The ancient Mesopotamians also performed magical rituals to purify themselves of sins committed unknowingly. [30] One such ritual was known as the Šurpu, or "Burning", [31] in which the caster of the spell would transfer the guilt for all their misdeeds onto various objects such as a strip of dates, an onion, and a tuft of wool. [31] The person would then burn the objects and thereby purify themself of all sins that they might have unknowingly committed. [31] A whole genre of love spells existed. [32] Such spells were believed to cause a person to fall in love with another person, restore love which had faded, or cause a male sexual partner to be able to sustain an erection when he had previously been unable. [32] Other spells were used to reconcile a man with his patron deity or to reconcile a wife with a husband who had been neglecting her. [33]

Many scholars have argued that the use of the term as an analytical tool within academic scholarship should be rejected altogether. [235] The scholar of religion Jonathan Z. Smith for example argued that it had no utility as an etic term that scholars should use. [236] The historian of religion Wouter Hanegraaff agreed, on the grounds that its use is founded in conceptions of Western superiority and has "...served as a 'scientific' justification for converting non-European peoples from benighted superstitions..." stating that "the term magic is an important object of historical research, but not intended for doing research." [237] 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. Hanegraaff, Wouter (2012). Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521196215. Noegel, Scott; Walker, Joel Walker (2010). Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World. Penn State Press. p.83. ISBN 978-0-271-04600-6. 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 Azande, however, were perfectly aware of non-magical causal links. Witchcraft was not meant to explain all aspects of how a certain misfortune occurred. For example, when a building collapsed and killed somebody, any Azande could easily figure that its supporting structure had been weakened by termites. However, magic offered a framework to explain why something happened to a particular person and not someone else. Evans-Pritchard famously described this as the theory of the ‘second spear’. If a man is killed by an elephant, the elephant – the direct cause – is the first spear. Maleficium (causing evil through occult means) is the second spear. The elephant rammed into him, and not someone else, because he, not someone else, was bewitched. W. Gunther Plaut, David E. Stein. The Torah: A Modern Commentary. Union for Reform Judaism, 2004. ISBN 0-8074-0883-2

These repeated attempts to define magic resonated with broader social concerns, [8] and the pliability of the concept has allowed it to be "readily adaptable as a polemical and ideological tool". [131] The links that intellectuals made between magic and those they characterized as primitives helped to legitimise European and Euro-American imperialism and colonialism, as these Western colonialists expressed the view that those who believed in and practiced magic were unfit to govern themselves and should be governed by those who, rather than believing in magic, believed in science and/or (Christian) religion. [7] In Bailey's words, "the association of certain peoples [whether non-Europeans or poor, rural Europeans] with magic served to distance and differentiate them from those who ruled over them, and in large part to justify that rule." [5] Abusch, I. Tzvi; Toorn, Karel Van Der (1999). Mesopotamian Magic: Textual, Historical, and Interpretative Perspectives. Brill. ISBN 978-90-5693-033-2 . Retrieved 15 May 2020.Eichhorn, Werner (1973). Die Religionen Chinas. Die Religionen der Menschheit. W. Kohlhammer. ISBN 978-3-17-216031-4. a b Ritner, R.K., Magic: An Overview in Redford, D.B., Oxford Encyclopedia Of Ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press, 2001, p 321 If drawing clear boundaries and establishing hierarchies with respect to magic may be difficult, how does contemporary, fieldwork-based anthropology go about understanding it? Especially after anthropology’s methodological revolution in the 1920s that established ethnographic fieldwork as the paramount avenue to investigate social and cultural life, anthropologists have become particularly interested in understanding magic in and through practice – in other words, in figuring out what people do exactly, when they do magic. Etymology [ edit ] One of the earliest surviving accounts of the Persian mágoi was provided by the Greek historian Herodotus.

For many, and perhaps most, modern Western magicians, the goal of magic is deemed to be personal spiritual development. [156] Although professional historians have become increasingly interested in the history of magic in general, there has not yet been any general survey to test this proposition. This podcast by Professor Ronald Hutton of the University of Bristol is designed to provide one. Bailey, Michael D. (2018). Magic: The Basics. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-80961-1. 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 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

Focusing on the uses and meanings of magic in concrete social settings has had the effect of showing us that magic, far from being something archaic, lies at the heart of global modernity. As people from Latin America, to central Africa, to Mongolia, to the US and Europe become engulfed in urbanization, capitalist markets, and dreams of social mobility, ideas about the occult gain currency. They reveal deep connections between personal experiences of distress and anxiety, historical transformations marked by dynamics that exceed the ordinary and the visible, and lasting yet flexible cultural models of the cosmos which include both visible and invisible forces (Geschiere 1997, Harding & Stewart 2003, Buyandelger 2007, Barkun 2013). Magic, thus, serves as a powerful resource through which people across the globe cope with their lives in a complex, unpredictable, and often intractable world. Despite the attempt to reclaim the term magia for use in a positive sense, it did not supplant traditional attitudes toward magic in the West, which remained largely negative. [129] At the same time as magia naturalis was attracting interest and was largely tolerated, Europe saw an active persecution of accused witches believed to be guilty of maleficia. [125] Reflecting the term's continued negative associations, Protestants often sought to denigrate Roman Catholic sacramental and devotional practices as being magical rather than religious. [130] Many Roman Catholics were concerned by this allegation and for several centuries various Roman Catholic writers devoted attention to arguing that their practices were religious rather than magical. [131] At the same time, Protestants often used the accusation of magic against other Protestant groups which they were in contest with. [132] In this way, the concept of magic was used to prescribe what was appropriate as religious belief and practice. [131] A variety of personal traits may be credited with giving magical power, and frequently they are associated with an unusual birth into the world. [256] For instance, in Hungary it was believed that a táltos would be born with teeth or an additional finger. [257] In various parts of Europe, it was believed that being born with a caul would associate the child with supernatural abilities. [257] In some cases, a ritual initiation is required before taking on a role as a specialist in such practices, and in others it is expected that an individual will receive a mentorship from another specialist. [258] Betz, Hans (1996). The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p.34. ISBN 978-0226044477. Another, related danger inherent in the vocabulary of magic is connected to its usability in non-Western contexts. For instance, let us take the Islamic notion of siḥr, usually translated as magic or sorcery. Siḥr partly resembles Christian understandings of magic as unorthodox dealings with the occult, and therefore illegitimate and sinful. However, alongside familiar items like goetia (commerce with demons) and astrology, siḥr also includes slander, malicious gossip, the ‘charismatic seduction of crowds’ (Knight 2016: 16), and other arts of deception which would not be considered ‘magic’ in most Western understandings. When it comes to magic, nuance risks easily getting lost in translation.

The model of the magician in Christian thought was provided by Simon Magus, (Simon the Magician), a figure who opposed Saint Peter in both the Acts of the Apostles and the apocryphal yet influential Acts of Peter. [103] The historian Michael D. Bailey stated that in medieval Europe, magic was a "relatively broad and encompassing category". [104] Christian theologians believed that there were multiple different forms of magic, the majority of which were types of divination, for instance, Isidore of Seville produced a catalogue of things he regarded as magic in which he listed divination by the four elements i.e. geomancy, hydromancy, aeromancy, and pyromancy, as well as by observation of natural phenomena e.g. the flight of birds and astrology. He also mentioned enchantment and ligatures (the medical use of magical objects bound to the patient) as being magical. [105] Medieval Europe also saw magic come to be associated with the Old Testament figure of Solomon; various grimoires, or books outlining magical practices, were written that claimed to have been written by Solomon, most notably the Key of Solomon. [106] See also: Mesopotamian divination, Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana, Maqlû, and Zisurrû Bronze protection plaque from the Neo-Assyrian era showing the demon Lamashtu Many consider the Renaissance the golden era of European ceremonial magic. From the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries CE, polymaths and thinkers such as Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Giordano Bruno, Isabella Cortese, or John Dee devoted considerable energy to the investigation of both the visible and the invisible dimensions of the universe. These figures, at once proto-scientists, theologians, and explorers of the occult, played an important role in defining the field of ‘erudite’ Western magic, drawing on repertoires as different as astrology, Christian theology and ethics, Greek mystery religion and philosophy, and Jewish mysticism (Yates 1964, 2001; Culianu 1984; Jütte 2015). The Renaissance model of the cosmos featured an ethereal dimension, called pneuma, existing between the physical and the spiritual realms. All persons and things, although materially separate from each other, were understood to be invisibly interconnected at the ‘pneumatic’ level, clinging to each other in secret correspondences that escaped the base senses. Anthropologists working on magic have identified comparable models of reality in a vast number of societies. Lucien Lévy-Bruhl has classically defined this model ‘participatory’ (1999); more recently, Philippe Descola has proposed the notion of ‘analogism’ to describe models of the world in which all things are thought to be invisibly interlinked (2013). 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. Hanegraaff, Wouter J. (2006). "Magic I: Introduction". In Wouter J. Hanegraaff (ed.). Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism. Brill. pp.716–719. ISBN 9789004152311.

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] 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. van Schaik, S. (2020). Buddhist Magic: Divination, Healing, and Enchantment Through the Age. Shambhala. ISBN 978-1611808254. Belser, Julia Watts. "Book Review: Gideon Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic". Academia . Retrieved 9 July 2021. 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).