It is all these these things, science, art, the world of thought and still more, but woe to those would dare use this thing, spell casting.
Obsurity says nothing nor asks anything.
As to wishful thinking? well, that is exactly the foundation and whole thesis of conceiving of casting a spell in the first place -- that of "wishful" thinking -- and which results can be as dreadful as the casting itself, because the quality of the thoughts themselves are the seedbeds, intention, and matrix of their very objectives.
It is in truth a premeditation of harm to dare transgress the personal space and spiritual domain of another soul, corrupting the life plans and contract set with Life, and which life plan exists for reasons that surpass the mind's capability to conceive of them, and which are no less crimes than any accusation and possible conviction brought before the common courts of law and the State.
However, in this instance that you ask of, the State dwells in realms about which only few indeed have merit to peer into and know. Today, the consequences of such things can report with lightning speed back upon the perpetrator, for Life has accelerated considerably now, and the warp of time and space is not what it was just ten years ago and has in reality, collapsed in much greater measure.
Hence, the very word you use here -- "obscure." It derives from the same connotation as occult, of which one meaning of occult is, ' unknown,' and another, 'foreign' in make up...
There exists flukes, yes. But these are built-in failsafe mechanisms that happen naturally, whether through intent or negligence on the part of the fool practitioner who dares to use it to not good ends. These so-called flukes are there to rightly "obscure" the truths and knowledge that can otherwise well corrupt others and which if placed in the hands of the wrong person will wreak certain harm or worse.
Some have even taken to using chemicals or drugs to bring this same result -- these are the most dispicable criminals of all and who more than likely have forthcoming the most dire awakenings of all, and the swiftest of retributions or, say, highly like to reap the most painful of causes and effects played back.
Bear in mind, these things that you speak of are considerably scientific and spiritual in nature but existent in ways that common knowledge and practices have no skill at all in trying on, say, and thus should well stem away from -- completely.