Wham.

Turning to my left and looking down, there it was.

Seven years of bad luck.

I never imagined breaking a mirror.

At the time, it was like the world itself had shattered.

Nearly a decade of misfortune was a sentence too long and too soon for my 13-year-old self.

Was my fate ruined?

Looking through the splintered glass, the mirror’s damaged facade now reflected nothing more than the fear I felt inside.

It was strange.

Bad luck never worried me before.

Thinking twice about where to step was less fun than the risk of stepping on a crack in the pavement.

And opening an umbrella inside was a better deal than being drenched seconds after walking outside in the pouring rain.

After discarding the mirror, I hoped my memory of the event would follow suit, in case dwelling on it would doom the years ahead of me.

In hindsight, it was fortunately just the mirror that turned out to be unlucky.

Only two years ago — and six years after the broken mirror — did the opportunity appear for me to better understand everyday superstition by enrolling in a magic class.

No, the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry did not send me an acceptance letter, nor did the Magic Castle invite me to study stage magic.

Unlike infamous magician Harry Houdini, who could seemingly escape anything from strait jackets to milk jugs, I couldn’t get out of completing my general education requirements at El Camino College.

By sheer luck, a course I read about in The Union four years prior — Anthropology 11: The Anthropology of Religion, Magic and Witchcraft, taught by professor Angela Mannen — perfectly fit my class schedule.

Slowly brewing over the course of the semester, as we learned about various cultural practices and religions, the third and final unit of the online course delved into the concept of magic.

Now, defining magic is no simple trick.

The word might conjure up images of playing cards, fancy wands and white rabbits — all which the class better defines as illusion.

On the other hand, magic involves spells, potions and black cats.

Here, magic generally refers to a myriad of methodologies humans use in efforts to supernaturally manipulate reality.

But no matter the description, most Americans are certain that it isn’t real.

Seventy percent do not believe spells, curses or other magic can influence their lives, a 2025 study from the Pew Research Center revealed.

While I hadn’t known much about magic before taking the class, it’s clear to me now that it does have a real presence in everyday life.

Despite keeping my eyes peeled my whole life, it was only when I was 17 that my first four-leaf clover found me.

Of course, their luckiness comes from their rare mutation, but to me, finding one meant I must be lucky, too. It became my own little good luck charm.

As I learned in the class, this iscalled “contagious magic,” where one item’s perceived power will transfer onto another object or a person.

Beyond the everyday, magic is also found in once-a-year things, including blowing out birthday candles.

If you make a wish, you’ll have to keep it to yourself and blow out all the candles at once — lest the wish doesn’t come true.

I’d always felt a pang of disappointment when one candle’s flame remained.

Both circumstances, superstitious in nature, exemplify magical thinking.

As students learn in the class, magic always works.

If a birthday wish doesn’t come true, it’s either because the wisher made an error or there was counter-magic where the failure was caused by another’s wish.

Magical thinking and superstitions most often appear in stressful situations where successis critical but not necessarily within a person’s control.

Sports fans and players, including retired top tennis player Serena Williams, have engaged in superstitious rituals to the extent where ignoring them can lead to worse performances due to self-doubt.

Williams shared with the Evening Standard in 2012 that whenever she lost, it was not because she didn’t play well but because she didn’t perfectly follow her routine, including tying her shoelaces just the right way.

So on a very important day, from a big sports performance to a wedding, it might not hurt to do something a little extra to create confidence and hopefully tip the odds in your favor.

This phenomenon led to my biggest, personal takeaway from learning about magic.

Apart from those introduced in the class, there’s at least one more definition of magic, attributed to 20th century science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” his most widely known adage says.

Thus, anything that defies our better understanding appears to be magic.

As I can’t explain how the laptop this story was written on really works as a computer engineer could, it might seem to me that it does so magically.

But to a greater extent, understanding how the human mind works is even more elusive — which makes it seem magical, too.

Our minds have a profound impact on how we perceive reality, which can be underestimated in daily life.

Even scientific trials have to account for the placebo effect, where a person’s belief in the efficacy of a treatment can cause healing.

From this, my own definition of magic materialized.

It is cast every day by one’s own mind.

A person’s outlook ordinarily manipulates reality by creating placebos and nocebos — which is where negative expectations can result in something as real as physical illness.

Beyond the sharp shards and the loss of its use, the broken mirrors’ greatest harm to me was limited to how it shaded my perception.

Believing in its curse would bring me doubt and insecurity.

If I didn’t, there wouldn’t be any bad luck.

And there wasn’t.

Thankfully, knowing the trick behind the magic made me free to choose whether to suspend my disbelief or not.

Broken mirrors and black cats don’t faze me. But I’ll let a good luck charm bring me confidence.