There is a specific technical meaning to the word "magic" when discussing Perl. It comes from a more general term (see for example here). Older programmers (like me) tend to refer to this type of stuff as automagic (but that usage is becomming less common).

In fact quite a lot of the "special" words used when talking about Perl are documented in the Jargon File (a.k.a. The Hackers Dictionary). It is a good thing to dip into when you are bored.