The use of amulets is associated with magical thinking.
Magical thinking is a way of thinking that is based on imagination, traditions, emotions or faith , which makes its expressions lack logical argumentation.
Before moving forward with the explanation of the meaning of the concept, it is necessary that we proceed to determine the etymological origin of the two words that make it up. Thought emanates from the Latin pensare , which can be translated as “to think.” Magical , meanwhile, comes from the Greek mageikos , which is formed with the component magos (synonymous with “magician” ) and the suffix -ico (equivalent to “relative to” ) and means “relative to what is natural.”
It must be considered that what is brought into existence through intellectual activity is thought . It is the product of the mind that arises through reasoning or the abstractions of the imagination . Magical , on the other hand, is that belonging to or relating to magic (the art that seeks to produce results contrary to natural laws). Magic can be an occult science with a pretense of reality or a show that tries to deceive the viewer with tricks and tricks.
Magical thinking according to psychology
For psychology , magical thinking is causal reasoning . In this sense, superstition is part of this thinking.
For example: a person believes that black cats bring bad luck. One afternoon, after coming across a feline of this type, he trips and breaks his leg. For the superstitious, the injury is due to the curse of black cats (since the fall was a consequence of the encounter with the animal). Those who have rational thinking, on the other hand, will consider that the person fell because they stepped wrong or because they were distracted.
Believing in superstitions is part of magical thinking.
The amulets
The use of amulets is also due to magical thinking. The practice is based on a belief that has nothing to do with reason.
A subject can claim that a certain shirt brings him luck because, once he wore it, he found one hundred pesos on the street. Then he used said shirt dozens of times without anything extraordinary happening to him, but nevertheless his magical thinking will continue to associate the shirt with good luck.
Book "The Year of Magical Thinking"
In addition to all of the above, we would have to highlight the fact of the existence of a book that takes the term in question in its title. We are referring to “The Year of Magical Thinking” , published in 2005 and awarded the prestigious United States National Award for the best work of non-fiction.
Joan Didion is the author of this work that personally brings us closer to how life can change in just a few seconds. And it tells us how an apparently happy and calm family soon receives several tragic blows: the death of the father and the coma of one of the daughters. Two very serious situations that will make the family members not only have to rethink their lives but also change the concepts and ideas they had until that moment about existence.