Magic

xidai

Magic

Located in Palo Alto, California, United States

About Magic

Magic is people learning and communicating how humans can further common good by practicing valuescience—scientific methods and principles applied to questions of value.

What We Do

We work in a radical, integrated, scientific way to increase human satisfaction and reduce human suffering.

By "radical" we mean that we go to the roots of dissatisfaction and suffering. We perceive those roots to lie in misinformation about value—about what people want, how to get it, and most importantly, how we can know these things.

We use "integrated" to denote two things. First, we mean that we aim to simultaneously: cultivate individual health and awareness, promote social justice, peace, and freedom, and increase and protect wealth, including environmental quality. Second, we mean that we work both as a "think tank," to generate new ideas and assess the validity of information from diverse sources, and as a hands-on organization to demonstrate how people can use valuescience to inform more effective action for common good.

By "scientific" we mean that we: (1) hold ideas open to question; (2) observe self and surroundings carefully; (3) search for pattern on which to base accurate prediction; (4) experiment to test ideas; and (4) apply lessons learned by others practicing science.

We research, teach, counsel, consult, lecture, publish, and conduct demonstration projects. Central among Magic's programs is a residential service-learning community where participants are joined in learning to apply valuescience to discern and further common interests of humankind.

Since Magic's founding, tens of thousands of people have benefitted directly, and many more have benefitted indirectly from the work done in its name. Magicians' achievements in health education, dispute resolution, community development, and environmental stewardship have been honored with local, national, and international awards and recognition, including acceptance for presentation at peer-reviewed scientific conferences and publication in top-tier scientific journals. The Magic residential service learning community has been featured in the Communities Directory, A Guide to Intentional Communities and Cooperative Living, in Communities, a Journal of Cooperative Living, in Stanford magazine, and in a variety of other print, film, and audio media.

Going forward we're concentrating on explicit communication about how and why to practice valuescience. We're producing additional presentation media, developing curricula (especially for residential service learning), and writing more for publication. We're also growing the Magic community of service with special attention to a target audience of innovators and early adopters. And we're improving and adding facilities to support more effective and expanded service, and to better "walk our talk."

Why We Do It

We work for common good because we perceive that essential to our own satisfaction.

We take a valuescience approach because: (1) the human condition is increasingly a reflection of action based on ideas about value; (2) enormous and growing adverse and unanticipated consequences of human action evidence widespread and numerous mistaken ideas about value, and more importantly, about how we can recognize and enjoy value; and (3) valuescience is the sole demonstrated means for more accurately discerning and more fully realizing value, that is, for informing behavior by which we make desired outcomes more common and deleterious outcomes less so.

We make communication about valuescience central because: (1) though everyone practices valuescience to some degree, few of us do so consciously, all of us tap only a fraction of its potential, and all suffer as a result of relying sometimes on other methods; (2) though many individuals and organizations are tiptoeing towards greater utilization of valuescience, few have acknowledged, many contest, and many flatly deny necessity for replacing other ways of knowing value with it; and (3) we perceive that broad acceptance of this necessity is essential to successful human adaptation.

We research, teach, and conduct hands-on projects because we consider both ideas and their implementation to be important. We aim to contribute valid theory in which to ground effective practice, and effective practice in which to ground valid theory. We base Magic in a residential service-learning community so that we may better "walk our talk" because we hear a ring of truth in Thoreau's words, "What you are speaks so loudly that I cannot hear a word you say."

Who We Are

Three fellows, each with a tenure of more than fifteen years, shoulder primary responsibility for operating Magic. Several dozen associates and affiliates, including about a dozen who live in the Magic residential service learning community, play key roles. Operating personnel are overseen by a board of directors and draw upon counsel from a board of advisors. Each year hundreds of volunteers, donors, clients, and program participants contribute labor, material, money, and advocacy to make Magic.

What You Can Do

We invite your partnership in valuescience-based philanthropy. You can invest in many ways: learn, be a client, volunteer, donate, advocate, or simply give us your thoughts about what we are and do.

Community Description
Magic is a residential service-learning community. Some residents operate an educational, charitable organization by the same name.

We establish the Magic community and the service organization upon a yet-to-be widely recognized connection between science and value: Ideas about value entail prediction; science is the sole demonstrated means for making predictions better than can be made by chance.

We perceive that valuescience is key to accurately discerning and realizing value. Magic residents and friends who sustain the service organization are aiming to improve our own and others’ lives by honing valuescience practice and contributing to others’ doing so.

Readers wary of “science” may be reassured to learn that we are also deeply “religious” in a literal sense (re- = again and lig- = connect). We see ecological science as the basis for unifying religion, with which people from diverse backgrounds can reconnect to other humans, other life, Earth, and cosmos.

Core themes in Magic community life and public services are: (1) valuescience; (2) health/awareness; (3) cooperation; and (4) stewardship. We view the Magic community as both laboratory and demonstration. We’re aiming to ever more fully “walk our talk.”

Magic services to the general public include lectures and seminars about valuescience; life-planning workshops; swimming, running, bicycling, and hatha yoga instruction; youth mentoring; mediation; community organizing; planting and caring for trees and other vegetation; water- and land-management planning and advocacy; neighborhood design; and publishing.

Though few in numbers, we address diverse issues at many levels and in an integrated way. We do groundbreaking research, results of which we’ve published in top-tier scientific journals. We also perform hands-on demonstration projects. For example, we’ve established thousands of native oaks and tens of thousands of perennial understory plants on public-access open space nearby, and we’ve reconfigured streets in several neighborhoods to reduce short-cutting and vehicle speeds. Our research and demonstration projects have received national and international recognition for excellence in fields ranging from environmental law to dispute resolution.

We aim to strike a balance between utilizing the extraordinary resources of our Stanford University/Silicon Valley surroundings and maintaining contemplative, modest lives. We welcome opportunities to meet new people and to explore how we may interact to mutual benefit.

Housing
Status: We have land we have developed on
Area: 0.5 acres
Current Residence Types: Room(s) in a house or building
Current Number of Residences: 3
Housing Provided: Rental, Work-exchange
Land owned by: Another form of Non-profit

Membership
Adult Members: 17
Child Members: 3
Percent Women: 41-49%
Percent Men: 51-60%
Visitors accepted: Yes
Open to new Members: Yes

Sustainability Practices
Energy Infrastructure: We are connected to the grid.
Current renewable energy generation: Almost All, around 90%
Energy sources: Solar
Planned renewable energy generation: 100%
Current food produced: 0%, or close to 0%
Planned food produced: 0%, or close to 0%
Food produced locally: From 50-75%

Lifestyle
Common Facilities: Common House, Garden(s), Vehicle Share, Library, Workshop, Large Scale Kitchen, Gym or sports area, Internet
Internet Available: Yes, community provides it
Internet Fast?: Yes, exceptionally.
Cell Phone Service: Good for most people.
Shared meals: Approximately all dinners
Dietary Practice: Omnivorous (plants and animals), Local (food sourced within 150 miles), Organic (no pesticides or synthetic fertilizers), GMO Free (only non-genetically modified organisms), Mostly Vegetarian, Mostly Vegan, Opportunivore (dumpster diving, nature harvesting, etc.), Dairy-Free, Gluten-Free
Dietary Choice or Restrictions: No – people may eat however they wish.
Special Diets OK: Sometimes
Alcohol Use: Yes, used seldomly, or ceremoniously.
Tobacco Use: No, this community does not permit tobacco use.
Common Spiritual Practice(s): Not a particularly spiritual or religious community
Spiritual Practice Expected?: No
Education Style(s): Up to each family or individual
Healthcare Options: Up to each family or individual

Source: http://www.ecomagic.org/about.shtml
           https://www.ic.org/directory/magic/