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Ancient magic

Magic is recognized by many savage peoples as a force rather than an art, —a thing, which impinges upon the thought of man from outside. It would appear that many barbarian tribes believe in what would seem to be a great reservoir of magical power, the exact nature of which they are not prepared to specify. Thus amongst certain Ameri­can-Indian tribes we find a force called Orenda or spirit-force. Amongst the ancient Peruvians, everything sacred was huaca and possessed of magical power. In Melanesia, we find a force spoken of called mana, transmissible and contagious, which may be seen in the form of flames or even heard. The Malays use the word kramai to signify the same thing; and the Malagasy the term hasma. Some of the tribes round Lake Tanganyika believes in such a force, which they call ngai, and Australian tribes have many similar terms, such as churinga and boolya. To hark back to America, we find in Mexico the strange creed named nagualism, which partakes of the same conception—every­thing nagual is magical or possesses an inherent spiritual force of its own.

The Magician—in early society, the magician, which term includes the shaman, medicine-man, piagé, witch-doctor, et cetera, may hold his position by hereditary right; by an accident of birth, as being the seventh son of a seventh son; to revelation from the gods; or through mere mastery of ritual. In savage life we find the shaman a good deal of a medium, for instead of summoning the powers of the air at his bidding as did the magicians of medieval days, he seems to find it necessary to throw him­self into a state of trance and seek them in their own sphere. The magician is also often regarded as possessed by an animal or supernatural being. The duties of the priest and magician are often combined in primitive society, but it cannot be too strongly asserted that where a religion has been superseded, the priests of the old cult are, for those who have taken their places, nothing but magicians. We do not hear much of beneficent magic among savage peoples, and it is only in Europe that White Magic may be said to have gained any hold.

Medieval Definition of Magic. —The definitions of magic vouchsafed by the great magicians of medieval and modern times naturally differ greatly from those of anthropologists.

For example Eliphas Levi says in his History of Magic: “Magic combines in a single science that which is most certain in philosophy with that which is eternal and infallible in religion. It reconciles perfectly and incontestably those two terms so opposed on the first view—faith and reason, science and belief, authority and liberty. It furnishes the human mind with an instrument of philosophical and religious certainty, as exact as mathe­matics, and even accounting for the infallibility of mathe­matics themselves       There is an incontestable truth, and there is an infallible method of knowing that truth; while those who attain this knowledge and adopt it as a rule of life, can endow their life with a sovereign power, which can make them masters of all inferior things, of wandering spirits, or in other words, arbiters and kings of the world.” Paracelsus says regarding magic: “The magical is a great hidden wisdom, and reason is a great open folly. No Armor shields against magic for it strikes at the inward spirit of life. Of this we may rest assured, that through full and powerful imagination only can we bring the spirit of any man into an image. No conjuration, no rites are needful; circle making and the scattering of incense are mere humbug and jugglery. The human spirit is so great a thing that no man can express it; eternal and unchangeable as God Himself is the mind of man; and could we rightly comprehend the mind of man, nothing would be impossible to us upon the earth. Through faith the imagination is invigorated and completed, for it really happens that every doubt mars its perfection. Faith must strengthen imagination, for faith establishes the will. Because man did not perfectly believe and imagine, the result is that arts are uncertain when they might be wholly certain.” Agrippa also regarded magic as the true road to communion with God—thus linking it with mysticism.

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