes that force magic to work. This is why just reciting the words do nothing for the uninitiated…

OK, I got nothing.

The big handicap to all such questions as the OP is of course, that they’re asking how a completely fictional thing functions. The only answers that are meaningful are about how people think that magic works.

In many cases, people believed that the words did nothing of themselves. Rather, they invoked or beseeched another entity to use its powers on the supplicants behalf. In Egypt, folks would inscribe ritually inscribe words on a piece of lead as they recited them. This made the words concrete and permanent. Then they would put the lead in the grave of a recently buried person who would convey the words to a particular deity. Yes, even after you die, people hit you up for favors.

Some magic worked sympathy. I forget the term, but the idea is that “like affects like.” Folks believed that a root that looks like a heart will have power over the heart. Doing things to a statue of a person affects that person, especially if the statue includes something of the person such as a lock of hair.

Midichlorians.

Ribbit.

It doesn’t necessarily involve magic words, even. I picked up this hot teenage hitchhiker one time, and she told me she was a witch. I laughed humorously and asked her to prove it. All she did was smile and run the tips of her fingers up my inner thigh…

…and I turned into a lay-by.

And as if by magic, I read this as:

…and I turned into a lady-boy.
Ribbit.