Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26184563-20130421015649/@comment-995426-20160504235752

Okay, you two apparently have been chatting a lot here, so I'm not going to read up on everything you've been saying. I'll just try to get the gist of it.

But I will add that neither Splinter nor the Shredder know in-universe any magic&mdash;they are simply extremely well-trained. The ki attacks are based on traditional Eastern beliefs of chi, chakras, etc., which they didn't treat as magic either. And even Splinter's psychic abilities are implied to just be a result of many years of intensive spiritual training.