Magic

For my first ever blog post, I apologize if it seems a bit jumbled, I hope to get better as the semester goes on. To start I wanted to talk about magic. While reading the Kieckhefer book I giggled and laughed at some of the things people believed in the past. Then I started to think about whether we were far off from them, in our own beliefs about magic. That is when I realized some of us still hold on to that fundamental belief in magic. While we may not make potions to cure our lameness or find love via hitting someone over the head with a hazel stick (caveman style…. Though we might still do it today if it was not considered assault with a deadly weapon….) we do show our belief in things that we do or not do.

                For example how many of us see a coin on the ground, but hesitate even if only for a second to check if it is heads up? Or even on campus, who does not split the pergola poles? Lucky socks anyone. I guess the point I am trying to make is that I think most of us still believe in magic deep down. True some people may say that it is not magic it is superstition, but don’t they go hand in hand? You can take superstition and create a thread line to magic.  Superstition: Black cats are bad luck, why? They are associated with witches. What do witches do? Witchcraft, what is that? MAGIC!

                Now that I am an adult, I always hear the phrase “magic is for children” or “Only children believe in magic”. My question is, why? I think that it is small minded to not believe in magic, even a little bit. The world seems like a barren place, magic can give people hope and I think that is worth something. After all, it is as Roald Dahl said, “Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it”.  

Miracles versus Magic

I wanted to delve into how I perceive miracles and magic. People made it pretty clear in class that God is associated with miracles and the devil is associated with magic. God creates miracles from nothing, which is precisely what makes them miracles. They happen at a time when there seems to be no hope for things to get better. Miracles are inherently good.
Magic, on the other hand, tends to be inherently evil. The "miracles" the devil creates are not miracles at all -- they are "lying wonders" (Kors & Peters, 101). The text on page 101 goes into further detail about miracles being wrought by some corporeal change. The article says that "demons are unable to change the nature of a body" (101), therefore they do not create miracles.
The magic the devil produces may come about like the miracles God produces, but it does not come from the same place and is considered a sin. In the third article of Aquinas' Summa theologia, he explains that all sins come from the temptation of the devil directly or indirectly. The devil tempted the first man to sin who then went on to tempt another and so on and so forth. The devil may not approach each person directly, but he is the cause of each sin someone commits.
The same may be said about God. One person decided to commit their life to living in a way that God approves of, and then went on to convince others. Although God did not approach each of these people, His interaction with the first person caused a domino effect.
Although the devil's magic and God's miracles are on the opposite end of the human decency spectrum, I think they are both interconnected. Each "phenomenon", if you will, causes a chain event that leads to a bunch of people following it. Even though the devil creates terrible things, he is able to make them seem decent, like something God would create, thus achieving a large number of followers. God's creations are always good, which makes it easy for people to praise Him and live by standards that he would accept.

Superstitions: Then and Now

Well, since everyone else seems to be talking about Thomas Aquinas, I figured I’d go back to our discussion about superstition and magic. In Magic in the Middle Ages, it mentions medieval superstitions such as:

“Those who found halfpennies or needles could congratulate themselves on their good luck, unless they were so foolish as to dispose of these discovered objects, in which case the luck would turn against them. It was lucky to find a horseshoe or an iron nail, or to meet a hare as it was escaping the hounds. To encounter a raven or an ass was unlucky. Some people believed it could be bad luck to meet a monk or a priest unless one made the sign of the cross.”(88)

While we don’t have many of these superstitions today, there are several that still persist in modern society like crossing your fingers, knocking on wood, walking under a ladder, and opening an umbrella indoors. But where did these superstitions come from? A quick Google search reveals a large number of websites with information on the subject. One that I found particularly useful is an article on the Reader’s Digest website which gives possible histories of modern superstitions as well as some others dating as far back as the Egyptians.

The practice of crossing one’s fingers or legs for luck might be traced back as far as the time of Jesus, and it is suggested that the motion is related to the crucifixion. Knocking on wood is sometimes related to the same thing, but the practice could also be traced back to the belief that spirits lived in trees. By knocking or touching the wood, the person would be invoking these spirits. The Reader’s Digest article relates the superstition of walking under a ladder to the ladder criminals would have to climb before they were hanged; however, another article traces it all the way back to the ancient Egyptians. This article on Livescience.com says that the Egyptians believed triangles to be sacred and a sign of the gods. As such, walking through the triangle formed by a leaning ladder was considered hugely disrespectful to the gods. Similarly, the Chinese viewed the opening of an umbrella indoors to be an insult to the Sun, who they considered a god. This slight could bring bad luck or even death.

There is a lot more information on the subject out there, even on these websites. If this interests you, I would encourage that you check out these two articles.

http://www.readersdigest.com.au/superstitions?page=1

http://www.livescience.com/33507-origins-of-superstitions.html

Astrology, then and now.

As I read Keickhefer I became very interested in the ideas presented on the subject of Astrology in the middle ages.  One thing that always would come to mind upon hearing of fortune telling and horoscopes is that many people still to this day focus on the same principles.  As stated in Keichefer (120) “the most basic use of astrology was in making horoscopes, which would indicate the influence that the stars and planets had on a person at birth or at any other juncture in life.”

 In this time the use of these horoscopes differ then from what they do today, kings would use Astrology to predict wars and their outcomes and even what their children were destined for in life.  The belief today is followed by many along these same lines with a few slight differences.  Although many read horoscopes they do not do so as fortune tellers for war or their destiny of what they will grow to become but to find a meaning to their life and which personalities are relevant to their astrological symbol.  Some followers even take this advice and put it to daily use. Does this mean that although we do not view it as magic, could these followers today have similar beliefs that the astrological symbols play some kind of supernatural role in their lives similar to astrological magic?

What is magic

I wasn't exactly sure what my first blog post should be about, so I figured I start with something basic. Perhaps as I write more, it will develop into something far more meaningful. What is magic? This question can never be answered because frankly, I don't think there is a real answer. Is it science, religion, superstition, technology, fate, nature, luck??? I feel like magic can be each and every one of those things. I think anyone could believe the magic in a a tiny little syringe of liquid that can prevent a deadly disease. Anyone before the technology boom of the 90's would see it as pure "witchcraft" that we can carry our own personal computer in our pockets! When unexplainable events take place, is it because of prayer, fate, luck? No one knows. Is this magic? 

All of these things have no explanation, yet all of them happen everyday. 

Science vs magic

Writing about magic is not something that I'm used to doing so this is very different for me.

I never really realized how life was during the time period we are looking at.  When I think of the 1200-1400's I think of the plague and terrible conditions.  But in addition to this the Catholic church and kings were fighting a different enemy.  This enemy was people being interested in science, or as it was called back then, magic. Studying things such as astronomy and astrology were looked as magic but are actually valuable items.  The things they associated with the stars as well as positions of the stars in the sky though, that was the magic.  There is just no proof behind Mars being close to the Sun is a good or bad time to go to war with another country.  Alchemy was a legitimate science back then as well.  It was a complete dead end though if you look at it with what we know today.  You couldn't possibly turn one element into gold back then.  We can today though.  No one from this time period knew this though.  Everyone just knew that it was hard and if someone claimed they could do it then they were lying.  Alchemy was the work of the devil in the Catholic church's eyes.

People accused of witchcraft or devil worshipping really were tortured or burned to death.  I don't know how people could really want someone to die like this but I guess they really were scared of what these devil worshippers were capable of.  I found it pretty funny that the devil worshippers claimed they ate like 60 babies for example but they never mentioned anyone claiming they were missing their children.  Maybe the parents just cut their losses back then, who knows.  The cults these people claim to be apart of sound like they actually could have existed apart from them eating more little kids and seasoning the kids with venom from poisonous animals.

Some of the stories from K/P are interesting so hopefully there will be more in future chapters.

Thomas Aquinasty reading

Alright, so here's the thing, to be completely honest, I realize just how difficult the reading by Thomas Aquinas (Thomas Aqui-Nasty) was, so I'm going to do the guys in my group for tomorrow a bit of a favor and arrange the section we were assigned into some more simplistic points. So guys, that's the reading of page 90-94. Here goes...

First off when Aquinas says "...the work of magicians result not only from the influence of heavenly bodies" (90) he means that magic is, essentially what you make it to be. Meaning, the witness who believes that they are seeing a process that they wish to believe is magic, they are giving this process power. Entertaining the idea that what you. Are seeing is magic.

"Now these conversations and apparitions are addressed to those who have free use of their external senses. Therefore these apparitions and speeches cannot be imaginary" (91). This means (and the paragraph before this one) that the reason that magic has it's power, is because observers believe it to be magic.

"...no imaginary forms can lead a person to intellectual knowledge beyond the nature or acquiring faculty of his intellect..." (91). This chunk is my favorite. Really what he means is humans acquire knowledge through the use of knowledge and facts. Without these facts, one cannot learn something. So it is impossible for someone to acquire knowledge by shear chance or "just cuz". Wow. That was a long run around for something so basic, right?

"...movement of its very nature is the result of having a soul: since it is proper to animate things to move themselves. Therefore it is impossible for an inanimate being to be moved by itself, through the power of a heavenly body" (91). Because things do not have a soul, they cannot move on their own. Therefore, phenomenons such as levitation are impossible. Also, things such as idols, that were built by man cannot more or grant "wishes" these idols or shrines were only created because the need for something to worship or prey to was present (92).

""...in the practice of their art they make use of certain significative words in order to produce certain definite effects...have no power except as derived from some intellect; either of the speaker, or of the person to whom they are spoken" (93). The only reason incantations have power is because the person reciting or the person listening believes them to have significance. No words have power. Events are the only things that can lead to a skill. Without these events, there can be no skill.

Later down in 93 to the top of 94, it Aquinas goes on further to say that is magic is generated by the power of thought (a power all men have), then why can't every Tom, Dick and Harry be able to make things happen with will power? Why can't everyone perform magic? Lack of actions cannot be taught to others, so in reality, they cannot be replicated. Ergo, magic is complete bullshit. The top of 93 states (the same thing, but phrased differently) that we cannot learn from things we cannot comprehend.

The idea that praying to an idol because you need a certain outcome will grant only what you believe it to. So when you say 'Heres a lamb because I want to be smarter." That will work based on the idea that you want the outcome of you being smarter (94).

In all reality, this reading may seem frightening but

The Connotation Discussion

This is a rather late reaction to our discussion about connotations but this has stuck with me since that class.

As a class we took a poll of what connotations we associated with witch and wizard; resulting is the majority thinking of witch with a negative connotation and wizard with a neutral if not positive connotation. What I found really interesting is that as an explanation for the results for wizard the Harry Potter series was provided.  I loved the Harry Potter series so I completely understand that jump to the positive; however I’m still surprised that this series hasn't impacted our views of witches (assuming of course we are restricting it to only female magicians).  We also seem to forget that the vast majority of the “evil” characters in Harry Potter are in fact male. There are a few females in Voldemort’s following, most notably Bellatrix and Alecto Carrow; and then there is Umbridge.  If you look at the “good” witches the list goes on for ages, Hermione, Professor McGonagall, Professor Sprout, Luna, Cho, Fleur, Molly, Ginny, Tonks, Madame Pomfrey,  Lily, even Narcissa can arguably be considered a “good” witch (these are just off the top of my head). Given that Harry Potter has had such an enormous impact on this generation one would think that all the “good” witches would have changed our view of witches as a whole. Even if we came to a conclusion that both wizard and witch were neutral terms would be better as there were both fighting on either side at the Battle of Hogwarts. Especially in the case of Harry Potter the number of named male participants on the "evil" side far exceeds the number of females; Voldemort, Fenrir Greyback, Amycus Carrow, Dolohov, the rest of the Lestranges.  I know personally that I still think of witches with a negative connotation but after thinking about this I think that I seriously need to re-think it.

[edit] This is just a thought that came to me after reading Ariels post that mentioned Kiki's Delivery Service. Growing up I loved watching Kiki, I wanted to be her so badly (still might do). This movie doesn't have any bad witches and Kiki is a fantastic role model. For those of you who don't know Kiki is a young witch who must become independent so she leaves home on her broom with her adorable cat Jiji to find her way in the world. She hits a few bumps but eventually creates a life for herself. I think that movie like this could continue to change the view of witches. In the movie they are just incredibly independent, sufficient women who are witches. We even see them readily excepted by society in this film.

Completely oppositely there is magic in Once Upon a Time. This show often shows evil magic being significantly more powerful than that of good magic. These opposite views of witchcraft show the conflicting ideas of whether or not magic is positive or negative in the media.

Thomas Aqui-nasty

I’m here to kind of go over our boy Thomas Aquinas and (hopefully) shed a little more light on his work.

Thomas Aquinas, while being completely revolutionary to the world of philosophy and theology, leaves much to be desired in his manner of writing. Believe it or not, chapter 3 of Kors & Peters’ Witchcraft in Europe has excerpts from some of his most prestigious and well-read works. The Summa theologiae and the Summa contra gentiles helped shape and mold the way in which religion was practiced and taught within the Roman Catholic Church. It is important to note that prior to Aquinas’ melding of Aristotelian philosophy and Christian theology, there hadn’t been a significant change in the Roman Catholic Church since Augustine some 900 years prior. A lot of the time I think people assume that the Medieval Era was the dead period in time between the Classical Era and the Renaissance, when this obviously wasn’t the case.

<http://www.stpeterslist.com/11585/aquinas-is-not-impressed-11-memes-of-the-angelic-doctor/>

But wait, how does all this religion stuff fit in with magic? Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.

The excerpts taken from the Summa contra gentiles and the Summa theologiae don’t explicitly deal with the inner workings of magic, but more on the origins of magic and how it relates to a divine hierarchy. You’re not going to get obscure details on spells and potions from Aquinas, he was God’s #1 fanboy, so everything he wrote was in reference to God or how things worked within His plan.

Aquinas lays out a hierarchy of beings/institutions within the divine and mundane world – how they interact, who has control over what, what things are off limits to who, etc. You can look at this almost like an elaborate board game or an RPG. So the players in this hierarchal game are as follows: God, Devil/demons, heavenly bodies, nature, and humans. God is the man on top with the knowledge of everything that is going on. For my fellow nerd-folk, he’d be your Dungeon Master. Within God’s spectrum there is nature – for lack of a better comparison, nature is like the setting of a book and God is the narrator, he fills up the space with stuff. Within nature (and therefore God’s plan) you have the Devil/demons, heavenly bodies, and humans. These three things overlap at varying degrees because they all take place in tandem, within nature. The Devil/demons have more knowledge of nature – that is why they are able to distort a human’s perception of it (oh wow that sounds a lot like magic!) There is some overlap with heavenly bodies (basically astrology) and humans as well, but from the excerpt we have of Aquinas’ Summa contra gentiles we can infer that heavenly bodies have a more passive role in the lives of humans.

Lastly, the final player in the hierarchal game is free will. This is something that humans have (only humans) that somehow manages to fit into God’s will. The debate on whether or not that is possible should be something saved for another time, but it’s there according to Aquinas and I can’t bring myself to argue with him.

<http://www.stpeterslist.com/11585/aquinas-is-not-impressed-11-memes-of-the-angelic-doctor/>

P.S. And as my gift to you, here are helpful (and reputable) links. Explore them, use them, love them. Become one with the links.

http://www.bluffton.edu/~humanities/1/st_tips.htm

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas/

Magical Segregation, or Why I'm Not a Potterhead

I think the biggest magic-related news story right now is that of JK Rowling's announcement that she is going to be screenwriting a movie based on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a book that exists within the world of Harry Potter. It seems like I can't escape this story; people have been flipping out about it on Tumblr and Facebook since its announcement. It's gotten bad enough that I have to make an important announcement: I am not, nor have I ever been, a fan of Harry Potter.

While a huge chunk of the reason behind my distaste for the series stems from its popularity (I'll be honest, there is a bit of a hipster side to me), mostly because the fans can be...obnoxious, to say the least (I remember the days when the fandom pretty much ruled LiveJournal), there are other reasons, too. I never found many of the characters to be very interesting, with the exceptions of Luna and Neville, both of whom ended up being as awesome as I hoped they would be. The characters everyone seemed to adore--Snape being a major example--always seemed gross and needy to me, and I will never understand their appeal. I think a large part of my avoidance of Harry Potter for my teen years, and the reason I only decided to give it another chance when I was twenty-one, was the separation of the "muggle" and magical worlds.

Yes, there was some overlap between them. There had to be, with characters like Hermione, who had muggle parents (don't even get me started on my hatred of the term "muggle"), but it seemed like, at Hogwarts at least, students didn't need to learn practical things like normal kids did. Where were the science classes, the regular math classes (okay, they had a wizard equivalent, but I don't count that), even literature classes? If they existed, we didn't really see them through Harry's eyes. Of course there would be more of an emphasis on magic for the students at a magical school, but what if one day magic disappeared? Those kids would be woefully underprepared for a world without magic. Hermione would probably be okay, but kids like Ron would be completely lost. The segregation of the magical and non-magical worlds has always seemed pretty ridiculous to me.

I think that, despite the word "occult" literally meaning "hidden" or "secret," I prefer my fantasy series to be a little more open about the existence of magic. That might be why my favorite young adult author is Tamora Pierce. At least in her books, people know magic exists, even if they can't all use it. And kids who receive magical educations also learn the "boring" stuff, which makes for a well-rounded mage, in my opinion. I don't think I would trust a magic user whose basic educational background stopped at age ten, but maybe that's just me. Besides that, the idea of a whole separate society existing in this world, made of people who can use magical while the rest of us can't, just makes me feel sad. Why can't I be magical too? I'd rather have no magic in the world at all than a world where people are separated based on an ability, or lack of an ability, to fly through the air on a broomstick.

Sorcery ion Christendom

As one of the people in the group for the discussion of this chapter, I figured I would write a bit about my thoughts on the chapter. This chapter is about sorcery in Christendom (as you can tell by the title). This chapter goes on to take a religious view of magic and how it relates to Christianity. Tonie touched on this topic briefly in her post with the views of the Devil being magic. This was a big question to me when reading the chapter. Why is the Devil's power considered magic, but God's power is considered miracles? This gives magic the notion of being evil, since it is correlated so closely to the Devil. But with magic being considered evil by the church, why do people study it? Well it seems people still studied it since a lot of magic was used for good. Like magical cures or spells to ward off evil spirits. But if magic was the Devils power how come so much magic was for good and not evil. This lead me to think more about how we perceive magic today. In most movies magic has no real connotation as good or evil, as it is used by both good and evil as more of a tool. The good and evil aspect focuses more on the magic user than the magic itself. I guess the is kind of what it was like back then as well, but in the eyes of the church all magic was evil, regardless of the user. Now for those of you reading this i would like you to comment with how you think of magic. Does magic have a good or evil connotation to you personally? I personally think of good when I think about magic. I think of the mighty Hero who uses magic to save the princess against evil.

Arabic Influence in Medieval Europe

In Chapter 6 of Richard Kieckhefer’s Magic of the Middle Ages he talks about the Arabic influences on medieval Europe. Honestly, I was a little surprised by this because I have never really thought about much of the outside world coming into Europe at the time. As the medieval European worldview expanded, it’s logical to think that they would be exposed to Arabic or any other cultural influence. I’m sure that the Crusades also definitely helped in the movement of some parts of Arabic culture into Europe.

 

I thought that the astrology aspect of medieval life was pretty fascinating to read. It is very complex and involves a lot of interpreting of the positions of the planets and stars. Kieckhefer says that “knowing where the stars and planets were located at birth…could show how the heavenly bodies affected a person’s character and general destiny” (p.122). He also says that astrology helps with “interrogations” and “inceptions” which is the consequence of an action and when would be the best time to take action, respectively (p. 122).

 

I also found the fact that astrology was used in medicine also pretty interesting. Surgeons needed “to know which signs of the zodiac governed which parts of the body, because it was dangerous to operate or bleed a patient when the wrong constellation was dominant” (p.122).  Personally, I think that this would drive me crazy with waiting for months to get some kind of medical treatment. Also because physicians needed to know astrology, the subject was taught in schools (p. 122). I was surprised to read this because I never thought about astrology as being taken so seriously but not only the medieval Europeans but also by the medical community.

 

To me, astrology has never really been a subject of interest. But reading about its influence in the medieval world has made it more fascinating to me. I also think that it’s interesting how many people in medieval society took it seriously, how it was not only the lower classes but those in power who took a vested interest in it. And even today people still focus on astrology by keeping up with horoscopes that talk about personality traits and things that will happen.

Kieckhefer, Richard. Magic in the Middle Ages. New York: Cambridge University Press.1989. Print.

 

 

                                                    <http://www.jesus-is-savior.com>

 

 

                                                    <http://www.naturesastrology.com>