@ToolGuy I think we use magical thinking in storytelling to understand the situation of the story, the psychology of the characters, the motivation of the characters, etc. And of course we use magical thinking within metaphorical thinking--similes, personification, hyperbole, etc.

I don't think magical thinking is completely useless, as it greases the wheels of communicating emotions, psychology, experience, etc.

I think the poor magical thinking is when we confuse the metaphor with the literal...or, worse, confusing the metaphor for another metaphor when there is nothing literal involved at all.

@greyeyed123

You use your imagination to write stories.

Irrational nonsense aka "magical thinking" is completely difference.

@LiterateHiker This is my area of expertise, so... In the sense that you have to suspend your disbelief for a story to make sense, and believe in a cosmology that has its own ethos, pathos, and logos (that may be radically different than that found in reality), it is very much similar to magical thinking (and in some ways indistinguishable). In fact, people use stories to perpetuate their religious beliefs. What would Christianity be divorced from the text of the bible?
...
Moreover, one can set aside critical and rational thinking and lose themselves in a story where the connections between events or themes or characters is entirely magical or metaphorical. The only difference between this and a person using magical thinking outside the story is how seriously they take those metaphorical (metaphysical) connections in reality (ie, not simply suspending disbelief...but simply believing). If you read the bible, understand the stories, lessons, and metaphors, and then close the book and take those stories, lessons, and metaphors literally without comparing them to anything else in reality, you are partaking of what we call "magical thinking". Recognizing all the same stories, lessons, and metaphors may require magical thinking to make any sense of them at all within the imaginary world of the story, but closing the book and comparing those things to reality to determine what is real from what is not is critical thinking.
...
That's all I'm saying.