Hutton, Ronald (2003). Witches, Druids and King Arthur. London and New York: Hambledon and London. ISBN 9781852853976. A common set of shared assumptions about the causes of evil and how to avert it are found in a form of early protective magic called incantation bowl or magic bowls. The bowls were produced in the Middle East, particularly in Upper Mesopotamia and Syria, what is now Iraq and Iran, and fairly popular during the sixth to eighth centuries. [45] [46] The bowls were buried face down and were meant to capture demons. They were commonly placed under the threshold, courtyards, in the corner of the homes of the recently deceased and in cemeteries. [47] A subcategory of incantation bowls are those used in Jewish magical practice. Aramaic incantation bowls are an important source of knowledge about Jewish magical practices. [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] Egypt [ edit ] Ancient Egyptian Eye of Horus amulet According to Stanley Tambiah, magic, science, and religion all have their own "quality of rationality", and have been influenced by politics and ideology. [228] 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." [229] Ethnocentrism [ edit ] Despite the importance of studies that explore magic as a phenomenon straddling the personal, the cosmological, and the socio-historical, some scholars have argued that insisting on its negative aspects does not tell us the entire story. The occult is more than a symptom of suffering, turmoil, and distress. Indeed, a well-established scholarly tradition focuses on magic as an occult technology – a ‘craft’ – used to bring about desired change in both self and world. These approaches should not be seen as antithetical to the ones discussed above, and indeed the two aspects often coexist within the same instance, as the change being pursued with magical means may aim to restore balance and wholeness in the face of affliction or illness. Bearing in mind that distinguishing between ‘negative’- and ‘craft’-oriented approaches to the study of magic is to some extent an analytical artifice, this section will foreground examples of the creative and positive dimension of magic. A large number of magical papyri, in Greek, Coptic, and Demotic, have been recovered and translated. [91] They contain early instances of:

Ritner, R.K., Magic: An Overview in Redford, D.B., Oxford Encyclopedia Of Ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 323 Hanegraaff, Wouter J. (2006b). "Magic V: 18th-20th Century". In Wouter J. Hanegraaff (ed.). Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism. Brill. pp.738–744. ISBN 978-9004152311. See also: Mesopotamian divination, Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana, Maqlû, and Zisurrû Bronze protection plaque from the Neo-Assyrian era showing the demon Lamashtu magic | Etymology, origin and meaning of magic by etymonline". www.etymonline.com . Retrieved 2022-10-13. Related post-Marxist approaches have further illuminated magic’s relation with political-economic dynamics, such as the rapid development of capitalist markets disrupting pre-existing social arrangements and spreading anxieties across social bodies. Michael Taussig (1977), for example, has explored how in the 1960s, impoverished labourers in Latin American mines and sugar plantations employed the occult idiom of ‘the devil’ and the trope of the Faustian pact – the risk of losing one’s soul – to make sense of their work. These ideas were used to express intellectual and moral statements about the ‘hidden’ mechanisms of aggressive capitalism, such as uncompensated labour, the extraction of surplus value with the amassment of wealth into a few private hands, and commodity fetishism.Ancient Greek scholarship of the 20th century, almost certainly influenced by Christianising preconceptions of the meanings of magic and religion, and the wish to establish Greek culture as the foundation of Western rationality, developed a theory of ancient Greek magic as primitive and insignificant, and thereby essentially separate from Homeric, communal ( polis) religion. Since the last decade of the century, however, recognising the ubiquity and respectability of acts such as katadesmoi ( binding spells), described as magic by modern and ancient observers alike, scholars have been compelled to abandon this viewpoint. [87] :90–95 The Greek word mageuo (practice magic) itself derives from the word Magos, originally simply the Greek name for a Persian tribe known for practicing religion. [88] Non-civic mystery cults have been similarly re-evaluated: [87] :97–98

Halakha (Jewish religious law) forbids divination and other forms of soothsaying, and the Talmud lists many persistent yet condemned divining practices. [66] Practical Kabbalah in historical Judaism, is a branch of the Jewish mystical tradition that concerns the use of magic. It was considered permitted white magic by its practitioners, reserved for the elite, who could separate its spiritual source from Qliphoth realms of evil if performed under circumstances that were holy ( Q-D-Š) and pure (טומאה וטהרה, tvmh vthrh [67]). The concern of overstepping Judaism's strong prohibitions of impure magic ensured it remained a minor tradition in Jewish history. Its teachings include the use of Divine and angelic names for amulets and incantations. [68] These magical practices of Judaic folk religion which became part of practical Kabbalah date from Talmudic times. [68] The Talmud mentions the use of charms for healing, and a wide range of magical cures were sanctioned by rabbis. It was ruled that any practice actually producing a cure was not to be regarded superstitiously and there has been the widespread practice of medicinal amulets, and folk remedies (segullot) in Jewish societies across time and geography. [69] Waldau, Paul; Patton, Kimberley, eds. (2009). A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Religion, Science, and Ethics. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-13643-3. Lebling, Robert (2010). Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar. I.B.Tauris. p.51. ISBN 9780857730633. Katadesmoi (Latin: defixiones), curses inscribed on wax or lead tablets and buried underground, were frequently executed by all strata of Greek society, sometimes to protect the entire polis. [87] :95–96 Communal curses carried out in public declined after the Greek classical period, but private curses remained common throughout antiquity. [90] They were distinguished as magical by their individualistic, instrumental and sinister qualities. [87] :96 These qualities, and their perceived deviation from inherently mutable cultural constructs of normality, most clearly delineate ancient magic from the religious rituals of which they form a part. [87] :102–103 Economic incentives can encourage individuals to identify as magicians. [143] In the cases of various forms of traditional healer, as well as the later stage magicians or illusionists, the label of magician could become a job description. [253] Others claim such an identity out of a genuinely held belief that they have specific unusual powers or talents. [254] Different societies have different social regulations regarding who can take on such a role; for instance, it may be a question of familial heredity, or there may be gender restrictions on who is allowed to engage in such practices. [255]In the first century BCE, the Greek concept of the magos was adopted into Latin and used by a number of ancient Roman writers as magus and magia. [15] The earliest known Latin use of the term was in Virgil's Eclogue, written around 40 BCE, which makes reference to magicis... sacris (magic rites). [84] The Romans already had other terms for the negative use of supernatural powers, such as veneficus and saga. [84] The Roman use of the term was similar to that of the Greeks, but placed greater emphasis on the judicial application of it. [15] Within the Roman Empire, laws would be introduced criminalising things regarded as magic. [85] Furthermore, distinguishing between ‘unorthodox’ magical practices and ‘legitimate’ religious ones is particularly problematic in the case of religious traditions that are not based on highly codified doctrines and liturgies, and therefore do not encourage distinctions between prayer, incantation, or spell to the same extent as Christianity, in particular, as we shall see, in its Reformed versions. For instance, in certain Tibetan Buddhist contexts, religious specialists take part in propitiatory rituals to conjure or restore ‘fortune’ (Humphrey 2012) that in Western settings might easily be classified as magical spells and rituals. Magic, science, religion… and anthropology a b c d e Kindt, Julia (2012). Rethinking Greek Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521110921. The scholarly application of magic as a sui generis category that can be applied to any socio-cultural context was linked with the promotion of modernity to both Western and non-Western audiences. [150]

O'Keefe, Daniel (1982). Stolen Lightning: The Social Theory of Magic. Oxford. {{ cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher ( link) Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, Moshe Idel, SUNY Press 1995, pp. 72–74. The term magic, used here to denote divine theurgy affecting material blessing, rather than directly talismanic practical Kabbalah magic Lindberg, David C. (2007). The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450 (2nded.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p.20. ISBN 978-0226482057. Carrasco, David; Warmind, Morten; Hawley, John Stratton; Reynolds, Frank; Giarardot, Norman; Neusner, Jacob; Pelikan, Jaroslav; Campo, Juan; Penner, Hans; etal. (Authors) (1999). Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of World Religions. Edited by Wendy Doniger. United States: Merriam-Webster. p.1064. ISBN 9780877790440. In the Medieval Jewish view, the separation of the mystical and magical elements of Kabbalah, dividing it into speculative theological Kabbalah ( Kabbalah Iyyunit) with its meditative traditions, and theurgic practical Kabbalah ( Kabbalah Ma'asit), had occurred by the beginning of the 14th century. [114]The English words magic, mage and magician come from the Latin term magus, through the Greek μάγος, which is from the Old Persian maguš. (𐎶𐎦𐎢𐏁|𐎶𐎦𐎢𐏁, magician). [12] The Old Persian magu- is derived from the Proto-Indo-European megʰ- *magh (be able). The Persian term may have led to the Old Sinitic *M γag (mage or shaman). [13] The Old Persian form seems to have permeated ancient Semitic languages as the Talmudic Hebrew magosh, the Aramaic amgusha (magician), and the Chaldean maghdim (wisdom and philosophy); from the first century BCE onwards, Syrian magusai gained notoriety as magicians and soothsayers. [14] Mair, Victor H. (2015). "Old Sinitic *M γag, Old Persian Maguš, and English "Magician" ". Early China. 15: 27–47. doi: 10.1017/S0362502800004995. ISSN 0362-5028. S2CID 192107986. Greenwood, Susan (2020). Magic, Witchcraft and the Otherworld: An Anthropology. Routledge: Berg. p.89. ISBN 9781859734506. Later scholarship, based on ethnographic fieldwork and extensive time spent in the company of magic practitioners observing how magic is carried out in practice, became more interested in understanding magic rather than debunking it. Resulting approaches tended to call into question the notion that clear-cut divisions, let alone hierarchies, between magical, religious, and scientific worldviews can be objectively established. Furthermore, a consensus has emerged amongst anthropologists and religious studies specialists that deciding where religion (e.g. belief in spiritual beings), folk knowledge (e.g. non-biomedical healing systems), or ‘natural philosophy’ (e.g. astronomy) end and magic begins, has more to do with cultural boundary-making and social normativities than with any ‘objective’ reality. In innumerable historical and socio-cultural settings, drawing clear lines would be impossible. In Renaissance Europe, magic was performed by clergymen, scientists, and philosophers, while twentieth-century occultists, guided by a keen interest in scientific discoveries, moved in a grey area between science and magic producing ambiguous yet highly successful concepts such as ‘animal magnetism’, ‘mesmerism’, or ‘psychic energy’. In colonial Africa, sorcery was part and parcel of communities’ everyday religious and ritual life (Evans-Pritchard 1937). In 1980s Euro-America, witchcraft was rediscovered by tight communities of college-educated urbanites. These cases invite us to abandon the deeply ingrained stereotypes about magic as spiritually aberrant, irrational, and irredeemably ‘other’ that influenced early anthropology. Graham, Elizabeth (2018). "Do You Believe in Magic?". Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief. 14 (2): 255–257. doi: 10.1080/17432200.2018.1443843. S2CID 195037024.

As far as the second source of influence – the Hellenic tradition – is concerned, Classical Greece grouped what we today call magic (understood as the occult manipulation of invisible forces) together with philosophy, the manipulation of concepts, and medicine, the manipulation of bodily substances. These activities were quite distinct from the sphere of religion understood as the worship of the Gods. While the first realm was characterised by an inquisitive, experimental attitude, the realm of divinity was not seen as an arena of human disputation. Stanley Tambiah (1990: 8-11) has argued that, given the prestige of Hellenic traditions in Western academia, a separation between magic and religion ended up influencing Victorian anthropologists such as James Frazer. In his pioneering research into magic, Frazer came to consider magic a failed attempt at science, as both systems were thought to share the idea that the universe is regulated by impersonal forces that can be intervened upon, harnessed, and manipulated. However, magic was understood to be based on incorrect ideas about these forces, as well as distorted and incomplete factual knowledge of the world (Jarvie & Agassi 1970). The case of ceremonial magic and especially Western esotericism is particularly helpful to appreciate magic’s ‘craft’. While all types of occult practices and knowledges are learned with varying degrees of mastery, Western ceremonial magic, being based on written bodies of tradition and often socialised through relatively organised communities, offers an ideal case study of magic as a set of techniques for the transformation of both the self and the world. Bailey, Michael D. (2006). "The Meanings of Magic". Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft. 1 (1): 1–23. doi: 10.1353/mrw.0.0052. The practice of magic was banned in the late Roman world, and the Codex Theodosianus (438 AD) states: [94]Magic is an ancient practice rooted in rituals, spiritual divinations, and/or cultural lineage—with an intention to invoke, manipulate, or otherwise manifest supernatural forces, beings, or entities in the natural world. [1] It is a categorical yet often ambiguous term which has been used to refer to a wide variety of beliefs and practices, frequently considered separate from both religion and science. [2] In ancient Egypt ( Kemet in the Egyptian language), Magic (personified as the god heka) was an integral part of religion and culture which is known to us through a substantial corpus of texts which are products of the Egyptian tradition. [53] Hum, Lynne L.; Drury, Nevill (2013). The Varieties of Magical Experience: Indigenous, Medieval, and Modern Magic. ABC-CLIO. p.9. ISBN 978-1-4408-0419-9 . Retrieved 14 May 2020.