If the western esoteric tradition can be said to have an underlying belief system it is a form of Animism; that the world or the universe is in some sense a living thing... However you conceive of their 'true' nature, magic requires full engagement with fetishes and sacred ground and window areas such as crossroads. It also works best when you grant agency to objects or entities beyond human consciousness, and particularly so with living systems... It is more useful for the magician to consider living systems not as some unaware little eddies in a universal consciousness field, but as 'outposts' of the spirit world.