How does popularity of a magic concept equate to practical power?

[Darkmaster87]

To elaborate on the title, I'm curious about whether people here believe the popularity of a magical phenomenon has any effect on it's real-world ability, and to what extent if so. For instance, there are quite a few systems of English gematria out in the wild, each based on various principles; would one be the most applicable to use if the most people utilized it? Could something popular but "false" be more effective than something niche but "true?"

 

[Yazata]

I think I've read somewhere that we don't know (for sure) how the ancient languages sounded, but by trying to copy the pronunciation of the people who speak languages descended from the old ones we tap into the collective energy of all these people. Was about Latin or Hebrew.
The same with what we now know to be myths or retellings of older stories. They might not be factually true but they shape our culture and bind large communities together.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

To elaborate on the title, I'm curious about whether people here believe the popularity of a magical phenomenon has any effect on it's real-world ability, and to what extent if so. For instance, there are quite a few systems of English gematria out in the wild, each based on various principles; would one be the most applicable to use if the most people utilized it? Could something popular but "false" be more effective than something niche but "true?"

To take a leaf out of the book of chaos magic, the system that is true for you is the one that's true.

As for popularity of systems, there is a scientist, Rupert Sheldrake, who proposed something called 'morphic fields' where, basically, once a thing is done for the first time, it makes it easier to do again. They've done experiments (pre internet) with things like crossword puzzles from a London newspaper, to see if people in Scotland could solve them faster the next day. This could as well apply to magical systems; successful results in one place might make success with that system more likely elsewhere.

I'm just spitballing here though

Sheldrake's two books on the subject are called "A New Science of Life" and "The Presence of the Past"