You lost all credibility when you referred to the free market as "magical".
Agreed, only for different motives. I'd say they are merely fictitious.
If you are referring to the theoretical construct out of finance/econ, it is a useful abstraction derived under ceteris paribus conditions. So not magical.
At the same time, unlike in the physical sciences, it is an abstraction resulting from modeling, but it does
not isolate a phenomenon as it exists outside the "lab" or in the raw data. Free markets are not magical, but they are fictitious.
As markets are the net result of the interplay of social actors acting according to preference, any normative application a priori of a goal to maximize a theoretical value independently of the actors in the market is not at all free, and actually not even good logic, as it mistakes theory for the actual data.
Translated: For example, if distorting taxes* are preferred by a majority, there is no "free" market principle being violated, nor is the situation sub-optimal in any sense other than in comparison to a theoretical construct. To make the goal any part of the construct itself (eg, price level, output level) is to deny the market its true preferences.
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*Taxes change prices and so shift the supply and demand equilibrium output q from its untaxed value. Theoretically a distortion, in practice a free exercise of choice. What theoretical free or "pure" markets are good for is in helping determine the estimated cost of preferences in order to help choose among them.