Your mistake is that you are looking for magic where the authors entire intention is to disprove that it exists. Every single one of these examples are saying one thing together: "There is no magic, there are no gods, people are just using colloquialisms and poetic language to describe ordinary events and everyone is foolishly taking it literally."

THAT is what is being said here in these examples. The authors are not trying to explain catapsi or any other magical ability. They are saying that these stories are falsely invoking magic and gods to explain people stupidly ruining their own lives in various ways.

That's all. That is what the words clearly, blatantly, obviously say. If you see anything else in those words, it is because you are coming to them with the desperate hope that you have found something about thaumaturgy in the writings and not seeing them clearly for what they actually mean.