Magical Thinking is reader departing from the often-denigrating phrase "magical thinking," which signals to skeptics an impossibility or distortion in the connection between beliefs and reality. Contributions from artists, poets, scholars, and curators resist Western frameworks with their historically dominant visual and political regimes, instead offering invitations to see signs, relationships, and links between the material and spiritual worlds in knowledge systems from across the Global South. The reader builds upon an experimental symposium realized in November 2023 at MASS MoCA, co-convened by Laurel V. McLaughlin and manuel arturo abreu and an exhibition Magical Thinking, of Systems and Beliefs at Tufts University Art Galleries, on view January 29-April 19, 2026, featuring essays, scripts, poems, and experimental writing from manuel arturo abreu, DB Amorin, Jonathan González, fields harrington, Laurel V. McLaughlin, Africanus Okokon, sidony o'neal, M. NourbeSe Philip, Emilio Rojas, Rebecca Schneider, and S*an D. Henry-Smith. Magical Thinking is designed by Common Studios, founded by Jon Santos, and published by Tufts University Art Galleries.