Robert Ralley - Magic

A Beginners Guide

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A Oneworld Paperback Original

Published by Oneworld Publications 2010

This ebook edition published by Oneworld Publications 2012

Copyright Robert Ralley 2010

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Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
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Thanks are due to several people: my editor, Marsha Filion, and an anonymous reader, both of whom provided invaluable criticism; Lauren Kassell and Sheila Nolan, for discussions and advice; and Jill Whitelock, to whom I owe a particular debt of gratitude for her indefatigable help and forbearance. None is responsible for any of the books remaining flaws.

Magic was an accusation long before it was a practice. Today we might associate it with deception and illusion, perhaps with charlatanry; unusual power, exercised in secret; we might think of spells and incantations, to gain advantage or cause damage. It is sometimes used to describe the beliefs of people from distant cultures. Many of the magic-related stereotypes we harbour are negative: witches and sorcerers are typically portrayed as evil. All of these notions can be traced directly back to the classical world. To the ancient Greeks, who coined the word, magic was an umbrella term for a number of fearsome and dangerous practices familiar from legend and myth: enchantment; sorcery; witchcraft; deception. These were connected by the suspicion that they were all pursuits of the mysterious Persian magi, the visitors from the east at the biblical nativity. Magic was what they thought the magi did. It was only later in antiquity that a small group of Greek philosophers depicted magic as a positive and worshipful activity. They opposed the widespread fear and condemnation, and embraced magic as genuine wisdom about the natural world.

Such disagreements are at the heart of the history of magic. No definition of magic, no interpretation or analysis of it, has ever been uncontroversial. Nor have the questions of what counts as magic and what does not, or who is practising magic and who is not. Magic, in short, is hard to pin down. All of which can cause problems for anyone trying to discuss it in broad terms. This book is guided by its subjects: it includes those who claimed to be practising magic and who advocated it; it includes accusations of magic (however unfounded) and the people who made them. It is a book about debates around magic, as much as it is about practices. What magic was, what it involved and who was doing it were questions that people wrangled over for centuries. In order to understand magic to appreciate where it came from, and how it comes to occupy its place in modern culture we need to pay close attention to the answers that they came up with. With that in mind, this introduction begins in the ancient world, exploring classical views of magic and the prejudices and beliefs that shaped them. These provided the foundations for all later discussions of magic. Magic, for these early writers, was intimately connected to the magi, so the next few pages also trace their changing portrayals by writers from ancient times through the Christian tradition to the modern period. These attitudes have shifted in parallel with the magical tradition, and clearly demonstrate the importance of ancient debates to the history of magic.

Before magic (Greek mageia, Latin magia) there were sorcerers, enchanters and witches. Sorcery (goeteia) seems to have been a well-established concept by the time Plato characterized it in the fourth century BC. In his account, sorcerers created illusions and cast spells to constrain the wills of unwitting subjects. Alongside the sorcerer stood the pharmakis (or venefica in Latin), perhaps best translated as witch. This was someone who used substances to harm people, either by administering them directly (as drugs or poisons) or at a distance (in a charm, for instance, perhaps accompanied by an incantation). Romans suspected witches of malicious acts such as moving neighbours grain to their own fields, or casting charms over neighbours fruit; these deeds were specified in the earliest law codes as punishable by execution. Later laws singled out for comment those who attempted anything against the life or person of anyone or who were found guilty of influencing chaste minds to lust. Soothsayers or prophets (harioli) were just as dangerous and should not be consulted. The law likewise forbade summoning the spirits of the dead or sacrificing to devils (daemones). By that time (the fourth or fifth centuries BC) any of these activities might be considered magical. Magic, for the Greeks and Romans, was about raising the dead and dealing with spirits; it involved deceiving and hurting people, by casting spells, using charms, administering poisons. Its practitioners might claim healing powers but they were not to be trusted. Perhaps the first clear description of magic as a field of activity was by Pliny the Elder (AD 2379); convinced of its utter falsity, Pliny described it as a seductive blend of medicine, religion and astrology. In short, magic was chiefly an accusation (not to say an insult): it was something one attributed to others.