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Magic (also called magick to distinguish
it from stage magic) is a way of influencing the world through
supernatural, mystical or paranormal means. This article provides an
overview of specific magical traditions and practises. It also discusses the use of magic as a plot device in various kinds of fiction. For a list of historical
figures associated with paranormal magic, see: List of
occultists.
Note that the term magic is used in other senses in other articles. For a discussion of magic as an aspect of
religion, see magic and religion. Some people also use the term
magick, with that variant spelling, to distinguish the concept of magick as proposed by
Aleister Crowley from other varieties of magic. Magic is a fairly
neutral term; it has many synonyms, with varying connotations, such as sorcery, white magic, or black
magic.
Changing attitudes towards magic
Indigenous traditions
Appearing from aboriginal tribes in Australia and New Zealand to rainforest tribes in South America, bush tribes in Africa and
pagan tribal groups in Western Europe and the British Isles, some form of
shamanic contact with the spirit world seems to be nearly universal in the early development of human communities. The ancient
cave paintings in France are widely speculated to be early magical formulations, intended to produce successful hunts. 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 into kings and bureaucrats, so too were shamans and adepts devolved 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.
Magic and the Magi
Magical beliefs and practices are common in many cultures and religions. The word magic comes from the beliefs
and practices of the Magi (singular, Magus), Persian priests and
scholars, followers of Zoroaster, who were credited by the classical world with
mastery of astrology and other arcane arts.
In Judaism and Christianity
Officially, Judaism, Christianity and Islam characterize magic as witchcraft, but some forms of magical thinking have existed within these religions throughout some of their history. When these
religions' views of magic were later applied to the beliefs of other religions, this had the effect of vilifying tribal shamans and other practitioners of magic.
In Islam
Muslims, followers of the religion of Islam, believe in magic, but forbid its practice. Muslims believe that two Angels taught magic to mankind in order to
test their obedience.
- And they follow that which the devils falsely related against the kingdom of Solomon. Solomon disbelieved not; but the devils disbelieved, teaching mankind magic
and that which was revealed to the two angels in Babel, Harut and Marut. Nor did they
(the two angels) teach it to anyone till they had said: We are only a temptation,
therefore disbelieve not (in the guidance of Allah). And from these two (angels) people
learn that by which they cause division between man and wife; but they injure thereby no-one save by Allah's leave. And they
learn that which harmeth them and profiteth them not. And surely they do know that he who trafficketh therein will have no
(happy) portion in the Hereafter; and surely evil is the price for which they sell their souls, if they but knew. (al-Qur'an 2:102)
Suppression of magical beliefs
Examples of the suppression of magical belief and practice range from the eradication of neighboring polytheistic tribes by the early Hebrews,
to the attempted suppression and eventual appropriation of pagan holidays by the Catholic
Church, to the mingled motives of the Conquistadors, to the Salem witch trials of the Puritans. During such periods, the tendency of magic is to become more obscure and esoteric, with a certain element
in society always managing to preserve lore and tradition, often in disguised or metaphorical terms. This pattern gave rise to
the term occult.
The motivation of much scientific enquiry is similar to the motivation of
magic; that it is possible to discover the underlying reality behind mundane reality, and that that reality may have laws and
princples which may be discovered and controlled. Unlike the practice of magic, science has the scientific method to correct its errors. As the scientific method took hold, astronomy evolved from astrology, and
chemistry from alchemy.
History of Western European magic
Magical beliefs in Western Europe
Belief in various magical practices has waxed and waned in European and Western
history, under pressure from either organised monotheistic religions or from scepticism about the reality of magic, and the ascendency of scientism. 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.
In the Middle Ages
Mediæval authors, under the control of the Church, confined their magic to compilations of wonderlore and collections of
spells. Albertus Magnus was credited, rightly or wrongly, with a
number of such compilations. Specifically Christianised varieties of magic were devised at this period. During the early Middle
Ages, the cult of relics as objects not only of veneration but also of supernatural power arose. Miraculous tales were told of the power of relics of the
saints to work miracles, not only to heal the
sick, but for purposes like swaying the outcome of a battle. The relics had become
amulets, and various churches strove to
purchase scarce or valuable examples, hoping to become places of pilgrimage. As
in any other economic endeavour, demand gave rise to supply. Tales of the miracle-working relics of the saints were compiled
later into quite popular collections like the Golden Legend of
Jacobus de Voragine or the Dialogus miraculorum of
Caesar of Heisterbach.
There were other, officially proscribed varieties of Christianised magic. The demonology and angelology 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 garbled versions of the holy names of God in foreign languages, he can use divine power to coerce demons into appearing and serving his usually lustful or avaricious magical goals. Not surprisingly, the church
disapproved of these rites; they are none the less Christianised for all that, and assume a theology of mechanical
sacramentalism.
Magic in the Renaissance
Renaissance humanism saw a
resurgence in hermeticism and other 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 it relied on. Tensions roused by the
Protestant Reformation led to an upswing in witch-hunting, especially in
Germany, England, and Scotland; but ultimately, the new theology of
Protestantism proved a worse foe to magic by undermining belief in the sort of ritualism that allowed religious rites to be re-purposed towards earthly, magical ends. Scientism, more than
religion, proved to be magic's deadliest foe.
Alongside the ceremonial magic followed by the better educated was the everyday activities of folk practitioners of magic
across Europe, typified by the cunning folk found in Great Britain. In
their magical practices astrology, folklore, and distorted versions of Christian
ritual magic worked alongside each other to answer customer demand.
Magic and Romanticism
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. 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 to its banner.
Magic in the twentieth century
A further revival of interest in magic was heralded by the repeal, in England, of
the last Witchcraft Act in 1951.
This was the cue for Gerald Gardner, now recognised as the
founder of Wicca, to publish his first non-fiction book Witchcraft
Today, in which he claimed to reveal the existence of a witch-cult that dated back
to pre-Christian Europe. Gardner's new religion combined magic and religion in a
way that was later to cause people to question the
Enlightenment's boundaries between the two subjects.
Gardner's new religion, and many imitators, 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. The various branches of neo-paganism and other new earth religions that have
sprung up in Gardner's wake tend to follow his lead in combining the practice of magic and religion. The trend was continued by
some heirs to the counterculture; feminists led the way when some launched an
independent revival of goddess worship. This brought them into
contact with the Gardnerian tradition of magical religion, and
deeply influenced that tradition in return.
Modern believers in magic
Many people in the West claim to believe in or practise various forms of magic. The forms of magic they adhere to have been
reconstructed from secondary or tertiary sources. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, and their followers are most often credited with the resurgence of magical tradition in
the English speaking world of the 20th century, but in their eagerness to reconstruct the lost traditions of the past, they often included
elements of questionable authenticity, or manufactured them from whole cloth. Other, similar movements took place at roughly the
same time, centred in France and Germany.
Thus, any current tradition which acknowledges the natural elements, the seasons, and the practitioner's relationship with the
Earth, Gaia, or the Goddess may be correctly
regarded as Neopagan, and few such traditions can be sensibly labelled more
authentic than any others.
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 will as well as ritual magick. 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.
Although some current practitioners of magic prefer the term pagan,
Neopaganism is more correct for scholarly reference to current
rituals and traditions. Wicca is a more codified form of modern magic than Neopaganism,
again owing much to Crowley and his ilk. Wicca and Neopaganism are very different things from Satanism, which owes its structure and memes primarily to inversions of
monotheistic texts.
Theories of magic
In an age where the existence of magical forces is no longer taken for granted, believers in magic are likely to be asked,
"How does magic work?"
Mainly by suggestion, see hypnosis, and the focusing of attention. It
can be characterized as assertion of the will. Working of magic is often dependent upon
being part of a social group which supports the belief. A survey of writings by believers in magic shows that adherents believe
that it may work by one or more of these basic principles:
- Natural forces that cannot be detected by science at present, and in fact may not be detectable at all.
These magical forces are said to exist in addition to and alongside the four known forces of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear
force and the weak nuclear force.
- Intervention of spirits similar to these hypothetic natural forces, but with their own consciousness and
intelligence. Believers in spirits will often see a whole cosmos of beings of many different kinds, sometimes organized into a hierarchy.
- A mystical power, such as mana, that exists in all things. This power
is often said to be dangerous to people.
- A mysterious interconnection in the cosmos that connects and binds all things, above and beyond the natural
forces.
- 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. By manipulating symbols, one is said to be able to manipulate 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 analyse 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. [1]
- Concentration or meditation. A certain amount of 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) Magick, 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 correspondances (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 magical 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 magic".
- The magical power of the subconscious mind. To believers who think they need to convince their subconscious mind to make the changes they want, 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.
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 any concept of magic works.
Religious ritual and magical thinking
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, of 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. It is no wonder that magic tends to be more formulaic and less
extempore than prayer. Ritual is the magician's failsafe, the key to any hope for success, and the explanation for
failure.
Magical practices
The basic mechanism of magical practices is the spell, a spoken or written formula
which is used in conjunction with a particular set of ingredients. If a spell is properly executed and fails to work, then the
spell is a fraud. However, in most instances, the failure of a spell to bring about the desired effect can be attributed to the
failure of the person executing the spell to follow the magic formula to the letter.
Generally speaking, there are two types of magic: contagious magic and sympathetic
magic. Contagious magic involves the use of physical ingredients which were once in contact with the object or objects one
hopes to influence with a spell, and sympathetic magic involves the use of physical objects which resemble the object or objects
one hopes to influence.
Varieties of magical practice
Magical intentions
There are several historical varieties of magical practice. Generally, magical intentions can be divided into two general
areas. The first is divination, which seeks to reveal information. Varieties of
divination include:
Necromancy involves the summoning and conversation with spirits. This can be
done either to gain information from the spirits; or it can be done with the intention of commanding those spirits, in which it
falls under the second general area of magic; that of casting spells. Included in this
broad category are a number of specific magical intentions, such as the weather magic of the rain dance, the physical magic of alchemy, or the making of potions and philtres.
Magical traditions
Another method of classifying magic is by "traditions," which in this context
typically refer to complexes of magical belief and practice associated with various cultural groups and lineages of transmission.
These traditions can compass both divination and spells. Examples of these traditions include:
Some of these traditions are highly specific and culturally circumscribed. Others are more eclectic and syncretistic. When dealing with magic as a tradition, the line often becomes blurry between magic and folk religion.
Magic in fiction
In considering magic as tradition, a related category concerns magic in fiction,
where it serves as a plot device, the source of magical artifacts and their quests. Magic has long been a
subject of fictional tales, especially in fantasy fiction, where it has been a
mainstay from the days of Homer and Apuleius, down through the tales of the Holy Grail, Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, and to contemporary authors from J. R. R. Tolkien to Mercedes Lackey and
J. K. Rowling (see Magic (Harry Potter)). It can also be found in the Fire Emblem game in which there are a variety of classes that use different types of magic (i.e. Dark, Light,
and Nature Magic). There may be a well-developed system in fictional magic, or not. It is by no means impossible, moreover, for
fictional magic to leap from the pages of fantasy to actual magical practice; such was the fate of the Necronomicon, invented as fiction by H. P. Lovecraft, who sold it so well that there have been several attempts to produce this fabled and
dangerous grimoire.
Many mythological or historical magicians have appeared in fictional accounts as well.
See also
External links
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