"It depends," he says. "Any spell that invokes a deity or demon—the difference isn't always perfectly clear—runs some risk of the named entity, ah, failing to cooperate. The results of that can be catastrophic, depending on whose attention you caught and how powerful and capricious they might be. Some spells, especially powerful ones, can backfire on the caster if done improperly. And magical artifacts of various kinds can have unpredictable effects. In general, no, magic doesn't do anything unless someone somewhere was trying to use it."