Magic Topic 1
Definitions
What is magic?
• Frazer, The Golden Bough, 1900
– Magic is a technique that aims to manipulate
impersonal forces
According to Frazer, Magical thought
… depends on a belief
that
• objects and
individuals
• act on each other at a
distance,
• through a secret
‘fellow-feeling’
(‘sympathy’)
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LAW OF SYMPATHY
(SYMPATHETIC MAGIC)


Law of Similarity
Law of Contact
(Homeopathic Magic) (Contagious Magic)
Magic (acc. to Frazer)

Theoretical

“Science”
Positive Magic
Sorcery
Practical

“Art”


Negative Magic
Taboo
How does magic differ from religion?
• Tylor (1871), Primitive Culture:
– Magic does not entail belief in spiritual beings
• Durkheim, Elementary Forms of Religious
life (1951)
– Religions involve communities, magic concerns
individuals
How does magic differ from religion?
• Malinowski, Magic, Science, and Religion
(1948)
– Religions have intangible, long term goals,
magic concrete and practical
Magic and Greek thought
The sources of knowledge
Knowledge is based on
— Sensory perception
– Intuition
» BCE
•
•
•
•
Heraclitus (7th-6th)
Parmenides (5th)
Philolaus (5th BCE)
Plato (5th - 4th BCE)
BCE
Empedocles (5th)
Aristotle (4th)
Magic 2:
THE SOURCES
Sources
•
•
•
•
•
1. Literary Descriptions
2. Inscriptions
3. Visual Material (rare)
4. Papyri
5. Curse Tablets
1. Literary Descriptions
• Theocritus, Vergil, Apuleius
4. Papyri
• Small pieces of papyrus transmitting the
formulae for charms and spells, including
binding spells, defixiones, which correspond
to the lead curse tablets
• Long texts including collections of recipes
for healing, exorcism, and divination rituals.
5. Tabulae defixionum
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Magic 3
NAMING THE SORCERER
Greek words for ‘sorcerer’
•
•
•
•
GOES
AGURTES
MAGUS
MANTIS
GOES
• Linked to ‘goos’ (funeral lament)
• Associated with ecstasy, divination and
healing rites
• Used to describe ritual in Homer
• Denotes a man who can resuscitate the dead
in Aeschylus.
APULEIUS THE SORCERER
Apuleius of Madaurus (2nd C.E.)
• Platonic philosopher, defended himself in a
formal trial against the accusation of magic
• The outline of his speech comes down to us
in his Apologia sive de magia
Line of defense
General:
• Apuleius is as a good citizen.
• Appeals to the proconsul’s knowledge of
Plato and quotes the definition of magi as
specialists in religious matters.
specimens of poisonous sea-slug
• Accusers: the name of the creature was
similar to that of female genitalia and
therefore would have been used in erotic
magic
• Apuleius: I was writing a book on fish.
Divination
• Accusers: Apuleius performed incantations
over a young boy in a secret place at a small
altar, with only a few friends present.
• Apuleius: the details his accusers provide
were so inaccurate that they cannot be true.
Exorcism
• Accusers: he performed exorcism = he is a
magician
• Apuleius: I acted as a physician
Possession of ritual objects
• Accusers: the objects prove that his is a
magician
• Apuleius: the objects ate linked to mystery
cults he had been initiated in.
• He performed exorcism. (He acted as a physician).
• He possessed ritual objects (linked, he claims, to mystery
cults he had been initiated in).
• Nocturna sacra were performed in his house.
• He worshipped an ebony statuette representing a
superhuman power linked with the world of the dead,
which he referred to as the king (basileus). (well, he
commissioned one to be made of boxwood but a friend
decided to surprise him and paid the craftsman for ebony.)
How to become a sorcerer?
HECATE
in Hesiod (7th BCE)
• Originally goddess of fertility and prosperity
• A daughter of the Titans, independent from the Olympian
gods
• Nurse of young creatures (like Artemis)
Classical period and later
• Linked to the Underworld depicted with a blazing torch
• Accompanied by fierce hounds
• Goddess of the crossroads
• Skilled in the arts of black magic
Cross-roads
• To the Romans Hecate
was “Trivia” of the
crossroads
• Received offerings of
food called Hecate's
suppers
MYTHICAL SORCERERS
often have divine ancestry
Circe in the Odyssey
• turns Odysseus’ crew
into animals
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• orchestrates his
descent to the
underworld
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• is the daughter of
Helios, the god of the
sun
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Medea
• Who new how to
resuscitate the dead
was a grand-daughter
of Helios.
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Others obtain magic objects from gods
• For example, Jason
according to Pindar
(5th BCE)
• obtained the jynx
from Aphrodite
herself, in order to
face Medea
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Others obtain magic objects from gods
• Odysseus received
moly from Hermes.
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In practice…
• magical powers were sought
through quasi religious
ceremonies, strongly
reminiscent of mystery cults
MAGIC & MYSTERY CULTS
• used the same vocabulary:
• ‘mysterion’ = religious and magical
ceremony
• ‘synmystai’ = ‘the initiates’
MAGIC & MYSTERY CULTS
• shared at least three important features:
• 1) Secrecy
• 2) Direct contact with the divine
• 3) Complex rituals and initiation
Mysticism
• = ‘direct contact with the divine’
• Plato: the sorcerer = ‘spiritual man’
daimonios
Ecstasy
• = ‘being put out of one’s place’ joy of
having transgressed the boundaries of the
human condition
• was sought both by followers of Bacchus
and by the magi (Lucius in Apuleius’
Metamorphoses)
Difference
• In his contact with the divine, the magus
more often seeks a solitary experience
PART 1
PREPARE TO MEET YOUR
PARHEDROS
• Keep the rites secret and abstain from
sexual intercourse for seven days.
• Purity will distinguish you from ordinary
human beings.
• Drown a falcon (symbol of the Sun) in the
milk of a black cow mixed with honey.
• The murder of a sacred animal will place
you outside the law.
• Take the bird + two of your fingernails +
your hair
• Add a papyrus with an inscription made in myrrh ink
• Smear the ingredients with incense and
wine.
• Make a mummy using pure cloth.
• Establish the link between the god
represented by the falcon and yourself
• Drink the milk including the essence of the
divine animal
• This is the act of communion with the god.
• Place the falcon in a sanctuary and honor
him with sacrifices.
• Acknowledge the divinity of your ally
• Recite a spell/prayer summoning …
• the giver of life, Orion, you who preside over
the Nile
• creator, you who rise breathing fire
• you who divided the seas
• Call upon your ally by name to assure the
identity of the spirit
• <The god appears>
• Walk backwards.
• Eat the ritual feast in the company of the
ally.
• Signal that you have left your human form
and achieved another status.
DEFINTIONS II
Sympathy
• Frazer in The Golden Bough
• Stoic term used by the Neo-Platonic
philosopher Plotinus
Plotinus (3rd CE):
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• Platonist = continued
the Platonic tradition
over 700 years after
Plato
• Dualism of soul and
body
To Plotinus
• Magic: effort of the person (= intellect body) to connect with beings closer to
the One
• Possible thanks to the law of sympathy
that connects various levels of beings
Theories
of the 2nd half of the 20th century
Victor Turner
• Rituals, Symbols, Ritual Themes
• Victor Turner and Symbolic Analysis (1974,
1982)
Victor Turner
• Symbolic Analysis
(1974, 1982)
• Magic is strictly linked
to ritual
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RITUAL =
• stereotyped sequence of activities
• involving
– Gestures
– Words
– Objects
• designed to influence supernatural entities or forces on behalf of the
actor’s goals and interests
SYMBOL
• = the smallest meaningful unit of a specific
structure of a ritual context.
Characteristics of a ritual…
• Multiple meanings
– symbols interconnected through analogy or
association
• Condensation
– one symbol can be the vehicle for many ideas
• Polarization
– tangible symbols represent abstract components
of the moral or social order.
• Civic religion involves a community
• Magical ritual involves individuals
• Both involve communication with divine or semi-divine
beings constructed along the vertical axis.
Graf cites S.J. Tambiah
• Magic as ritual
• Magic is something
that is performed
• Magic brings to
pass an event
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Background
• Austin, ‘How to do things with words’
• Some utterances describe
– It is cold here.
– You are old.
• Other utterances make things happen
– I take you as my husband. (oath)
– Pass the salt please. (request)
Ritual speech acts
•
•
•
•
Prayers and wishes (Directives)
Spells by similarity (Assertives)
Binding spells (Declaratives)
Oaths (Commisives)
Graf
• In magic (and other rituals)
• Words are accompanied by actions
• The recipients of the message are
divine beings
• The message is overstated
• So what about sympathy (similia
similibus)
• As this corpse lies dad, so may my
enemy be immobilized
• Graf: somewhat like oaths
• Rather assertives
• ‘He is dead’ (pronounced by a doctor)
• ‘He is nailed’ (pronounced by a
sorcerer)
• Which brings in the notion of authority
• (also studied in speech act theory under
the label of conditions for ‘felicity’ or of
acts)
MAGIC:
More characteristics
Magical spells
• constrain super-human
beings
• feature obsequious
prayers
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Coercion
• Is a form of enlisting support
• Whether asking kindly or firmly we want to
bind the addressee to do as we ask
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Ancient binding
• Papyri
– “spells that constrain”
•
•
•
•
•
By trickery
By slander
By extortion
By blackmail
By verbal coercion
Coercion of superhuman beings
• Has various shades …
• It coexists with most obsequious requests
Coercion
• Magic is about affecting the environment
by word and action
• To assure the efficiency of his/her actions,
the agent enlists help of superhuman beings
• (S)he does so by all conceivable means
Coercion…
• is a side effect of the essential function of
magic—
• to affect the environment by means of ritual
action
MAGIC AND REVERSAL
• Magical rituals often include inversions of
everyday practices and other rituals.
The Paredros spell
• Walking backwards
MAGIC AND GENDER
• The first mythical sorceresses are female
(Circe, Medea)
• Women are believed to be particularly
interested in witchcraft
• (Theocritus, Idyll 2)
Women and witchcraft
• Authors who think highly of magic (Plato,
Plotinus) speak envisage the sorcerer as
male
• Authors who dismiss magic tend to
feminize it
Rome (exceptionally)…
• The belief that magic is for women is
particularly strong in Roman literature until
1st AD
In Roman folklore..
• Substances derived from a woman’s body
(blood, milk) were believed to have magical
properties