magic

Dictionary: mag·ic   (măj'ĭk)

1. The art that purports to control or forecast natural events, effects, or forces by invoking the supernatural.
2. 1. The practice of using charms, spells, or rituals to attempt to produce supernatural effects or control events in nature.
   2. The charms, spells, and rituals so used.
3. The exercise of sleight of hand or conjuring for entertainment.
4. A mysterious quality of enchantment: “For me the names of those men breathed the magic of the past” (Max Beerbohm).

1. Of, relating to, or invoking the supernatural: “stubborn unlaid ghost/That breaks his magic chains at curfew time” (John Milton).
2. Possessing distinctive qualities that produce unaccountable or baffling effects.

To produce or make by or as if by magic.

[Middle English magik, from Old French magique, from Late Latin magica, from Latin magicē, from Greek magikē, from feminine of magikos, of the Magi, magical, from magos, magician, magus. See magus.]

During its long history as a European and Western concept, magic has had two principal meanings. (Its use as a label to describe non-European and non-Western beliefs and practices has been seriously misleading and is now usually avoided.) Firstly, it has signified the pursuit by adepts of a highly elevated and esoteric form of wisdom based on the perceived presence in the world of mystical patterns and intelligences, possessing real efficacy in nature and in human affairs. Secondly, it has been applied as a term of disapproval by theologians and other intellectuals and professionals wishing to condemn various popular practices and techniques because of their perceived inefficacy in nature and human affairs. In the first context, important from antiquity down to the high Renaissance, magic was magia, the highest form of (natural) philosophy; in the second, important from medieval times through to the nineteenth century, it was tantamount to superstition.

In magia the human body, as material substance, was something to be transcended. Even when the Renaissance Neoplatonist Marsilio Ficino talked about the health of the scholar he meant to refer to the state of his spiritus. Nevertheless, in this tradition man was thought of as a microcosm and the proportions and harmony of his body were therefore assumed to resemble those of the universe. Hence the well-known depictions of the human frame with the arms and legs outstretched to meet the circumference of a perfect circle. Another Renaissance magus, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, wrote that every part of the human body corresponded to ‘some sign, some star, some intelligence, some divine name.’ This tied medicine closely to the practice of astrology, with body parts linked to the various zodiacal signs. By correspondence too the hand or face might indicate the whole person, providing the basis for palmistry and physiognomy. A further derivation from magia was natural magic, the study of nature's most hidden and secret processes. Among the ‘occult qualities’ that, in medieval and early modern medicine, were thought to govern the workings of the body, were those to do with the spread of contagions, the effects of poisons and their antidotes, the properties of narcotics, the behaviour of allergies, and the relief of ailments by purgatives. Many diseases were thought to have ‘occult’ causes, and many other aspects of the body's behaviour could be explained in terms of the appetitive aspects of natural action known as ‘sympathies’ and ‘antipathies’. The doctrine of ‘signatures’ also provided the physician with magical remedies — substances derived from plants and minerals that had their properties and uses stamped on them by heavenly influence. In all these various contexts, however, the magical aspects of the human body and of medical practice were thought of in what were then regarded as naturalistic terms — as part of the workings of nature. Thus, for a practitioner like Paracelsus, magic represented the highest level of medical efficacy.

This was not the case with the ‘magic’ condemned by disapproving intellectuals and professionals faced with the vast array of traditional ‘folk’ practices to do with healing, protecting, and preserving the body (many of which Paracelsus himself admired). The practitioners concerned presumably did think that they worked in a straightforward causal way: that they were not magical at all, but were simply techniques. But from the time of St Augustine onwards it was usual for them to be dismissed as having no natural efficacy. As long as such judgements were tied to religion, this type of magic remained irreligious, even demonic; when they were secularized, it became bad science or just foolishness. A great many types of popular diagnosis and treatment fell into this category, as well as traditional notions of how the body worked, how it might be harmed and how that harm might be avoided. Typical instances are diagnosis by measuring a person's belt or girdle; healing by charms or other forms of words or by symbols (especially the misuse of religious words or symbols) ; healing by wearing amulets; the belief in the ‘evil eye’ and in illness by bewitchment or by being touched; the attribution of various powers to body parts or substances (notably blood and semen) ; many practices to do with determining the sex of a child during conception; the opening of chests or doors to relieve labour pains; and the curing of a wound by treating the weapon that inflicted it. Such practices were popular among all social groups in pre-modern times; it was religious doctrine, then scientific orthodoxy, together with the professional and institutional interests these served, that deemed that they should be disallowed as spurious. In this sense too, the magic of the human body has been culturally constructed, there being nothing in our attitudes to it or ways of dealing with it that is inherently magical.

— Stuart Clark

Bibliography

• Thomas, K. V. (1971). Religion and the decline of magic, chapter 7. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London.
• Wilson, S. (2000). The Magical Universe: Everyday Ritual and Magic in Pre-Modern Europe, parts II-III. Hambledon and London, London

noun

1. The use of supernatural powers to influence or predict events: conjuration, sorcery, sortilege, thaumaturgy, theurgy, witchcraft, witchery, witching, wizardry. See supernatural.
2. An object or power that one uses to cause often evil events: charm, evil eye, spell². Slang whammy. See supernatural.
3. The use of skillful tricks and deceptions to produce entertainingly baffling effects: conjuration, legerdemain, prestidigitation, sleight of hand. See performing arts.

adjective

Having, brought about by, or relating to supernatural powers or magic: fey, magical, talismanic, thaumaturgic, thaumaturgical, theurgic, theurgical, witching, wizardly. See supernatural.

Definition: allure
Antonyms: dullness

n

Definition: charm
Antonyms: dullness

n

Definition: skill
Antonyms: clumsiness, incompetence

1. adj. As yet unexplained, or too complicated to explain; compare automagically and (Arthur C.) Clarke's Third Law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” “TTY echoing is controlled by a large number of magic bits.” “This routine magically computes the parity of an 8-bit byte in three instructions.”

2. adj. Characteristic of something that works although no one really understands why (this is especially called black magic).

3. n. [Stanford] A feature not generally publicized that allows something otherwise impossible, or a feature formerly in that category but now unveiled.

4. n. The ultimate goal of all engineering & development, elegance in the extreme; from the first corollary to Clarke's Third Law: “Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced”.

Parodies playing on these senses of the term abound; some have made their way into serious documentation, as when a MAGIC directive was described in the Control Card Reference for GCOS c.1978. For more about hackish ‘magic’, see Appendix A. Compare black magic, wizardly, deep magic, heavy wizardry.

For more information on magic, visit Britannica.com.

Since the ancient Israelites lived in a civilization in which magic was a commonplace, many biblical provisions are directed against sorcery of any type. Any belief in the abilities of magic to obtain certain ends is seen to contradict the omnipotence of God, who cannot be influenced by any human device. Even the death penalty is required by the Bible for certain types of individuals who practice magic (Ex. 22:17; Lev. 20:27). Witchcraft and divination by the teraphim (household idols) are identified with rebellion (I Sam. 15:23). Sorcerers and astrologers are the personification of delusion (Isa. 47:12-15; Jer. 10:2-3).

Nevertheless, all the legislation forbidding the practice of magic did not eradicate sorcery, Astrology, and other forms of divination from the Israelites, as is clear from the testimony of the prophets, who speak out against all forms of magic. However, some elements of magic were adapted and accepted, as is seen in Saul's visit to the witch of En-Dor (I Sam. 28:7-25).

The Mishnah (Sanh. 7:7) equates magic with Idolatry. The biblical commandment to execute witches (Ex. 22:17) is broadened to include male sorcerers as well (Sanh. 67a). According to the Talmud, the practitioner of magic was to be put to death only when a magical act was performed, not when there was mere illusion.

Magic emerges in the Middle Ages in new forms, such as in the use of Divine names in segullot (remedies or charms), kame'ot (amulets), etc. (see Superstition). By introducing such concepts, the medieval writers and the Jewish public in general were able to circumvent the biblical injunction against magic. Much of this developed under the influence of the Kabbalah. Among those who did not hesitate to deal with the concept of magic in their works were Naḥmanides, Moses Ḥayyim Luzzatto, and Manasseh ben Israel.

The ceremony of Excommunication (ḥerem) appears to have been an occasion when a type of magic actually received a certain legitimization. The edicts of excommunication and the ceremony itself had magical undertones. Furthermore, in the 17th and 18th centuries in East European communities, the ba'alé shem, wonderworkers, began to appear, practicing magic and popular medicine, and using amulets to drive away demons. Reputedly, from their knowledge of secret names, they were able to activate certain powers to unmask thieves, find lost articles, and purify houses from evil spirits. A magical ceremony was also used to exorcise the spirits of the dead believed to be lodged in the bodies of the living (see Dibbuk). Another form of magic was the creation of robot-like creatures (see Golem).

Still, in general, magic did not play a major role in Jewish life. The Jewish people had their "magicians," just like every other people, but their role was minor. Nonetheless, in medieval times, Christians imputed magical powers to the Jews. Jews were thought to be the devil's people and as such to have access to great supernatural secrets. Such beliefs were a major cause of persecution.

The Bible scholar Yehezkel Kaufmann suggested that the Israelites could condemn magic so vigorously because it was not an integral part of their society. Magic was practiced on a superficial level by some, but the core community either frowned upon such practices or ultimately integrated them in one form or another into the mainstream. Thus, certain standard Jewish practices may have had a magical origin, but their nature was completely transformed and their source forgotten.

The Bible contains many references to witchcraft, but is strongly opposed to it. A person who practices this art is called a witch (Deut 18:10) or a magician (Ex 7:11, etc.). One of the terms by which the Egyptian magicians are referred to is hartum (Gen 41:24; Ex 8:7 "magicians"), the equivalent of the Egyptian hrytp, the name given to the most famous magicians. In Daniel (5:7) Chaldeans are mentioned together with astrologers and soothsayers, the reference being both to an ethnic group and to a class of magicians. Sorcery and witchcraft are also mentioned in the NT (Acts 8:9-11, etc.). The "wise men" (Matt 2:7), magi in the Greek, were an ethnic group (the term comes from Medes or Madai) and, like the Chaldeans, became synonymous with witchcraft.

The biblical view of witchcraft is quite clear: "There shall not be found among you anyone� who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer�" (Deut 18:10-21). All of these were considered to be sworn enemies of true religious belief, at the center of which stands a belief in one God and Adherence to his ways. The true believer will accept whatever God has destined for him and will not make any attempt to change it. In complete opposition to this stands the belief that witchcraft may influence the supernatural. "You shall not permit a sorceress to live" (Ex 22:18). Saul had "put the mediums and spiritists out of the land" but in the end he had to resort to one himself (I Sam 28:3, 7-25).

The attitude towards witchcraft expressed in the Bible had another purpose; to put a sharp distinction between Israel and the ways of the Canaanites, as encountered by the Israelites in the land of Canaan. In practice it seems that this purpose was not always achieved. Jezebel was known for her "witchcrafts" (II Kgs 9:22); Micah (5:12) mentions witchcraft and soothsayers; Manasseh, who "constructed altars for Baal", also "practiced soothsaying (and) used witchcraft." (II Kgs 21:3, 6); and the methods of a female sorcerer are described by Ezekiel (13:17-23). But these seem to be isolated instances, and when witchcraft is mentioned it is mostly when practiced by other nations, as with the prophecy of Isaiah (47:9-13) on Babylon. Still more typical is the prophecy of Ezekiel, who saw that "the king of Babylon stands at the parting of the road, at the fork of the two roads, to use divination: he shakes the arrows, he consults the images, he looks at the liver. In his right hand is the divination for Jerusalem�" (Ezek 21:21-22). This kind of military divination was much resorted to by the Romans at a later date. Simon Magus (i.e., Magician) and Bar-Jesus are mentioned as sorcerers in the NT (Acts 8:9-24); 13:6-12). In Ephesus, converts brought magical bodies to be burned (Acts 19:18ff) but Paul had to warn converts against magic (Gal 5:20).

This can be defined as the use of symbolic actions, words, or objects to produce results in the real world, either mechanically through their intrinsic nature (e.g. displaying horseshoes, touching wood for luck), or by the personal willpower of the user, or because he or she has authority over supernatural beings. But formulas which rely on help from God, saints, or angels (e.g. many healing charms) should not be classified as magic but as folk Christianity. This distinction, theoretically clear, becomes blurred in practice, where magical actions are often accompanied by religious words such as ‘in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost’. The boundary between magic and science is also blurred, because an apparently non-rational procedure may simply reflect mistaken ideas about the natural properties of some object, so that the person performing it never thinks of it as ‘magic’. Indeed, scientific fact and symbolic appropriateness sometimes coincide— dandelions really are diuretic, but not because their flowers are yellow like urine.

Magic assumes there are non-material connections between material objects; Frazer usefully divided it into ‘sympathetic’ or ‘imitative’ magic, where the action performed or object used resembles the result desired (‘like causes like’), and ‘contagious’ magic, where something once in contact with a person provides a link through which he or she can be helped or harmed. It can also be divided into ‘low’ and ‘high’ magic, according to the degree of sophistication in the procedures involved. The most elaborate and intellectual system, also called ‘ritual’ or ‘ceremonial’ magic, flourished in late medieval and Renaissance times, and was revived by occultists at the close of the 19th century. Its aim was to summon and control angels or demons, by incantations and pentacles; the practitioner needed special robes, perfumes, and other equipment. It was far too expensive and time-consuming ever to be part of folk practice, but some of the simpler aspects could be adapted for popular use (see astrology, pentacles).

The difference between ‘black’ and ‘white’ magic depends on morality, not techniques: is the magic being used for a good purpose or a harmful one? This of course depends on the point of view of the observer; aggressive counterspells against witches are meant to inflict pain, but since the witch is seen as evil, the counterspell is ‘white’ magic.

See also CUNNING MEN, CHARMS, COUNTERSPELLS, DIVINATIONS, IMAGE MAGIC, and WITCHCRAFT.

Bibliography
The full bibliography list is available here.

• The best descriptions of English popular magic are in Thomas, 1971, especially pp. 177-252, and Davies, 1999. Studies of witchcraft also contain relevant material, e.g. Thomas, 1971: 435-69, and Sharpe, 1996. Almost all regional collections contain examples of charms, the best of which are conveniently brought together in Opie and Tatem, 1989. For the early phase of ‘ritual’ or ‘high’ magic, see Richard Kiekhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages (1989) and Forbidden Rites (1997)

The philosophical questions posed by the practice of magic and witchcraft in many cultures concern the nature of rationality and the nature of interpretation. The simplest interpretation of magical practices is that they are bad science: they represent attempts to control events by means that are in fact inadequate. Only a ‘primitive mentality’, inferior to western scientific thought, could overlook the inadequacy (see Lévy-Bruhl). The problem is that if an interpretation of a practice has to posit widespread irrationality it offends against the principle of humanity, and suggests the need for a less prejudiced and more empathetic understanding. An alternative pioneered by the anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard in Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande (1937), highlights the function of belief in magic in sustaining social order, defusing tensions and aggressions, and serving as an outlet for envies and jealousies. Magic, like other religious practice, becomes non-rational rather than irrational, with a symbolic social function. Evans-Pritchard himself believed that the Azande explain events at two different levels, one of which accords with western norms of reason, and one of which does not; so the question of whether this second level involves irrationality is therefore still open. A fully relativistic response to this is given by the British philosopher Peter Winch in The Idea of a Social Science (1958), in which it is argued that reality itself is a social construction, with western conceptions of rationality enjoying no privileged status above that of other ways of taking the world to be. New Age beliefs and the rising prevalence of astrology, homeopathy, and alternative medicines of all kinds remind us of the power of magical thinking even in the West.

Modern historians have reclaimed the term magic from anthropologists and social scientists who question its utility as a category and its existence as a phenomenon. Although an admittedly ambiguous and elastic term, magic was used by early modern Europeans to describe a complex of thought and practice involving the apparently disparate fields of religion, science, and language. Many of the most sophisticated intellectuals and theologians of the early modern period include magic in their discussions about the nature of physical reality, the causes of suffering and misfortune, the rationale of history, the foundations of political authority, the institutions of the church, and the basis of morality and ethics. Consequently, magic is a legitimate and important field of study, and understanding such pivotal events as the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Counter-Reformation, the scientific revolution, the Enlightenment, and Romanticism will remain incomplete until historians investigate the complex and varied attitudes toward magic that emerged between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries.

Characteristics of Magic

Magic is best defined as a form of esotericism based on a view of the world as an integral whole composed of interacting spiritual and material forces that human beings can understand and manipulate for good or evil purposes. It encompassed a wide range of activities, such as astrology, alchemy, medicine, divination, necromancy, and conjuring. While this definition holds true for magic over the millennia, only during the early modern period was "black" magic equated with demonic witchcraft and made into a serious criminal offense. At the same time there was a growing interest in and respect for "natural," or "spiritual," magic that began in the twelfth century, reaching its apogee during the Renaissance and early modern period. Scholars agree that this type of elite magic contributed to developments in science, although they disagree about the nature and extent of these contributions. The traditional idea that magic disappeared with the triumph of science overlooks the fact that the decline in witchcraft prosecutions occurred in the mid-to-late seventeenth century, before Enlightenment thinkers embraced the new science and while a magical worldview was still valid for most people. Magistrates and judges, not philosophers and scientists, were the first to doubt the reality of demonic magic and to put a stop to witch prosecutions. While it is true that demonic magic lost its credibility among most European intellectuals and professionals, ordinary Europeans continued to explain misfortune in terms of the evil acts (maleficia) of evil individuals. Furthermore, alchemy and astrology appealed to many intellectuals throughout the eighteenth century, and new forms of occult and esoteric thought (mesmerism, phrenology, physiognomy) emerged to answer questions mechanical and atomic scientific theories could not.

Much of early modern magic represented a continuation of traditions and practices that developed in the medieval period from a synthesis of classical, Jewish, Islamic, and Christian concepts of magic with indigenous Celtic, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Slavic traditions as these groups were converted to Christianity. It is difficult—though in some cases possible—to separate these various strands because they were so thoroughly mixed with Christian elements. Although some scholars continue to distinguish magic from religion on the grounds that magic attempts to manipulate supernatural forces, while religion is directed at divine entities who can be supplicated but not controlled, this distinction is untenable. Saints' prayers often have coercive force, while magical charms and rituals have a supplicatory element. Furthermore, Christianity shared many assumptions that were basic to a magical worldview. Foremost among these was that of a vitalistic universe divided into three levels, the super-celestial, celestial, and terrestrial, each of which was intimately linked to the others through a series of correspondences, sympathies, and antipathies that might be hidden (occult) but that were regular, rational, and discoverable. Christianity and magic also agreed on the existence of invisible, spiritual entities (angels, demons, devils), who interacted with humans in many ways, including sexually. Christianity and magic both emphasized the power and efficacy of words, a belief that was intensified by the Christian reliance on the spoken and written word and by the notion of Christ as the incarnate word of God. Many magical prayers and formulas were simply adaptations of Christian formulations. A further link between Christianity and magic was the belief that hidden powers and virtues existed in natural objects (amulets, talismans, relics, holy water, the sign of the cross, the Eucharist, church bells), which could be tapped for human use. Given these similarities, one can conclude that "[a]cross Europe, throughout the centuries . . . magic often seems indistinguishable from religion" (Clark, p. 110).

Varieties of Magic

On a popular level, magic was practiced extensively to deal with problematic events or situations from childbirth and childcare to animal husbandry, sickness, misfortune, lost or stolen objects, divination, business affairs, traveling, falling in or out of love, counteracting witchcraft, and even such mundane activities as shutting windows at night. Magical remedies, rituals, and formulas can be found in necromancer manuals, medical textbooks, scientific texts, the lives of saints, and courtly romances. Since magical practices were so varied, one way of categorizing them is by their intended results: healing, protection, divination, obtaining a desired object, the acquisition of occult knowledge, or simply entertainment. While astrology was a recognized part of academic medicine, magical healing was reserved primarily for diseases that were considered "unnatural" (madness, possession, nightmares) or whose causes were unknown (sudden strokes, heart attacks, seizures) and consequently attributed to the evil machinations of sorcerers, witches, demons, elves, or dwarfs. In these cases, magicians and healers patterned their actions after those of Jesus and the saints and conjured spiritual forces by ritual actions, prayers, blessings, exorcisms, and the use of amulets, talismans, relics, the sign of the cross, holy water, and nostrums made variously from herbs, animal parts, stones, or gems. Next to healing, the most popular form of magic was divination, a practice emphatically rejected by Christian authorities. Charts and manuals existed for reading signs about the future in the sky or in animals, plants, parts of the human body, and dreams. Love magic was used both to seduce and to cause impotency, a common theme in both courtly romances and inquisitor's manuals.

Like popular magic, "spiritual" and "natural" magic were concerned with issues of healing, protection, and divination, but there was a greater emphasis on the acquisition of occult knowledge as a prerequisite to successful magical practices. Broadly, one can say that "spiritual" magic was a form of religiosity whose goal was to attract beneficial divine and spiritual forces into the soul of the operator. Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) was the most famous Renaissance practitioner of this kind of magic. Language was an important element in Ficino's magic because he believed words had intrinsic powers. A similar emphasis on the power of words appears in the work of Jewish Cabbalists like Abraham Abulafia (1240–after 1291) and Joseph Gikatilla (1248–after 1305) and their Christian counterparts, Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494) and Johannes Reuchlin (1455–1522), who believed that Hebrew was a repository of secret wisdom. In his De Verbo Mirifico (1494), Reuchlin claimed that Jesus' name in Hebrew had the power to revive the dead, cure the sick, exorcise demons, turn rivers into wine, feed the hungry, repulse pirates, and tame camels. A similar kind of magical power was attributed to Egyptian hieroglyphs by Athanasius Kircher (1601–1680). It is not always easy to distinguish between "spiritual" and "natural" magic, nor between "spiritual" and "demonic" magic, for all three were concerned with the spiritual state of the practitioner and were thought to have transitive effects. Necromancy and black magic were an established part of medieval magic and continued throughout the early modern period. The Picatrix, derived from an Arabic source, mixed spiritual and demonic magic with astrology and was widely influential. This kind of synthesis comes out clearly in the work of Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535), whose De Occulta Philosophia (enlarged edition 1533) discusses astrology, mathematics, mechanical marvels, numerology, universal harmony, the power of music and incantations, images for talismans, and the occult virtues in natural things. Agrippa claims that whoever wishes to be proficient in magic must study natural philosophy, mathematics, astrology, and theology. Only when he has mastered these disciplines will he attain the highest level of understanding through an act of mystical illumination and become a true magus. A characteristic feature of this kind of magic is its "intense religiosity and sense of piety" (Clark, p. 150). Giambattista Della Porta's Magia Naturalis (1588) was another popular work on natural magic that described procedures for such diverse things as transmuting metals; producing exotic plants and animals through grafting and cross-breeding; cutting, conserving, and cooking meat; staving off baldness; eliminating wrinkles; and engendering beautiful children.

Changing Attitudes

Around 1400 there was a radical change in attitudes toward magic on the part of religious and secular authorities. No longer seen as a body of superstitious and largely illusory practices that could be eradicated through a combination of missionary activity and the counter-use of Christian ritual—a view characteristic of the Middle Ages—magic and magicians came to be viewed as a demonic fifth column threatening the very existence of Christian civilization. This negative view of magic was reinforced by the Protestant attack on Catholic sacraments, rituals, and miracles as demonic. For the most part, however, Catholic and Protestant authorities distinguished between "popular" magic, whose practitioners were prosecuted as witches and sorcerers in league with the devil, and "learned" or "spiritual" magic, which was generally tolerated and widely practiced at European courts because of its promise of wealth and prestige and its sheer entertainment value. But even when tolerated, magicians inspired ambivalent attitudes, for beneficent "white" magic might easily be perverted into "black" magic. For this reason, two of the foremost demonologists of the sixteenth century, Jean Bodin (1530–1596) and Martin Del Rio (1551–1608), condemned all magic as demonic.

The increased concern with demonology and witchcraft in the early modern period has been attributed to the religious conflicts stirred up by the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Recent research has shown, however, that it was not religious conflict per se that encouraged witch hunts but the new age of "confessionalism" that accompanied reform movements, heightening religious fervor and the concern with eradicating religious deviance. In more general terms, the increased fear of magic and sorcery was a response to increasing political and religious insecurity and social unrest. The Black Death, the Great Schism, the proliferation of heretical movements in the high Middle Ages, the discovery and dissemination of new texts, printing, trade, travel, and the discovery of the New World all undermined established truths and called into question the idea of divine providence and God's omniscience and benevolence. Misfortune, uncertainty, and insecurity called for a new theodicy, and this was supplied by demonologists and witch theorists. Neither irrational nor unscientific, they deployed all the resources available from natural philosophy and theology to vindicate the goodness of God and the truth of the Bible. Witchcraft theory was a kind of "theological damage control" (Stephens, p. 366) that let God off the hook for seeming injustice by attributing evil and misfortune to the activities of men and women in league with the devil.

The fact that the fear of sorcerers and witches was most intense during the period of the so-called scientific revolution (1570 to 1680) undermines the idea proposed by Enlightenment thinkers (Comte, Condorcet) and nineteenth- and twentieth-century social anthropologists (Edward Tylor, James Frazer, Bronislaw Malinowski) that magic represented an early stage of human development superceded first by religion and finally by science. Modern scholars reject this progressive view in favor of a conceptual history of magic that emphasizes it as an inextricable element in the religious, political, and scientific discourse of various time periods. In the early modern period, attitudes toward magic and witchcraft have been shown to correlate with political and religious views. For example, those committed to the divine right of kings and Tridentine Catholicism had a greater tendency to support the persecution of magicians and witches than humanists, libertines, and skeptics, who took the Machiavellian position that the magic and witchcraft were delusions manipulated for the benefit of those in power.

Skepticism About Magic

There was also a correlation between magic and science. The argument that magic was a substitute for real science and technology is simply wrong. The widespread practice of magic suggests that it was considered effective, and the lively debate about the efficacy of magic is now recognized as a contributing factor to the development of science. Lynn Thorndike described magicians as the first experimental scientists. Frances Yates emphasized the role played by "occult" philosophy in stimulating science. Although her claims have been modified, it is clear that the natural magic tradition influenced important scientific figures such as Paracelsus (1493–1541), Daniel Sennert, Jean Baptiste van Helmont (1579–1644), Girolamo Cardano (1501–1576), Francis Bacon (1561–1626), John Dee (1527–1608), and members of England's Royal Society. The paradox was that as demonologists debated with their critics about whether the effects of witchcraft, sorcery, and magic were natural or diabolical, they promoted the very skepticism they were at pains to allay. Among the skeptics were Pietro Pomponazzi (1462–1525), who offered naturalistic explanations for the power of incantations; Johann Weyer (1515–1588), who turned to medicine, arguing that witches were simply insane old women; and Reginald Scot (1538–1599), who denied that incorporeal spirits could have contact with humans. Even more damaging were those like John Wagstaffe (1633–1677), who concluded that witchcraft was simply a politically useful tool, an idea that led Francis Hutchinson to conclude in 1718 that beliefs about witches and sorcerers were products of their historical contexts. Witch-hunting was therefore not an anomaly in the age of the socalled scientific revolution but a constituent part of it. Underlying the debate over magic and witchcraft were fundamental issues concerning the authority and credibility of the Christian revelation; the physical constitution of the created world; the nature of causality; and the basis of politics, ethics, and morality. Every one of these involved the more general problem of what constitutes valid evidence and how knowledge may be obtained. But however beneficial this kind of scientific questioning and skepticism was in the long term, it was not immediately responsible for the decline of witch-hunting. That fell to the judicial skepticism—created largely by the excesses of witch-hunting—which led those in charge of witch trials to demand more restraint in the use of torture and stricter standards of evidence. As a result of changes in judicial procedures, mass panics ended, more of the accused were acquitted, and courts became increasingly reluctant to initiate prosecutions. This did not happen because judges, magistrates, and inquisitors denied the reality or possibility of witchcraft but because they increasingly came to believe that witchcraft was not a crime that could be proven by law.

Bibliography

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——. Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: The Period of the Witch Trials. Philadelphia, 2002.

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Stephens, Walter. Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of Belief. Chicago, 2002.

Thomas, Keith. "An Anthropology of Religion and Magic, II." Journal of Interdisciplinary History 6 (1975): 91–109.

——. Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England. London, 1975.

Thorndike, Lynn. A History of Magic and Experimental Science. 8 vols. New York, 1923–1958.

Trevor-Roper, H. R. The European Witchcraze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries and Other Essays. New York, 1969.

Walker, D. P. Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella. London, 1958.

Wilson, Stephen. The Magical Universe: Everyday Ritual and Magic in Pre-Modern Europe. London and New York, 2000.

—ALLISON P. COUDERT, JOHN SEWELL

The English term "magic" (magie in French, Magie in German, and magija in Russian) comes from the Greek magikos, a term that referred to a class of priests in ancient Persia and Greece. Later the word was taken over by Christianity and applied to the kings ("magi") who traveled to pay their respects to the infant Jesus. It was not until the Middle Ages that the word "magic" took on negative connotations. In modern times, magic refers to witchcraft, sorcery, and the casting of spells. Magic is also part of rites and ceremonies that are connected with the belief in a supernatural influence on nature, animals, and human beings. The field of ethnology uses the term "magic" very widely, but the meaning of the term is not always clear. Witchcraft was opposed by official religions from ancient times, as, for example, the Indian "Laws of Manu" (sixth to fifth centuries B.C.E.) and the Roman "Laws of 12 Tables" (mid-fifth century B.C.E.). The position of Christianity was shown in the Codex of the Emperor Justinian (529). Among the East Slavs, witchcraft was considered a superstition and a relic of paganism and therefore a sin. There is a tradition of identifying magic with witchcraft and distinguishing "white magic" from "black magic." Around the turn of the twentieth century, A. Lemann and others associated magic with sorcery. Lemann formulated the most popular definition of magic: "Magic or witchcraft is every action provoked by superstitions." B. Malinovsky wrote that magic was from ancient times the province of specialists and that witchcraft or healing was the first profession.

The connection of magic with religion and religious rites has also been interpreted in many ways. Sir James George Frazer thought that magic was founded on men and women's belief in their own potential to influence nature; this stands in contrast to the concept of religion, which is built on a belief in supernatural beings (gods, spirits, ghosts) that control natural phenomena. Other theories assert that religion is inseparably linked with magic. S. A. Tokarev gave a description of religious rites that can be classified as magic rites, depending on their form and function. The division of magic by form proceeds from the psychological mechanism behind the use of magic forces, including establishing contact, initial (beginning), imitative magic, apotropaic magic (to avert evil), cleansing, and verbal magic. The division of magic according to function is linked to real-world or practical roots of magical beliefs: for example, medical magic is connected with folk medicine, love magic is connected with courting, trade magic is associated with hunting techniques, and agrarian magic is linked to primitive agronomics.

Food is associated with almost every kind of magic. Magic rites connected with food production, processing, and presentation reflected ancient beliefs and motifs that had lost their primary mythological meanings over time and had become inalienable elements of different religions. For example, it is no coincidence that figures from Slavic mythology were identified with Christian saints, such as Peroun, the god of rain, or in India Pardjanja, Pirva (Hettish), Perkons (Lettish), with St. Eliash; Veles, the god of cattle and wealth, with St. Vlasij; and Yarila, the god of fertility, with St. George. The roles of these figures are reflected in folklore, and especially in demonology. Traces of this type of folklore can still be found in modern times. For example, the Orthodox Church does not deny the presence of evil and other evil spirits in everyday life, but it does not support the spreading of superstitions among its followers. Nevertheless, such beliefs still exist and are reflected in ceremonies surrounding food production.

Beyond its main role of satisfying one of the vital requirements of the human organism, food plays a large symbolic role in every culture. Group meals and specific types of food are obligatory components of any festivity or event in most cultures. Depending on the societal and cultural context, food can be viewed as ritualistic, festive, sacred, funereal, prestigious, and non-prestigious. For example, many sacred rites are connected with the production of bread. It was common in many cultures to bless and to pray during bread baking and to put a cross on the bread before it was eaten. In Georgian beliefs, bread protected a child from evil spirits. Depending on the situation, a different number of loaves (accounts tell of anywhere from three to twenty-nine) could be used during magic actions. In Armenia, in order to protect her child from evil, a mother collected flour from seven families, baked bread (lavash in Armenian) in the shape of human being, put it under the pillow of the child, and on a certain day buried the bread. If a child became ill during the first forty days of life, he or she was passed through the hole made in a large loaf of bread. In Armenia bread was also seen as a form of sustenance in the afterlife: this belief was observed in a ceremony where fresh bread was offered for the deceased. The Udmurts often used similar magic. To return her child to health a mother baked bread three times in a day: the first time she baked five small loaves; the second time she baked seven loaves; and the third time, nine loaves. To strengthen the magic influence she formed dough on a kneading trough and hid herself from the daylight under a shawl.

In some rituals, bread was used to protect the human world from another one. Among eastern Slavs it was a custom to keep bread on the table that was in the "red" corner (red in Russia means beautiful) or iconostasis, a shelf on which icons were kept, regarded as a sacred place. Bread has upper and bottom sections; thus, turning bread over was forbidden, as it was believed that the bread could be "offended" by that act. Bread and salt were the obligatory foodstuffs involved in the Russian ritual of entering a new house. Among Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians (White Russians), only men could first enter a new house, with icons and bread in their arms as the main symbols of a new living space. They might also carry a pot of porridge or kneading trough with dough, which symbolized prosperity, abundance, and fertility. Over time these items were supplemented with such cultural symbols as poppy seeds, thistle, burdock, garlic, and religious texts, which were supposed to protect a house from evil spirits and witches. In northern Russia, peasants invited friends and neighbors to enter a new home and treated them to a good meal to protect the house from undesirable people.

Magic and magical acts, such as the casting of spells, have traditionally been connected with health. Thus, many rites included actions and language that were supposed to help maintain or attain a state of good health. Rites such as these stood in opposition to illness, death, and misfortune. The main elements of water, fire, earth, plants, and animals were considered symbols of health and played a prominent role in different magical ceremonies.

World folklore provides evidence of a close correlation between the universe and human beings. According to the the cosmological beliefs of the people of the Caucasian region, there is a Tree of Life at the back of beyond that connects with three vertical levels: a sky (the upper world), Earth (the middle world), and an underground kingdom (the lower world). The upper world is populated with gods, deities, birds, and fantastic beings. Earth is populated with people, animals, and plants, and the underground kingdom is a world of the dead, as well as devils, dragons, and deep waters. Fantastic horses, eagles, devils, dragons, animals, birds, and others beings were seen as means of communication among different levels or worlds. For example, in Caucasian-Iberian mythology there is an image of a deer with a large antler that holds up or supports the upper world.

Baking rituals in different countries reflected some of the beliefs about communication between the lower world, the human (middle) world, and the upper world. In one ritual, the Belorussians baked three pies as symbols of the three parts of the structure of the world; in modern times, these pies have taken on different religious significance. These pies can be either round, three-cornered, or oval in shape. One never cuts three-cornered and oval pies with a knife; rather, one divides them by hand into arbitrarily sized parts. Only the round pie, which in more recent times is dedicated to the Christian savior, is cut into sections with a knife in accordance with ancient rules. The final form or figure of the sliced pie is a circle divided into an eight-segment circle or mandala—a cosmological symbol of the universe. Thus, these three pies reflect in a symbolic form the vertical structure of mythological space.

Religious symbolism very often stems from magic practice, which supposed a transfer of symbolic qualities from one object to another. For example, eggs, rice, and pomegranates are traditional symbols of fertility and prosperity. An egg, as a symbol of life, was used for Easter festivities and also for many other ceremonies connected with food production. Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians prepared special pies or chicken with an egg inside for weddings. In Daghestan, women always baked fancy cakes with eggs inside in the springtime as a symbol of the revival of life. There is a tradition among the Crimean Karaims (Karais) of putting magic patterns of sun, moon, stars, and fish on Easter bread, which is made in the form of a sun.

Magic stemming from the upper world was thought to provide a possibility of survival in difficult situations, such as finding food when one is faced with starvation. An example is the fairy tale "Jack and the Beanstalk," which tells a story of the magical properties of three fava beans (Vicia faba). A. C. Andrews pointed out an abundance of bean stories and superstitions and attempted to explain these as being an adjunct of an original Indo-European totemism. He drew almost exclusively on classical sources from the Greeks, Romans, and other closely related Mediterranean peoples.

The earliest and most abundant mentions of bean superstitions came from Greek city-states. Literature from ancient Rome contains similar references. R. Rowlett and J. Mori analyzed the work of their predecessors, including A. C. Andrews, and discovered that "favistic" folktales about beans were not always connected with favism (1971, pp. 98–100).

The motif of communication with the upper world can be seen in the calendar ceremonies of eastern Slavs, who bake special bread with forty stripes, which recall Jesus's footsteps on the Day of Ascension (forty days after Easter). The eastern Slavs bake another type of bread—onoochkee—that represents the cloth wrapped around Jesus' feet. Russian peasants put such bread in the rye field, believing that grain would provide strength. People in southern Russia baked similar bread on the fortieth day after an individual's death. Mourners put bread on the bench by the gate of the house, and people later ate it with honey. On that day some people ate pancakes at the nearest crossroads to prevent the deceased from returning home.

Magical food has been involved in many burial customs and rites that confirm a constant link between the living and the dead. For example, in many cultures magic rituals involved feeding deceased people, or more specifically, feeding their souls. Such symbolic actions were often performed on the stove in the home. Food was thrown about the house near the body of the deceased. Sometimes people placed food in the deceased's mouth, such as in the traditions of the Nganasans of Taymyr, Russia. Closely associated with these rites are the ceremonies that occurred after burial, because they include the same feeding of the souls. In addition to traditional funereal meals, many religions have ceremonies on special days that involve food and the deceased. Such celebrations are popular in Latin America. Mexicans have celebrations in August and November that involve the notion of spirits enjoying the smell of food. Persians put food on houses and roofs in the middle of March to encourage prosperity in the next year. B. Propp retraced the great role of the cult of ancestors in Russian agrarian festivals. Eastern Slavs celebrate "Parents' Saturdays" in accordance with the Orthodox calendar (Dzjady in White Russia) and the Japanese celebrate a Bon' Day. Russians always put out a glass of spirits with a piece of bread on the day of a funeral and on subsequent anniversaries. It is still a rule in Ukraine to have breakfast together with the deceased at the cemetery on the next morning after the funeral and to eat bread, sweets, and cakes and drink spirits. In Russia, visiting the cemetery on the second day after Easter (radunitsa) and sharing a meal with the deceased also became a custom: the meal was a painted Easter egg and sweet bread that were placed in the tomb.

Eastern Slav celebrations at Shrovetide and at Christmas were both devoted to the memory of the deceased. These days were observed by the preparation of such obligatory ritual dishes as bliny (pancakes) and kissel, made from oat, fruits, or berries. This tradition still exists among Russians. Ukrainians have a custom of preparing compote and small sweet pies with jam at funerals.

An example of using verbal cliché with magic purpose can be found in the texts of the Apocrypha, biblical books of dubious authenticity that are excluded from the Jewish and Protestant versions of the Old Testament. Nevertheless, apart from the fasts on Fridays established by the Orthodox Church, there was a tradition of fasting on the twelve "Temporary" Fridays, or "Vow" or "Big" Fridays, that were very popular among Orthodox adherents. Fasting on Fridays was a well-known practice of the use of the apocryphal texts as amulets, which was widespread in many cultures. The main role of the Apocrypha was to protect people from different troubles but only under the condition of fasting. Orthodox Christians kept fasts on these days to prevent unexpected misfortunes such as drought, bad harvests, infestations, and diseases.

The apocryphal Twelve Fridays were widespread in Russia in the guise of legends, spiritual verses, and tales dating from the eleventh century. Wandering (usually blind) minstrels sang the verses and advised followers to respect Fridays by "saint fasting and praying, faith and love, gentleness and humility." The verses warned that anybody who committed a breach of Fridays would be punished for generations to come.

In Russia the texts about the Twelve Fridays (as the texts "Dream of Our Lady") were also used for magical purposes and were worn on the body and used as amulets. However, such texts were not just magical; they were manifestations of piety in many provinces where they were distributed in the form of manuscript copies, apocryphas, and spiritual songs.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the texts of the Twelve Fridays could be found in many Russian provinces. They were dedicated to the main feasts of the Church calendar, and people fasted on Fridays before these holidays. Every Friday had a special grace and promised special preferences. The Twelve Fridays manuscript is still popular. People still believe that keeping fasts on these Fridays protects them against diseases and disasters.

Bibliography

Afanasjev, Alexander N. Poeticheskiye vozzreniya slavjan na prirodu [Poetical views of Slavs on nature]. 3 vols. Moscow, 1865–1869.

Afanasjev, Alexander N. Narodnye russkie skazkee [Russian folk tales]. 3 vols., edited by E. V. Pomerantseva and K. V. Chistov. Moscow: Nauka, 1984–1985.

Andrews, A. C. "The Bean and Indo-European Totemism." American Anthropologist 51 (1949): 274–292.

Anikin, V. P. Russkaya narodnaya skazka [Russian folk tales]. Moscow: Prosveshcheniye, 1978.

Domotor, Tekla. Hungarian Folk Beliefs. Budapest: Athenaeum Printing House, 1982.

Frazer, J. G. The Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion. London: 1925.

Gerber, A. Great Russian Animal Tales. Baltimore, Md.: 1891.

Ivanitsky, Nickolaj A. "Materials on Ethnography of Vologda Province." News of the Society of Amateurs of Natural History, Archeology, Ethnography LXIX (1980).

Kalinsky, J. A. "Tserkovno-Narodny mesjatseslov na Rusi [A church-folk monthly calendar in Russia]." Notes of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, Ethnographical Department 7 (1877).

Lemann, A. Illustrirovannaya istorija sueverij i volshebstva ot drevnosti do nashih dney [Illustrated history of superstitions and sorcery from ancient times to the present]. Moscow, 1900; Kiev, 1991.

Maksimov, S. V. Nechistaya, Nevedomaya i Krestnaya sila [Evil spirit, mysterious and christened forces]. Saint Petersburg: 1994.

Malinovsky, Boris. Magic, Science, and Religion and Other Essays. Boston, 1948.

Pomerantseva, Erna V. Myfologicheskye Personazhy v russkom folklore [Mythological personages in Russian folklore]. Moscow, 1975.

Rowlett, Ralph M., and Joyce Mori. "The Fava Bean in English Folklore." In Ethnologia Europaea. vol. 4, pp. 98–102. Arnhem, 1971.

Ryan, W. F. The Bathhouse: A Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia. London: Sutton Publishing, 1999.

Rybakov, Boris A. Yazychestvo drevnyh Slavjan [Paganism of the ancient Slavs]. Moscow: Science, 1987.

Thompson, Stith, trans. The Types of the Folktales. A Classification and Bibliography/Antti Aarne's Verzeichnis der Märchentypen. 2d rev. Helsinki, 1964.

Tokarev, Sergej A. Religioznye vozrenija vostochnyh Slavjan [Religious beliefs of the East Slavs in the 19th and early 20th centuries]. Moscow: Nauka, 1957.

Tokarev, Sergej A. "Suchshnost i proishozhdeniye magii" [The nature and origin of magic]. In The Studies and Materials on Religious Beliefs in Primitive Society. The Works of the Institute of Ethnography. Moscow: Nauka, 1959.

Tokarev, Sergej A., ed. Mify Narodov Mira [Myths of the peoples of the world]. Vols. I–II. Moscow: Sovetskaya Encyclopedia, 1987–1988.

Veselovsky, A. "Opyty po istotii razvitija Christianskoj legendy. IV. skazanie o 12 pjatnitsah. [The essays on the history of the evolution of the Christian legend, part IV, A story about 12 Fridays]." Magazine of the Ministry of Folk Population Part 185, department X, 1876.

Zelenin, Dmitry K. Russische (ostslavische) Volkskunde. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1927.

—Tatiana Voronina

General term for "magic art," believed to derive from the Greek magein, the science and religion of the priests of Zoroaster (see Magi), or, according to philologist Skeat, from Greek megas (great), thus signifying "the great science." It commonly refers to the ability to cause change to occur by supernatural or mysterious powers and abilities. In the twentieth century, magic has been more stringently defined as the ability to create change by an act of the will and the use of the cosmic power believed to underpin physical existence. Contemporary magicians also distinguish between high magic and low magic. The latter refers to using magic to make changes in the mundane world, from concocting love potions to drawing money to oneself. The former refers to disciplined change of the self, and practitioners of high magic compare it to yoga.

Early History

Until a few centuries ago, most people lived in what they considered a magical universe, and evidence of the practice of magic is found as far back as human prehistory. Among the earliest traces of magic practice are paintings found in the European caves of the middle Paleolithic period. These belong to the last interglacial period of the Pleistocene epoch, named the Aurignacian after the cave dwellers of Aurignac (southern France), whose skeletons, artifacts, and drawings link them with the Bushmen of South Africa.

In the cave of Gargas, near Bagnères de Luchon, there are, in addition to spirited and realistic drawings of animals, numerous imprints of human hands in various stages of mutilation. Some hands were apparently first smeared with a sticky substance and then pressed onto the rock; others were held in position to be dusted around with red ocher or black pigment. Most of the imprinted hands have mutilated fingers; in some cases the first and second joints of one or more fingers are missing; in others only the stumps of all fingers remain.

A close study of the hand imprints shows that they are not those of lepers. There can be little doubt that the joints were removed for a specific purpose; on this point there is general agreement among anthropologists.

A clue to the mystery is provided by a similar custom among the Bushmen. G. W. Stow, in his book The Native Races of South Africa (1905), refers to this strange form of sacrifice. He once came into contact with a number of Bushmen who "had all lost the first joint of the little finger," which had been removed with a "stone knife" for the purpose of ensuring a safe journey to the spirit world. Another writer told of an old Bushman woman whose little fingers of both hands had been mutilated, three joints in all having been removed. She explained that each joint had been sacrificed to express her sorrow as each one of three daughters died.

In his Report on the Northwestern Tribes of the Dominion of Canada (1889), Franz Boas gives evidence of the custom among these peoples. When many deaths resulted from disease, the Canadian Indians sacrificed the joints of their little fingers in order to (they explained) "cut off the deaths."

Among the Indian Madigas (Telugu pariahs), the evil eye was averted by sacrificers who dipped their hands in the blood of goats or sheep and impressed them on either side of a house door. This custom was also known to the Brahmans of India.

Impressions of hands were also occasionally seen on the walls of Muslim mosques in India. As among the northwest Canadian tribes, the hand ceremony was most frequently practiced in India when epidemics took a heavy toll of lives. The Bushmen also removed finger joints when stricken with sickness. In Australia, where during initiation ceremonies the young Aborigine men had teeth knocked out and bodies scarred, the women of some tribes mutilated the little fingers of daughters in order to influence their future lives.

Apparently the finger-chopping customs of Paleolithic times had a magical significance. On some of the paintings in the Aurignacian caves appear symbols that suggest the slaying and butchering of animals. Other symbols are enigmatic. Of special interest are the figures of animal-headed demons, some with hands upraised in the Egyptian posture of adoration; others posed like the animal-headed dancing gods of the Bush-men.

In the Marsonlas Paleolithic cave, there are humanlike faces of angry demons with staring eyes and monstrous noses. In the Spanish Cave at Cogul, several figures of women wearing half-length skirts and shoulder shawls are represented dancing around a nude male. These females so closely resemble those of Bushman paintings that they might, if not for their location, be credited to this interesting people. Religious dances among the Bushman tribes were associated with marriage, birth, and burial ceremonies; they were also performed to exorcise demons in cases of sickness. "Dances are to us what prayers are to you," an elderly Bushman once informed a European.

Whether the cave drawings and wood, bone, and ivory carvings of the Magdalenian or late Paleolithic period at the close of the last ice age are related to magic is a question on which there is no general agreement. It is significant, however, that several carved ornaments bearing animal figures or enigmatic symbols are perforated as if worn as charms. On a piece of horn found at Lorthet, Hautes-Pyrénées, are beautiful, incised drawings of reindeer and salmon, above which appear mystical symbols.

An ape-like demon carved on bone was found at Mas d'Azil. Etched on a reindeer horn from Laugerie Basse is a prostrate man with a tail, creeping on all fours toward a grazing bison. These artifacts strengthen the theory that late Paleolithic art had its origin in magic beliefs and practices—that hunters carved on the handles of weapons and implements, or scratched on cave walls, the images of the animals they desired to capture—sometimes with the secured cooperation of demons and sometimes with the aid of magic spells.

A highly developed magic system existed in ancient Egypt, as in Babylonian (see Semites) and other early cultures. From these cultures the medieval European system of magic is believed to have evolved. Greece and Rome also possessed distinct magic systems that were integrated into their religious practice and thus, like the Egyptian and Babylonian rituals, were preserves of the priesthood.

Magic in early Europe was integral to the various religious systems that prevailed throughout that continent and survived into the Middle Ages as witchcraft. Christians regarded the practice of magic, at least the popular forms practiced in the Pagan culture competing with their religion, as foreign to the spirit of their faith. Thus the Thirty-Sixth Canon of the Ecumenical Council held at Laodicea in 364 C.E. forbade clerks and priests to become magicians, enchanters, mathematicians, or astrologers. It ordered, moreover, that the church should expel those who employed ligatures or phylacteries, because, it said, phylacteries were the prisons of the soul. The Fourth Canon of the Council of Oxia in 525 C.E. prohibited the consultation of sorcerers, augurs, and diviners, and condemned divinations made with wood or bread, while the Sixteenth Canon of the Council of Constantinople in 692 C.E. excommunicated for a period of six years diviners and those who had recourse to them. The prohibition was repeated by the Council of Rome in 721. The Forty-Second Canon of the Council of Tours in 613 said priests should teach people the inefficacy of magic to restore the health of men or animals, and later councils endorsed the church's earlier views.

Medieval Magic

It does not appear that what may be called "medieval magic" took final and definite shape until about the twelfth century. Modeled after the systems in vogue among the Byzantines and Moors of Spain, which evolved from the Alexandrian system (see Neoplatonism), what might be called "Oriental" magic gained footing in Europe and superseded the earlier magic based on paganistic practice and ritual. There is evidence that Eastern magic was imported into Europe by persons returning from the Crusades, and magic was disseminated from Constantinople throughout Europe, along with other sciences.

Witches and wizards and professors of lesser magic clung to paganism, whereas among the disciples of Oriental magic were the magicians, necromancers (fortune-tellers), and sorcerers (practitioners of malevolent magic).

The tenets of the higher branches of magic changed little from the eighth to the thirteenth century. There also appears to have been little persecution of the professors of magic. After that period, however, the opinions of the church underwent a radical change, and the life of the magus was fraught with considerable danger. Paracelsus, for instance, was not victimized in the same manner as the sorcerers and wizards, but he was consistently baited by the medical profession of his day. Agrippa was also continually persecuted, and even mystics like Jakob Boehme were imprisoned and mistreated. (Magicians were subject to persecution both for possible acts of sorcery and for allegiance to a heretical religious system.)

It is difficult to estimate the enormous popularity that magic experienced, whether for good or evil, during the Middle Ages. Although severely punished if discovered—or if its professors became notorious enough to court persecution—the power it seems to have conferred upon the practitioner was coveted by scores of people.

Two great names in the history of European magic are those of Paracelsus and Agrippa, who outlined the science of medieval magic. They were also the greatest practical magicians of the Middle Ages—apart from pure mystics, alchemists, and others—and their thaumaturgic and necromantic experiences were probably never surpassed.

Theories Regarding the Nature of Magic

According to Sir James George Frazer, author of The Golden Bough (1890), magic and religion are one and the same thing, or at least are so closely allied as to be almost identical.

Frazer's anthropologist successors in the early twentieth century, most notably Malinowski and Marcel Mauss, regarded magic as entirely distinct from religion. Magic possessed certain well-marked attributes that could be traced to mental processes differing from those from which the religious idea springs, they said. The two had become fused by the superim-position of religious rites upon magic practice.

It has also been said that religion consists of an appeal to the gods, whereas magic is the attempt to force their compliance. Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss, in Greatness and Decline of the Celts (1934), argue that magic is essentially traditional. Holding that the primitive mind is markedly unoriginal, they explain magic as an art that did not exhibit frequent changes among primitive peoples, and was fixed by its own laws. Religion, they claim, was official and organized; magic, prohibited and secret.

Frazer believed all magic was based on the law of sympathy—the assumption that things act on one another at a distance because of their being secretly linked by invisible bonds. He divided sympathetic magic into homeopathic magic and contagious magic. The first is imitative or mimetic and may be practiced by itself, but the second usually necessitates the application of the imitative principle. Well-known instances of mimetic magic are the forming of wax figures in the likeness of an enemy, which are then destroyed in the hope that he will perish. This belief persisted in European witchcraft into relatively modern times. Contagious magic can be seen in the primitive warrior's anointing the weapon that caused a wound instead of the wound itself, believing that the blood on the weapon continues to feel part of the blood on the body. (See also Powder of Sympathy)

L. Marillier divided magic into three classes: the magic ofthe word or act; the magic of the human being independent of rite or formula; and the magic that demands a person of special powers and the use of ritual. A. Lehmann believed magic to be a practice of superstition, founded in illusion.

The Magic Force

Many peoples have spoken of the operation of a magic cosmic force—something that impinged upon the thought of man from outside. Many tribal cultures postulated the existence of a great reservoir of magic power, the exact nature of which they were not prepared to specify.

Certain American Indian tribes believed in a force called orenda, or spirit force. Among the ancient Peruvians everything sacred was huaca and possessed magic power. In Melanesia a force called mana, transmissible and contagious, could be seen in the form of flames or could even be heard. The Malays used the word kramat to signify the same thing, and the Malagasy used the term hasma. Some tribes around Lake Tanganyika believed in such a force, which they called ngai, and Australian tribes had similar terms, such as churinga and boolya. In Mexico there was a strange creed named nagualism that held the same concept—everything nagual was magic or possessed an inherent spiritual force of its own.

The Dynamics of Magic

Earlier practitioners of magic believed that it is governed by a few well-defined laws. Chief among these is that of sympathy, which can be subdivided into the laws of similarity, antipathy, and contiguity.

The law of similarity and homeopathy is divisible into two tenets: (1) the assumption that like produces like—an illustration of which is the destruction of a doll in the form of an enemy; and (2) the idea that like cures like—for instance, that the stone called bloodstone can staunch the flow of blood.

The law dealing with antipathy rests on the assumption that the application of a certain object or drug expels its contrary.

The idea of contiguity assumes that whatever has once formed part of an object continues to form part of it. Thus, if a magician can obtain a portion of a person's hair, he can work harm upon that person through the invisible bonds that are believed to extend between the individual and the hair in the magician's possession. It was commonly believed that if the animal familiar of a witch is wounded, the wound will manifest on the witch herself (see werewolf). This is called "repercussion."

It was also widely assumed that if the magician procures the name of a person he can gain dominion over that person. This arose from the idea that the name of an individual is the same as the person himself. The doctrine of the "incommunicable name," the hidden name of the god or magician, has many examples in Egyptian legend, usually the deity taking extraordinary care to keep his name secret so that no one might gain power over him. The spell or incantation is connected with this concept.

Associated with these, to a lesser degree, is magic gesture, usually introduced for the purpose of accentuating the spoken word. Gesture is often symbolic or sympathetic; it is sometimes the reversal of a religious rite, such as marching against the sun, which is known as walking "widdershins." The method of pronouncing rites is also of great importance. Archaic or foreign expressions are usually found in spells both ancient and modern, and the tone in which the incantation is spoken is no less important than its exactness. Rhythm is often employed to aid memory. (See also Mantra)

The Magician

In early society the magic practitioner, a term that includes the shaman, medicine man, piagé, and witch doctor, held his or her position by hereditary right; by an accident of birth, like being the seventh son of a seventh son; through revelation from the gods; or through his mastery of ritual.

The shaman operated like a medium, for instead of summoning the powers of the air at his bidding, as did the magicians of medieval days, he found it necessary to throw himself into a trance and seek them in their own sphere. (The magician is also often regarded as possessed by an animal or supernatural being.)

The duties of the priest and magician were often combined in tribal society. When one religion was superseded, however, the priests of the old cult were considered, in the eyes of the leaders and believers of the new, nothing but evil or misguided magicians.

Medieval Definition of Magic

The definitions of magic given by the great magicians of medieval and modern times naturally differ greatly from those of anthropologists. For example, nineteenth-century magician Éliphas Lévi states in his History of Magic (1913): "Magic, therefore, combines in a single science that which is most certain in philosophy which is eternal and infallible in religion. It reconciles perfectly and incontestably those two terms so opposed on the first view—faith and reason, science and belief, authority and liberty. It furnishes the human mind with an instrument of philosophical and religious certainty were as exact as mathematics, and even accounting for the infallibility of mathematics themselves…. There is an incontest able truth; there is an infallible method of knowing that truth; while those who attain this knowledge and adopt it as a rule of life, can endow their life with a sovereign power which can make them masters of all inferior things, all wandering spirits, or, in other words, arbiters and kings of the world."

Paracelsus, writing in the sixteenth century, stated: "The magical is a great hidden wisdom, and reason is a great open folly. No armour shields against magic for it strikes at the inward spirit of life. Of this we may rest assured, that through full and powerful imagination only can we bring the spirit of any man into an image. No conjuration, no rites are needful; circle-making and the scattering of incense are mere humbug and jugglery. The human spirit is so great a thing that no man can express it; eternal and unchangeable as God Himself is the mind of man; and could we rightly comprehend the mind of man, nothing would be impossible to us upon the earth. Through faith the imagination is invigorated and completed, for it really happens that every doubt mars its perfection. Faith must strengthen imagination, for faith establishes the will. Because man did not perfectly believe and imagine, the result is that arts are uncertain when they might be wholly certain."

Agrippa also regarded magic as the true road to communion with God, thus linking it with mysticism.

Later Magic

With the death of Agrippa in 1535, the old school of magicians ended. But the traditions of magic were handed down to others who were equally capable of preserving them, or were later revived by persons interested in the art. There was a great distinction between those practitioners of magic whose minds were illuminated by a high mystical ideal and those persons of doubtful occult position, like the Comte de Saint Germain and others.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century there were many great alchemists in practice who were also devoted to research on transcendental magic, which they carefully and successfully concealed under the veil of hermetic investigation. These included Michael Maier, Robert Fludd, Cosmopolite, Jean D'Espagnet, Samuel Norton (see Thomas Norton),Baron de Beausoleil, J. Van Helmont, and Eirenaeus Philalethes (see also alchemy).The eighteenth century was rich in occult personalities, for example, the alchemists Lascaris Martines de Pasqually and Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, who founded the Martinist school, which was continued by "Papus" (Gérard Encausse).

By the end of the eighteenth century, magic practice had reached its lowest ebb as emphasis on the exploration of causative agents centered on the physical world and supernatural explanations were pushed aside. It was not until the nineteenth century that a spreading mesmerist philosophy offered philosophical underpinnings for a scientific worldview. Magic merged for the moment with mesmerism, and many of the secret magic societies that abounded in Europe about this period practiced animal magnetism experiments as well as astrology, Kabbalism, and ceremonial magic.

Mesmerism powerfully influenced mystic life in the time of its chief advocates, and the mesmerists of the first era were in direct line with the Martinists and the mystical magicians of the late eighteenth century. Indeed mysticism and magnetism were one and the same thing to some of these occultists (see Secret Tradition), the most celebrated of which were Cazotte, Ganneau, Comte, Wronski, Baron Du Potet de Sennevoy, Hennequin, Comte d'Ourches, Baron de Guldenstubbé, and Éliphas Lévi.

Modern Revivals of Magic

During the 1890s there was a revival of interest in ritual magic in Europe among both intellectuals and traditional occultists. This "occult underground" permeated much of the intellectual life and progressive movements in Europe, in contrast to the more popular preoccupation with Spiritualism and table turning.

Symbolic of this magic revival was the founding of the famous Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which numbered among its members such individuals as Annie Horniman (sponsor of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin), Florence Farr (mis-tress of George Bernard Shaw), S. L. MacGregor Mathers, William Butler Yeats, Arthur Machen, and Arthur Edward Waite. Another famous member was the magician Aleister Crowley, who left the order to found his own organization, A [.therefore] A [.therefore] , and then become head of the German-based Ordo Templi Orientis. Crowley's more psychologically sophisticated presentation of magic came to dominate twentieth-century thought on magic, even among those who rejected various portions of it, such as its emphasis on sex, mind-altering drugs, and egocentricity. A more sinister aspect of magic was the current of occult thought that flowed into and undergirded Adolf Hitler and Nazism.

During the 1930s there was an outbreak of public interest in the occult in Britain and Europe, and a number of significant books on magic were published. Their influence was limited only by the relatively smaller influence of mass media at that time and by the conservatism of intellectual life. Exceptional individuals like Aleister Crowley flourished in the 1920s and 1930s, but were deplored by polite society, which regarded such occultists as scandalous misfits.

A second wave of popular occultism flared up in the 1950s in Britain and North America, fueled largely by reprints of key books published during the 1930s. This modern interest in magic, however, had little in common with the outlook and ideals of medieval magicians and followers of the hermetic art. It stemmed largely from the trendiness of postwar affluence and the desire for sensationalist indulgence. The occult explosion led in the 1960s to Satanism and black magic cults. Much of modern occultism has been influenced by the use of mind-altering drugs.

During this modern period, one long-kept secret of occultism became generally discussed—that of the importance of sexual energy in dynamizing the processes of magic. Although this factor was well known to some occultists in Persia, China, and India, it was rediscovered in the early twentieth century and increasingly and openly discussed in the writings of Aleister Crowley and his disciples.

Throughout this century practitioners of magic have made some extraordinary claims about achieving desired ends. There are still two opinions among occultists as to how such feats are achieved. One is that desired effects in the physical world are produced through the operator's willpower, assisted by various ritual practices. The other opinion, still held by a minority, is that desired effects are achieved by means of spirit entities evoked during rituals. (Among skeptics there are various mundane explanations for the seemingly positive results of magic activity.)

Conjuring Tricks and Stage Magic

Today the term magic normally denotes the performance of conjuring, legerdemain, or illusion, although the term conjuring was originally used to indicate the evocation of spirits. Conjuring tricks have been used by priests for thousands of years to create the illusion of miracles. The astonishing and skillful illusions of modern stage magicians show that special caution is necessary in evaluating many apparently paranormal feats of magic, and stage magicians have also performed a valuable service in exposing fraudulent "psychic" feats. Because of their history of exposing fraud and their knowledge of the many techniques for creating illusions, stage magicians tend to be skeptical of all claimed paranormal feats.

Sources:

Agrippa, Henry Cornelius. The Philosophy of Natural Magic. London, 1651. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1974.

Barrett, Francis. The Magus: A Complete System of Occult Philosophy. London, 1801. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1967.

Bonewits, Philip E. I. Real Magic. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1971. Reprint, New York: Berkeley, 1971.

Christian, Paul. The History and Practice of Magic. 2 vols. London: Forge Press, 1952.

Christopher, Milbourne. The Illustrated History of Magic. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1973. Reprint, London: Robert Hale, 1975.

——. Panorama of Magic. New York: Dover, 1962.

Crow, W. B. A History of Magic, Witchcraft & Occultism. London: Aquarian Press, 1968. Reprint, London: Abacus, 1972.

[Crowley, Aleister] The Master Therion. Magick in Theory and Practice. Paris, 1929. Reprint, New York: Castle Books, n.d. Rev. ed. Magick. Edited by John Symonds and Kenneth Grant. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973. Reprint, New York: Samuel Weiser, 1974.

Ennemoser, Joseph. The History of Magic. 2 vols. London, 1854. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1970.

Freedland, Nat. The Occult Explosion. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1972. Reprint, London: Michael Joseph, 1972.

King, Francis. Ritual Magic in England (1887 to the Present Day). London: Neville Spearman, 1970. Reprint, New York: Macmillan, 1971.

——. Sexuality, Magic & Perversion. London: Neville Spearman, 1971. Reprint, New York: Citadel Press, 1972.

Lévi, Éliphas. The History of Magic. London: Rider, 1913. Reprint, New York: David McKay, 1914.

——. The Mysteries of Magic: A Digest of Éliphas Lévi. Edited by A. E. Waite. London, 1886. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1974.

——. Transcendental Magic. London, 1896. Rev. ed. London: Rider, 1923.

Melton, J. Gordon, and Isotta Poggi. Magic, Witchcraft, and Paganism in America: A Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1992.

O'Keefe, Daniel Lawrence. Stolen Lightning: The Social Theory of Magic. New York: Continuum, 1982.

Seligmann, Kurt. The History of Magic. New York: Pantheon Books, 1948. Reprinted as Magic, Supernaturalism, and Religion. 1971.

Shah, Sayed Idries. Oriental Magic. London: Rider, 1956.

——. The Secret Lore of Magic: The Books of the Sorcerers. London: Frederick Muller, 1957.

Summers, Montague. Witchcraft and Black Magic. London: Rider, 1946. Reprint, New York: Causeway, 1974.

Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971.

Thompson, C. J. S. The Mysteries and Secrets of Magic. London, 1927. Reprint, New York: Causeway, 1973.

Waite, Arthur Edward. The Book of Ceremonial Magic. London, 1911. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1961.

Webb, James. The Flight from Reason. London: Macdonald, 1971. Reprinted as The Occult Underground. LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1974.

——. The Occult Establishment. LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1975.

n.

An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.

Quotes:

"There is something in omens." - Ovid

"The profession of magician, is one of the most perilous and arduous specializations of the imagination. On the one hand there is the hostility of God and the police to be guarded against; on the other it is as difficult as music, as deep as poetry, as ingenious as stage-craft, as nervous as the manufacture of high explosives, and as delicate as the trade in narcotics." - William Bolitho

"Indubitably, Magic is one of the subtlest and most difficult of the sciences and arts. There is more opportunity for errors of comprehension, judgment and practice than in any other branch of physics." - Aleister Crowley

"Black magic operates most effectively in preconscious, marginal areas. Casual curses are the most effective." - William S. Burroughs

"We must not let daylight in upon the magic." - Walter Bagehot

"The magic of the pen lies in the concentration of your thoughts upon one object." - George Henry Lewes

See more famous quotes about Magic

Magic has both positive and negative connotations. Positively, magic may represent a creative mind that will "magically" achieve just what the dreamer is hoping for. Alternatively, black magic is a symbol for evil, and for getting what one wishes through underhanded "tricks."

This article or section has multiple issues. Please help improve the article or discuss these issues on the talk page. It needs additional references or sources for verification. Tagged since September 2007. It may be confusing or unclear for some readers. Tagged since May 2008.

"Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses" by John William Waterhouse

Magic, sometimes known as sorcery, is the practice of consciousness manipulation and/or autosuggestion to achieve a desired result, usually by empirical techniques described in various conceptual systems. The practice is often influenced by ideas of religion, mysticism, occultism, science, and psychology.

Contents 1 Etymology 2 Theories of Magic 2.1 Definitions of Relevant Terminology 2.2 Magical Thinking 2.3 Psychological Theories of Magic 3 Theories of Magic, Science, and Religion 3.1 Marcel Mauss: Magic and Religion 3.2 Tambiah: Different Anthropological Approaches to Science, Magic and Religion 3.3 Bronislaw Malinowski: Magic, Science and Religion 3.4 Robin Horton: Open vs. Closed Systems 4 Common Features of Magical Practice 4.1 Magical Language 4.2 Witchcraft 4.3 Magicians 4.4 Rituals 4.5 Magical Symbols 5 History of Western Magic 5.1 Classical antiquity 5.2 Middle Ages 5.3 Renaissance 5.4 Baroque 5.5 Romanticism 5.6 20th century 6 Theories of magic 6.1 Anthropological and psychological origins 6.2 Theories of adherents 7 Magic, ritual and religion 7.1 Magic in animism and folk religion 7.2 Magic in Hinduism 7.3 Magic and monotheism 7.3.1 In Judaism 7.3.2 In Christianity 7.3.3 In Islam 8 Varieties of magical practice 8.1 Magical traditions 9 See also 10 Notes 11 Bibliography 12 External links

Etymology

Through late 14th century Old French magique, the word "magic" derives via Latin magicus from the Greek adjective magikos (μαγικός) used in reference to the "magical" arts of the Magicians (Greek: magoi, singular mágos, μάγος); the Zoroastrian astrologer priests. Greek mágos is first attested in Heraclitus (6th century BC, apud. Clement Protrepticus 12) who curses the Magians and others for their "impious rites." Greek magikos is attested from the 1st century Plutarch, typically appearing in the feminine, in μαγική τέχνη (magike techne, Latin ars magica) "magical art."

Likewise, sorcery was taken in ca. 1300 from Old French sorcerie, which is from Vulgar Latin *sortiarius, from sors "fate", apparently meaning "one who influences fate." Sorceress appears also in the late 14th century, while sorcerer is attested only from 1526.

Theories of Magic

Definitions of Relevant Terminology

The foremost perspectives on magic in anthropology are functionalist, symbolist and intellectualist. These three perspectives are used to describe how magic works in a society. The functionalist perspective, usually associated with Bronislaw Malinowski, maintains that all aspects of society are meaningful and interrelated.^[1] In the functionalist perspective, magic performs a latent function in the society. The symbolist perspective researches the subtle meaning in rituals and myths that define a society^[2] and deals with questions of theodicy- why do bad things happen to good people. Finally the intellectualist perspective, associated with Edward Burnett Tylor and Sir James Frazer, regard magic as logical, but based on a flawed understanding of the world; in other words as “bad science.”

Magical Thinking

Main article: Magical Thinking

Magical thinking in anthropology, psychology, and cognitive science is nonscientific causal reasoning that often includes such ideas as associative thinking, the ability of the mind to affect the physical world (see the philosophical problem of mental causation), and correlation mistaken for causation. Symbolic expression may be brought into play, as well as the use of metaphor, metonym, and synchronicity. Practitioners of magic are often portrayed as irrational, but some theorists maintain that the magician’s goals are not necessarily physical, and that magical practices are, in some cases, genuinely efficacious.

Psychological Theories of Magic

Main article: Psychological Theories of Magic

Psychological theories treat magic as a personal phenomenon intended to meet individual needs, as opposed to a social phenomenon serving a collective purpose. Theories range from magic as neurosis to magic as bad science to magic as anxiety relief.

Theories of Magic, Science, and Religion

Magic, science and religion are categories of beliefs and systems of knowledge used within societies. While generally considered distinct categories in western cultures, the interactions, similarities and differences has been central to the study of magic for many of the great theorists in sociology and anthropology, including Frazer, Mauss, Tambiah and Malinowski. From the intellectualist and functionalist perspectives magic is often considered most analogous to science and technology. From the symbolist perspective, it is most alike religion.

Marcel Mauss: Magic and Religion

In A General Theory of Magic,^[3] Marcel Mauss classifies magic as a social phenomenon, akin to religion and science, but yet a distinct category. In practice magic bears a strong resemblance to religion. Both use similar types of rites, materials, social roles and relationships to accomplish aims and engender belief. They both operate on similar principles, in particular those of consecration and sacredness of objects and places, interaction with supernatural powers mediated by an expert, employment of symbolism, sacrifice, purification and representation in rites, and the importance of tradition and continuation of knowledge. Magic and religion also share a collective character and totality of belief. The rules and powers of each are determined by the community’s ideals and beliefs and so may slowly evolve. Additionally neither supports partial belief. Belief in one aspect of the phenomena necessitates belief in the whole, and each incorporates structural loopholes to accommodate contradictions.

The distinction Mauss draws between religion and magic is both of sentiment and practice. He portrays magic as an element of pre-modern societies and in many respects an antithesis of religion. Magic is secretive and isolated, and rarely performed publicly in order to protect and to preserve occult knowledge. Religion is predictable and proscribed and is usually performed openly in order to impart knowledge to the community. While these two phenomena do share many ritual forms, Mauss concludes that “a magical rite is any rite that does not play a part in organized cults. It is private, secret, mysterious and approaches the limit of prohibited rite.”^[4] In practice, magic differs from religion in desired outcome. Religion seeks to satisfy moral and metaphysical ends, while magic is a functional art which often seeks to accomplish tangible results. In this respect magic resembles technology and science. Belief in each is diffuse, universal, and removed from the origin of the practice. Yet, the similarity between these social phenomena is limited, as science is based in experimentation and development, while magic is an “a priori belief.”^[5] Mauss concludes that though magical beliefs and rites are most analogous to religion, magic remains a social phenomenon distinct from religion and science with its own characteristic rules, acts and aims.

Tambiah: Different Anthropological Approaches to Science, Magic and Religion

According to Tambiah, magic, science, and religion all have their own “quality of rationality,” and have been influenced by politics and ideology.^[6] Tambiah also believes that the perceptions of these three ideas have evolved over time as a result of Western thought. The lines of demarcation between these ideas depend upon the perspective of a variety of anthropologists, but Tambiah has his own opinions regarding magic, science, and religion. According to Tambiah, religion is based around an organized community (a church), and it is supposed to encompass all aspects of life. In religion, man is obligated to an outside power and he is supposed to feel piety towards that power. Religion is effective and attractive because it is generally exclusive and strongly personal. Also, because religion affects all aspects of life, it is convenient in the sense that morality and notions of acceptable behavior are imposed by God and the supernatural. Science, on the other hand, suggests a clear divide between nature and the supernatural, making its role far less all-encompassing than that of religion.

As opposed to religion, Tambiah suggests that mankind has a much more personal control over events. Science, according to Tambiah, is “a system of behavior by which man acquires mastery of the environment.”^[7] Whereas in religion nature and the supernatural are connected and essentially interchangeable, in science, nature and the supernatural are clearly separate spheres. Also, science is a developed discipline; a logical argument is created and can be challenged. The base of scientific knowledge can be extended, while religion is more concrete and absolute. Magic, the less accepted of the three disciplines in Western society, is an altogether unique idea.

Tambiah states that magic is a strictly ritualistic action that implements forces and objects outside the realm of the gods and the supernatural. These objects and events are said to be intrinsically efficacious, so that the supernatural is unnecessary. To some, including the Greeks, magic was considered a “proto-science.” Magic has other historical importance as well. Much of the debate between religion and magic originated during the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic Church was attacked for its doctrine of transubstantiation because it was considered a type of sacramental magic. Furthermore, the possibility of anything happening outside of God’s purpose was denied. Spells were viewed as ineffective and blasphemous because religion ultimately “assumed the direction of the world by a conscious agent who could be deflected from this purpose by prayer and supplication.”^[8] Prayer was the only way to effectively enact positive change. The Protestant Reformation was a significant moment in the history of magical thought because Protestantism provided the impetus for a systematic understanding of the world. In this systematic framework, there was no room for magic and its practices. Besides the Reformation, the Renaissance was an influential epoch in the history of thought concerning magic and science.

During the Renaissance, magic was less stigmatized even though it was done in secret and therefore considered "occult." Renaissance magic was based on cosmology, and its powers were said to be derived from the stars and the alignment of the planets. Newton himself began his work in mathematics because he wanted to see “whether judicial astrology had any claim to validity.”^[9]

The lines of demarcation between science, magic, and religion all have origins dating to times when established thought processes were challenged. The rise of Western thought essentially initiated the differentiation between the three disciplines. Whereas science could be revised and developed through rational thought, magic was seen as less scientific and systematic than science and religion, making it the least respected of the three.

Bronislaw Malinowski: Magic, Science and Religion

In his essay “Magic, Science and Religion,” Bronislaw Malinowski contends that every person, no matter how primitive, uses both magic and science. To make this distinction he breaks up this category into the “sacred” and the “profane”^[10] or "magic/religion" and science. He theorizes that feelings of reverence and awe rely on observation of nature and a dependence on its regularity. This observation and reasoning about nature is a type of science. Magic and science both have definite aims to help “human instincts, needs and pursuits.”^[11] Both magic and science develop procedures that must be followed to accomplish specific goals. Magic and science are both based on knowledge; magic is knowledge of the self and of emotion, while science is knowledge of nature.

According to Malinowski, magic and religion are also similar in that they often serve the same function in a society. The difference is that magic is more about the personal power of the individual and religion is about faith in the power of God. Magic is also something that is passed down over generations to a specific group while religion is more broadly available to the community.

To end his essay, Malinowski poses the question, “why magic?” He writes, “Magic supplies primitive man with a number of ready-made rituals, acts and beliefs, with a definite mental and practical technique which serves to bridge over the dangerous gaps in every important pursuit or critical situation.”^[12]

Robin Horton: Open vs. Closed Systems

In “African Traditional Thought and Western Science,”^[13] Robin Horton compares the magical and religious thinking of non-modernized cultures with western scientific thought. He argues that both traditional beliefs and western science are applications of “theoretical thinking.” The common form, function, and purpose of these theoretical idioms are therefore structured and explained by 8 main characteristics of this type of thought.

1.) In all cultures the majority of human experience can be explained by common sense. The purpose then of theory is to explain forces that operate behind and within the commonsense world. Theory should impose order and reason on everyday life by attributing cause to a few select forces.^[14]
2.) Theories also help place events in a causal context that is greater than common sense alone can provide, because commonsense causation is inherently limited by what we see and experience. Theoretical formulations are therefore used as intermediaries to link natural effects to natural causes.^[15]
3.) “Common sense and theory have complementary roles in everyday life.”^[16] Common sense is more handy and useful for a wide range of everyday circumstances, but occasionally there are circumstances that can only be explained using a wider causal vision, so a jump to theory is made.
4.) “Levels of theory vary with context.”^[17] There are widely and narrowly-encompassing theories, and the individual can usually chose which to use in order to understand and explain a situation as is deemed appropriate.
5.) All theory breaks up aspects of commonsense events, abstracts them and then reintegrates them into the common usage and understanding.^[18]
6.) Theory is usually created by analogy between unexplained and familiar phenomena.^[19]
7.) When theory is based on analogy between explained and unexplained observations, “generally only a limited aspect of the familiar phenomena is incorporated into (the) explanatory model”.^[20] It is this process of abstraction that contributes to the ability of theories to transcend commonsense explanation. For example, gods have the quality of spirituality by omission of many common aspects of human life.
8.) Once a theoretical model has been established, it is often modified to explain contradictory data so that it may no longer represent the analogy on which is was based.^[21]

While both traditional beliefs and western science are based on theoretical thought, Horton argues that the differences between these knowledge systems in practice and form are due to their states in open and closed cultures.^[22] He classifies scientifically oriented cultures as ‘open’ because they are aware of other modes of thought, while traditional cultures are ‘closed’ because they are unaware of alternatives to the established theories. The varying sources of information in these systems results in differences in form which, Horton asserts, often blinds observers from seeing the similarities between the systems as two applications of theoretical thought.

Common Features of Magical Practice

Magical Language

The performance of magic almost always involves the use of language. Whether spoken out loud or unspoken, words are frequently used to access or guide magical power. In "The Magical Power of Words" (1968) S. J. Tambiah argues that the connection between language and magic is due to a belief in the inherent ability of words to influence the universe. Bronsilaw Malinowski, in Coral Gardens and their Magic (1935), suggests that this belief is an extension of man’s basic use of language to describe his surroundings, in which “the knowledge of the right words, appropriate phrases and the more highly developed forms of speech, gives man a power over and above his own limited field of personal action.”^[23] Magical speech is therefore a ritual act and is of equal or even greater importance to the performance of magic than non-verbal acts.^[24] Yet not all speech is considered magical. Only certain words and phrases or words spoken in a specific context are considered to have magical power.^[25] Magical language, according to C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards’ (1923) categories of speech, is distinct from scientific language because it is emotive and it converts words into symbols for emotions; whereas in scientific language words are tied to specific meanings and refer to an objective external reality.^[26] Magical language is therefore particularly adept at constructing metaphors that establish symbols and link magical rituals to the world.^[27]

Malinowski argues that “the language of magic is sacred, set and used for an entirely different purpose to that of ordinary life.”^[28] The two forms of language are differentiated through word choice, grammar, style, or by the use of specific phrases or forms: prayers, spells, songs, blessings, or chants, for example. Sacred modes of language often employ archaic words and forms in an attempt to invoke the purity or “truth” of a religious or a cultural ‘golden age.’ The use of Hebrew in Judaism is an example.^[29] Another potential source of the power of words is their secrecy and exclusivity. Much sacred language is differentiated enough from common language that it is incomprehensible to the majority of the population and it can only be used and interpreted by specialized practitioners, (magicians, priests, shamans, even mullahs.).^{[30] [31]}In this respect, Tambiah argues that magical languages violate the primary function of language: communication.^[32] Yet adherents of magic are still able to use and to value the magical function of words by believing in the inherent power of the words themselves and in the meaning that they must provide for those who do understand them. This leads Tambiah to conclude that “the remarkable disjunction between sacred and profane language which exists as a general fact is not necessarily linked to the need to embody sacred words in an exclusive language.”^[33]

Witchcraft

Main article: Witchcraft

Often linked to magical beliefs and practices, witchcraft is a means for people to magically affect the world around them through various spells, rituals or even desires, in either a harmful or benevolent way. The ability to perform witchcraft is sometimes viewed as a biological trait and is sometimes said to be an acquired skill. In relation, sorcery is generally seen as the manipulation of magic. The intent behind witchcraft has been the object of much debate. Historically, witchcraft has been cited as the source of tragedy or misfortune in communities. Occasionally, as in the case of the Salem witch trials,^[34] social or economic strain can manifest in witchcraft accusations, suggesting that it is sometimes the alleged witch who is actually innocent. Many witches, moreover, claim to practice white magic, which is a benevolent form of the craft.

Magicians

Main article: Magician (paranormal)

A magician is any practitioner of magic; therefore a magician may be a specialist or a common practitioner, even if he or she does not consider himself a magician.^[35] All that is required is the possession of esoteric knowledge, traits, or expertise that are culturally acknowledged to harbor magical powers.

Magical knowledge is usually passed down from one magician to another through family or apprenticeships, though in some cultures it may also be purchased^[36]. The information transferred usually consists of instructions on how to perform a variety of rituals, manipulate magical objects, or how to appeal to gods or to other supernatural forces. Magical knowledge is often well guarded, as it is a valuable commodity to which each magician believes that he has a proprietary right.^[37]

Yet the possession of magical knowledge alone may be insufficient to grant magical power; often a person must also possess certain magical objects, traits or life experiences in order to be a magician. Among the Azande, for example, in order to question an oracle a man must have both the physical oracle (poison, or a washboard, for example) and knowledge of the words and the rites needed to make the object function.^[38]

A variety of personal traits may be credited to magical power, though frequently they are associated with an unusual birth into the world.^[39] For example, in 16th century Friuli, babies born with the caul were believed to be good witches, benandanti, who would engage evil witches in nighttime battles over the bounty of the next year’s crops.^[40]

Certain post-birth experiences may also be believed to convey magical power. For example a person’s survival of a near-death illness may be taken as evidence of their power as a healer: in Bali a medium’s survival is proof of her association with a patron deity and therefore her ability to communicate with other gods and spirits.^[41] Initiations are perhaps the most commonly used ceremonies to establish and to differentiate magicians from common people. In these rites the magician’s relationship to the supernatural and his entry into a closed professional class is established, often through rituals that simulate death and rebirth into a new life.^[42]

Given the exclusivity of the criteria needed to become a magician, much magic is performed by specialists.^[43] Laypeople will likely have some simple magical rituals for everyday living, but in situations of particular importance, especially when health or major life events are concerned, a specialist magician will often be consulted.^[44] The powers of both specialist and common magicians are determined by culturally accepted standards of the sources and the breadth of magic. A magician may not simply invent or claim new magic; the magician is only as powerful as his peers believe him to be.^[45] In different cultures, various types of magicians may be differentiated based on their abilities, their sources of power, and on moral considerations, including divisions into different categories like sorcerer, witch, healer and others.

Rituals

Magical rituals are the precisely defined actions (including speech) used to work magic. Bronislaw Malinowski describes ritual language as possessing a high “coefficient of weirdness,” by which he means that the language used in ritual is archaic and out of the ordinary, which helps foster the proper mindset to believe in the ritual.^[46] S. J. Tambiah notes, however, that even if the power of the ritual is said to reside in the words, “the words only become effective if uttered in a very special context of other action.”^[47] These other actions typically consist of gestures, possibly performed with special objects at a particular place or time. Object, location, and performer may require purification beforehand. This caveat draws a parallel to the felicity conditions J. L. Austin requires of performative utterances.^[48] By “performativity” Austin means that the ritual act itself achieves the stated goal. For example, a wedding ceremony can be understood as a ritual, and only by properly performing the ritual does the marriage occur. Émile Durkheim stresses the importance of rituals as a tool to achieve “collective effervescence,” which serves to help unify society. Psychologists, on the other hand, describe rituals in comparison to obsessive-compulsive rituals, noting that attentional focus falls on the lower level representation of simple gestures.^[49] This results in goal demotion, as the ritual places more emphasis on performing the ritual just right than on the connection between the ritual and the goal.

Magical Symbols

Magic often utilizes symbols that are thought to be intrinsically efficacious. Anthropologists, such as Sir James Frazer (1854-1938), have characterized the implementation of symbols into two primary categories: the “principle of similarity,” and the “principle of contagion.” Frazer further categorized these principles as falling under “sympathetic magic,” and “contagious magic.” Frazer asserted that these concepts were “general or generic laws of thought, which were misapplied in magic.”^[50]

The Principle of Similarity

The principle of similarity, also known as the “association of ideas,” which falls under the category of “sympathetic magic,” is the thought that if a certain result follows a certain action, then that action must be responsible for the result. Therefore, if one is to perform this action again, the same result can again be expected. One classic example of this mode of thought is that of the rooster and the sunrise. When a rooster crows, it is a response to the rising of the sun. Based on sympathetic magic, one might interpret these series of events differently. The law of similarity would suggest that since the sunrise follows the crowing of the rooster, the rooster must have caused the sun to rise.^[51] Causality is inferred where it should not have been. Therefore, a practitioner might believe that if he is able to cause the rooster to crow, he will be able to control the timing of the sunrise.

The Principle of Contagion

Another primary type of magical thinking includes the principle of contagion. This principle suggests that once two objects come into contact with each other, they will continue to affect each other even after the contact between them has been broken. One example that Tambiah gives is related to adoption. Among some American Indians, for example, when a child is adopted his or her adoptive mother will pull the child through some of her clothes, symbolically representing the birth process and thereby associating the child with herself.^[52] Therefore, the child emotionally becomes hers even though their relationship is not biological. As Claude Lévi-Strauss would put it: the birth “would consist, therefore, in making explicit a situation originally existing on the emotional level and in rendering acceptable to the mind pains which the body refuses to tolerate…the woman believes in the myth and belongs to a society which believes in it.”^[53]

Symbols, for many cultures that utilize magic, are seen as a type of technology. Natives might use symbols and symbolic actions to bring about change and improvements, much like Western cultures might use advanced irrigation techniques to promote soil fertility and crop growth. Michael Brown discusses the use of nantag stones among the Aguaruna as being similar to this type of “technology.”^[54] These stones are brought into contact with stem cuttings of plants like manioc before they are planted in an effort to promote growth. Nantag are powerful, tangible symbols of fertility, so they are brought into contact with crops in order to transmit their fertility to the plants.

Others argue that ritualistic actions are merely therapeutic. Tambiah cites the example of a native hitting the ground with a stick. While some may interpret this action as symbolic (i.e. the man is trying to make the ground yield crops through force), others would simply see a man unleashing his frustration at poor crop returns. Ultimately, whether or not an action is symbolic depends upon the context of the situation as well as the ontology of the culture. Many symbolic actions are derived from mythology and unique associations, whereas other ritualistic actions are just simple expressions of emotion and are not intended to enact any type of change.

History of Western Magic

Further information: History of astrology and History of religion

Classical antiquity

Main article: Magic in the Greco-Roman world

Hecate, the ancient Greek goddess of magic.

The prototypical magicians were a class of priests, the Magi of Zoroastrianism, and their reputation together with that of Ancient Egypt shaped the hermeticism of Hellenistic religion.^{[citation needed]}

The Greek mystery religions had strongly magical components, and in Egypt, a large number of magical papyri, in Greek, Coptic, and Demotic, have been recovered. These sources contain early instances of much of the magical lore that later became part of Western cultural expectations about the practice of magic, especially ceremonial magic.^{[citation needed]} They contain early instances of:

• the use of "magic words" said to have the power to command spirits;
• the use of wands and other ritual tools;
• the use of a magic circle to defend the magician against the spirits that he is invoking or evoking; and
• the use of mysterious symbols or sigils which are thought to be useful when invoking or evoking spirits.^[55]

The use of spirit mediums is also documented in these texts; many of the spells call for a child to be brought to the magic circle to act as a conduit for messages from the spirits.^{[citation needed]} The time of the Emperor Julian of Rome, marked by a reaction against the influence of Christianity, saw a revival of magical practices associated with neo-Platonism under the guise of theurgy.^{[citation needed]}

Middle Ages

Several medieval scholars were considered to be magicians in popular legend, notably Gerbert d'Aurillac and Albertus Magnus: both men were active in the scientific research of their day as well as in ecclesiastical matters, which was enough to attach to them a nimbus of the occult.

Magical practice was actively discouraged by the church, but it remained widespread in folk religion throughout the medieval period. Magical thinking became syncretized with Christian dogma, expressing itself in practices like the judicial duel and the veneration of relics. In many cases, relics became amulets, and various churches strove to purchase scarce or valuable examples, hoping to become places of pilgrimage. As in any other economic endeavor, demand gave rise to supply.^{[56][clarification needed]} Tales of the miraculous effects of relics of the saints were later compiled into popular collections like the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine, or the Dialogus miraculorum of Caesar of Heisterbach.

From the 13th century, the Jewish Kabbalah exerted influence on Christian occultism, giving rise to the first grimoires and the scholarly occultism that would evolve into Renaissance magic. The demonology and angellogy contained in the earliest grimoires assume a life surrounded by Christian implements and sacred rituals. The underlying theology in these works of Christian demonology encourages the magician to fortify himself with fasting, prayers, and sacraments, so that by using the holy names of God in the sacred languages, he could use divine powers to coerce demons into appearing and serving his usually lustful or avaricious magical goals.^[57]

13th century astrologers include Johannes de Sacrobosco and Guido Bonatti.

Renaissance

Further information: Renaissance magic

Renaissance humanism saw resurgence in hermeticism and Neo-Platonic varieties of ceremonial magic. The Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution, on the other hand, saw the rise of scientism, in such forms as the substitution of chemistry for alchemy, the dethronement of the Ptolemaic theory of the universe assumed by astrology, the development of the germ theory of disease, that restricted the scope of applied magic and threatened the belief systems upon which it relied.^[56]

The seven artes magicae or artes prohibitae, arts prohibited by canon law, as expounded by Johannes Hartlieb in 1456, their sevenfold partition reflecting that of the artes liberales and artes mechanicae, were:

1. nigromancy ("black magic", "demonology", linked by popular etymology with necromancy)
2. geomancy
3. hydromancy
4. aeromancy
5. pyromancy
6. chiromancy
7. scapulimancy

Both bourgeoisie and nobility in the 15th and 16th century showed great fascination with these arts, which exerted an exotic charm by their ascription to Arabic, Jewish, Gypsy and Egyptian sources. There was great uncertainty in distinguishing practices of vain superstition, blasphemous occultism, and perfectly sound scholarly knowledge or pious ritual. The intellectual and spiritual tensions erupted in the Early Modern witch craze, further reinforced by the turmoil of the Protestant Reformation, especially in Germany, England, and Scotland.^[56]

Baroque

Further information: 17th-century philosophy and natural magic

A talisman from the Black Pullet, a late grimoire containing instructions on how a magician might cast rings and craft amulets for various magical applications, culminating in the Hen that Lays Golden Eggs.

Study of the occult arts remained intellectually respectable well into the 17th century, and only gradually divided into the modern categories of natural science, occultism, and superstition. The 17th century saw the gradual rise of the "age of reason", while belief in witchcraft and sorcery, and consequently the irrational surge of Early Modern witch trials, receded, a process only completed at the end of the Baroque period circa 1730. Christian Thomasius still met opposition as he argued in his 1701 Dissertatio de crimine magiae that it was meaningless to make dealing with the devil a criminal offence, since it was impossible to really commit the crime in the first place. In Britain, the Witchcraft Act of 1735 established that people could not be punished for consorting with spirits, while would-be magicians pretending to be able to invoke spirits could still be fined as con artists.

Further information: Isaac Newton's occult studies

"Newton was not the first of the age of reason, he was the last of the magicians." — John Maynard Keynes

Romanticism

From 1776 to 1781 AD, Jacob Philadelphia performed feats of magic, sometimes under the guise of scientific exhibitions, throughout Europe and Russia. Baron Carl Reichenbach's experiments with his Odic force appeared to be an attempt to bridge the gap between magic and science. More recent periods of renewed interest in magic occurred around the end of the nineteenth century, where Symbolism and other offshoots of Romanticism cultivated a renewed interest in exotic spiritualities. European colonialism, which put Westerners in contact with India and Egypt, re-introduced exotic beliefs to Europeans at this time. Hindu and Egyptian mythology frequently feature in nineteenth century magical texts.^[58] The late 19th century spawned a large number of magical organizations, including the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Theosophical Society, and specifically magical variants on Freemasonry. The Golden Dawn represented perhaps the peak of this wave of magic, attracting cultural celebrities like William Butler Yeats, Algernon Blackwood, and Arthur Machen.^[59]

20th century

In general, the 20th century has seen a sharp rise in public interest in various forms of magical practice, and the foundation of a number of traditions and organisations, ranging from the distinctly religious to the philosophical.

In England, a further revival of interest in magic was heralded by the repeal of the last Witchcraft Act in 1951. This was the cue for Gerald Gardner to publish his first witchcraft-themed book, Witchcraft Today, in which he claimed to reveal the existence of a witch-cult that dated back to pre-Christian Europe. Although many of Gardner's claims have since come under intensive criticism from sources both within and without the neopagan community, his works remain the most important founding stone of Wicca. Gardner combined magic and religion in a way that was later to cause people to question the Enlightenment's boundaries between the two subjects.^{[citation needed]}

Gardner's newly created religion, and many others, took off in the atmosphere of the 1960s and 1970s, when the counterculture of the hippies also spawned another period of renewed interest in magic, divination, and other occult practices.^[60] The various branches of Neopaganism and other Earth religions that have emerged since Gardner's publication tend to follow a pattern in combining the practice of magic and religion, although this combination is not exclusive to them. Following the trend of magic associated with counterculture, some feminists launched an independent revival of goddess worship. This brought them into contact with the Gardnerian tradition of magical religion (or religious magic), and deeply influenced that tradition in return.^[59]

The pentagram, an ancient geometrical symbol known from many cultures, is often associated with magic. In Europe, the Pythagoreans first used the pentagram as a symbol of their movement.

Some people in the West believe in or practice various forms of magic. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley's Thelema and their subsequent offshoots, influenced by Eliphas Levi, are most commonly associated with the resurgence of magical tradition in the English speaking world of the 20th century. Other, similar resurgences took place at roughly the same time, centered in France and Germany. The western traditions acknowledging the natural elements, the seasons, and the practitioner's relationship with the Earth, Gaia, or a primary Goddess have derived at least in part from these magical groups, and are mostly considered Neopagan. Long-standing indigenous traditions of magic are regarded as Pagan.

Allegedly for gematric reasons Aleister Crowley preferred the spelling magick, defining it as "the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with the will." By this, he included "mundane" acts of change as well as ritual magic. In Magick in Theory and Practice, Chapter XIV, Crowley says:

What is a Magical Operation? It may be defined as any event in nature which is brought to pass by Will. We must not exclude potato-growing or banking from our definition. Let us take a very simple example of a Magical Act: that of a man blowing his nose.

Western magical traditions include hermetic magic and its many offshoots predominantly inspired by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, as well as Wicca and some other Neopagan religions. Definitions, concepts and uses of magic tend to vary even within magical traditions and indeed often between individuals.

Wicca is one of the more publicly known traditions within Neopaganism, a magical religion inspired by medieval witchcraft, with influences including the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Crowley. Ruickbie (2004:193-209) shows that Wiccans and witches define magic in many different ways and use it for a number of different purposes. Despite that diversity of opinion, he concludes that the result upon the practitioner is generally perceived as a positive one.

The belief in Magic is often considered superstitious, although it could be argued that some magical practices rely upon widely accepted psychological principles and are only intended to promote internal personal changes within the practitioner themselves^{[citation needed]}. Visualization techniques, for instance, widely used by magicians, are also used in somewhat different contexts in fields such as clinical psychology and sports training.^[61]

Theories of magic

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Anthropological and psychological origins

Further information: Myth and ritual

The belief that one can influence supernatural powers, by prayer, sacrifice or invocation goes back to prehistoric religion, and is consequently present from the earliest records of a cultic nature, including the Egyptian pyramid texts and the Indian Vedas, among which the Atharvaveda in particular addresses magic in the classical sense, and the position of the Vedic Brahmins, like that of any ancient priesthood, can be compared to that of magicians.^[62]

James George Frazer believed that magic was a fallacious system and asserted that magical observations are the result of an internal dysfunction: "Men mistook the order of their ideas for the order of nature, and hence imagined that the control which they have, or seem to have, over their thoughts, permitted them to exercise a corresponding control over things."^[63]

Others, such as N. W. Thomas^[64] and Sigmund Freud have rejected this explanation. Freud explains that "the associated theory of magic merely explains the paths along which magic proceeds; it does not explain its true essence, namely the misunderstanding which leads it to replace the laws of nature by psychological ones".^[65] Freud emphasizes that what led primitive men to come up with magic is the power of wishes: "His wishes are accompanied by a motor impulse, the will, which is later destined to alter the whole face of the earth in order to satisfy his wishes. This motor impulse is at first employed to give a representation of the satisfying situation in such a way that it becomes possible to experience the satisfaction by means of what might be described as motor hallucinations. This kind of representation of a satisfied wish is quite comparable to children's play, which succeeds their earlier purely sensory technique of satisfaction. [...] As time goes on, the psychological accent shifts from the motives for the magical act on to the measures by which it is carried out—that is, on to the act itself. [...] It thus comes to appear as though it is the magical act itself which, owing to its similarity with the desired result, alone determines the occurrence of that result."^[66]

See also: Shamanism

Theories of adherents

Adherents to magic believe that it may work by one or more of the following basic principles:^{[citation needed]}

• Natural forces that cannot be detected by science at present, and which may not be detectable at all. These magical forces are said to exist in addition to and alongside the four fundamental forces of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, the nuclear strong force and the nuclear weak force.

• Intervention of spirits, similar to hypothetical natural forces, but with their own consciousness and intelligence. Believers in spirits will often describe a whole cosmos of beings of many different kinds, sometimes organized into a hierarchy.

• A mystical power, such as mana, numen, chi, or kundalini, that exists in all things. Sometimes this power is concentrated in a magical object, such as a ring, a stone, a charm, or dehk, which the magician can manipulate.

• Manipulation of the Elements, by using the will of the magician and symbols or objects which are representative of the element(s). Western practitioners typically use the Classical elements of Earth, Air, Water, and Fire.

• Manipulation of Energy. Also believed to be the manipulation of energy from the human body. Most commonly referred to by the usage of the hands while the mouth uses a command of power.

• Manipulation of symbols. Adherents of magical thinking believe that symbols can be used for more than representation: they can magically take on a physical quality of the phenomenon or object that they represent. Another view is that sigils) in particular can be "charged" with magical powers. By manipulating symbols or sigils, one is said to be able to impact reality, or the reality that this symbol represents.

• The principles of sympathetic magic of Sir James George Frazer, explicated in his The Golden Bough (third edition, 1911-1915). These principles include the "law of similarity" and the "law of contact" or "contagion." These are systematized versions of the manipulation of symbols. Frazer defined them this way:

If we analyze the principles of thought on which magic is based, they will probably be found to resolve themselves into two: first, that like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause; and, second, that things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed. The former principle may be called the Law of Similarity, the latter the Law of Contact or Contagion. From the first of these principles, namely the Law of Similarity, the magician infers that he can produce any effect he desires merely by imitating it: from the second he infers that whatever he does to a material object will affect equally the person with whom the object was once in contact, whether it formed part of his body or not.^[67]

• Concentration or meditation. A certain amount of focusing or restricting the mind to some imagined object (or will), according to Aleister Crowley, produces mystical attainment or "an occurrence in the brain characterized essentially by the uniting of subject and object." (Book Four, Part 1: Mysticism) Magic, as defined previously, seeks to aid concentration by constantly recalling the attention to the chosen object (or Will), thereby producing said attainment. For example, if one wishes to concentrate on a god, one might memorize a system of correspondences (perhaps chosen arbitrarily, as this would not affect its usefulness for mystical purposes) and then make every object that one sees "correspond" to said God.

Aleister Crowley wrote that ". . . the exaltation of the mind by means of magickal practices leads (as one may say, in spite of itself) to the same results as occur in straightforward Yoga." Crowley's magick thus becomes a form of mental, mystical, or spiritual discipline, designed to train the mind to achieve greater concentration. Crowley also made claims for the paranormal effects of magick, suggesting a connection with the first principle in this list. However, he defined any attempt to use this power for a purpose other than aiding mental or mystical attainment as "black magick".

• The magical power of the subconscious mind. To believers who think that they need to convince their subconscious mind to make the changes that they desire, all spirits and energies are projections and symbols that make sense to the subconscious. A variant of this belief is that the subconscious is capable of contacting spirits, who in turn can work magic.

• A mysterious interconnection in the cosmos that connects and binds all things, above and beyond the natural forces, or in some cases thought to be an as-yet undiscovered or unquantifiable natural force, such as akasha, the "aether," or "etheric field."

• "The Oneness in All"; based on the fundamental concepts of monism and Non-duality, this philosophy holds that Magic is little more than the application of one's own inherent unity with the universe. Hinging upon the personal realization, or "illumination," that the self is limitless, one may live in unison with nature, seeking and preserving balance in all things.

Many more theories exist. Practitioners will often mix these concepts, and sometimes even invent some themselves. In the contemporary current of chaos magic in particular, it is not unusual to believe that any concept of magic works.

Key principles of utilizing Magic are often said to be Concentration and Visualization. Many of those who purportedly cast spells attain a mental state called the "Trance State" to enable the spell. The Trance State is often described as an emptying of the mind, akin to meditation.

Magic, ritual and religion

Main articles: Magic and religion and Myth and ritual

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Viewed from a non-theistic perspective, many religious rituals and beliefs seem similar to, or identical to, magical thinking.

Related to both magic and prayer is religious supplication. This involves a prayer, or even a sacrifice to a supernatural being or god. This god or being is then asked to intervene on behalf of the person offering the prayer.

The difference, in theory, is that prayer requires the assent of a deity with an independent will, who can deny the request. Magic, by contrast is thought to be effective:

• by virtue of the operation itself;
• or by the strength of the magician's will;
• or because the magician believes he can command the spiritual beings addressed by his spells.

In practice, when prayer doesn't work, it means that the god has chosen not to hear nor grant it; when magic fails, it is because of some defect in the casting of the spell itself. Consequently magical rituals tend to place more emphasis on exact formulaic correctness and are less extempore than prayer. Ritual is the magician's failsafe, the key to any hope for success, and the explanation for failure.

A possible exception is the practice of word of faith, where it is often held that it is the exercise of faith in itself that brings about a desired result.

Magic in animism and folk religion

An 1873 Victorian illustration of a "Ju-ju house" on the Gold Coast showing fetishised skulls and bones.

Juju charm protecting dugout canoe on riverbank, in Suriname.1954.

Appearing from aboriginal tribes in Australia and Maori tribes in New Zealand to rainforest tribes in South America, bush tribes in Africa and ancient Pagan tribal groups in Europe, some form of shamanic contact with the spirit world seems to be nearly universal in the early development of human communities. Much of the Babylonian and Egyptian pictorial writing characters appear derived from the same sources.

Although indigenous magical traditions persist to this day, very early on some communities transitioned from nomadic to agricultural civilizations, and with this shift, the development of spiritual life mirrored that of civic life. Just as tribal elders were consolidated and transformed in kings and bureaucrats, so too were shamans and adepts changed into priests and a priestly caste.

This shift is by no means in nomenclature alone. While the shaman's task was to negotiate between the tribe and the spirit world, on behalf of the tribe, as directed by the collective will of the tribe, the priest's role was to transfer instructions from the deities to the city-state, on behalf of the deities, as directed by the will of those deities. This shift represents the first major usurpation of power by distancing magic from those participating in that magic. It is at this stage of development that highly codified and elaborate rituals, setting the stage for formal religions, began to emerge, such as the funeral rites of the Egyptians and the sacrifice rituals of the Babylonians, Persians, Aztecs and Mayans.

In 2003, Sinafasi Makelo, a representative of Mbuti pygmies, told the UN's Indigenous People's Forum that during the Congo Civil War, his people were hunted down and eaten as though they were game animals. Both sides of the war regarded them as "subhuman" and some say their flesh can confer magical powers.^[68][69]

On April, 2008, Kinshasa, the police arrested 14 suspected victims (of penis snatching) and sorcerers accused of using black magic or witchcraft to steal (make disappear) or shrink men's penises to extort cash for cure, amid a wave of panic.^[70] Arrests were made in an effort to avoid bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 alleged penis snatchers were beaten to death by mobs.^[71]

Magic in Hinduism

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Traditional welcome performance, Mitral, Kheda district, Gujarat

It has been often stated that India is a land of magic, both supernatural and mundane. Hinduism is one of the few religions that has sacred texts like the Vedas that discuss both white and black magic. The Atharva Veda is a veda that deals with mantras that can be used for both good and bad. The word mantrik in India literally means "magician" since the mantrik usually knows mantras, spells, and curses which can be used for or against forms of magic. Many ascetics after long periods of penance and meditation are alleged to attain a state where they may utilize supernatural powers. However, many say that they choose not to use them and instead focus on transcending beyond physical power into the realm of spirituality. Many siddhars are said to have performed miracles that would ordinarily be impossible to perform. The Aghoris consume human flesh in pursuit of immortality and the supernatural. They distinguish themselves from other Hindu sects and priests by their alcoholic and cannibalistic rituals.^[72]

Magic and monotheism

Officially, Judaism, Christianity and Islam characterize magic as forbidden witchcraft, and have often prosecuted alleged practitioners of it with varying degrees of severity. Other trends in monotheistic thought have dismissed all such manifestations as trickery and illusion, nothing more than dishonest gimmicks. Some argue that the recent popularity of the prosperity gospel constitutes a return to magical thinking within Christianity. Note also that Gnostic Christianity has a strong mystical current, but shies away from practical magic and focuses more on theurgy.

In Judaism

Further information: Kabbalah and Hermetic Qabalah

Medieval Judaism preserved and embellished practices of Greco-Roman magic.^{[citation needed]} Virtually all works pseudepigraphically claim, or are ascribed, ancient authorship. For example, Sefer Raziel HaMalach, an astro-magical text partly based on a magical manual of late antiquity, Sefer ha-Razim, was, according to the kabbalists, transmitted to Adam by the angel Raziel after he was evicted from Eden.

Another famous work, the Sefer Yetzirah, supposedly dates back to the patriarch Abraham. This tendency toward pseudepigraphy has its roots in Apocalyptic literature, which claims that esoteric knowledge such as magic, divination and astrology was transmitted to humans in the mythic past by the two angels, Aza and Azaz'el (in other places, Azaz'el and Uzaz'el) who 'fell' from heaven (see Genesis 6:4).

In Christianity

Further information: Renaissance magic, Grimoire, Christian views on witchcraft, and Theurgy

Magia was viewed with suspicion by Christianity from the time of the Church fathers. It was, however, never completely settled whether there may be permissible practicies, e.g. involving relics or holy water as opposed to blasphemous necromancy (nigromantia) involving the invocation of demons (goetia). The distinction became particularly pointed and controversial during the Early Modern witch-hunts, with some learned authors such as Johannes Hartlieb denouncing all magical practice as blasphemous, while others portrayed natural magic as not sinful.

The position taken by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, one of the foremost Renaissance magicians, is notoriously ambiguous. The character of Faustus, likely based on a historical 16th century magician or charlatan, became the prototypical popular tale of a learned magician who succumbs to blasphemy (pact with the devil).

The current Catechism of the Catholic Church discusses divination and magic under the heading of the First Commandment.^[73]

It is careful to allow for the possibility of divinely inspired prophecy, but rejects "all forms of divination":

(2116) All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.

The section on "practices of magic or sorcery" is less absolute, specifying "attempts to tame occult powers" in order to "have supernatural power over others". Such are denounced as "gravely contrary to the virtue of religion", notably avoiding a statement on whether such attempts can have any actual effect (that is, attempts to employ occult practices are identified as violating the First Commandment because they in themselves betray a lack of faith, and not because they may or may not result in the desired effect).

The Catechism expresses skepticism towards widespread practices of folk Catholicism without outlawing them explicitly:

(2117) [...] Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another's credulity.

In Islam

Any discussion of Muslim magic poses a double set of problems. On the one hand, like its counterpart in predominantly Christian cultures, magic is forbidden by orthodox leaders and legal opinions. However, rather than preventing the practice of magic, this classification has merely forced a more complicated nomenclature in Muslim cultures. Nor has the prohibition of "magic" staved its influence on European magical traditions and the early stages of scientific thought. On the other hand, translating various Arabic terms as ‘magic’ causes another set of problems with no clear answers.

As with any question regarding the behavior of Muslims in relation to authorized practices, theological decisions begin by consulting the Qur’an. The second chapter introduces an explanation for the introduction of magic into the world:

They followed what the evil ones gave out (falsely) against the power of Solomon: the blasphemers were, not Solomon, but the evil ones, teaching men magic, and such things as came down at Babylon to the angels Harut and Marut. But neither of these taught anyone (such things) without saying: “We are only for trial; so do not blaspheme.” They learned from them the means to sow discord between man and wife. But they could not thus harm anyone except by Allah’s permission. And they learned what harmed them, not what profited them. And they knew that the buyers of (magic) would have no share in the happiness of the Hereafter. And vile was the price for which they did sell their souls, if they but knew! (Q 2:102).

Though it presents a generally contemptuous attitude towards magic, the Qur’an distinguishes between apparent magic (miracles sanctioned by Allah) and real magic. The first is that used by Solomon, who being a prophet of Allah, is assumed to have used miraculous powers with Allah’s blessing.^[74] The second form is the magic that was taught by the “evil ones,” or al-shayatin. Al-shayatin has two meanings; the first is similar to the Christian Satan. The second meaning, which is the one used here, refers to a djinn of superior power.^[75] The al-shayatin taught knowledge of evil and “pretended to force the laws of nature and the will of Allah . . .”^[76] According to this belief, those who follow this path turn themselves from Allah and cannot reach heaven. The Arabic word translated in this passage as “magic” is sihr. The etymological meaning of sihr suggests that “it is the turning . . . of a thing from its true nature . . . or form . . . to something else which is unreal or a mere appearance . . .”^[77] However, the seriousness with which the passage treats it reveals that sihr, in the context of the Qur’an, is no mere illusion. Sowing discord between a married couple and harming others with sihr are very real consequences. If one uses sihr for such malevolent purposes, then its assault on marital harmony and social justice probably influenced the contempt for which it is generally viewed in the Qur’an.

By the first millennium C.E., sihr became a fully developed system in Islamic society. Within this system, all magicians “assert[ed] that magic is worked by the obedience of spirits to the magician.”^[78] The efficacy of this system comes from the belief that every Arabic letter, every word, verse, and chapter in the Qur’an, every month, day, time and name were created by Allah a priori, and that each has an angel and a djinn servant.^[79] It is through the knowledge of the names of these servants that an actor is able to control the angel and djinn for his or her purposes.^[80]

The Sunni and Shia sects of Islam typically forbid all use of magic. The Sufis within these two sects are much more ambiguous about its use as seen in the concept of "Barakah". If magic is understood in terms of Frazer’s principle of contagion, then barakah is another term that can refer to magic. Barakah, variously defined as “blessing,” or “divine power,” is a quality one possesses rather than a category of activity. According to Muslim conception, the source of barakah is solely from Allah; it is Allah’s direct blessing and intervention conferred upon special, pious Muslims.^[81] Barakah has a heavily contagious quality in that one can transfer it by either inheritance or contact. Of all the humans who have ever lived, it is said that the Prophet Muhammad possessed the greatest amount of barakah and that he passed this to his male heirs through his daughter Fatima.^[82] Barakah is not just limited to Muhammad’s family line; any person who is considered holy may also possess it and transfer it to virtually anyone else. In Morocco, barakah transfer can be accomplished by spitting into another’s mouth or by sharing a piece of bread from which the possessor has eaten because saliva is the vessel of barakah in the human body.^[83] However, the transference of barakah may also occur against the will of its possessor through other forms of physical contact such as hand shaking and kissing.^[84] The contagious element of barakah is not limited to humans as it can be found in rocks, trees, water, and even in some animals, such as horses.^[85]

Just how the actor maintained obedience depended upon the benevolence or malevolence of his practice. Malevolent magicians operated by enslaving the spirits through offerings and deeds displeasing to Allah. Benevolent magicians, in contrast, obeyed and appeased Allah so that Allah exercised His will upon the spirits.^[86] Al-Buni provides the process by which this practice occurs:

First: the practitioner must be of utterly clean soul and garb. Second, when the proper angel is contacted, this angel will first get permission from God to go to the aid of the person who summoned him. Third: the practitioner “must not apply . . .[his power] except to that purpose [i.e. to achieve goals] which would please God.^[87]

However, not all Islamic groups accept this explanation of benevolent magic. The Wahhabis particularly view this as shirk, denying the unity of Allah. Consequently, the Wahhabis renounce appellations to intermediaries such as saints, angels, and djinn, and renounce magic, fortune-telling, and divination.^[88] This particular brand of magic has also been condemned as forbidden by a fatwa issued by Al-Azhar University.^[89] Further, Egyptian folklorist Hasan El-Shamy, warns that scholars have often been uncritical in their application of the term sihr to both malevolent and benevolent forms of magic. He argues that in Egypt, sihr only applies to sorcery. A person who practices benevolent magic “is not called saahir or sahhaar (sorcerer, witch), but is normally referred to as shaikh (or shaikha for a female), a title which is normally used to refer to a clergyman or a community notable or elder, and is equal to the English title: ‘Reverend.’”^[90]

Varieties of magical practice

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The best-known type of magical practice is the spell, a ritualistic formula intended to bring about a specific effect. Spells are often spoken or written or physically constructed using a particular set of ingredients. The failure of a spell to work may be attributed to many causes, such as a failure to follow the exact formula, to the general circumstances being unconducive, to a lack of magical ability, to a lack of willpower or to fraud.

Another well-known magical practice is divination, which seeks to reveal information about the past, present or future. Varieties of divination include: Astrology, Augury, Cartomancy, Chiromancy, Dowsing, Fortune telling, Geomancy, I Ching, Omens, Scrying and Tarot reading.

Necromancy is a practice which claims to involve the summoning of, and conversation with, spirits of the dead. This is sometimes done simply to commune with deceased loved ones; it can also be done to gain information from the spirits, as a type of divination; or to command the aid of those spirits in accomplishing some goal, as part of casting a spell.

Varieties of magic can also be categorized by the techniques involved in their operation. One common means of categorization distinguishes between contagious magic and sympathetic magic, one or both of which may be employed in any magical work. Contagious magic involves the use of physical ingredients which were once in contact with the person or a thing which the practitioner intends to influence. Sympathetic magic involves the use of images or physical objects which in some way resemble the person or thing that one hopes to influence; voodoo dolls are an example.

Other common categories given to magic include High and Low Magic (the appeal to divine powers or spirits respectively, with goals lofty or personal, according to the type of magic). Another distinction is between "manifest" and "subtle" magic. Subtle magic typically refers to magic of legend, gradually and sometimes intangibly altering the world, whereas manifest magic is magic that immediately appears as a result.

Academic historian Richard Kieckhefer divides the category of spells into psychological magic, which seeks to influence other people's minds to do the magician's will, such as with a love spell, or illusionary magic, which seeks to conjure the manifestation of various wonders. A spell that conjures up a banquet, or that confers invisibility on the magician, would be examples of illusionary magic. Magic that causes objective physical change, in the manner of a miracle, is not accommodated in Kieckhefer's categories.

Magical traditions

Another method of classifying magic is by "traditions," which in this context typically refer to complexes or "currents" of magical belief and practice associated with various cultural groups and lineages of transmission. Some of these traditions are highly specific and culturally circumscribed. Others are more eclectic and syncretistic. These traditions can compass both divination and spells.

When dealing with magic in terms of "traditions," it is a common misconception for outsiders to treat any religion in which clergy members make amulets and talismans for their congregants as a "tradition of magic," even though what is being named is actually an organized religion with clergy, laity, and an order of liturgical service. This is most notably the case when Voodoo, Palo, Santeria, Taoism, Wicca, and other contemporary religions and folk religions are mischaracterized as forms of "magic," or even as "sorcery."

Examples of magical, folk-magical, and religio-magical traditions include:

Alchemy Animism Asatru Bön Candomble Jeje Ceremonial magic Chaos magic Druidry Feri Tradition Haitian Vodou Hermetic Qabalah Hermeticism Hoodoo Huna

Kabbalah Louisiana Voodoo Nagual Obeah Onmyōdō Palo Pow-wow Psychonautics Quimbanda Reiki Santería Satanism Seid

Setianism Shamanism Shinto Taoism Thelema West African Vodun Wicca Zos Kia Cultus

See also

Black magic List of magical terms and traditions List of occultists List of occult writers Maleficium (sorcery) Magic (fantasy) Magic (illusion) Magic in the Greco-Roman world

Mathemagician Occultism Psionics Sex magic Witchcraft

Notes

1. ^ Winthrop, Robert H. Dictionary of concepts in cultural anthropology. New York: Greenwood P, 1991.
2. ^ Dictionary of anthropology. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997.
3. ^ Mauss, Marcel (1972) A General Theory of Magic (R. Brain, Trans.). New York: Norton Library. (Original work published 1903). ISBN 0-393-00779-0
4. ^ Mauss, Marcel (1972) A General Theory of Magic (R. Brain, Trans.). New York: Norton Library. (Original work published 1903). p. 24
5. ^ Mauss, Marcel (1972) A General Theory of Magic (R. Brain, Trans.). New York: Norton Library. (Original work published 1903). p. 92
6. ^ Tambiah, S. J. (1990). Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of Rationality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 2
7. ^ Tambiah, S. J. (1990). Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of Rationality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 8
8. ^ Tambiah, S. J. (1990). Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of Rationality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 19
9. ^ Tambiah, S. J. (1990). Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of Rationality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 28
10. ^ Maliowski, Bronislaw. Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays. USA: Anchor Books, 1954.(pg 17)
11. ^ Maliowski, Bronislaw. Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays. USA: Anchor Books, 1954. (pg 86)
12. ^ Maliowski, Bronislaw. Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays. USA: Anchor Books, 1954. (pg 90)
13. ^ Horton, R. (1967) "African Traditional Religion and Western Science." Africa 37(1-2), 155-187. Rpt. as "African Traditional Thought and Western Science." Rationality. Ed. Bryan R. Wilson. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984
14. ^ Horton, R. (1967) "African Traditional Religion and Western Science." Africa 37(1-2), 155-187. Rpt. as "African Traditional Thought and Western Science." Rationality. Ed. Bryan R. Wilson. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. p. 132
15. ^ Horton, R. (1967) "African Traditional Religion and Western Science." Africa 37(1-2), 155-187. Rpt. as "African Traditional Thought and Western Science." Rationality. Ed. Bryan R. Wilson. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. p. 135
16. ^ Horton, R. (1967) "African Traditional Religion and Western Science." Africa 37(1-2), 155-187. Rpt. as "African Traditional Thought and Western Science." Rationality. Ed. Bryan R. Wilson. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. p. 140
17. ^ Horton, R. (1967) "African Traditional Religion and Western Science." Africa 37(1-2), 155-187. Rpt. as "African Traditional Thought and Western Science." Rationality. Ed. Bryan R. Wilson. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. p. 143
18. ^ Horton, R. (1967) "African Traditional Religion and Western Science." Africa 37(1-2), 155-187. Rpt. as "African Traditional Thought and Western Science." Rationality. Ed. Bryan R. Wilson. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. p. 144
19. ^ Horton, R. (1967) "African Traditional Religion and Western Science." Africa 37(1-2), 155-187. Rpt. as "African Traditional Thought and Western Science." Rationality. Ed. Bryan R. Wilson. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. p. 146
20. ^ Horton, R. (1967) "African Traditional Religion and Western Science." Africa 37(1-2), 155-187. Rpt. as "African Traditional Thought and Western Science." Rationality. Ed. Bryan R. Wilson. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. p. 147
21. ^ Horton, R. (1967) "African Traditional Religion and Western Science." Africa 37(1-2), 155-187. Rpt. as "African Traditional Thought and Western Science." Rationality. Ed. Bryan R. Wilson. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. p. 148
22. ^ Horton, R. (1967) "African Traditional Religion and Western Science." Africa 37(1-2), 155-187. Rpt. as "African Traditional Thought and Western Science." Rationality. Ed. Bryan R. Wilson. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. p. 153
23. ^ Malinowski, B. K. (1935) Coral Gardens and their Magic, Dover, NY, 235
24. ^ Tambiah, S. J. (1968). "The Magical Power of Words". Man. Cambrige, UK. 3. 175-176
25. ^ Tambiah, S. J. (1968). "The Magical Power of Words". Man. Cambrige, UK. 3. 176
26. ^ Ogden, C. K. & Richards, I. A. (1923). The Meaning of Meaning. Discussed in Tambiah, S. J. (1968). "The Magical Power of Words". Man. Cambrige, UK. 3. 188
27. ^ Tambiah, S. J. (1968). "The Magical Power of Words". Man. Cambrige, UK. 3. 189
28. ^ Malinowski, B. K. (1935) Coral Gardens and their Magic, Dover, NY, 213
29. ^ Tambiah, S. J. (1968). The Magical Power of Words. Man. Cambrige, UK. 3. 182
30. ^ Tambiah, S. J. (1968). The Magical Power of Words. Man. Cambrige, UK. 3. 178
31. ^ Malinowski, B. K. (1935) Coral Gardens and their Magic, Dover, NY, 228
32. ^ Tambiah, S. J. (1968). The Magical Power of Words. Man. Cambrige, UK. 3. 179
33. ^ Tambiah, S. J. (1968). The Magical Power of Words. Man. Cambrige, UK. 3. 182
34. ^ Boyer, Paul and Nissenbaum, Stephen, Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1974
35. ^ Mauss, Marcel (1972) A General Theory of Magic (R. Brain, Trans.). New York: Norton Library. (Original work published 1903). ISBN 0-393-00779-0. p. 25
36. ^ Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1976) Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande. Abridged Ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Original Work Published 1937)
37. ^ , Marcel (1972) A General Theory of Magic (R. Brain, Trans.). New York: Norton Library. (Original work published 1903). ISBN 0-393-00779-0. p. 25
38. ^ Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1976) Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande. Abridged Ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Original Work Published 1937)
39. ^ Glucklich, A. (1997). The End of Magic. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 87
40. ^ ] Ginzburg, C. (1992) The Night Battles (J. & A. Tedeshci, Trans.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press
41. ^ Connor, L., Asch, T., & Asch, P. (1983) “A Balinese trance seance ; Jero on Jero, a Balanese trance seance observed [videorecording].” Watertown, Mass. : Documentary Educational Resources
42. ^ Mauss, Marcel (1972) A General Theory of Magic (R. Brain, Trans.). New York: Norton Library. (Original work published 1903). ISBN 0-393-00779-0. p. 41-44
43. ^ Mauss, Marcel (1972) A General Theory of Magic (R. Brain, Trans.). New York: Norton Library. (Original work published 1903). ISBN 0-393-00779-0. p. 26
44. ^ ] Glucklich, A. (1997). The End of Magic. Oxford: Oxford University Press
45. ^ Mauss, Marcel (1972) A General Theory of Magic (R. Brain, Trans.). New York: Norton Library. (Original work published 1903). ISBN 0-393-00779-0. p. 33, 40
46. ^ Malinowski, Bronislaw. Coral Gardens and Their Magic, “The Language of Magic and Gardening.” Dover. New York (1935).
47. ^ Tambiah, S. J. Man, New Series, Vol. 3, No. 2 (June 1968), p.p. 175-208. “The Magical Power of Words.” Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2798500 (last accessed 12/03/2009)
48. ^ Austin, J. L. How to Do Things With Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press (1962).
49. ^ Boyer, Pascal and Pierre Liénard. “Ritual behavior in obsessive and normal individuals.” Association for Psychological Science (2008).
50. ^ Tambiah, S. J. Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of Rationality. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 52
51. ^ Tambiah, S. J. Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of Rationality. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 45
52. ^ Tambiah, S. J. Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of Rationality. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 59
53. ^ Lévi-Strauss, C. The Effectiveness of Symbols. Garden City, NY, 192
54. ^ Brown, Michael. Tsewa’s Gift. Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 118
55. ^ Hutton (2003),^{[page needed]}
56. ^ ^{a b c} Kiekhefer (1998),^{[page needed]}
57. ^ Waite (1913),^{[page needed]}
58. ^ Greer (1996),^{[page needed]}
59. ^ ^{a b} Hutton (2001),^{[page needed]}
60. ^ Adler (1987),^{[page needed]}
61. ^ Journal of the American Medical Association THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CHESS. JAMA, October 20, 2004; 292: 1900
62. ^ magic in ancient India (page 51).
63. ^ Freud (1950, 83), quoting Frazer (1911, 1, 420).
64. ^ Thomas (1910–11),^{[page needed]}
65. ^ Freud (1950, 83).
66. ^ Freud (1950, 84).
67. ^ Bartleby.com: The Golden Bough (1922) Chapter 3: Sympathetic Magic Part 1: The Principles of Magic
68. ^ DR Congo Pygmies 'exterminated'
69. ^ Pygmies struggle to survive
70. ^ Penis theft panic hits city.., Reuters
71. ^ 7 killed in Ghana over 'penis-snatching' episodes, CNN, January 18, 1997.
72. ^ Aghoris, ABC
73. ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, English version, section 3.2.1.1.3
74. ^ The Meaning of the Holy Qur’an. Translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. Amana Publications. 2001. Ali supports this assumption in his commentary on this passage “. . . Solomon dealt in no arts of evil” (Q 2:102, note 103)
75. ^ Gibb, H.A.R. and J.H. Kramerst. 1965. Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam. Ithaca: Cornell. pp 523-524. The djinn are intelligent beings, or spirits, created by Allah from fire, as opposed to humans and angels who are created from clay and light (Q 15:26-27 ; 55:15).
76. ^ Ali, Q 2:102, note 103.
77. ^ Gibb, p 545.
78. ^ Gibb, p 546.
79. ^ This is also a subcategory of Muslim magic called simiya, often translated as natural magic. For a complete discussion of simiya, see ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: an Introduction to History. Franz Rosenthal, translator. 2nd edition, 1967. Vol. 3 pp 171-227.
80. ^ El-Shamy, Hasan. Unpublished Manuscript. Folk Beliefs and Practices in Egypt. p. 28.
81. ^ Westermarck, Edward Alexander. 1926. Ritual and Belief in Morocco. London: Macmillan. p. 35
82. ^ Westermarck, p. 36. Though Westermarck did not elaborate on this statement, the emphasis on the male lineage through Fatima appears to be of Sufi or Shi’ia origin rather than Sunni.
83. ^ Westermarck, pp. 41-93.
84. ^ Westermarck, pp. 42-43.
85. ^ Westermarck, p. 97.
86. ^ al-Nadim, Muhammad ibn Ishaq. The Fihrist of al-Nadim. Edited and translated by Bayard Dodge. New York: Columbia, 1970. pp. 725-726.
87. ^ El-Shamy. Folk Beliefs and Practices in Egypt. p. 34.
88. ^ Doumato, Eleanor Abdella. 2000 Getting God’s Ear: Women, Islam, and Healing in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. New York: Columbia. p. 34.
89. ^ El-Shamy. Personal communication
90. ^ El-Shamy. Folk Beliefs and Practices in Egypt. p. 33.

Bibliography

• Adler, Margot (1987). Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today. ISBN 0-14-019536-X

• Clifton, Dan Salahuddin (1998). Myth Of The Western Magical Tradition. C&GCHE. ISBN 0-393-00143-1. 

• Frazer, J. G. (1911). The Magic Art (2 vols.) (The Golden Bough, 3rd ed., Part II). London.

• Freud, Sigmund (1950). Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics. trans. Strachey. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-00143-1. 

• Greer, Mary K. (1996) Women of the Golden Dawn. Llewellyn. ISBN 0-89281-607-4

• de Givry, Grillot (1954). Witchcraft, Magic, and Alchemy, trans. J. Courtney Locke. Frederick Pub.

• Hutton, Ronald (2001). The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Oxford. ISBN 0-19-285449-6.

• Hutton, Ronald (2003). Witches, Druids, and King Arthur. Hambledon. ISBN 1-85285-397-2

• Kampf, Erich (1894). The Plains of Magic. Konte Publishing.

• Kiekhefer, Richard (1998). Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer's Manual of the Fifteenth Century. Pennsylvania State University. ISBN 0-271-01751-1.

• Ruickbie, Leo (2004). Witchcraft Out of the Shadows. Robert Hale. ISBN 0-7090-7567-7.

• Thomas, N. W. (1910–11). "Magic". Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., vol. 26, p. 337.

• Thorndike, Lynn (1923-1958) (8 volumes). A History of Magic and Experimental Science. New York: Macmillan. 

• Waite, Arthur E. (1913) The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts, London. J.B. Haze

External links

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - magi, trolddom
adj. - magisk, trolddomsagtig, fortryllet, forhekset
v. tr. - trylle, fortrylle, forhekse

idioms:

• as if by magic    som ved et trylleslag
• like magic    med magisk virkning
• magic carpet    flyvende tæppe
• magic eye    magisk øje
• magic lantern    laterna magica
• magic mushroom    tryllesvamp
• magic square    magisk kvadrat
• magic wand    tryllestav

Nederlands (Dutch)
goochelarij, betovering, magie, magisch, toverachtig, Geweldig!, magie/goochelarij gebruiken

Français (French)
n. - magie, sorcellerie
adj. - magique
v. tr. - faire des tours de magie

idioms:

• as if by magic    comme par enchantement
• like magic    comme par enchantement
• magic carpet    tapis volant
• magic eye    ¯il magique
• magic lantern    lanterne magique
• magic mushroom    champignon magique
• magic square    (Math) carré magique
• magic wand    baguette magique

Deutsch (German)
n. - Magie, Zauber, Zauberei
adj. - magisch, Zauber-, zauberhaft
v. - hervorzaubern, (wie) durch Zauberei verändern

idioms:

• as if by magic    als ob per Magie
• like magic    wie ein Wunder
• magic carpet    fliegender Teppich
• magic eye    magisches Auge
• magic lantern    Laterna Magica
• magic mushroom    Pilz, der Psilocybin produziert
• magic square    (Math.) magisches Quadrat
• magic wand    Zauberstab

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - μαγεία, γοητεία, μαγγανεία, ξόρκια, μαγικά
adj. - μαγικός
v. - κάνω ως δια μαγείας

idioms:

• as if by magic    ως δια μαγείας
• like magic    πολύ αποτελεσματικά
• magic carpet    μαγικό χαλί
• magic eye    (τεχνολ.) μαγικό μάτι, καθοδική λυχνία
• magic lantern    συσκευή προβολής φωτεινών εικόνων ή διαφανειών
• magic mushroom    ψυχεδελικό μανιτάρι
• magic square    τετράγωνο αριθμών (με ίδιο άθροισμα οριζόντια, κάθετα και διαγώνια)
• magic wand    μαγικό ραβδί μάγου

Italiano (Italian)
magia, magico, fare magia

idioms:

• as if by magic    come per magia
• like magic    come per incanto
• magic carpet    tappeto magico
• magic eye    piccolo tubo catodico usato in radioriceventi
• magic lantern    lanterna magica
• magic mushroom    fungo allucinogenico
• magic square    quadrato magico
• magic wand    bacchetta magica

Português (Portuguese)
n. - magia (f)
adj. - mágico
v. - magicar

idioms:

• as if by magic    como por mágica
• like magic    como mágica
• magic carpet    tapete mágico (m)
• magic eye    olho mágico (m)
• magic lantern    lanterna mágica (f)
• magic mushroom    cogumelo alucinógeno (m)
• magic square    cubo mágico (m)
• magic wand    vara de condão (f)

Русский (Russian)
волшебный

idioms:

• as if by magic    как по волшебству
• like magic    без видимых причин
• magic carpet    волшебный ковер
• magic eye    "магический глаз", индикатор настройки
• magic lantern    волшебный фонарь
• magic mushroom    гриб,содержащий псилоцибин,вы- зывающий галлюцинации
• magic square    магический квадрат
• magic wand    волшебная палочка

Español (Spanish)
n. - magia
adj. - mágico
v. tr. - hacer pases mágicos

idioms:

• as if by magic    como por arte de magia
• like magic    como por encanto
• magic carpet    alfombra mágica
• magic eye    ojo mágico, ojo electrónico
• magic lantern    linterna mágica
• magic mushroom    alucinógeno basado en un hongo mejicano, peyote
• magic square    cuadrado mágico
• magic wand    varita mágica, varita de las virtudes

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - magi, förtrollning
adj. - magisk
v. - trolla

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
魔术, 魔法, 魔术的, 不可思议的, 有魔力的, 用魔法得到, 用魔法变成, 使着迷, 使中魔

idioms:

• as if by magic    不可思议地
• like magic    好得或快得令人难以置信
• magic carpet    魔毯
• magic eye    电子射线管, 调谐指示器, 电眼
• magic lantern    幻灯, 早期放映机
• magic mushroom    神奇蘑菇
• magic square    魔术方块
• magic wand    魔术棒

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 魔術, 魔法
adj. - 魔術的, 不可思議的, 有魔力的
v. tr. - 用魔法得到, 用魔法變成, 使著迷, 使中魔

idioms:

• as if by magic    不可思議地
• like magic    好得或快得令人難以置信
• magic carpet    魔毯
• magic eye    電子射線管, 調諧指示器, 電眼
• magic lantern    幻燈, 早期放映機
• magic mushroom    神奇蘑菇
• magic square    魔術方塊
• magic wand    魔術棒

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 마법, 마술, 마력, 기술
adj. - 마술에 사용되는, 이상한 매력이 있는
v. tr. - ~을 마술로 바꾸다

idioms:

• as if by magic    감쪽 같이
• like magic    감쪽 같이, 신기하게도

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 魔法, 奇術, 不思議な力
adj. - 魔法の, 不思議な
v. - 魔法にかける, 魔法で変える

idioms:

• as if by magic    たちどころに
• like magic    魔法にかけたように
• magic carpet    魔法のじゅうたん
• magic eye    マジックアイ
• magic lantern    幻灯機
• magic marker    マジックマーカー
• magic mushroom    魔法のキノコ
• magic square    魔方陣
• magic wand    魔法のつえ

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) سحر (صفه) سحري (فعل) يسحر‏

עברית (Hebrew)
adj. - ‮של כשפים, מאגי, נפלא, מרגש‬
v. tr. - ‮יצר או שינה אולי באמצעות קסמים‬
n. - ‮כשפים, קסם, להטוטים‬

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