Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24589671-20141208022047/@comment-24674051-20141208192924

Not freezing the psychic is relatively easy. She was in the Land without Magic. And while I am beginning to think that may be a bit of a misnomer, I think it is at least safe to say that the way magic works in the Land without Magic is way different than how it works in Oz, the EF, or Neverland. I think it's clear that Emma had magic of some kind in Boston, both from the flashback last night, as well as when she was able to shield Rumple while going through Airport Security in the second season.

As for having magic in the Season 1 flashback in order to take Emma's memories, I have a speculation, but it will need to be confirmed by the writers. First, Because of the nature of Storybrooke, there was some magical nature about. Not enough to allow for things like teleporation, fireballs, or other big magic, but enough for magic hearts to work, for the curse it self to work, for the sleeping curse to work, and for TLK to break the sleeping curse.

Also, Magic items retained their magical properties. And, from what I gather, the Memory spells depended on the memory crystals, which would still have their magical properties.

Because Ingrid had her own unchanged memories (due to not coming across with the first curse), plus 29 years of living in the LWM, she may be been able to detect the difference in level of background magic, and thus be able to tap into it enough to do the memory wipe.