Origin of magic

Wait what is magic!?
For me, magic is being able to have supernatural power / force to control your environment in a otherworldly manner.

While magic used to be a means to understand the environment around us or explain the unexplained. The present day often showcases magic in various ways. To performing magical tricks, the occult, films / tv series , myths, folklore, book, etc.

Magic allows us to think of the unimaginable and enables our creativity explore to the fullest since there’s no boundaries to magic!

History of magic :

The idea of magic has been blended in culture, religion, and viewed as superstition. I want to explore the history of magic in-depth starting from the origin of magic!

magic in a ancient world :

The root word for magic (Greek: mageia; Latin: magia) derives from the Greek term magoi, which refers to a Median tribe in Persia and their religion, Zoroastrianism. The Greco-Roman tradition held that magicians possessed arcane or secret knowledge and the ability to channel power from or through any of the polytheistic deities, spirits, or ancestors of the ancient pantheons.

In the ancient world, magic could be used by the living, the dead, and even the gods. Making magic work often involved a combination of ritual actions, symbolic imagery, performative recitation, written texts, and appropriate material ingredients. When combined these elements created a powerful sense of agency in the practitioner, who sought to manipulate reality.

Magic “wands” : The apotropaic (Greek for “turning back/warding off”) knife was an object common to nurseries of the Middle Kingdom. Carved from a hippopotamus tusk, the ivory knives are engraved with a series of knife-wielding figures including the goddess of childbirth, Taweret, and the vulture goddess Nekhbet. Though often described as “wands,” the pieces are counterparts to the knives held by the deities depicted upon them. Inscribed examples state that the divine figures provide “protection by day and protection by night.” By both their material and decoration, the knives are closely associated with the hippopotamus Taweret, and thus with the protection of mothers and newborn children. Signs of ancient wear suggest that they may have been used to draw protective circles in the sandy floor around a child’s bed

Many of the traditions associated with magic in the Classical world derive from a fascination with ancient Middle Eastern beliefs and are concerned with a need for counter magic against sorcery. Spells uttered by sorcerers and addressed to gods, to fire, to salt, and to grain are recorded from Mesopotamia and Egypt. These texts also reveal the practice of necromancy, invoking the spirits of the dead, who were regarded as the last defence against evil magic.
Ancient Roman society was particularly concerned with sorcery and counter sorcery, contests associated with the development of competitive new urban classes whose members had to rely on their own efforts in both material and magical terms to defeat their rivals and attain success.

magic in Medieval times :

During the period of Europe’s conversion to Christianity (c. 300–1050), magic was strongly identified with paganism, the label Christian missionaries used to demonize the religious beliefs of Celtic, Germanic, and Scandinavian peoples.
In high medieval Europe (c. 1050–1350), the battle between religion and magic occurred as the struggle against heresy, the church’s label for perverted Christian belief. Magicians, like heretics, were believed to distort or abuse Christian rites to do the Devil’s work.
Although magic was widely condemned during the Middle Ages, often for political or social reasons. Richard Kieckhefer has identified two major categories of magic:
“low” magic includes charms (prayers, blessings, adjurations), protective amulets and talismans, sorcery (the misuse of medical and protective magic), divination and popular astrology, trickery, and medical magic through herbs and animals.
“high,” or intellectual, magic, includes more learned forms of astrology, astral magic, alchemy, books of secrets, and necromancy. There is also evidence of courtly interest in magic, particularly that involving automatons and gemstones.

Late medieval and early modern Europe :

By the late Middle Ages (c. 1350–1450) and into the early modern period (c. 1450–1750), magic was regarded as part of a widespread and dangerously antisocial demonic cult that included the condemned practices of sorcery, necromancy, and witchcraft. Accused heretics, witches, and magicians were subject to inquisitions designed to uncover these cult connections and to destroy the means of transmission (e.g., the burning of condemned books and/or the “guilty” parties).
“The Hammer of Witches,” 1486) by Jacob Sprenger and Henry Krämer describes witchcraft in great detail (e.g, the witches’ sabbath, a midnight assembly in fealty to the Devil); moreover, this oft-reprinted volume is responsible for the misogynist association of witchcraft with women that becomes the dominant characteristic in the early modern period. This conspiracy theory of demonic magic contributed to the early modern “witch craze” that occurred at a time of growing tension between magic, religion, and nascent science.

Globalization of the magic concept :

Western conceptions of magic, religion, and science were shown to other parts of the globe in the modern period by traders, conquerors, missionaries, anthropologists, and historians. European travellers in the 16th–19th centuries functioned as primitive ethnographers whose written observations are invaluable historical resources.However, their accounts, often coloured by their Judeo-Christian assumptions about religion versus magic, illuminate how indigenous peoples were treated as “children” to be educated or, in the case of some conquerors, as subhuman races to be enslaved.
While these views are no longer accepted, their residual effect is still felt in the way magic, religion, and science are conceptualized.

Click on this link to find out more :

Magic – Globalization, Supernatural, Phenomenon | Britannica

Magic in the Ancient World — Google Arts & Culture

World cultures :

The Western concept of magic has a set of beliefs, values, and practices that are not fully religious or scientific does not find its equivalent in non-Western languages and cultures; conversely, concepts found in other cultures may be untranslatable into English or a Western framework.

For example, Hawaiian historian David Malo (c. 1793–1853), discussing Christianity and traditional Hawaiian religion, found hoˋomana (to make, to do, or to imbue with supernatural, divine, or miraculous power) the closest translation for English , contrary to its characterization by Westerners as a magical component in Polynesian beliefs.

A modern Japanese dictionary uses a transliteration, majikku, for the English word magic. It also uses the English word magic to translate several Japanese words beginning with ma-, the kanji character representing a vengeful spirit of the dead (in East Asian folk belief, an ancestor not cared for properly; in Buddhist cosmology, an evil demonic figure). While superficially similar to the Christian notion of magic as demonic, the belief system regarding these demons differ significantly. Moreover, ma- does not have the range of meanings that magic has in Western thought.

On the other hand, specific practices identified as magic—e.g., divination, spells, spirit mediation—are found worldwide, even if the word magic is not. For example, in China various practices such as divination through oracle bones, offerings to dead ancestors, and feng shui can be classified as either magic, religion, or science, but it is questionable whether these categories have any validity in Chinese thought; rather these so-called magical practices are an intrinsic part of the worldviews expressed in China’s main religious and philosophical systems (ancestor worship, Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism).

The concept of magic or magical powers in African traditional metaphysical beliefs or spirituality like ancestor worship, divination, and witchcraft, persist or dominate in the lives of the African people in their day-to-day activities. There are various forms of magical practices found in African societies. Symbols, which have been used around the world as decorative elements for centuries, assume new forms and meanings. Believed to carry healing qualities or to embody magical attributes that guard against misfortune and the evil eye.

In conclusion, even if the term “magic” isn’t used. There are practices of magic continuing world wide because not everyone’s belief of magic is the same and could be accustomed to their daily spiritual life.

Magic: Magic in South Asia | Encyclopedia.com

Magic – Globalization, Supernatural, Phenomenon | Britannica

vorotilova_magic_in_african_art.pdf

Magic – Etymology, Origin & Meaning

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