I've spent quite some time meditating on the true nature of "magic" and what it means to actually practice the art recently. I've come to several conclusions and thought it would be helpful to share and receive criticism of my ideas on the subject.
From what I've come to understand, "magic" is the art of influence and that to practice magic is to assert one's will upon the collective subconscious of the world around us. The true power of magic is in building up or breaking down walls around certain thoughts present in the subconscious mind so that the conscious mind is either blocked from accessing the truth or free to reach it.
To give an example, I'll point to certain aspects of our society that can be attributed to concepts found in Kabbalistic magic. Particularly the way in whuch perversions of sexual behavior and preference work to place the collective subconscious in chajns. A weak form of such magic is found in internet pornography as a whole. The effect making porn ubiquitous, free, and instantly available at the press of a button is that it creates a mental wall around certain truths that is built upon addiction. By tapping into our base desires for physical pleasure, the kabbalistic magic places walls of hypocrisy around many fundamental truths present in our subconscious. One cannot simultaneously justify their consumption of pornography while maintaining any cohesive morality surrounding chastity, virtue, etc as their addiction is to something that mocks all of those truths. Since addicts are unable to properly and logically assess their addiction, they will never be able to uncover the truths that will allow them to build a complete personal moral philosophy.
Another example of more powerful forms of this magic is the process of creating a transgender person. This sort msgic is much more difficult to pracfice as it first requires the destruction of many natural subconscious barriers surrounding one's sense of self and their perception of reality. However, once those barriers are broken and those under the spell have gone down this evil path, they are forever under the influence of those who led them there. Hardly anyone is strong enough to come to terms with living such an enormous lie and coming to terms with that often means accepting that you have forever destroyed the only body yoh'll ever have. Since this is such an enormous barrier and the conscious toll of realization so great, the subconscious will remain forever weakened against further manipulation. This is why those under this spell choose to end their life at such an astronomical rate. Should their subconscious ever be broken out of the spell, their conscious mind will not be strong enough to handle the enormity of what they've done so it will take the only way out from the sudden burst of painful emotion it can; ending it all.
Does this make sense? This appears to be how it all works from the highest vantage point and also explains how the forces of good have managed to fight back against the evils in this world with a weapon as seemingly innocuous as memes. Memes can both break their spells and guide the collective subconscious toward the light and protection of the truth in a way that hasn't been possible until the rise of the free and open internet.