Cut from main article:
For more information, see: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=magic+neopagan+traditions+history
Note: the entry previously under this heading was a long, and poorly researched, theistic (christian) diatribe against magic. If you want that take on 'magic,' see the current entry for 'witchcraft.'
One slight problem I see in moving this page from Magic (paranormal). I was just writing a paragraph on Artifact:
- In role-playing games and fantasy literature, an artifact is a magical object with some marvelous and alarming power, so great that it cannot be duplicated by efforts of the player characters, and cannot be destroyed by ordinary means. Artifacts often serve as MacGuffins, the central focus of quests to locate, capture, or destroy them. The One Ring of The Lord of the Rings is a typical artifact: alarmingly powerful, of ancient and obscure origin, and almost indestructible.
A link to Magic (religion) just doesn't make sense here. The magic I'm talking about is definitely paranormal but I can't see it having a great deal to do with religion. -- IHCOYC 21:42 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)
- I agree -- in fact, most scholarly studies of "magic" distinguish it very clearly from "religion" -- James Frazer suggested magic was more like science than religion. Slrubenstein
Moved back to Magic (paranormal) for that reason. The Anome 22:11 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)
"debased"? Where the Potter Stewarting hell did that come from? What happened to NPOV? And if we're going to redirect magick here, I feel compelled to change the definition at the beginning.
- I moved the definition, and changed the discussion of Satanism slightly. But if you have something to say about magic(k) in Satanism, you may wish to say it yourself. -- IHCOYC 14:33 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC)
- Not about Satanism specifically. (I gather that some satanists do more or less agree with me on this subject, which makes me question the truth of what this article says about them. However, I'm not sure I know enough to change that bit.) I think that while magick can mean Magic(paranormal), the latter term cannot reasonably include all meanings of "magick". Therefore, I find the current categorization unsatisfactory. What do people think about redirecting this article to magick?
- With all due respect to Slrubenstein, I gave up any hope of trying to preserve the integrity of this article when it was moved back to Magic (paranormal). Notwithstanding the views of Sir James Frazer, this article does not in any way reflect what I learned about the nature of magic in the holistic context of anthropology. To wit, magic is a religious belief and practice that is clearly distinct from other religious beliefs and practices, such as divination, as well as secular science. In contrast, this article expresses a very inaccurate and ethnocentric secular viewpoint, common to Western culture, which puts both magic and religion in the realm of pseudo-science and/or proto-science and by some bizarre reasoning considers divination a type of magical practice. Ultimately, Frazer's research and the research of Frazer's apologists argues for a less Westernized perspective on both magic and religion, a perspective wherein magic is totally subsumed under the topic of religion and need not be contrasted with science and the paranormal. -- NetEsq 14:23 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)
- There is, of course, room for a separate Magick and Magic (religion), which are currently redirects. They need not be forever. From where I see it, paranormal magic should cover all the several varieties of magic except stage magic, generally; including folk magic, religious magic, superstitions, and supernatural magic in fiction. There is nothing wrong with adding a separate article to discuss Crowley's magic in detail, or magic in religion; just so long as any one can be found from the rest of them. -- IHCOYC 15:09 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)
- What precisely is the problem? We have an article on magic, this one. Magic is spelled in a number of different ways, including "magic" an "magick", but both spelling refer to the exact same thing. Are you saying that we should have an article that exclusively deals with A. Crowley's particular understanding of magic? That is fine by me. However, we need to realize that just because someone spells the word "magick" doesn't mean that they necessarilly are adherents of Crowley's system (or even have ever heard of the man!) RK
- The problem is that magick has a broader meaning than magic(paranormal), and yet someone redirected magick here. Why? This seems comparable to defining 'quadrilateral' as 'square', but more emotionally charged. It would make more sense to me if we transferred this article to magick, since I don't see how it can avoid touching on the other meaning(s) of magick without giving a distorted picture.
No, this is a problem. Magick does not necessarilly have a broader meaning than magic. In fact, they very often are precisely the same word. People just choose different spellings for different reasons. I understand that some people use these words in different ways, but most people do not. Within science-fiction and fantasy literature, read by millions of people, the words are often interchangeable. So you need to clarify precisely what you are talking about: Who is it that uses the spelling magick to describe something different from magic? Who do they do this? In their definition, how do these terms differ? RK
Netesq -- I agree with you that this article needs a lot of work -- I haven't done much here. But please see the recent changes I made to Magical thinking; I believe that article as it stands makes no claims at all about religion, only to say that it is different from magic; it certainly doesn't say religion is pseudo-science. As for anthropology -- anthropologists continue in general to distinguish between magic and religion. You are absolutely right that Frazer is calling magic pseudoscience, and that this is ethnocentric. But that is a fact (that Frazer considered magic pseudoscience). You are welcome to put in the critique of Frazer, that he is ethnocentric. Also, one can agree with Frazer's distinction between magic and science, and disagree with his further argument that magic is wrong (in other words, magic may indeed use the law of similarity and the law of congruence, but these laws may be real and effective) -- if you know of anyone who argues this position, by all means include it. Finally, by all means include definitions of magic different from Frazer's. But do not delete Frazer -- add important content, do not delete. Frazer and Evans Pritchard continue to influence many scholarly studies of magic. Many of these studies are more sophisticated than Frazer or Evans-Pritchard (for example, Peter Winch's Understanding a Primitive Society," and Horton and Finnegan's Non Western Societies) but they still work within the framework set out by Frazer and Evans-Pritchard, so F and EP's views are still relevant and need to be highlighted in an article. Slrubenstein
- Thank you for your considered responses. As usual, your position is reasonable and defensible and addresses my concerns. On that note, I agree that the work of Frazer and Evans-Pritchard is somewhat canonical to the study of magic. As for the finer points of a taxonomical organization of religion, science, magic, magick, divination, etc., etc., etc., I no longer have the necessary temperament to deconstruct the impact of ethnocentrism on these topics, much less explain it to others, so I am inclined to leave such work to other, more resolute and stout individuals, such as yourself. -- NetEsq 05:43 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)
Touchée. I too do not quite have the energy (or time) right now to make those changes to the article -- but you are right that they need to be made clear and I will try to get to it soon. As I said, so far all I have done was include Frazer in the Magical thinking article -- I don't think I have done anything yet to this article but it does need work. Perhaps others out there can join in too. Slrubenstein