In the caves of Lascaux we are familiar with the animals drawn by the indigenous people of France thousands of years ago. Speculation about their meaning usually includes the concept of magical drawing, that the people who drew the animals were engaged in a magical act of calling them up for a hunt. If they drew a successful hunt, they would have a successful hunt.
Curiously they may not have been naïve. Modern physics and self-help gurus both agree that the observer affects the observed. What we think about a thing changes the thing itself. The question is: can a modern cynical society believe again in its own ability to make magic?