I wonder if "the elders" were cautious about using magic. It seems as if it was commonplace, and accepted. Since year 0 we have had the Bible talking about magic as something bad, so naturally, it began to be viewed in a negative light, but earlier cultures may have used it and thought nothing of it.

Jesus himself was, in my estimation, quite aware of the unseen energies in the world.

We assume that our everyday experience of life is "Non-magical". I think that is a fallacy. Because when I go to empty the mailbox, I cause change in the fabric of space-time. It can and should probably be viewed as magic, if one understands the all to be one.

Now, if I go and compliment someone who is feeling down, I am affecting energies, unseen. I may change their internal state, from negative to cautiously happy perhaps. The reality, I think, is to view all our actions and all our thoughts as magical. That way, we give them a certain weight they did not have before. We give them intention. And that, I think, is magic.

So magic is not some "dangerous ritual" or whatever. It does not cause "abrupt and dangerous changes in the fabric of spacetime". But it does create ripples, which are unseen. Sometimes those ripples cause effects which seem entirely unrelated to the cause, but which is in fact not disconnected.

Nothing is disconnected in the all. Every small action, affects everything else. Being conscious of that, one begins to live and breathe magic. As with most things, the key is awareness.

And we, being largely unconscious, wield it recklessly.