Talk:Magic (supernatural)/Archive 4

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Ambiguity on Jewish opinions of magic?

The article states that "Zoroastrianism and Judaism" have an "ambiguous" stance with regards to magic. As a student of Philosophy, I can share that, with regards to Judaism, Deut 18:9-15 forbids magic, dubbing it "diabolical" practice. There is no ambiguity, there is a clear Jewish objection to witchcraft. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.56.91.145 (talk) 22:14, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

I think the claim of an ambiguity of the disposition of Judaism towards magic comes from those instances in the Old Testmant/Tanakh where God makes his will know thorugh various forms of divination such as by lot and by dream (refer to http://www.uspoliticsonline.com/sacred/bib/ebd/ebd104.htm#006 for specific books/verses). However, I don't believe those few instances are sufficient to offet the clarity and specificity of Deut 18:9-5 and so I agree with you. 114.76.75.113 (talk) 09:48, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not that clear and dry. There are a lot of folk traditions within Judaism that Jewish people of the time wouldn't consider magic however people studying the subject would probably classify magic. For historical examples you can look at Hasidim and the Baal Shem, many elements of Kabbalah (particularly in the practical and linguistic traditions), and elements of Merkavah mysticism (particularly later trends that involve conjuring the angels) that are not regarded as magic per se in the tradition but could be classified as such by an outside observer or an academic studying the field. Finally, there are the Old Testament instances of divination.207.237.208.153 (talk) 15:58, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

nonscience or magic?

Okay, I don't know when this happened, but somehow the Wikipedia article seems to be more focused on nonscience then it is on magic. Even though science came much later than magic, so there is really no need to mention it, except in perhaps a separate section on science and magic. Also it's simply invalid to say that magic isn't supported by science, as there is Quantum Physics, with a bunch of magical concepts such as quantum-binding (contagious magic), and observer bias created realities which is the definition of magic. So really magic is only nonscientific to a certain class of people, whose knowledge of science ends at Newtonian mechanics and whose philosophies cumulate in Descartes, completely ignoring the last century and a half of research in Physics.

Anyhow, considering the great folly on the page, shall repair it by using the actual definitions used in the dictionary. Like whoever claimed to have reference websters to find "magic is nonscience" clearly didn't actually look in the dictionary. Answers.com magic

American Heritage Dictionary: mag·ic

Home > Library > Literature & Language > Dictionary (măj'ĭk) pronunciation n.

1. The art that purports to control or forecast natural events, effects, or forces by invoking the supernatural.

2.

1. The practice of using charms, spells, or rituals to attempt to produce supernatural effects or control events in nature.

2. The charms, spells, and rituals so used.

that type of dictionary definition found in most dictionaries including Meriam-websters, and Random house websters. Elspru (talk) 12:03, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Also if anything Magic can be seen as a point of origin for the scientific method, as it follows the same process. There is a hypothesis or initial spell, a procedure or ritual, followed by results, all of which is recorded or "spelled" in magic-spell-books.

Just as Alchemy was the forefather of Chemistry, Magic is a forefather of Science. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elspru (talk • contribs) 12:18, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Dictionaries aren't the ideal WP:RS. It's fair to say that magic is an element of the supernatural in terms of fiction, and like the supernatural, the non-fictional sense has largely been rendered quaint. More relevant would be that the concept of magic predates the supernatural… In Catholicism, the supernatural is specifically associated with God, divine miracles and angels, (presumably whether naughty or nice), and thereby with humanity, but magic wasn't necessarily limited to that agency (e.g. natural magic). Unfortunately, scientists aren't particularly good historians and, like anyone, they may not be well informed, philosophically. Science has nothing to say about magic for the same reason it has nothing to say about the supernatural. For better or worse, some scientists aren't so finicky.

It's not true that magic and science are methodologically similar. That would be an example of scientism, an attempt to extend "science" into an arguably inapplicable domain. While sincere, I've no doubt, it's that kind of low hanging fruit that invites amateur debunking. I'm sorry, but entanglement is hardly contagious magic and as for the mantra of the observer, it was “clarified” that this means measurement. Magic wands don't quite cut it for some, and fearing a many-worlds interpretation, a scientist boldly went where no solipsist had gone before, (a little joke, but one doesn't need QM to get it). Consciousness causes collapse, if not solipsism, may be a slippery slope but superficially, it doesn't much resemble the definitions of magic you've supplied. It turns out that decoherence may be preferable to stipulating that a wavefunction collapses, on demand, the former being science and the latter magic, at best. Again, my apologies if that handy fiction isn't what you had in mind.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 23:32, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Merge

I think the merge is a good idea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 19maxx (talk • contribs) 22:05, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Magic (paranormal)

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Magic (paranormal)'s orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "ReferenceA":

From Magic in the Greco-Roman world: Drury, Magic and Witchcraft: From Shamanism to the Technopagans.
From Witchcraft: Bengt Ankarloo & Stuart Clark, Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Biblical and Pagan Societies", University of Philadelphia Press, 2001
From Pantheism: Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism, 1999.
From British Isles: Allen, p. 172–174.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 02:51, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Why is there a section on what Alan Moore believes (or purports to believe)?

Alan Moore is not a scholar and his reasoning is farcical - if all art is magic because some (probably fake) magicians referred to it as "the art", then all hobbies are prostitution because some men who visit prostitutes refer to this as "the hobby". Alan Moore writes comics. If we cite Alan Moore's opinion on magic, we might as well cite that of horror novelist Clive Barker, who says that there being joy in the world is also a type of magic. I don't see any difference in terms of their authoritativeness. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.247.14.177 (talk) 14:23, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Because Alan Moore is a magician. See Alan Moore - Religion and Magic Also your POV is showing "probaly fake". Morgan Leigh | Talk 09:11, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

POV/Fiction tags

Both here and in the talk archives there are unaddressed points raised that the tone is overly credulous and the skeptical point of view is not well-represented (if at all.) Moreover, the content of the article diverges from the superstition that most people think of when they hear the term paranormal magic. I hope these problems will be addressed. Is there a wikiproject for skeptics that could be alerted? 208.54.5.67 (talk) 05:14, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

The skeptical POV definitely needs to be represented, along with the best and most prominent arguments that magic is purely superstition. I know there has been cognition research that points to the brain's natural tendency to form associations as key in people's credulity. Essentially, the theory is that people remember and give importance to 'meaningful' coincidences more than they remember or give value to all the other occasions when there was no coincidence. There is thus a tendency to attach greater value to these coincidences than is statistically warranted. I can't point you to the research, but it is well-known and shouldn't be hard to find. We looked at it briefly when I was studying artificial intelligence.

But we also need to represent the views of actual magicians. They may be a minority group, but their practices are the subject of this article, and their philosophies on magic are both varied and complex, difficult to condense into a brief summary. We should follow the recent trend in ethnology by 'hardening up' and getting over our unease at treating magic as a serious topic of study. The rather patronising view of magic as the ignorant, outdated 'other' is going out of fashion. See João de Pina-Cabral's insightful article on 'superstitions' and the illusion that they are outdated, irrelevant and on the verge of dying out: "The Gods of the Gentiles are Demons: The Problem of Pagan Survivals in European Culture" in Hastrup, Kirsten (ed.) Other Histories. London: Routledge, 1992.

Cheers, Fuzzypeg ★ 10:48, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

And see also my earlier post regarding Adequate framing. Fuzzypeg ★ 10:52, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the IP, WP:UNDUE needs to be followed and the mainstream view should have prominence. Verbal chat 11:01, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Of course in an article about Earth the flat earth theory would be given very little (if any) space. But in an article about the Flat Earth theory itself, that's a very different matter. This article, on magic, needs to be written under the guidance of WP:FRINGE, with adequate framing and adequate space given to anthropological and psychological theories on the matter. I don't for a minute mean to suggest that the article should be promoting magic as true, but it just seems a bit arse-about-face to deconstruct magic before you've even described it. Oh, and as I have mentioned in another post on this page, I believe a lot of the description of magic may best be sourced from anthropological work rather than from magicians themselves. But the description should precede the deconstruction. Fuzzypeg ★ 12:52, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

It should follow the example of Homeopathy, which is a belief in magic. Verbal chat 14:23, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

That doesn't follow. Homeopathy also claims to be an effective medical treatment, and as such has been subject of numerous research trials and much scientific debate. Magic, on the other hand, has received little serious scientific attention. The two articles are not going to look very similar. Of course, if you can find a swag of scientific papers evaluating magic, by all means include them. But I think discussions of magic are more in the realm of the humanities: anthropology and ethnography. And I still maintain we should describe what magic actually is (or is supposed to be) before moving on to psychological or social theories about it. I'm probably not going to be a regular contributor here so I'm not going to bother pushing this. I'll leave the other editors here to do what they want. Have fun, Fuzzypeg ★ 06:57, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

This is not easy, magic is so obviously invalid that the scientific community doesn't even pay any attention to it.Smk65536 (talk) 13:57, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

That's a faith based statement if ever I heard one...Morgan Leigh | Talk 08:46, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Which part of the statement are you referring to? I was unable to find magic-related papers. And "faith" has a religious connotation, I'm thinking that you mean POV. My POV is that I do not believe in anything which does not and cannot have any evidence or proof.Smk65536 (talk) 22:05, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Smk65536 edit June 4

I reverted your edit today for a couple of reasons. First the citation is very unclear. It seems to be referring, rather vaguely, to a number of authors without actually citing any particular book, except for the citation to Hutton. I invite you to explicate the citation and share which page of which work you are finding the material in you have cited. The reason I am asking this is that the text you have added directly contradicts following more accurately cited text.

Secondly the text you have added doesn't provide any useful information to help understand the topic and includes some erroneous information. It erroneously states that magic is all religious when in fact much magic is not. For example many African magic users use magic to protect themselves against witches, a use with no religious connotations. For them it is simply a technology. It is also wildly inaccurate to say that magic has been replaced by "pharmaceutical medicine, fertilizers, insurance schemes and advertisement columns". While it is true that some societies have moved away from some uses of magic, preferring other solutions, it is not possible to generalise this over the whole planet. Morgan Leigh | Talk 22:44, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

How is witchcraft not religious? By it's very definition the people practicing witchcraft believes witches, or things which do not physically exist. I'm citing p289-p290 from the second book, and here is a direct quote: "magic did a lot of the work later taken over by pharmaceutical medicine, fertilizers, insurance schemes and advertisement columns". Magic certainly has not been replaced all of this, but the vast majority of magic have been replaced by real technological achievements. I have not yet taken a look at the first citation, but believe that my edit is correct regarding the second.

The definition in the book "Magic, by contrast, consists of a control worked by humans over nature by use of spiritual forces, so that the end result is expected to lie within the will of the person or persons working the spell or the ritual." describes magic very well, and from this definition magic is obviously a religious activity. But the current definition is very vague, phrases such as "somewhat akin" offer little meaning. Smk65536 (talk) 13:52, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Witchcraft certainly can be religious, but it can also not be. Wiccans, for example, see themselves as practising a religion that uses witchcraft, so in that instance it is religious. However there are also those who practice witchcraft and don't consider it to be a religious activity at all, but rather a craft, so that usage is not religious. Witches however do exist. Take a look at the witchcraft article for more information about this. However this article is about magic rather than witchcraft. They are not synonymous. The example I mentioned before about African magic users is a non religious use. It's easy to get caught up in one's own culture's ideas about things, but with things that span many cultures, like magic, we need to think more broadly. Some cultures see magic as religion and some don't. Some can't separate magic from region, from philosophy, from politics.

I don't know which book you are referring to as the 'second book'. There is only one book cited in that citation and that is Hutton's. There are other authors mentioned in that citation but not any particular books. Please clarify which book you are referring to so I can take a look. Until I can do that, and see the context, I can't comment on the "magic did a lot of the work later taken over by pharmaceutical medicine, fertilizers, insurance schemes and advertisement columns" quote, though I think I can see what they will be saying. That quote could well be mentioned elsewhere in the article, but the lead sentence needs to be a strong definition. I totally agree that as it stands now it is weak. This is a product of the fact that terms like magic and religion are notoriously difficult to define. The academy has been arguing about a definition of religion for centuries. The problem is that magic, like religion, is so many different things in so many cultures that a general definition is hard to come to. I welcome any explicit definitions. The one you mention - "Magic, by contrast, consists of a control worked by humans over nature by use of spiritual forces, so that the end result is expected to lie within the will of the person or persons working the spell or the ritual." is quite good, except that a lot of magic users do magic not to control nature, but to control themselves, and some of them don't consider it spiritual, many consider it psychological. I'd be happy for you to add that though. But I will keep looking for definitions.

When replying on talk pages its useful to indent posts so we can clearly see who posted what. To do this you just put a colon at the start of each paragraph. If you are replying to a reply you need to add one more more colon than the post you are replying to has. i.e. if you reply to this you will need two colons. Morgan Leigh | Talk 08:27, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion on the indentation of replies, I have fixed that.

Please point out where in that witchcraft article which says anything about "craft". I can't find any. Witchcraft is itself a belief in that what the "witch" is doing works, and is a cultural practice, which I find fits in very well with the definition of "Religion" in that article. I'm not sure what you mean by "Witches do exist" and how that relates to this article. Is it in the sense that religious practitioners exist? It is quite clearly pointed out that magic practitioners do exist. I disagree with your example of African magic users not being religious. They believe that what the witches are doing is harmful to them. This is a cultural practice based on a belief, which also fits in well with the definition of religion. I agree however that magic and witchcraft are not synonymous. But if some cultures see magic as religion and some don't, this implies that magic and religion are ill-defined concepts, hence there should be multiple definitions of magic and religion to clarify.

References part is my mistake, I did not mean book, but the other papers by Mauss, Tambiah, and Malinowski. I have not read these papers, but since the definition has nothing to do with the book, but cites it, either the definition needs to be fixed or the reference removed.

I totally agree that religion and magic are difficult to define, but if the definition is vague and broad I think it should be better to provide some examples, such as the one I mentioned which includes "spells" and "rituals". How about this new definition which gets rid of the spiritual factor you mentioned which can be discussed later: "Magic consists of spells and rituals which are worked by humans in an attempt to control nature and themselves, so that the end result is expected to lie within the will of the person." Smk65536 (talk) 22:05, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

the beginning of the article needs improvement

The article used to start off with a comprehensive good definition of magic, but now there is really no definition what so ever. Who ever changed it needed to include a better definition or just leave it alone as it was fine before. ~Austin — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.249.244.45 (talk) 17:52, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Magic is not real.

While I'm all for an article on the traditions and rituals associated with magic and a discussion how magic is practiced today, this article really needs to acknowledge that magic, as a paranormal phenomenon, does not exist. Currently, the opening paragraph insinuates that magic is a sort of discipline with actual, noticeable effects - this is untrue. If an outright disclaimer of falsehood is too much for some of you, then at least change things to "magic users believe that..." or similar wordings, as is the case for articles on religions. This is not an article on stage magic, which is an acknowledged illusion, and this is not an article on actual phenomena that were once thought to be magical in nature. If there are others out there who feel similarly, I would be delighted if you would help me find scientific articles on this subject, as that seems to be what is required for this to be acknowledged here.

Also, what is wrong with using James Randi's website as a source? It's not "self-published" - I certainly did not publish it myself, and James Randi is a world famous skeptic and psychic/magic debunker. The fact that his million dollar wager has not yet been won is further testament to my point.

Werothegreat (talk) 15:54, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

The Randi sources used were an unspecified part of an "encyclopedia" written by Gilles-Maurice de Schryver, to redundantly source the first sentence (its entry on "magic" is brief, and seems a little flippant), and the JREF page (which uses the word "magic" once, purely as one aspect of the "nonsense" that the JREF prize concerns itself with) to source that magic is "most often relegated to works of fiction, as there is no scientific evidence that magical rituals grant any supernatural powers to the practitioner", which isn't what the source says.

Saying that magic "utilizes ways of understanding, experiencing and influencing the world" rather than "attempts to understand, experience and influence the world" seems like a false summary of the article body, though, and I don't see any harm in giving a brief scientific context, so long as it's sourced. I've reverted User:Morgan Leigh's edits from earlier today, but have left out the Randi sources. --McGeddon (talk) 16:11, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Greetings, Firstly, to User:Werothegreat I'd like to say that your POV is showing. As you yourself have mentioned, you did a Google search and couldn't find a single source that said magic isn't 'real'. Perhaps this might be telling you something. While your remarks open up a whole window for a discussion about ontology, I will instead suggest that you seem to be proceeding from an opinion and trying to edit the article to suit. Please don't do that. There is a large repertoire of scholarly work about exactly this topic and I suggest we summarise and cite it instead. Entire civilizations have flourished for millennia based on the assumption that magic works. Are we to assume that Western society's current focus on materialism and empiricism is 'right' and they all 'wrong'? Or perhaps we can proceed to a more subtle understanding?

To User:McGeddon, This first paragraph certainly has issues. User:Smk65536 and I had been working on this recently but I had to go away for a bit and we agreed to wait until I got back to work on it. Now that I am returned we shall get right on it. The major problem, as I see it, with the first sentence is the citation. It is very unclear who is being sourced and from exactly where. This "Mauss, Tambiah, Malinowski (see below)" part of the citation is vague in the extreme and I have removed it as I am unable to ascertain to what exactly it refers. I shall go and get Hutton's book today and report back.

I suggest we work together to come up with a definition of magic for the lead sentence as this would be more useful than such a vague sentence as presently fills this space. This is however a problematic undertaking as most academics in this area understand the wide range of activities covered by the label magic and are loathe to make an explicit definition that attempts to cover all uses. Perhaps User:Fuzzypeg's section above might be a good starting point, although all the definitions he mentions are definitions of modern Western magic rather than magic as a phenomena across many times and cultures.Morgan Leigh | Talk 02:02, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Magic (this and that)

Magic (supernatural) redirects here. Offhand I guess that magic in fiction --where Magic (fantasy) redirects-- is more often the appropriate target.

Has anyone looked at current links to disambiguated Magic articles?

--P64 (talk) 17:24, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Magic (supernatural)

Only 13 WP:ARTICLEs currently target Magic (supernatural).

   Astrology ‎ 
   Francesco Scipione, marchese di Maffei 
   Papa Smurf  —targets both (paranormal) and (supernatural)
   True name ‎ —targets both (paranormal) and (supernatural)
‡   Magg
‡   Summer Country 
‡   Conan the Adventurer (TV series) ‎
   Witchcraft in Anglo-Saxon England ‎ 
   The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe 
   Indrajala ‎ 
‡   Somebody Else's Prince ‎
‡   The Tears of Princess Prunella
   Doktor Faust und Mephisto ‎

‡ Articles about literary fairy tale and fantasy where the fiction/fantasy target is more appropriate.

--P64 (talk) 18:20, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

What links here

More than 2000 pages do.

[There are numerous redirects to this article.]

magic (supernatural) [--via this redirect, 13 pages link here; it is little used, fortunately] --see the preceding subsection
magical --via this redirect more than 100 pages point here
magia [--via this redirect, 2 pages link here; it is barely used] --this seems appropriate. (We also have magia (disambiguation). Mage is itself a disambiguation page.)

This article magic (paranormal) concerns human practice. It is one in a series on Anthropology of Religion. On the other hand, magic (fantasy) redirects to magic in fiction. Where do myth and folklore lie between anthropology/religion and literature/fiction? There may be no easy answer; I doubt that the lead image of Circe belongs here.

However we handle difficult cases, for generalities such as 'magic (supernatural)' and 'magical' to redirect here ensures many inappropriate indirect links.

Furthermore it is useful that [[magic]]al and [[magical]] have the same target.

That is, it would be useful. To me it seems dangerous and silly that they do not. -P64

--P64 (talk) 17:09, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Isn't magic in fiction pretty much exclusively paranormal magic? Maybe it should be merged into magic (paranormal). If not merged, then it should arguably be considered a spinoff article of magic (paranormal), and therefore a less attractive target for these redirects. --Trovatore (talk) 19:24, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Some fiction does. Certainly historical fiction, probably occult and horror fiction. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, no; although Victor Frankenstein may have studied magic as well as science in modern terms. Some adaptations of the Frankenstein story, yes; "more a magician" than a scientist in the 1910 film, we say in the same article. The key word is not linked but I would be happy to link it to this article about the human practice of magic.

Fantasy, including fairy tale and fable, however, commonly features beings and objects that naturally differ from those we know. In talk about that, we often say that the laws of nature are different, but the writers don't say that in the story.

In the table above I did not flag Doktor Faust und Mephisto, our article on a 2013 novel. Nor would I flag a link here from Doctor Faustus (play) (but its only wikilink in the neighborhood is 'magicians' to witchcraft). Certainly there is much of interest to Anthropology and Religion in the Faust legend.

I am unhappy first with how I suppose links to these articles are used, but I have researched only the 13 links here via "magic (supernatural)". In User space this hour I have made some more general notes about the articles/redirects, let me say without promising rapid progress to any useful conclusion. --P64 (talk) 00:02, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Previous redirects to this page

The preceding section is now obsolete concerning WP:REDIRECTs.

Miscellaneous new targets

[--target articles named at left; redirects linked at right]

Charm disambiguation: Charm (magic)
Crystal Castles (band): Magic Spells
Magic and religion: Magic (religion and superstition)
Magic (gaming): Magic-users --- if you care, see also spell-caster (gaming)
Spell (paranormal): Magical spell; Spell (magic)

Only the redirects to Spell (paranormal) are now used in several articles. No articles now misuse the Spell disambiguation. We also have Incantation, where the Enchantment disambiguation directs in prose.

Magic disambiguation

[--these redirects now target the disambiguation page Magic]

Magical; Magically; Magic powers; Magical powers; Magic (supernatural)

Perhaps 150 articles previously linked here via these pages, mainly the first one. I revised all of those articles, about half to target magic (paranormal) directly and half to target magic in fiction. The experience confirmed that these redirects have been used ambiguously and I changed their targets to the Magic disambiguation. --P64 (talk) 19:50, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

For every one of those ~150 articles I provided an edit summary such as these:

target magic (paranormal) directly [rather than "magical" which has redirected there] (magic and religion or simply paranormal may be appropriate)
target magic in fiction rather than ["magical" which redirects to] magic (paranormal) (simply paranormal or psionic may be appropriate)
target magic (paranormal) rather than magic (supernatural) [which has redirected there] (consider whether magic and religion or simply paranormal or psionic may be appropriate)

I was not aware of Category:Paranormal in fiction, its main article, or its sub-main article Paranormal romance. And I am not yet familiar with them. --P64 (talk) 21:59, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

No change except perhaps to target a section: Contagious magic (1) --section #Principle of contagion; Magia (1) --now one link from Spanish-language text; Magic in the ancient world (1) --section #History; Magic (Paranormal) (1); Magic (sorcery) (0); Magical phrase (0) --section #Magical language; Magick (paranormal) (1); Medieval magic (1) --section #History; Spell (ritual) (0) --one link from Portal:Judaism)

No change

Ritual magick (1)

Ritualistic magick (0)

Ritual magic (28)

The relation of Ritual magic to Magick, and by implication to this page, is under discussion at Talk: Magick. To wit, is another article needed, distinct from Magick and this one?

--P64 (talk) 19:50, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

For clarity I have inserted two notes in square brackets above. Parenthetical numerals report the number of articles(?) using the linked redirects at the time --after my flurrious rearrangement of magical links ;-)

The disambiguation Magic --the crucial new target of several redirects, as reported here-- was massively cut this week. Afterward I restored magic in fiction as the third primary disambiguant ;-)

disambiguation page history --P64 (talk) 22:02, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Question on lead

The way the first sentence is worded, it makes it sound like the article is endorsing the reality of paranormal magic. Is there any way to add a clause like, "according to certain belief systems, magic is the art of..." so that it doesn't sound like this sentence is tacitly endorsing the claims of pseudoscience?

This comment added with sig and time stamp to facilitate archiving. - - MrBill3 (talk) 16:28, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

A lot of outright wrong and outdated information in this article

For example, the medieval sections states that Kabbalah speculation was the origin of medieval magic and the first grimoires in the 13th century. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I can only assume whoever wrote this is referring to outdated and no longer scholastically accepted theories surrounding Kabbalah as can be found in books like 'Ritual Magic' by Butler (this book itself is about 50-60 years old). Kabbalah had almost no impact on European Chrisitan Occultism till such thinkers as Pico and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. The influx of Kabbalah (with its own Neoplatonic heritage) was one of the significant turning points in Renaissance magic.

Medieval magic can be divided into two main categories: image magic descending ultimately from the influx of Arabic texts in the 12 and 13th centuries such as the Picatrix (with this type of magic mostly being treated as a form of natural science); and ritual magic descending from the corruption of Christian liturgical practices and influenced by the "Testament of Solomon" (which is significantly different from and not related to the Kabbalah) and the Byzantine "Hygromantia".

For sources see Frank Klaassen, Sarah Iles Johnson, Gershom Scholem, Nicolas Weill-Parot.

This comment added with sig and time stamp to facilitate archiving. - - MrBill3 (talk) 16:48, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Archived Discussion

Discussions prior to the following have been archived. These discussions can be accessed via the archive box. GooferMan 23:01, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Archiving

I have split the existing archive to two pages and am setting up auto archiving. - - MrBill3 (talk) 16:28, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. There was so much to be archived, even at 180 days and older, that the robot split what again as Archives 3 and 4. A neater division would have been at 2010/2011 but this is what we have.

Archive contents

sections evidently initiated 2003 to 2007, out of sequence
sections evidently initiated 2005 to 2007
initiated 2008–2010 plus Move? – long April/May 2011 discussion of a proposal to make this the main article "Magic"; rejected, so Magic remains a disambiguation page; closed May 2011
initiated May 2011 and later; now almost empty

--P64 (talk) 19:18, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

I have set up auto archive indexing, as soon as the bot has run the word "Archives" on the archive box will link to an index of the archives. I also added the link to the move discussion notice template at the top of the page. If desired I can create a section with P64's contents list and mark it do not archive so it will remain on this page. - - MrBill3 (talk) 08:52, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Magic in Islam

What is that written there?? totally unwikipedian! please someone read the first paragraph and tell me I am wrong — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.23.163.142 (talk) 10:48, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Defanition

Science is the study of that which is consistent about our experiences. Art is the creative stimulation of emotional responses, through skilfully manipulating the five senses. Magic is the ability to induce premeditated, automotive emotional responses in others through art. Together with the combination of ritual the results are more profound and compelling.

White Magic appeals to empathy and the interests of all. Black Magic appeals to the selfish interests of a few at the expense of others.

Tusk Bilasimo (talk) 21:21, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

The Middle Ages section, present tense used instead of past?

I was looking through this page and edited the Middle Ages History section (3.4) for grammar and style considerations. I am somewhat new to editing wikipedia (used to have an account on here around 2010 but only edited a little bit and lost the account) and was wondering if there was any reason that some of it was written in the present tense (i.e. "Ars Magica or magic is a major component and supporting contribution to the belief and practice of spiritual, and in many cases, physical healing throughout the Middle Ages." or "A particular phenomenon deriving from healing magic is known as the "royal touch" or the "King's Touch". It is believed that various kings and/or queens of the Middle Ages posessed...".)

I didn't want to step on anyone's toes on that and accidentally cause an edit-war, but it would seem to me that that section should be completely be written in the past tense since we are talking about what people in the Middle Ages believed about magic.

--Rejewskifan (talk) 06:42, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Western centric

  "In general, the 20th century saw a sharp rise in public interest in various forms of magical practice and the foundation of traditions and organizations that can be regarded as religious or philosophies."

That seems like a statement that is only true of Western Societies, and likely only certain of them as well. I don't think in most of the rest of the world, interest in magic (depending on how you define "magic") has increased. In tribal areas, areas where urbanization and industrialization is spreading, the people are being "educated" to a far greater extent than ever before, and such education usually discourages the practice of magic and the belief in its power. In a lot of these places, the powers that be consider it embarrassing for their people to practice such "primitive" beliefs, so they try to discourage it, either with positive or negative reinforcement. In the Western world, where we have a lot of spare time on our hands (relatively speaking), a curiosity about things, and a widespread urge to "be different" and stand out (aided by the fact that the social stigma of being non-Christian is much less than it once was), it's becoming much more popular for people to dabble in magic and occult things (with a small core of them that actually strongly believe in it). So, I don't think that sentence speaks for the whole world, just for the world known by the person who wrote it. It could easily be fixed by adding the words "in Western societies". (BTW, I think that's supposed to say "religious or philosophical", not "philosophies").AnnaGoFast (talk) 04:43, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

My evaluation

Goodness what a long article. But, according to current markup, it must get longer. The ultimate answer to length is to break the article up. That requires an exhaustive review. While we are reviewing, the note formatting does not utilize methods for reducing repetition. The main example is reciting the same books for different page numbers. I suggest the harvard system, which I always use. Look up template:harvnb for a lead into more info, or use the help system. I suppose these suggestions are so far entirely for general design and formatting. I have not looked at the content at all. I suppose I am saying the article needs a unifying hand. I admit it is likely to be a big project on WP. One final thing. There are some complaints above that the phraseology allows the possibility of editorial belief in magic. For myself I think that is tolerable, even desirable. Who are we to say that magic is not true? I agree that editorial distancing is desirable. On the other hand I have so often seen a concept presented in language that says in essence it is already wrong. That is biased writing, a worse sin against objectivity.Botteville (talk) 06:01, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an academic encyclopedia. An academic encyclopedia by definition must be in accord with current scientific knowledge. Other topics are labelled appropriately with terms such as belief, pseudoscience, fringe theory, paranormal, and supernatural. If you do not agree with the scientific method, academic knowledge, or peer-reviewed research then much of wikipedia is probably not for you. Refer to Wikipedia:Fringe_theories, in particular read the following quote. Repliedthemockturtle (talk) 03:40, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Proposals which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community, such as astrology, may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience.

So, uh, I actually can't find "pseudoscience" in the page. Did I spell it wrong when searching? No, I don't think so. Maybe it said that in March, when Botteville wrote that?

In any case, in case anyone is considering adding the p-word, there's a point I'd like to make. For a discipline to be pseudoscience, it's not enough that it not be science. Religion, for example, is not science, but it's also not pseudoscience.

For something to be pseudoscience, it has to hold itself out as science, but not be. Alchemy, for example, is sort of the ur-pseudoscience. And alchemy is arguably part of magic. So there's some overlap, and that is probably reasonable to mention. But is magic as a whole pseudoscience? I kind of doubt it, because I don't think magic as a whole pretends to be science. --Trovatore (talk) 08:06, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Actually on re-reading it was Repliedthemockturtle who brought up pseudoscience; Botteville didn't mention it at all. --Trovatore (talk) 08:14, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

I would counter and say that religion is not science or pseudoscience. Religion is philosophy. I was surprised to find it referenced in the article at all. Dausha (talk) 16:13, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Citations

An IP editor has twice changed the citation style of the article. The changes do not appear to be an improvement and, as @Midnightblueowl: pointed out, are an "idiosyncratic citation style generally avoided at Wikipedia." I regard this as quite a significant alteration without consensus to do so, but rather than edit war I'm raising the matter here. Keri (t · c) 12:05, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Good call, Keri. If the problem persists then we can always ask an administrator to put a block on this article preventing any edits by anonymous IPs. Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:15, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

This appears to have resumed. I'll revert for a second time then request page protection if it persists. —Paleo Neonate – 11:59, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

There appears to be a mix of {{sfn}} and {{rp}}. Perhaps that for the future a style could be chosen by consensus, then the article could be made more consistent. Which may also be what the IP address editor attempted, but without discussion... —Paleo Neonate – 00:29, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Paranormal

The paranormal template was probably relevant (and was WP:BIDIRECTIONAL per style). —Paleo Neonate – 01:12, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Resolved: Was restored by MrBill3. Thanks, —Paleo Neonate – 06:54, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

"Miracle" the word

The word miraculum is a Latin word. It appears in the Vulgate from the late 4th century. In the earliest Greek texts of the New Testament the word terata is used. This means "wonder", not miracle. A wonder brings about a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable. Admiring the stars at night can cause a feeling of wonder or surprise, not necessarily miracle. Watching an ant can bring about wonder. In Hebrew the word נֵס (nes) today means miracle, but its meaning in Biblical Hebrew is a symbol of victory held high for all to see. The term "supernatural" is not used till about 1520-1530. Miistermagico (talk) 15:53, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

History of Magic and Science

A History of Magic and Experimental Science is a classic study by Lynn Thorndike. This is the history of how the belief in magic became science. As hundreds of decades past magic became science: alchemy became chemistry, astrology became astronomy, and numerology became mathematics. Miistermagico (talk) 16:01, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

See:Prehistoric medicine Miistermagico (talk) 02:04, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

See:Bush medicine Miistermagico (talk) 02:12, 29 November 2017 (UTC)