44 pages • 1 hour read
James R. DotyInto the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaSymbols & Motifs
Magic
Magic is central to Doty’s work and in some cases literal: as a young boy, Doty loves magic tricks, and it is the act of entering a magic shop that introduces him to Ruth and changes the course of his life. However, Doty also routinely uses the idea of magic in a figurative sense, most commonly by describing the meditative techniques Ruth teaches him as a form of magic; in this context, venturing “into the magic shop” means exploring the latent capabilities of the mind.
The rationale for likening meditation to magic seems obvious at first glance. Ruth describes her technique as “[a] kind of magic that you can’t buy in a store [...] that will help you make anything you want actually appear” (23), and in many ways, the events of the book bear this description out. As Doty achieves success after improbable success, visualization comes to seem like a “trick” that allows practitioners to conjure whatever they like out of thin air. This, however, is not the attitude of the work as a whole. To see meditation primarily as a conjuring trick, Ruth says, is to overlook the importance of grounding visualization in compassion.
This suggests a different interpretation of the “magic” referenced in the book’s title. Doty ultimately concludes that the “greatest and most real magic” is “the power of compassion to not only heal each of our own wounds of the heart but the hearts of those around us” (233). As he explains, empathy and altruism have tangible effects on those who receive them and on those who practice them. For Doty, then, “magic” is as much about opening the heart as it is about manifesting one’s desires; only the former can create positive change not only in the world at large, but also in oneself.
Money, Wealth, and Value
Money features prominently in Into the Magic Shop and is a driving force for much of Doty’s life. This isn’t surprising; Doty grows up in a home plagued by financial instability, in which basic necessities like food and housing aren’t reliably available. As a result, Doty decides early on that one of his central goals in life will be to accumulate enough wealth to lead a comfortable and stable existence.
Doty’s goal isn’t necessarily problematic; as Doty notes, poverty is harmful to one’s physical and mental well-being, so the desire for financial security is entirely reasonable. Nevertheless, Doty comes to see his pursuit of wealth as a mistake, not only because he accumulates so much more than he needs, but also because his reasons for doing so are misguided. Doty’s longstanding belief “that money would make [him] happy, that money would give [him] control” is rooted in childhood trauma (229); because he hasn’t fully moved beyond the anxiety and shame he felt as a boy growing up in poverty, he relies on wealth and prestige to shore up his sense of his worth. This ultimately proves unfulfilling, both because the underlying anxiety is still present and because money alone simply isn’t something humans tend to find rewarding.
Doty redefines the meaning of wealth and value in the book’s final chapters. Here, for instance, is what Doty says about his decision to place the remainder of his fortune in a charitable trust: “It was time to start over and truly become a person of worth and value that had nothing to do with any dollar amount” (228-229). According to this new metric, what makes a person rich is their capacity and willingness to love and help others, even if that means relinquishing literal wealth.
Patients’ Stories
Throughout Into the Magic Shop, Doty weaves in the stories of patients he has treated or operated on. In some instances, these anecdotes help Doty explain scientific terms or concepts; the pregnant mother, Noel’s, death is, among other things, a tragic illustration of the brainstem’s function and importance. Perhaps even more importantly, however, stories like Noel’s also play an important role in developing the work’s key themes, often introducing ideas Doty will spend the following pages or chapters exploring. In the introduction, for example, Doty’s response to the emergency he faces during surgery reveals the power of the meditative techniques he will outline over the course of Part One. Other stories, like June’s, offer new insights into already-established themes—in this case, the challenge of maintaining both an open heart and professional objectivity as a surgeon.
