Collecting Definitions
**Please consider this list as incomplete and very much a work in progress that I intend to add to progressively**
The academic study of magic requires an appreciation of what the rubric ‘magic’ – its history and the implications of its use. Ultimately, as an academic discipline there is so agreement on what magic was/is and how is, mechanically or theoretically, worked. Scholars from the realms of archaeology, anthropology, sociology, history, classics, philosophy and others have all made attempts at defining the phenomenon of magic. Such definitions can be in terms explicit to the material culture, society or historical time frame the individual scholar is looking at or working within.
As much for my own future benefit as for posterity this post will act as a simple list of the definitions I have collected so far. This isn’t a synthetic operation, nor a particularly analytical one, but a collective home for the disparate semantic approaches to ‘magic’. Inevitably there will be many more than I am able to get my hands on. If you, dear reader, are privy to one such gem please add it into the comments with a full bibliographical reference.
Archaeology/History
“Religion is used to indicate the belief in supernatural or spiritual beings; ‘magic’, the use of practices intended to bring occult forces under control and so to influence events; ‘ritual’, prescribed or customary behaviour that may be religion if it is intended to placate supernatural beings, magical if it is intended to operate through impersonal forces of sympathy or by controlling supernatural beings” (Merrifield 1987, 6).
Merrifield, R. 1987. The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic. London: BT Batsford.
“[Magic is] the ritual behaviours, actions, and methods employed within the construct of religion to interact with and influence the supernatural world” (Manning 2014, 1). Manning, M.C. 2014. “Magic, Religion, and Ritual in Historical Archaeology”, Historical Archaeology 48 (3). 1-9.
“Magic can be summarised as a set of practices intended to predict or manipulate the weather and other natural forces, influence the behaviour of people, plants and animals, control the future, supernatural forces and spiritual beings, or to seek the assistance of the latter” (Chadwick 2015, 37).
Chadwick, A. M. 2015. “Doorways, Ditches and Dead Dogs – Excavating and Recording Material Manifestations of Practical Magic Amongst Later Prehistoric and Romano-British Communities”, in Houlbrook, C. and Armitage, N. (eds.). The Materiality of Magic: An Artifactual Study Investigation into Religious Practices and Popular Belief. Oxford, Oxbow. 37-64.
“Magic was firmly grounded in the ritual actions, including spoken or written words and the manipulation of objects. These rituals typically are performed with the expectations of a particular result. Magic may draw on religious traditions for both efficacy and exoticism.Magic is frequently a private or personal activity, although certain practices might be undertaken in the public sphere.” (Wilburn 2012, 15)
Wilburn, A. T. 2012. Materia Magica: the Archaeology of Magic in Roman Egypt, Cyprus, and Spain. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press.
“The term ‘magic’ has served to indicate, in the history of Western culture, a variety of ideas and or practices, often related to religion and/or science. Consequently the term has been historically defined and understood in many different ways, according to the context in which it has been used” (Pasi 2006, 1134).
Pasi, M. 2006. “Magic”, in von Stuckrad, K. The Brill Dictionary of Religion, Volume III, M- R. Leiden & Boston, Brill.
“…by ‘magic’ I mean neither the illusions and parlours tricks of a Houdini nor ‘magic; in the more diffuse literary sense of ‘fantastical’ such as one finds in the so-called magical realise of recent Latin American writers. Rather, I mean a set of practical devices and rituals used by the Greeks in their day-to-day lives to control or otherwise influence supernaturally the forces of nature, animals, or other human beings” (Faraone 2001, 16).
Faraone, C. A. 2001. Ancient Greek Love Magic. Cambridge, Massachussets and London, England, Harvard University Press.
“Generally, magic as action can be simply defined as goal-directed techniques (rites) that use a specific understanding of causality.” (Hukantaival 2015, 186)
Hukantaival, S. 2015. “Understanding Past Actions – Changing Attitudes Towards Ritual, Religion and Everyday Life”, in Haak, A., Lang, V., and Lavento, M. (eds) Today I Am Not the One I Was Yesterday: Archaeology, Identity and Change (Interarchaeologia 4). Tartu, Helsinki, Riga, and Vilnius. 183-196.
“Magic is a dynamic belief system the details of which are culture-specific. It is rooted in the belief that by using the techniques of magic the course of events can be manipulated by an individual. In the practice of religion, by contrast, the individual is a supplicant to a divine being and seeks their intervention in altering the course of events.”
Moffat, C. 2019. ‘The Amulets of Roman Wroxeter: Evidence for Everyday Magic’, Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Historical Society 94. 45-58.
“…magic is defined as that form of religious deviance whereby individual or social goals are sought by means alternate to those normally sanctioned by the dominant religious institution… Religious activities which fit this first and primary criterion must also fit a second criterion: goals sought within the context of religious deviance are magical when attained through the management of supernatural powers in such a way that results re virtually guaranteed”
Aune, D. E. 1980. “Magic in Early Christianity”, in Temporini, H. and Haase, w. (eds) Aufstieg und Niedergang det romischen welt (Volume II) Berlin, Walter de Guyter. 23.2
_______________________________________________
“Magic is a discourse pertaining to non-normative ritualised activity, in which the deviation from the norm is most often marked in terms of the perceived efficacy of the art, the familiarity of the performance within the cultural tradition, the ends for which the act is performed, or the social location of the performer.” (Edmonds 2019, 5)
Edmonds, R. G. 2019. Drawing down the Moon: Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World. Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press.
Sociology
“One approach, exemplified by Daniel O’Keefe’s book Stolen Lightning, could be called historical. O’Keefe draws on anthropology, psychoanalysis, and history to try to explain the origins of magic in human societies. He defines magic (“in the strict sense”) as sacred institutions related to religion but often of an illicit or peripheral nature and mostly based on the relationship between practitioner and client rather than on a community relationship” (O’Keefe 1982 in Davila 1997).
O’Keefe, D. L. 1982. Stolen Lightning: The Social Theory of Magic. New York, Continuum Publishing. Davila, J. 1997. “Ancient Magic (The Prayer of Jacob)”. University of St. Andrews Online Lecture. [Available online] (May 2016)
“A general term that covers any attempt to control the environment or the self by means that are either untested or untestable, such as charms or spells.”
Campbell, C. 1998. “Magic”, in Swatos, W. H., Encyclopedia of Religion and Society. [Available online] (May 2016)
Anthropology
“The methods that somehow interface with the supernatural and which can bring about particular outcomes” (Stein and Stein 2008, 140).
Stein, R. L. and Stein, P. L. 2008. The Anthropology of Religion, Magic and Witchcraft. Boston.
“Magic is defined by Cultural Anthropologists – in my view, correctly – as a technique of action or the use of a forumla performed for producing gain; in others, to ward off harm from others; in some instances to effect harm on one’s antagonists” (Kee 1989, 122)
Kee, H. C. 1989 “Magic and Messiah”, in Neusner, J., Frerichs, E. S., and Flesher, P. V. Mc. Religion, Science, and Magic: In Concert and in Conflict. New York and Oxford, Oxford Universiy Press. 121-141.
“In its quintessential form – and this is the early Judaic legacy that has coloured subsequent Western thought – magic is ritual action that is held to be automatically effective, and ritual action that dabbles with forces and objects that are outside the scope, or independent, of the gods. Magical acts in their ideal forms are thought to have an intrinsic and automatic efficacy.” (Tambiah 1990, 7)
Tambiah, S. J. 1990. Magic, science, religion, and the scope of rationality. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
______________________________________________
Dictionary
“The power of apparently influencing events by using mysterious or supernatural forces.” Google ‘define’ function (May 2016)
“The use of rituals or actions, especially based on supernatural or occult knowledge, to manipulate or obtain information about the natural world, especially when seen as falling outside the realm of religion; also the forces allegedly drawn on for such practices.”
Wiktionary (May 2016)
“The art of producing a desired effect or result through the use of incantation or various other techniques that presumably assure human control of supernatural agencies or the forces of nature.” Dictionary.com (May 2016)
“The art that, by use of spells, supposedly invokes supernatural powers to influence events; sorcery.”Collins Dictionary (May 2016)
“The use of means (as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power over natural forces / An extraordinary power or influence seemingly from a supernatural source.” Merriam-Webster (May 2016)
_______________________________________________
Neopagan
” [Magic] is the Art Of Causation. Magic is creating change by connecting with the energies of nature. These energies of nature exist in all things, all solid matter is made of atoms, sub-atom particles, below this level is pure energy. At the this level of pure energy, there is no solid matter, here everything is connected by threads of energy. Magic is the control and manipulation of these threads of energy, this energy exists at all levels and planes, so by creating changes to these energy threads causes effects to occur within the physical plane.” The White Goddess (May 2016)
.”..for the 21st-century Witch, it’s more accurate to say that magic is the art of , by directing the energies of nature to cause desired changes in one’s life. Knowing that reality is fluid and ever-changing, Witches use a variety of methods to connect their personal power with the power that governs the workings of the Universe.”
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Legal
note: whilst Roman law does include elements of magical ritual (e.g. in the Twelve Tables VII.3) these are not dealt with in this list.
Not explicitly a definition of magic, but a list of ‘magical’ practices in 16th Century Englandcodified into Law.
“[It is forbidden to] use, devise, practise or exercise, or cause to be devysed practised or exercised, any Invovacons or cojuracons of Sprites witchecraftes enchauntementes or sorceries to thentent to fynde money or treasure or to waste consume or destroy any persone in his bodie membres, or to pvoke [provoke] any persone to unlawfull love, or for any other unlawfull intente or purpose … or for dispite of Cryste, or for lucre of money, dygge up or pull downe any Crosse or Crosses or by such Invovacons or cojuracons of Sprites witchecraftes enchauntementes or sorceries or any of them take upon them to tell or declare where goodes stollen or lost shall become…” Witchcraft Act 1542 (Britain) (May 2016)
Comments