Magic

(supernatural)

The Magician (I), an illustration from the Rider-

Waite tarot deck first published in 1910.
Waite tarot deck first published in 1910.

Magic is a category into which have

been placed various beliefs and
practices considered separate from
both religion and science. Emerging
within Western culture, the term has
historically often had pejorative
connotations, with things labelled
magical perceived as being socially
unacceptable, primitive, or foreign. The
concept has been adopted by scholars
in the humanities and social sciences,
who have proposed various different—
and often mutually exclusive—
definitions of the term. Many
contemporary scholars regard the
concept to be so problematic that they
reject it altogether.

The term magic derives from the Old

Persian magu, a word that applied to a
form of religious functionary about
which little is known. During the late
sixth and early fifth centuries BCE, this
term was adopted into Ancient Greek,
where it was used with negative
connotations to apply to rites that were
regarded as fraudulent, unconventional,
and dangerous. This meaning of the
term was then adopted by Latin in the
first century BCE. Via Latin, the concept
was incorporated into Christian
theology during the first century CE,
where magic was associated with
demons and thus defined against
(Christian) religion. This concept was
pervasive throughout the Middle Ages,
when Christian authors categorised a
diverse range of practices—such as
enchantment, witchcraft, incantations,
divination, necromancy, and astrology—
under the label magic. In early modern
Europe, Protestants often claimed that
Roman Catholicism was magic rather
than religion, and as Christian
Europeans began colonising other
parts of the world in the sixteenth
century they labelled the non-Christian
beliefs they encountered magical. In
that same period, Italian humanists
reinterpreted the term in a positive
sense to create the idea of natural
magic. Both negative and positive
understandings of the term recurred in
Western culture over the following
centuries.

Since the nineteenth century,

academics in various disciplines have
employed the term magic but have
defined it in different ways and used it
in reference to different things. One
approach, associated with the
anthropologists Edward Tylor and
James G. Frazer, uses the term to
describe beliefs in hidden sympathies
between objects that allow one to
influence the other. Defined in this way,
magic is portrayed as the opposite to
science. An alternative approach,
associated with the sociologists
Marcel Mauss and Émile Durkheim,
employs the term to describe private
rites and ceremonies and contrasts it
with religion, which it defines as a
communal and organised activity. By
the 1990s, many scholars were
rejecting the term's utility for
scholarship. They argued that it drew
arbitrary lines between similar beliefs
and practices that were instead
considered religious and that, being
rooted in Western and Christian history,
it was ethnocentric to apply it to other
cultures.

Throughout Western history, there have

been examples of individuals who
engaged in practices that their
societies called magic and who
sometimes referred to themselves as
magicians. Within modern occultism,
which developed in the nineteenth
century, there are many self-described
magicians and people who practice
ritual activities that they term magic. In
this environment, the concept of magic
has again changed, usually being
defined as a technique for bringing
about changes in the physical world
through the force of one's will. This
definition was pioneered largely by the
influential British occultist Aleister
Crowley.
Definition
The historian Owen Davies stated that
the word magic was "beyond simple
definition".[1] Similarly, the historian
Michael D. Bailey characterised magic
as "a deeply contested category and a
very fraught label";[2] as a category, he
noted, it was "profoundly unstable"
given that definitions of the term have
"varied dramatically across time and
between cultures".[3] Scholars have
engaged in extensive debates as to
how to define magic,[4] with such
debates resulting in intense dispute.[5]
Throughout such debates, the scholarly
community has failed to agree on a
definition of magic, in a similar manner
to how they have failed to agree on a
definition of religion.[5] Even among
those throughout history who have
described themselves as magicians,
there has been no common
understanding of what magic is.[6]

"Magic has often been dismissed as either

primitive and irrational and therefore alien
to modern society, as inherently opposed
to the Judeo-Christian traditions of the
West, or as incompatible with religion in
general. These antipathetic sentiments are
deeply embedded in Western culture, and
the term magic has typically been used to
describe non-mainstream beliefs and
practices — non-Christians, heretics, non-
Westerners, indigenous, ancient or
'primitive' cultures — any that might be
considered 'Other.' The image of magic as
inherently linked with the Other has
functioned as an important factor in the
construction of the self-identity of Western
culture, for by defining magic as
something alien, exotic, primitive, evil,
deviant or even ridiculous, our society also
makes a tacit statement as to its self-
perceptions."
– Historian of religion Henrik Bogdan[7]

Concepts of magic generally serve to

sharply demarcate certain practices
from other, otherwise similar practices
in a given society.[8] According to
Bailey: "In many cultures and across
various historical periods, categories of
magic often define and maintain the
limits of socially and culturally
acceptable actions in respect to
numinous or occult entities or forces.
Even more basically they serve to
delineate arenas of appropriate
belief."[9] In this, he noted that "drawing
these distinctions is an exercise in
power".[9] Similarly, the scholar of
religion Randall Styers noted that
attempting to define magic represents
"an act of demarcation" by which it is
juxtaposed against "other social
practices and modes of knowledge"
such as "religion" and "science".[10] The
historian Karen Louise Jolly described
magic as "a category of exclusion, used
to define an unacceptable way of
thinking as either the opposite of
religion or of science".[11]

Within Western culture, the term

"magic" has been linked to ideas of the
Other,[7] foreignness,[12] and
primitivism.[13] In Styers' words, it has
become "a powerful marker of cultural
difference".[14] It has also been
repeatedly presented as the
archetypally non-modern
phenomenon.[15] Among Western
intellectuals in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, magic was
seen as a defining feature of "primitive"
mentalities and was commonly
attributed to marginal groups,
locations, and periods.[14]
The concept and term "magic"
developed in European society and
thus using it when discussing non-
Western cultures or pre-modern forms
of Western society raises problems, as
it may impose Western categories that
are alien to them.[16] While "magic"
remains an emic term in the history of
Western societies, it remains an etic
term when applied to non-Western
societies.[17] During the twentieth
century, many scholars focusing on
Asian and African societies rejected
the term "magic", as well as related
concepts like "witchcraft", in favour of
the more precise terms and concepts
that existed within these specific
societies.[18] A similar approach has
been taken by many scholars studying
pre-modern societies in Europe, such
as Classical antiquity, who find the
modern concept of 'magic'
inappropriate and favour more specific
terms originating within the framework
of the ancient cultures which they are
studying.[19] Alternately, this term
implies that all categories of magic are
ethnocentric and that such Western
preconceptions are an unavoidable
component of scholarly research.[20]
Many scholars have argued that the
use of the term as an analytical tool
within academic scholarship should be
rejected altogether.[21] The scholar of
religion Jonathan Z. Smith for example
argued that it had no utility as an etic
term that scholars should use.[22] The
historian of religion Wouter Hanegraaff
agreed, stating that "the term magic is
an important object of historical
research, but not intended for doing
research."[23] Bailey noted that, as of
the early 21st century, few scholars
sought grand definitions of magic but
instead focused their attentions on
"careful attention to particular
contexts", examining what a term like
magic meant to a given society; this
approach, he noted, "call[ed] into
question the legitimacy of magic as a
universal category".[24] The scholars of
religion Berndt-Christian Otto and
Michael Stausberg suggested that it
would be perfectly possible for
scholars to talk about amulets, curses,
healing procedures, and other cultural
practices often regarded as magical in
Western culture without any recourse
to the concept of magic itself.[25] The
idea that "magic" should be rejected as
an analytic term developed in
anthropology, before moving into
Classical studies and Biblical studies in
the 1980s.[26] Since the 1990s, the
term's usage among scholars of
religion has declined.[22]

Etymology, history and

conceptual development
Ancient world

The Old Persian maguš

One of the earliest surviving accounts of the

Persian mágoi was provided by the Greek

historian Herodotus.

The English words magic, mage and

magician come from the Latin magus,
through the Greek μάγος, which is from
the Old Persian maguš ("magician").[27]
The Old Persian magu- is derived from
the Proto-Indo-European *magh ("be
able"), which was absorbed into the
Iranian language; Iranians thereafter
began using the word maguš
("magician"; i.e., an "able [specialist in
ritual]") or *maghu, which may have led
to the Old Sinitic *Mᵞag ("mage" or
"shaman").[28] 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.[29]
The Magi are mentioned in both the
Book of Jeremiah and the Behistun
Inscription of Darius I, indicating that
they had gained considerable power
and influence by the middle of the first
millennium BCE.[30] A number of
ancient Greek authors discuss these
Persian mágoi in their works. Among
the first to do so was the historian
Herodotus, who states that the mágoi
were one of seven Median tribes and
that they served as functionaries at the
court of the Achaemenid Empire, where
they acted as advisers to the king.[31]
According to Herodotus, these Persian
mágoi were also in charge of various
religious rites, namely sacrifices and
the interpretation of dreams.[32]

For the storm lasted for three

days; and at last the
Magians, by using victims
[cut up in pieces and offered
to the manes] and wizards'
spells on the wind, and by
sacrificing also to Thetis and
the Nereids, did make it to
cease on the fourth day.
 — Herodotus Book
VII.191, an example of the
work of the Magi that is
similar to that of their
Chinese counterparts[33]

The Magi travelled far beyond

Mesopotamia and the Levant. They
were present in India by at least the
first century BCE, as well as in Ethiopia,
Egypt, and throughout Asia Minor.
Many ancient sources claim they were
Zarathustrians, or that Zarathustra, who
may have lived as early as 1100 BCE,
was himself a Maguš; according to
sinologist Victor H. Mair, they arrived in
China at around this time.[34] Ilya
Gershevitch has described them as "a
professional priesthood to whom
Zarathustrianism was merely one of
the forms of religion in which they
ministered against payment, much as a
professional musician earns his living
by performing the works of different
composers".[34]

In ancient Greece and Rome

The term magic has its origins in

Ancient Greece.[35] During the late sixth
and early fifth centuries BC, the Persian
maguš was Graecicized and introduced
into the ancient Greek language as
μάγος and μαγεία.[36] In doing so it
underwent a transformation of
meaning, gaining negative
connotations, with the magos being
regarded as a charlatan whose ritual
practices were fraudulent, strange,
unconventional, and dangerous.[36] As
noted by Davies, for the ancient Greeks
—and subsequently for the ancient
Romans—"magic was not distinct from
religion but rather an unwelcome,
improper expression of it – the religion
of the other".[37] The historian Richard
Gordon suggested that for the ancient
Greeks, being accused of practicing
magic was "a form of insult".[38]

This change in meaning was influenced

by the military conflicts that the Greek
city-states were then engaged in
against the Persian Empire.[36] In this
context, the term makes appearances
in such surviving text as Sophocles'
Oedipus Rex, Hippocrates' De morbo
sacro, and Gorgias' Encomium of
Helen.[36] In Sophocles' play, for
example, the character Oedipus
derogatorily refers to the seer Tiresius
as a magos—in this context meaning
something akin to 'quack' or
'charlatan'—reflecting how this epithet
was no longer reserved only for
Persians.[39]

In the first century BC, the Greek

concept of the magos was adopted into
Latin and used by a number of ancient
Roman writers as magus and magia.[36]
The earliest known Latin use of the
term was in Virgil's Eclogue, written
around 40 BC, which makes reference
to magicis… sacris (magic rites).[40] The
Romans already had other terms for
the negative use of supernatural
powers, such as veneficus and saga.[40]
The Roman use of the term was similar
to that of the Greeks, but placed greater
emphasis on the judicial application of
it.[36] Within the Roman Empire, laws
would be introduced criminalising
things regarded as magic.[41] In ancient
Roman society, magic was associated
with societies to the east of the empire;
the first century CE writer Pliny the
Elder for instance claimed that magic
had been created by the Persian
philosopher Zoroaster, and that it had
then been brought west into Greece by
the magician Osthanes, who
accompanied the military campaigns of
the Persian King Xerxes.[42]

Early Christianity and the

Middle Ages

In the first century CE, early Christian

authors absorbed the Greco-Roman
idea of magic and incorporated it into
their developing Christian theology.[41]
These Christians retained the Graeco-
Roman negative connotations of the
term and enhanced them by
incorporating conceptual patterns
borrowed from Jewish thought.[41] Like
earlier Graeco-Roman thinkers, the
early Christians attributed the origins of
magic to an area to the east of Europe,
among the Babylonians, Persians, or
Egyptians.[43] The Christians shared
with earlier classical culture the idea
that magic was something distinct
from proper religion, although drew
their distinction between the two in
different ways.[8]
A 17th century depiction of the medieval writer
Isidore of Seville, who provided a list of activities
he regarded as magical.

For early Christian writers like

Augustine of Hippo, magic did not
merely constitute fraudulent and
unsanctioned ritual practices, but was
the very opposite of religion because it
relied upon cooperation from demons,
the henchmen of Satan.[41] In this,
Christian ideas of magic were closely
linked to the Christian category of
paganism,[44] and both magic and
paganism were regarded as belonging
under the broader category of
superstitio (superstition), another term
borrowed from pre-Christian Roman
culture.[8] This Christian emphasis on
the inherent immorality and wrongness
of magic as something conflicting with
good religion was far starker than the
approach in the other large
monotheistic religions of the period,
Judaism and Islam.[45] For instance,
while Christians regarded demons as
inherently evil, the jinn—comparable
entities in Islamic mythology—were
perceived as more ambivalent figures
by Muslims.[45]

The model of the magician in Christian

thought was provided by Simon Magus,
or "Simon the Magician", a figure who
opposed Saint Peter in both the Acts of
the Apostles and the apocryphal yet
influential Acts of Peter.[46] The
historian Michael D. Bailey stated that
in medieval Europe, "magic" was a
"relatively broad and encompassing
category".[47] Christian theologians
believed that there were multiple
different forms of magic, the majority
of which were types of divination.[48]
For instance, Isidore of Seville
produced a catalogue of things he
regarded as magic in which he listed
augury, necromancy, astrology,
incantations, horoscopes, amulets,
geomancy, hydromancy, aeromancy,
pyromancy, enchantment and
ligatures.[49] 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.[50]

In early medieval Europe, magia was a

term of condemnation.[51] In medieval
Europe, Christians often suspected
Muslims and Jews of engaging in
magical practices;[52] in certain cases,
these perceived magical rites—
including the alleged Jewish sacrifice
of Christian children—resulted in
Christians massacring these religious
minorities.[53] Christian groups often
also accused other, rival Christian
groups—which they regarded as
heretical—of engaging in magical
activities.[46] Medieval Europe also saw
the term maleficium applied to forms of
magic that were conducted with the
intention of causing harm.[47] The later
Middle Ages saw words for these
practitioners of harmful magical acts
appear in various European languages:
sorcière in French, Hexe in German,
strega in Italian, and bruja in Spanish.[54]
The English term for malevolent
practitioners of magic, witch, derived
from the earlier Old English term
wicce.[54]
Early modern Europe

Frontispiece of an English translation of Natural

Magick published in London in 1658.

During the early modern period, the

concept of magic underwent a more
positive reassessment through the
development of the concept of magia
naturalis (natural magic).[41] This was a
term introduced and developed by two
Italian humanists, Marsilio Ficino and
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.[41] For
them, magia was viewed as an
elemental force pervading many
natural processes,[41] and thus was
fundamentally distinct from the
mainstream Christian idea of demonic
magic.[55] Their ideas influenced an
array of later philosophers and writers,
among them Paracelsus, Giordano
Bruno, Johannes Reuchlin, and
Johannes Trithemius.[41] According to
the historian Richard Kieckhefer, the
concept of magia naturalis took "firm
hold in European culture" during the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,[56]
attracting the interest of natural
philosophers of various theoretical
orientations, including Aristotelians,
Neoplatonists, and Hermeticists.[57]

Adherents of this position argued that

magia could appear in both good and
bad forms; in 1625, the French librarian
Gabriel Naudé wrote his Apology for all
the Wise Men Falsely Suspected of
Magic, in which he distinguished
"Mosoaicall Magick"—which he claimed
came from God and included
prophecies, miracles, and speaking in
tongues—from "geotick" magic caused
by demons.[58] While the proponents of
magia naturalis insisted that this did
not rely on the actions of demons,
critics disagreed, arguing that the
demons had simply deceived these
magicians.[59] By the seventeenth
century the concept of magia naturalis
had moved in increasingly 'naturalistic'
directions, with the distinctions
between it and science becoming
blurred.[60] The validity of magia
naturalis as a concept for
understanding the universe then came
under increasing criticism during the
Age of Enlightenment in the eighteenth
century.[61]

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.[61] 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.[57]
Reflecting the term's continued
negative associations, Protestants
often sought to denigrate Roman
Catholic sacramental and devotional
practices as being magical rather than
religious.[62] 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.[63] At the
same time, Protestants often used the
accusation of magic against other
Protestant groups which they were in
contest with.[64] In this way, the
concept of magic was used to
prescribe what was appropriate as
religious belief and practice.[63] Similar
claims were also being made in the
Islamic world during this period. The
Arabian cleric Muhammad ibn Abd al-
Wahhab—founder of Wahhabism—for
instance condemned a range of
customs and practices such as
divination and the veneration of spirits
as sihr, which he in turn claimed was a
form of shirk, the sin of idolatry.[65]

Colonialism and academia

In the sixteenth century, European
societies began to conquer and
colonise other continents around the
world, and as they did so they applied
European concepts of "magic" and
"witchcraft" to practices found among
the peoples whom they
encountered.[66] Usually, these
European colonialists regarded the
natives as primitives and savages
whose belief systems were diabolical
and needed to be eradicated and
replaced by Christianity.[67] Because
Europeans typically viewed these non-
European peoples as being morally and
intellectually inferior to themselves, it
was expected that such societies
would be more prone to practicing
magic.[68] Women who practiced
traditional rites were labelled "witches"
by the Europeans.[68]

In the nineteenth century, the Haitian government

began to legislate against Vodou, describing it as
a form of witchcraft; this conflicted with Vodou
practitioners' own understanding of their
religion.[69]
In various cases, these imported
European concepts and terms
underwent new transformations as
they merged with indigenous
concepts.[70] In West Africa, for
instance, Portuguese travellers
introduced their term and concept of
the feitiçaria (often translated as
sorcery) and the feitiço (spell) to the
native population, where it was
transformed into the concept of the
fetish. When later Europeans
encountered these West African
societies, they wrongly believed that
the fetiche was an indigenous African
term rather than the result of earlier
inter-continental encounters.[70]
Sometimes, colonised populations
themselves adopted these European
concepts for their own purposes. In the
early nineteenth century, the newly
independent Haitian government of
Jean-Jacques Dessalines began to
suppress the practice of Vodou, and in
1835 Haitain law-codes categorised all
Vodou practices as sortilège
(sorcery/witchcraft), suggesting that it
was all conducted with harmful intent,
whereas among Vodou practitioners
the performance of harmful rites was
already given a separate and distinct
category, known as maji.[69]

By the nineteenth century, European

intellectuals no longer saw the practice
of magic through the framework of sin
and instead regarded magical practices
and beliefs as "an aberrational mode of
thought antithetical to the dominant
cultural logic – a sign of psychological
impairment and marker of racial or
cultural inferiority".[71]

As educated elites in Western societies

increasingly rejected the efficacy of
magical practices, legal systems
ceased to threaten practitioners of
magical activities with punishment for
the crimes of diabolism and witchcraft,
and instead threatened them with the
accusation that they were defrauding
people through promising to provide
things which they could not.[72]

This spread of European colonial power

across the world influenced how
academics would come to frame the
concept of magic.[73] In the nineteenth
century, a number of scholars adopted
the traditional, negative concept of
magic.[61] That they chose to do so was
not inevitable, for they could have
followed the example adopted by
prominent esotericists active at the
time like Helena Blavatsky who had
chosen to use the term and concept of
magic in a positive sense.[61] Various
writers also used the concept of magic
to criticise religion by arguing that the
latter still displayed many of the
negative traits of the former. An
example of this was the American
journalist H. L. Mencken in his
polemical 1930 work Treatise on the
Gods; he sought to critique religion by
comparing it to magic, arguing that the
division between the two was
misplaced.[74]

In the late nineteenth and twentieth

centuries, folklorists examined rural
communities across Europe in search
of magical practices, which at the time
they typically understood as survivals
of ancient belief systems.[75] It was
only in the 1960s that anthropologists
like Jeanne Favret-Saada also began
looking in depth at magic in European
contexts, having previously focused on
examining magic in non-Western
contexts.[76]

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.[77]

The term magic has become pervasive

in the popular imagination and
idiom.[13] In contemporary contexts, the
word magic is sometimes used to
"describe a type of excitement, of
wonder, or sudden delight", and in such
a context can be "a term of high
praise".[78] Despite its historical
contrast against science, scientists
have also adopted the term in
application to various concepts, such
as magic acid, magic bullets, and
magic angles.[13]

Modern Western occultism

Concepts of modern magic are often heavily
influenced by the ideas of Aleister Crowley

Modern Western magic has challenged

widely-held preconceptions about
contemporary religion and
spirituality.[79] The polemical
discourses about magic influenced the
self-understanding of modern
magicians, a number of whom—such
as Aleister Crowley and Julius Evola—
were well versed in academic literature
on the subject.[80] According to scholar
of religion Henrik Bogdan, "arguably the
best known emic definition" of the term
"magic" was provided by Crowley.[80]
Crowley—who favoured the spelling
"magick" over "magic" to distinguish it
from stage illusionism[81]—was of the
view that "Magick is the Science and
Art of causing Change to occur in
conformity with Will".[80] Crowley's
definition influenced that of
subsequent magicians.[80] Dion Fortune
of the Fraternity of the Inner Light for
instance stated that "Magic is the art of
changing consciousness according to
Will".[80] Gerald Gardner, the founder of
Gardnerian Wicca, stated that magic
was "attempting to cause the physically
unusual",[80] while Anton LaVey, the
founder of LaVeyan Satanism,
described magic as "the change in
situations or events in accordance with
one's will, which would, using normally
acceptable methods, be
unchangeable."[80]

The chaos magic movement emerged

during the late 20th century, as an
attempt to strip away the symbolic,
ritualistic, theological or otherwise
ornamental aspects of other occult
traditions and distill magic down to a
set of basic techniques.[82][83]

These modern Western concepts of

magic rely on a belief in
correspondences connected to an
unknown occult force that permeates
the universe.[84] As noted by
Hanegraaff, this operated according to
"a new meaning of magic, which could
not possibly have existed in earlier
periods, precisely because it is
elaborated in reaction to the
"disenchantment of the world"."[84] For
many, and perhaps most, modern
Western magicians, the goal of magic
is deemed to be personal spiritual
development.[85] The perception of
magic as a form of self-development is
central to the way that magical
practices have been adopted into
forms of modern Paganism and the
New Age phenomenon.[85] One
significant development within modern
Western magical practices has been
sex magic.[85] This was a practice
promoted in the writings of Paschal
Beverly Randolph and subsequently
exerted a strong interest on occultist
magicians like Crowley and Theodor
Reuss.[85]

The adoption of the term "magic" by

modern occultists can in some
instances be a deliberate attempt to
champion those areas of Western
society which have traditionally been
marginalised as a means of subverting
dominant systems of power.[86] The
influential American Wiccan and author
Starhawk for instance stated that
"Magic is another word that makes
people uneasy, so I use it deliberately,
because the words we are comfortable
with, the words that sound acceptable,
rational, scientific, and intellectually
correct, are comfortable precisely
because they are the language of
estrangement."[87]

Academic definitions
Modern scholarship has produced
various definitions and theories of
magic.[88] According to Bailey, "these
have typically framed magic in relation
to, or more frequently in distinction
from, religion and science."[88] Since
the emergence of the study of religion
and the social sciences, magic has
been a "central theme in the theoretical
literature" produced by scholars
operating in these academic
disciplines.[4] Magic is one of the most
heavily theorized concepts in the study
of religion,[89] and also played a key role
in early theorising within
anthropology.[90] Styers believed that it
held such a strong appeal for social
theorists because it provides "such a
rich site for articulating and contesting
the nature and boundaries of
modernity".[91] Scholars have
commonly used it as a foil for the
concept of religion, regarding magic as
the "illegitimate (and effeminized)
sibling" of religion.[92] Alternately,
others have used it as a middle-ground
category located between religion and
science.[92]

The context in which scholars framed

their discussions of magic was
informed by the spread of European
colonial power across the world in the
modern period.[73] These repeated
attempts to define magic resonated
with broader social concerns,[15] and
the pliability of the concept has allowed
it to be "readily adaptable as a
polemical and ideological tool".[63] The
links that intellectuals made between
magic and "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.[14] 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."[12]

Many different definitions of magic

have been offered by scholars,
although — according to Hanegraaff —
these can be understood as variations
of a small number of heavily influential
theories.[89]

Intellectualist approach
Edward Tylor, an anthropologist who used the
term magic in reference to sympathetic magic, an
idea that he associated with his concept of
animism

The intellectualist approach to defining

magic is associated with two
prominent British anthropologists,
Edward Tylor and James G. Frazer.[93]
This approach viewed magic as the
theoretical opposite of science,[94] and
came to preoccupy much
anthropological thought on the
subject.[95] This approach was situated
within the evolutionary models which
underpinned thinking in the social
sciences during the early 19th
century.[96] The first social scientist to
present magic as something that
predated religion in an evolutionary
development was Herbert Spencer;[97]
in his A System of Synthetic Philosophy,
he used the term magic in reference to
sympathetic magic.[98] Spencer
regarded both magic and religion as
being rooted in false speculation about
the nature of objects and their
relationship to other things.[99]

Tylor's understanding of magic was

linked to his concept of animism.[100] In
his 1871 book Primitive Culture, Tylor
characterized magic as beliefs based
on "the error of mistaking ideal analogy
for real analogy". [101] In Tylor's view,
"primitive man, having come to
associate in thought those things
which he found by experience to be
connected in fact, proceeded
erroneously to invert this action, and to
conclude that association in thought
must involve similar connection in
reality. He thus attempted to discover,
to foretell, and to cause events by
means of processes which we can now
see to have only an ideal
significance".[102] Tylor was dismissive
of magic, describing it as "one of the
most pernicious delusions that ever
vexed mankind".[103] Tylor's views
proved highly influential,[104] and helped
to establish magic as a major topic of
anthropological research.[97]
James Frazer regarded magic as the first stage in
human development, to be followed by religion
and then science

Tylor's ideas were adopted and

simplified by James Frazer.[105] He
used the term "magic" to mean
sympathetic magic,[106] describing it as
a practice relying on the magician's
belief "that things act on each other at
a distance through a secret sympathy",
something which he described as "an
invisible ether".[102] He further divided
this magic into two forms, the
"homeopathic (imitative, mimetic)" and
the "contagious". The former was the
idea that "like produces like", or that the
similarity between two objects could
result in one influencing the other. The
latter was based on the idea that
contact between two objects allowed
the two to continue to influence one
another at a distance.[107] Like Taylor,
Frazer viewed magic negatively,
describing it as "the bastard sister of
science", arising from "one great
disastrous fallacy".[108]

Where Frazer differed from Tylor was in

characterizing a belief in magic as a
major stage in humanity's cultural
development, describing it as part of a
tripartite division in which "magic"
came first, "religion" came second, and
eventually "science" came third.[109] For
Frazer, all early societies started as
believers in magic, with some of them
moving away from this and into
religion.[110] He believed that both
magic and religion involved a belief in
spirits but that they differed in the way
that they responded to these spirits.
For Frazer, magic "constrains or
coerces" these spirits while religion
focuses on "conciliating or propitiating
them".[110] He acknowledged that their
common ground resulted in a cross-
over of magical and religious elements
in various instances; for instance he
claimed that the sacred marriage was a
fertility ritual which combined elements
from both world-views.[111]

Some scholars retained the

evolutionary framework used by Frazer
but changed the order of its stages; the
German ethnologist Wilhelm Schmidt
argued that religion—by which he
meant monotheism—was the first
stage of human belief, which later
degenerated into both magic and
polytheism.[112] Others rejected the
evolutionary framework entirely.
Frazer's notion that magic had given
way to religion as part of an
evolutionary framework was later
deconstructed by the folklorist and
anthropologist Andrew Lang in his
essay "Magic and Religion"; Lang did so
by highlighting how Frazer's framework
relied upon misrepresenting
ethnographic accounts of beliefs and
practiced among indigenous
Australians to fit his concept of
magic.[113]

Functionalist approach

The functionalist approach to defining

magic is associated with the French
sociologists Marcel Mauss and Emile
Durkheim.[114] In this approach, magic
is understood as being the theoretical
opposite of religion.[115]

Mauss set forth his conception of

"magic" in a 1902 essay, "A General
Theory of Magic".[116] Mauss used the
term magic in reference to "any rite that
is not part of an organized cult: a rite
that is private, secret, mysterious, and
ultimately tending towards one that is
forbidden".[114] Conversely, he
associated religion with organised
cult.[117] By saying that magic was
inherently non-social, Mauss had been
influenced by the traditional Christian
understandings of the concept.[118]
Mauss deliberately rejected the
intellectualist approach promoted by
Frazer, believing that it was
inappropriate to restrict the term magic
to sympathetic magic, as Frazer had
done.[119] He expressed the view that
"there are not only magical rites which
are not sympathetic, but neither is
sympathy a prerogative of magic, since
there are sympathetic practices in
religion".[117]

Mauss' ideas were adopted by

Durkheim in his 1912 book The
Elementary Forms of the Religious
Life.[120] Durkheim was of the view that
both magic and religion pertained to
"sacred things, that is to say, things set
apart and forbidden".[121] Where he saw
them as being different was in their
social organisation. Durkheim used
magic to describe things that were
inherently anti-social, existing in
contrast to what he referred to as a
"Church," the religious beliefs shared by
a social group; in his words, "There is
no Church of magic."[122] Durkheim
expressed the view that "there is
something inherently anti-religious
about the maneuvers of the
magician",[115] and that a belief in
magic "does not result in binding
together those who adhere to it, nor in
uniting them into a group leading a
common life."[121] Durkheim's definition
encounters problems in situations—
such as the rites performed by Wiccans
—in which acts carried out communally
have been regarded, either by
practitioners or observers, as being
magical.[123]

Scholars have criticized the idea that

magic and religion can be
differentiated into two distinct,
separate categories.[124] The social
anthropologist Alfred Radcliffe-Brown
suggested that "a simple dichotomy
between magic and religion" was
unhelpful and thus both should be
subsumed under the broader category
of ritual.[125] Many later anthropologists
followed his example.[125] Nevertheless,
this distinction is still often made by
scholars discussing this topic.[124]

Emotionalist approach

The emotionalist approach to magic is

associated with the English
anthropologist Robert Ranulph Marett,
the Austrian psychologist Sigmund
Freud, and the Polish anthropologist
Bronisław Malinowski.[126]

Marett viewed magic as a response to

stress.[127] In a 1904 article, he argued
that magic was a cathartic or
stimulating practice designed to relieve
feelings of tension.[127] As his thought
developed, he increasingly rejected the
idea of a division between magic and
religion and began to use the term
"magico-religious" to describe the early
development of both.[127] Malinowski
understood magic in a similar manner
to Marett, tackling the issue in a 1925
article.[128] He rejected Frazer's
evolutionary hypothesis that magic was
followed by religion and then science
as a series of distinct stages in societal
development, arguing that all three
were present in each society.[129] In his
view, both magic and religion "arise and
function in situations of emotional
stress" although whereas religion is
primarily expressive, magical is
primarily practical.[129] He therefore
defined magic as "a practical art
consisting of acts which are only
means to a definite end expected to
follow later on".[129] For Malinowski,
magical acts were to be carried out for
a specific end, whereas religious ones
were ends in themselves.[123] He for
instance believed that fertility rituals
were magical because they were
carried out with the intention of
meeting a specific need.[129] As part of
his functionalist approach, Malinowski
saw magic not as irrational but as
something that served a useful
function, being sensible within the
given social and environmental
context.[130]

Freud also saw magic as emerging

from human emotion but interpreted it
very differently to Marett.[131] Freud
explains that "the associated theory of
magic merely explains the paths along
which magic proceeds; it does not
explain its true essence, namely the
misunderstanding which leads it to
replace the laws of nature by
psychological ones".[132] Freud
emphasizes that what led primitive
men to come up with magic is the
power of wishes: "His wishes are
accompanied by a motor impulse, the
will, which is later destined to alter the
whole face of the earth in order to
satisfy his wishes. This motor impulse
is at first employed to give a
representation of the satisfying
situation in such a way that it becomes
possible to experience the satisfaction
by means of what might be described
as motor hallucinations. This kind of
representation of a satisfied wish is
quite comparable to children's play,
which succeeds their earlier purely
sensory technique of satisfaction. [...]
As time goes on, the psychological
accent shifts from the motives for the
magical act on to the measures by
which it is carried out—that is, on to the
act itself. [...] It thus comes to appear
as though it is the magical act itself
which, owing to its similarity with the
desired result, alone determines the
occurrence of that result."[133]

In the early 1960s, the anthropologists

Murray and Rosalie Wax put forward
the argument that scholars should look
at the "magical worldview" of a given
society on its own terms rather than
trying to rationalize it in terms of
Western ideas about scientific
knowledge.[134] Their ideas were
heavily criticised by other
anthropologists, who argued that they
had set up a false dichotomy between
non-magical Western worldview and
magical non-Western worldviews.[135]
The concept of the "magical worldview"
nevertheless gained widespread use in
history, folkloristics, philosophy,
cultural theory, and psychology.[136]

According to Stanley Tambiah, magic,

science, and religion all have their own
"quality of rationality", and have been
influenced by politics and ideology.[137]
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."[138]

Magicians

The "Magician" card from a 15th-century tarot

The "Magician" card from a 15th-century tarot
deck.

Many of the practices which have been

labelled magic can be performed by
anyone.[139] For instance, some charms
can be recited by individuals with no
specialist knowledge nor any claim to
having a specific power.[139] Others
require specialised training in order to
perform them.[139] Some of the
individuals who performed magical
acts on a more than occasional basis
came to be identified as magicians, or
with related concepts like
sorcerers/sorceresses, witches, or
cunning folk.[139] Identities as a
magician can stem from an individual's
own claims about themselves, or it can
be a label placed upon them by
others.[139] In the latter case, an
individual could embrace such a label,
or they could reject it, sometimes
vehemently.[139]

There can be economic incentives that

encouraged individuals to identify as
magicians.[72] 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.[139] Others claim such
an identity out of a genuinely held belief
that they have specific unusual powers
or talents.[140]

Some historians have drawn a

differentiation between those
practitioners who engage in high
magic, and those who engage in low
magic.[141] In this framework, high
magic is seen as more complex,
involving lengthy and detailed
ceremonies as well as sophisticated,
sometimes expensive,
paraphernalia.[141] Low magic is
associated with simpler rituals such as
brief, spoken charms.[141]

In some cultures, terms such as

sorcerer, sorceress, wizard, witch, etc.
are applied to specific types of
magicians based on their gender,
abilities, sources of power, moral
standing within the community, etc.[142]

A variety of personal traits may be

credited with giving magical power, and
frequently they are associated with an
unusual birth into the world.[143]
However, the most common method of
identifying, differentiating, and
establishing magical practitioners from
common people is by initiation. By
means of rites the magician's
relationship to the supernatural and his
entry into a closed professional class is
established (often through rituals that
simulate death and rebirth into a new
life).[144] Mauss argues that the powers
of both specialist and common
magicians are determined by culturally
accepted standards of the sources and
the breadth of magic: a magician
cannot simply invent or claim new
magic. In practice, the magician is only
as powerful as his peers believe him to
be.[145]

Throughout recorded history,

magicians have often faced scepticism
regarding their purported powers and
abilities.[146] For instance, in sixteenth-
century England, the writer Reginald
Scot wrote The Discoverie of Witchcraft,
in which he argued that many of those
accused of witchcraft or otherwise
claiming magical capabilities were
fooling people using illusionism.[147]
Suspicions and accusations
of witchcraft

Those regarded as being magicians

have often faced suspicion from other
members of their society.[148] This is
particularly the case if these perceived
magicians have been associated with
social groups already considered
morally suspect in a particular society,
such as foreigners, women, or the
lower classes.[149] In contrast to these
negative associations, many
practitioners of activities that have
been labelled magical have
emphasised that their actions are
benevolent and beneficial.[150] This
conflicted with the common Christian
view that all activities categorised as
being forms of magic were intrinsically
bad regardless of the intent of the
magician, because all magical actions
relied on the aid of demons.[45] There
could be conflicting attitudes regarding
the practices of a magician; in
European history, authorities often
believed that cunning folk and
traditional healers were harmful
because their practices were regarded
as magical and thus stemming from
contact with demons, whereas a local
community might value and respect
these individuals because their skills
and services were deemed
beneficial.[151]

In Western societies, the practice of

magic, especially when harmful, was
usually associated with women.[152] For
instance, during the witch trials of the
early modern period, around three
quarters of those executed as witches
were female, to only a quarter who
were men.[153] That women were more
likely to be accused and convicted of
witchcraft in this period might have
been because their position was more
legally vulnerable, with women having
little or no legal standing that was
independent of their male relatives.[153]
The conceptual link between women
and magic in Western culture may be
because many of the activities
regarded as magical—from rites to
encourage fertility to potions to induce
abortions—were associated with the
female sphere.[154] It might also be
connected to the fact that many
cultures portrayed women as being
inferior to men on an intellectual, moral,
spiritual, and physical level.[155]

See also
Black magic
Concepts of magic per society
Gray magic
List of occult terms
List of occult writers
List of occultists
Maleficium (sorcery)
Magic (illusion)
Magic in fiction
Magic in the Graeco-Roman world
 Prayer
Psionics
Sigil (magic)
Superstition
Thaumaturgy
Theurgy
White magic
Witchcraft

References
Footnotes

1. Davies 2012, p. 2.

2. Bailey 2018, p. 8.
 3. Bailey 2006, p. 2.
4. Styers 2004, p. 3.
5. Otto & Stausberg 2013, p. 1.
6. Otto & Stausberg 2013, p. 7.
7. Bogdan 2012, p. 2.
8. Bailey 2006, p. 8.
9. Bailey 2006, p. 9.
10. Styers 2004, p. 25.
11. Jolly 1996, p. 17.
12. Bailey 2018, p. 89.
13. Davies 2012, p. 1.
14. Styers 2004, p. 14.
15. Styers 2004, p. 8.
16. Otto & Stausberg 2013, p. 6; Bailey
2018, p. 27.
17. Bailey 2018, p. 27.
18. Bailey 2018, p. 19.
19. Hutton 2003, p. 104; Bailey 2018,
p. 20.
20. Otto & Stausberg 2013, p. 6.
21. Hutton 2003, p. 103; Styers 2004,
p. 7; Otto & Stausberg 2013, p. 1;
Bailey 2018, p. 3.
22. Hanegraaff 2012, p. 166.
23. Hanegraaff 2012, p. 168.
24. Bailey 2006, p. 5.
25. Otto & Stausberg 2013, p. 11.
26. Hutton 2003, p. 100.
27. Hanegraaff 2012, p. 169; Otto &
Stausberg 2013, p. 16.
28. Mair 2015, p. 47.
29. Mair 2015, p. 36.
30. Mair 2015, p. 36-37.
31. Bremmer 2002, p. 2; Otto &
Stausberg 2013, p. 16.
32. Davies 2012, p. 3; Otto & Stausberg
2013, p. 16.
33. Mair 2015, p. 37.
34. Mair 2015, p. 36-39.
35. Bremmer 2002, p. 1.
36. Otto & Stausberg 2013, p. 16.
37. Davies 2012, p. 41.
38. Gordon 1999, p. 163.
39. Gordon 1999, pp. 163–164;
Bremmer 2002, pp. 2–3; Bailey
2018, p. 19.
40. Gordon 1999, p. 165.
41. Otto & Stausberg 2013, p. 17.
42. Davies 2012, pp. 32–33.
43. Davies 2012, p. 34.
44. Davies 2012, pp. 41–42.
45. Bailey 2018, p. 72.
46. Bailey 2018, p. 99.
47. Bailey 2018, p. 21.
48. Kieckhefer 2000, pp. 10–11.
49. Kieckhefer 2000, p. 11; Bailey
2018, p. 21.
50. Davies 2012, p. 35.
51. Flint 1991, p. 5.
52. Davies 2012, p. 6; Bailey 2018,
p. 88.
53. Davies 2012, p. 6.
54. Bailey 2018, p. 22.
55. Kieckhefer 2000, p. 12; Hanegraaff
2012, p. 170.
56. Kieckhefer 2000, p. 12.
57. Styers 2004, p. 35.
58. Davies 2012, pp. 35–36.
59. Hanegraaff 2006b, p. 739.
60. Hanegraaff 2006b, p. 738.
61. Otto & Stausberg 2013, p. 18.
62. Styers 2004, pp. 9, 36–37; Davies
2012, p. 7.
63. Styers 2004, p. 9.
64. Styers 2004, p. 37.
65. Davies 2012, p. 9.
66. Styers 2004, p. 60; Bailey 2018,
p. 23.
67. Bailey 2018, p. 23.
68. Bailey 2018, p. 98.
69. Bailey 2018, p. 25.
70. Bailey 2018, p. 24.
71. Styers 2004, p. 27.
72. Bailey 2018, p. 103.
73. Styers 2004, p. 61.
74. Styers 2004, pp. 9–10.
75. Davies 2012, p. 29.
76. Davies 2012, pp. 30–31.
77. Hanegraaff 2012, p. 167.
78. Flint 1991, p. 3.
79. Bogdan 2012, pp. 1–2.
80. Bogdan 2012, p. 11.
81. Bogdan 2012, p. 12; Bailey 2018,
pp. 22–23.
82. Urban, Hugh (2006). Magia
Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and
Liberation in Modern Western
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83. Drury, Nevill (2011) [2002]. The
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ISBN 9781780283623.
84. Hanegraaff 2006b, p. 741.
85. Hanegraaff 2006b, p. 743.
86. Styers 2004, p. 19.
87. Styers 2004, pp. 19–20.
88. Bailey 2006, p. 3.
89. Hanegraaff 2012, p. 164.
90. Davies 2012, p. 21.
91. Styers 2004, p. 21.
92. Styers 2004, p. 6.
93. Hanegraaff 2012, pp. 164–165.
94. Hanegraaff 2012, p. 165; Otto &
 Stausberg 2013, p. 4.
95. Otto & Stausberg 2013, p. 4.
96. Davies 2012, pp. 14–15.
97. Davies 2012, p. 15.
98. Cunningham 1999, pp. 16–17.
99. Cunningham 1999, p. 17.
100. Davies 2012, p. 15; Bailey 2018,
p. 15.
101. Hanegraaff 2006, p. 716;
Hanegraaff 2012, p. 164.
102. Hanegraaff 2006, p. 716.
103. Cunningham 1999, p. 18; Davies
2012, p. 16.
104. Davies 2012, p. 16.
105. Hanegraaff 2006, p. 716; Davies
2012, p. 16.
106. Hanegraaff 2006, p. 716; Bailey
2018, pp. 15–16.
107. Cunningham 1999, p. 19;
Hanegraaff 2006, p. 716.
108. Cunningham 1999, p. 19.
109. Cunningham 1999, p. 19;
Hanegraaff 2006, p. 716; Davies
2012, p. 16; Bailey 2018, pp. 15–
16.
110. Cunningham 1999, p. 20.
111. Cunningham 1999, pp. 20–21.
112. Davies 2012, pp. 18–19.
113. Davies 2012, p. 17.
114. Hanegraaff 2006, p. 716;
Hanegraaff 2012, p. 165.
115. Hanegraaff 2012, p. 165.
116. Davies 2012, p. 18; Bailey 2018,
p. 16.
117. Cunningham 1999, p. 47.
118. Hanegraaff 2006, p. 717.
119. Cunningham 1999, p. 47;
Hanegraaff 2006, p. 716.
120. Hanegraaff 2006, p. 716; Davies
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121. Cunningham 1999, p. 44.
122. Hanegraaff 2012, p. 165; Davies
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123. Bailey 2006, p. 4.
124. Otto & Stausberg 2013, pp. 5–6.
125. Cunningham 1999, p. 49.
126. Cunningham 1999, p. 23.
127. Cunningham 1999, p. 24.
128. Cunningham 1999, pp. 28–29.
129. Cunningham 1999, p. 29.
130. Davies 2012, p. 22.
131. Cunningham 1999, p. 25.
132. Freud & Strachey 1950, p. 83.
133. Freud & Strachey 1950, p. 84.
134. Davies 2012, pp. 25–26.
135. Davies 2012, p. 26.
136. Davies 2012, p. 27.
137. Tambiah 1991, p. 2.
138. Tambiah 1991, p. 8.
139. Bailey 2018, p. 85.
140. Bailey 2018, p. 105.
141. Bailey 2018, p. 40.
142. Filotas, Bernadette (2005). Pagan
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144. Mauss, Bain & Pocock 2007,
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145. Mauss, Bain & Pocock 2007, p. 33,
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146. Davies 2012, p. 49.
147. Davies 2012, p. 51.
148. Bailey 2018, p. 68.
149. Bailey 2018, p. 71.
150. Bailey 2018, pp. 71–2.
151. Bailey 2018, p. 90.
152. Bailey 2018, p. 92.
153. Bailey 2018, p. 93.
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Gnosis and Western Esotericism.
Brill. pp. 716–719.
ISBN 9789004152311.
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: Cambridge University
Press. ISBN 9780521196215.
Hutton, Ronald (2003). Witches, Druids
and King Arthur. London and New
York: Hambledon and London.
ISBN 9781852853976.
Jolly, Karen Louise (1996). Popular
Religion in Late Saxon England: Elf
Charms in Context. Chapel Hill and
 London: University of North
Carolina Press. ISBN 978-
0807845653.
Kieckhefer, Richard (2000). Magic in the
Middle Ages (second ed.).
Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. ISBN 9780521785761.
Mair, Victor H. (2015). "Old Sinitic *Mᵞag,
Old Persian Maguš, and English
"Magician" ". Early China. 15: 27–
47.
doi:10.1017/S0362502800004995
. ISSN 0362-5028 .
Mauss, Marcel; Bain, Robert; Pocock, D. F.
(2007). A General Theory of Magic
(Reprint ed.). London: Routledge.
 ISBN 978-0415253963.
Otto, Berndt-Christian; Stausberg, Michael
(2013). Defining Magic: A Reader.
Durham: Equinox.
ISBN 9781908049803.
Styers, Randall (2004). Making Magic:
Religion, Magic, and Science in the
Modern World. London: Oxford
University Press.
ISBN 9780195169416.
Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja (1991). Magic,
Science, Religion, and the Scope of
Rationality (Reprint ed.).
Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. ISBN 978-0521376310.
Further reading
Dickie, Matthew W. (2001). Magic and
Magicians in the Greco-Roman
World. London.
Hammond, Dorothy (1970). "Magic: A
Problem in Semantics". American
Anthropologist. 72 (6). pp. 1349–
1356.
O'Keefe, Daniel (1982). Stolen Lightning:
The Social Theory of Magic.
Oxford.
Wax, Murray; Wax, Rosalie (1963). "The
Notion of Magic". Current
Anthropology. 4 (5). pp. 495–518.
Meyer, Marvin & Smith, Richard (1994)
 Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic
Texts of Ritual Power,
HarperSanFrancisco

External links
Quotations related to Magic at
Wikiquote

Catholic Encyclopedia "Occult Art,

Occultism"
Catholic Encyclopedia "Witchcraft"

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