Magic
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Illustration: The Temple of the Rose Cross from the Speculum Sophicum Rhodostauroticum (1618) by Teophilus Schweighardt Constantiens
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"To establish contact with the mysterious forces which rule the world, to come to terms with them, to obtain their co-operation or complicity, such is the objective of all those who devote themselves to magic and to whom, rightly or wrongly, people attribute supernatural powers and a special gift of receptivity to everything marvellous."--A Pictorial History of Magic and the Supernatural (1961) by Maurice Bessy "The basic difference between the attitude of the magician to the world and the attitude of the scientist to the world is that the former wants to draw the world into himself, whilst the scientist does just the opposite, he externalizes and impersonalizes the world ... Hence, may it not be supposed, when mechanics and mathematics took over from animism and magic, it was this internalisation, this intimate connection of the mens with the world, which had to be avoided at all costs. And, hence, it may be suggested, through the necessity for this strong reaction, the mistake arose of allowing the problem of mind to fall so completely out of step and so far behind the problem of matter in the external world and how it works ... This bad start of the problem of knowledge has never quite been made up."--Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (1964) by Frances Yates |
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Magic may refer to:
- Black magic
- Magic (paranormal), a term for various supernatural, mystical, and paranormal practices.
- Magick, a variant term popularized by Aleister Crowley
- Magic in the Greco-Roman world, a branch of the disciplines of Classics, Ancient History and Religious Studies that has become a popular object of study especially in the last twenty years or so
- Magic (illusion), also known as stage magic, street magic, and sleight of hand; the art of entertaining audiences by performing illusions and tricks.
- Magician
- Magic and religion
- Magic realism
- Magic in fiction
- Magus, a Zoroastrian priest; the origin of the word magic
- Magic mushroom
- History of magic
- Timeline of magic
Etymology
From Middle French magique (noun and adjective), from Latin magicus (adjective), magica (noun use of feminine form of magicus), from Ancient Greek μαγικός (magikos, “magical”), from μάγος (magos, “magus”). Displaced native Middle English dweomercraft (“magic, magic arts”) (from Old English dwimor (“phantom, illusion”) + cræft (“art”)), Old English galdorcræft (“magic, enchantment”), Old English drȳcræft (“magic, sorcery”).
See also
