Talk:Magic (supernatural)/Archive 6

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Bonewits as a reliable source

I find it hard to see how anyone can argue that Bonewits is not a reliable source for a page on magic. Yes he was "a modern Pagan Druid who wrote works of occultism for a New Age and esoteric audience", which is exactly why he is qualified. One does not have to be a, as you put it Midnightblueowl, "a professional academic publishing in academic locations" to be a reliable source. However Bonewits is better qualified than some in the field of magic in this respect as he held a degree in magic. Bonewits published many books that were published by reputable publishers ergo he is a reliable source. It seems like you are trying to disqualify magicians from bring reliable sources on magic...Morgan Leigh | Talk 02:06, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

I would agree that he's reliable for magic, but not for quantum physics. Ian.thomson (talk) 03:09, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

@Morgan Leigh: I would say that, since Bonewits writes about magic from the perspective of a practitioner of it, rather than as a scholar studying it from an outsider's perspective, he is a primary source, so we can cite him, but only if we cite secondary sources written by scholars interpreting what he has written, putting it in the proper context, and, if necessary, correcting it. In other words, we should treat his writings on magic (and those of others like him) the same way we would treat a person's autobiography in an article about the person. Citing him as a source on his own without proper scholarly interpretation would likely be in violation of WP:NPOV and WP:OR. --Katolophyromai (talk) 04:55, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Katolophyromai. Isaac Bonewits is a primary source. When it comes to this page, he could potentially be used to cite something about modern occultist views of magic (but then again, when we have Reliable Sources written by scholars and published with academic publishers, why would we need to cite his work?), but I wouldn't use him to cite anything else. This is not about disqualifying him because he was an occultist; had he also been a scholar and had works published in academic outlets then I would be more than happy to cite those. The issue at hand is that Wikipedia should be based on the very finest quality sources; and those are academic publications. Bonewits did not publish academic publications. He was not a scholar, his undergraduate degree in "Magic" notwithstanding. He believed in an etheric force that he, like many other occultists, called "magic" and wrote books for a New Age/esotericist audience promoting that belief. The book that you wish to cite, Real Energy: Systems, Spirits, And Substances to Heal, Change, And Grow, was published by a company called New Page and is clearly not a Reliable Source for anything but Bonewits' own beliefs. To draw a comparison, I wouldn't want a non-academic book by the Archbishop of Canterbury used as a source on the theology page; it might be published by a reputable press, but it's essentially a text engaged in proselytization, and when there are academic texts available we should always go for those first and foremost, only turning to other sources if we need to plug the gaps. Here, I don't see any gaps that need plugging. Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:17, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

I'd like to thank you all for taking the time to reply in a civil and thoughtful manner. To @Ian.thomson: I say, one doesn't need to be an expert in quantum physics to draw a parallel to such a generally known phenomena as quantum entanglement. If we go down that path we will end up being unable to draw all sorts of parallels. To @Katolophyromai: there is not a sharp delineation between a practitioner and a scholar. One doesn't have to be writing from an outside perspective to be a scholar. Many contemporary academics in the study of magic are practitioners, myself among them. In fact, I'd argue, that one of them problems in the academic study of magic is that the voices of practitioner scholars are questioned and deprioritized because they are practitioners. It's the whole insider/outsider problem, e.g. the Tanya Luhrmann problem. To @Midnightblueowl: I understand that Bonewits is a primary source and Wikipedia's policy on that, although I would absolutely argue that the very finest quality sources on magic are not necessarily academic publications at all. The reason is that magic is not science, but the academy is based on science. It's like fitting a square peg in a round hole and then calling it a good fit. I know from my own experience that it frequently happens that magic and/or religion is/are misrepresented in the academy because anything that can't be put into the box that is science's current understanding of the world is rejected. I don't know how Wikipedia can address this but I think it's a really important thing to consider. Further to this I posit that magic is not what those following a purely scientific agenda say it is. Magic is what magicians say it is. If you question this, think of it for any other endeavour, neuroscience is what neuroscientists say it is, economics is what economists say it is. Bonewits might not be a scholar in the eyes of those who only accept the presently dominant purely rational, materialist view of things, but he lived and breathed a magical life for many decades. His opinions should not be discarded. To quote Lynne Hume, "Doing is knowing". Morgan Leigh | Talk 09:11, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

"one doesn't need to be an expert in quantum physics to draw a parallel to such a generally known phenomena as quantum entanglement". Well that depends; I think one would need to be an accredited physicist making this claim before we could take such a comparison seriously for the purposes of Wikipedia. Occultists often try and compare their practices with science as a means of legitimising their practices (Olav Hammer devoted half a doorstep-of-a-book to this very phenomenon of "scientification"), and other religious practitioners often do the same, claiming that their particular beliefs are vindicated by the latest scientific discoveries and theories, despite the fact that the scientific community hardly ever agrees (just think of Christian creationism, intelligent design etc). For that reason, we really cannot take such claims at face value unless they are actually supported by professional physicists themselves. Bonewits may well have very seriously believed that the etheric force he called "magic" bore similarities with the ideas behind quantum physics, but that does not in any way mean that physicists would agree, and from a non-occultist perspective it can certainly look as if he was (on some level) just trying to make his belief in this etheric force look more 'rational' through its purported similarity to a scientific theory, much as fundamentalist Christians sometimes claim that geology supports the existence of the Great Flood. Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:40, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

You also say that "magic is not science, but the academy is based on science", but I think that a misunderstanding of my argument has crept in here. That which is lumped under "magic" is usually regarded as being distinct from that which is lumped under "science", but the "science" in question is hard science; conversely, the Reliable Sources used in this article (and which should be used) are not the work of hard scientists, they are the work of social scientists and historians. This article should rely on what social sciences and historians say. These individuals may also be occultists or esotericists (or whatever else) in their private lives, and that's fine, but we cite them on the basis of their expertise in history, anthropology, or whatever it may be, rather than because they are occultists. Bonewits is only an occultist, not a scholar, and that is where the difference lies and is the reason why he must not be cited here. Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:40, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

You then add that "Magic is what magicians say it is", but there are very serious problems with this. On the one hand, self-described "magicians" do not agree on what "magic" is, and the term "magic" has meant many very, very different things over the course of the past two millennia. If I understand you correctly, you adhere to a form of modern occultism which involves a belief in some sort of etheric energy source and seeks to manipulate this through ceremonies, with this belief and its associated practices being referred to as "magic"; this is not, however, how many people would have used the term "magic" in the past. So are they the ones who are correct or are you? Whose view would Wikipedia take as being authoritative? The other problem with this statement is that it would set a deeply problematic precedent. If occultist magicians get to define what magic is, then Christians must surely be allowed to define what Christianity (or even theology) is, and the Wikipedia article on Christianity would therefore begin: "Christianity is the one true religion based on the worship of the one true God and His son Jesus Christ who died for the sins of humanity". Pretty soon, Wikipedia would be in a right state if we let each and every religious/spiritual/esoteric group define their own practices on their own terms. That is why we have to go to the accredited academic experts on a subject, and in this case it is the social scientists and historians. Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:40, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

It is a common claim that religion and magic are trying to justify themselves by using science. But this is really the kind of claim that only makes sense for those who see science as the only way of knowing truth. Most magic or religious people I know are not trying to reconcile either magic or religion with science. They recognise that they are quite different things. "I think one would need to be an accredited physicist making this claim", interesting that you seem to be suggesting that its ok for a physicist (or a social scientist or historian) to make a claim about magic but not the other way around... I posit that you think Bonewits is trying to make his claim look more rational because you think rational thinking is to be preferred to magical thinking. Magicians do not think this way. The problem of trying to describe everything through the lens of science is that all one can ever see is science. And one does a disservice to magic or religion, or any one of another whole list of things that can't be explained by science, when one does this.

I have not made any such claim as you ascribe to me. I don't even know what you mean by etheric energy. Sounds very nineteenth century... "Whose view would Wikipedia take as being authoritative?", no one's view is authoritative. Science thinks it's view is, and derides anything that doesn't fit. Science is a system for knowing, but it's not the only one. Science believes in the existence of objectivity, magic doesn't. Science believes that only things that can be measured exist, neither magic nor religion do. These positions are tenets of the belief system that is science, only, just like monotheisms, science thinks it is the only belief system, but then caps it off by denying it is a belief system.

"Wikipedia would be in a right state if we let each and every religious/spiritual/esoteric group define their own practices on their own terms." And this would be worse than letting one thing, science, be the only thing that gets to describe every other system, and to do so in its own terms? It seems downright rude to me to presume that science is better placed to explain other belief systems than they themselves are. I am fine with having a scientific description of things, but not with it being the only one allowed. Morgan Leigh | Talk 12:01, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

@Morgan Leigh: I respect the argument that you are putting forward but we are getting very off-topic. As I see it, no other editors here support your inclusion of a Bonewits reference in the article and there have been no Wikipedia policies cited in support of said inclusion. This being the case, I'm going to remove the citation from the article. If you still disagree, we will have o take the issue to RfC. Midnightblueowl (talk) 09:29, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

@Midnightblueowl: You are absolutely right, I am veering wildly off into discussions best had elsewhere. But how dare you be so reasonable and polite (IRONY).

Only one, more on topic, thought occurs to me. Bonewits is not being cited here as a source to say that the law of contagion being as it is means that it is referring to the same thing that quantum physics means by quantum entanglement. He is being cited as a magician who drew a parallel. This is important because I don't think it would be a good idea to start requiring citations every time someone draws a parallel between things. That way lies madness. Morgan Leigh | Talk 03:34, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Chaos magic bit in history section

Just a heads up that I've put the bit about chaos magic back in the history section, under "Modern Western occultism". @Midnightblueowl: -- I saw you reverted it last time, with the comment "This addition was well intentioned, but the references provided were primary". That's a very fair point, and I've taken that on board and found some better references, and also removed the quote from Peter Carroll. Let me know if you think that's OK or if it still needs work. I do think it should be mentioned though, as chaos magic has been quite influential on other branches of occultism over the past 40 years or so. Rune370 (talk) 22:56, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

I have changed the wording, although the second source does quote "success magic" and "results based magic", so maybe it'd be appropriate to quote it with attribution... —PaleoNeonate – 03:03, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

PaleoNeonate, sorry, I'm not quite sure what you mean about the source quoting "success magic" and "results based magic"? The full quote is: "Chaos magic has been described as 'success magic' or 'results-based magic' and grew out of a concern among some within the magical fraternity who believed that magic had drifted too closely towards meditation and celebration and away from specific results." We could attribute it though if you think it needs it, I just don't quite understand what you're getting at. For what it's worth, my understanding is that "results magic" was the original name of chaos magic, given to it by Ray Sherwin, but after Sherwin distanced himself from it in the late 70s, leaving the IOT, Peter Carroll started referring to it as "chaos magic". Hence why the older name is still sometimes floating around in connection with it, and is used in some older texts. But I don't think any of that is relevant here? Rune370 (talk) 11:08, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Here was the original wording: a set of tried-and-tested techniques for causing effects to occur in reality. These are grandiose claims which read like an advert and have no basis in reality. While this is not the place to discuss the topic (but the article), to support what I mean: If those techniques unambiguously worked, I would likely still be a practitioner. If I want actual results, it's much better to work in the real world or to rely on science and technology, rather than on mind games with faith and wait. So basically, these should not be stated in Wikipedia's voice. Attributing them, or quoting them, while mentioning what they are (a quote, a name, etc) would be fine, I think. Otherwise we'd need to insert weasel words such as "claimed"... Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 12:14, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Also adding a similar claim: "the true religion". I hope this helps, —PaleoNeonate – 12:17, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Oh, I do see what you mean, sorry I didn't realise that comment was in relation to the bit you'd removed/changed. Yeah, I agree with you, that is much more NPOV. Rune370 (talk) 12:22, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Many magicians didn't and don't differentiate magic from religion

What is the difference between magic and religion? Both are lies against the reality of the physical world. Religion is supported by authoritative people. That's the difference!

• http://web.archive.org/web/20180731022802if_/https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/entertainment-magic-magicians-rabbits-bunny_girl-girls-ksmn1725_low.jpg

• https://www.google.com/search?q=magic+is+religion — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:4103:5400:8517:1EE4:B9FA:6F06 (talk) 02:34, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Some magic systems are indeed also part of traditional religions. But please be more specific: this talk page is not a forum to discuss the topic, but is to discuss improvements to the article (WP:NOTFORUM). If you have a reliable source to suggest, please include it. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 04:58, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Magician (fantasy) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 22:17, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Zarathustra

User:Desmay User:Orientls The source doesn't explain why he is thought to have lived around 1100 because that isn't controversial. If you want to find out why, you can follow the link and read the WP article, but that is beyond the scope of this article. zzz (talk) 19:06, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

User:Orientls Your claim that the date of 1100 is WP:EXCEPTIONAL - "surprising or apparently important claims not covered by multiple mainstream sources" - is incorrect. Again, I suggest you read the article Zoroaster, where you will instantly discover multiple mainstream sources. Is there any other reasoning behind your edit? zzz (talk) 10:05, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Other articles are not generally reliable. There is a heavy dispute whether we was born 1st millennium BC or 2nd millennium BC, but most agree with 1st millennium BC. Another alternative is that we can get rid of the dating. desmay (talk) 18:43, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

No Wikipedia editor at that article talk page is saying that 1100 is impossible, right? And, more importantly, reliable sources don't. So why did you remove "may have lived as early as 1100"? Did you notice the words "may have"? If you can produce a RS saying the date is definitely wrong (unlikely) then you could add "some scholars believe". Note that I have restored the original wording per BRD, since you have failed to show there is anything wrong with it, and mainly because the version you changed it to is utter nonsense. zzz (talk) 03:05, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Most sources say 600 or 700 BCE. You can't decide what article should say unless your source said that he was a magi who lived in 1100 BCE. Currently you are relying on possibility by assuming it would be correct but that is misrepresentation of the source. Note that I am addressing the revert I made 42 mins ago and before too. Orientls (talk) 05:51, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Orientls The source does indeed say that he may have been "a magi who lived in 1100 BCE". So there is no misrepresentation of the source. Is there any other issue? zzz (talk) 16:42, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Can you provide necessary snippets/quotes from the source which supports the text, "many ancient sources... 1100 BCE...was himself a Maguš.."? Orientls (talk) 04:54, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I have provided the page numbers so anyone who has the source can check. There is no apparent need for me to copy out the source. zzz (talk) 17:19, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

You should provide snippets since access is not available to anyone else and apparently you seem to be having access. I have tried finding other sources for same information but can't find anything as similar. Orientls (talk) 04:59, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

The student of religion is confronted by several problems concerning Zarathustra. The first concerns the dates of his birth and death, which cannot be ascertained with any degree of certainty. According to Zoroastrian tradition, he flourished “258 years before Alexander” (the Great) conquered Persepolis—the capital of the Persian Achaemenian dynasty—in 330 BCE. Tradition also records that he was 40 years old when he converted Vishtāspa, most likely a king of Chorasmia (an area south of the Aral Sea in Central Asia), in 588 BCE, thus indicating that his birth date was 628 BCE. Some modern scholars, however, have suggested that he may have flourished around 1200 BCE, while others have argued that he lived more than a millennium earlier than the traditional dates. zzz (talk) 12:35, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

What to do with the History section

I'm a bit concerned by the "History" section in this article, along with its sub-sections of "Ancient Mesopotamia", "Ancient Egypt", "Classical antiquity", "Middle Ages", and "Islam". The reasons for that are threefold. The first is that parts of it, namely in the "Classical antiquity" and "Middle Ages" sub-sections, already overlap the content found in the more appropriately sourced "Etymology and conceptual development" section of the article. In that sense, these particular sub-sections are simply superfluous. We don't need them. The second issue is that three of the cited societies—Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Islam—do not actually have any concept of magic per se. They had/have their own conceptual categories, which are quite different from the magic/religion/science system employed in Western society. Sure, later Westerners have pointed at something like heka and called it magic, but others have just as easily referred to it as religion. Following the example of the Reliable Sources, this article goes to some lengths to explain how the concept of "magic" emerged and how it was not present in Egypt or Mesopotamia, and it seems a little bit silly to then follow that with a section discussing "Magic in Mesopotamia" etc. It's just going to confuse readers. The third issue is that—if we are providing an overview of different cultural practices across time and space that happen to have been labelled magic by one or more Western scholars at one time or another—why are we restricting ourselves to just five examples? Why not a sub-section on the ancient Maya, contemporary Malaya, or pre-colonial Massachusetts? Of course, were we try to provide such universal coverage in this article things would pretty soon become terribly unwieldy and farcical. That fact, of course, seriously undermines the purpose of having such a section with its arbitrary selection of examples in the first place.

For that reason, I would like to propose removing the section from the article. That would be the best course of action. At the same time, I appreciate that some hard work has gone into putting together these sections, and would not want to see that go to waste. For that reason I would propose moving the prose in these sections into new (or pre-existing) articles specifically devoted to Mesopotamia, Egypt, etc. Do I have any support for such a course of action? Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:01, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

@Midnightblueowl: I am the one who wrote the sections on "Ancient Mesopotamia" and "Ancient Egypt" sections as well as most of the "Classical antiquity" section. These are actually abbreviated excerpts from a much longer "History of magic" article I wrote a while ago for my own personal use, which covered magical practices in various ancient civilizations. I added them because I thought more information about magical practices in the ancient world would be helpful, although there was a lot of material I omitted. For instance, I wrote equally sizeable sections about magical practices in ancient Persia and the ancient Levant, but I did not think those would be regarded as quite as important for an encyclopedia article. Even the sections I included, especially those on ancient Greece and Rome, have been greatly abridged from their original length. The originals spanned several pages each and went into much greater detail describing, for instance, ritual practices of Pythagoreanism, Orphism, and the Eleusinian Mysteries, as well as beliefs about magic in ancient Greek folklore. I suppose I am fine if you wish to remove the "History" section altogether. I only added it because I thought the information would help improve the article. I still have the original essay saved on my computer. --Katolophyromai (talk) 02:28, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

@Midnightblueowl: I have gone ahead and removed the "History" section myself. Just so you know, I did not write any of the "Middle Ages" or "Islam" sections, which were generally poorly cited and considerably less extensive than the parts I wrote. Also, a few parts of the "Classical antiquity" section were here before me, since I only posted a few paragraphs worth of material from the Greek and Roman sections of the essay I wrote. The parts that were uncited were definitely here before me, since everything I added was meticulously cited to scholarly sources.

By the way, I think you have done excellent work on the rest of the article and, if it were not for the fact that I know you can bring this article up to "Featured Article" quality, I might have been more hesitant about removing the parts I added. --Katolophyromai (talk) 02:39, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Katolophyromai. I think some of the material you removed could certainly be used in fleshing out other articles, such as Ancient Mesopotamian religion, so it needn't go to waste. Obviously, in these there will need to be grappling with terms like magic and religion, which are Western conceptual categories that don't really map on to how those societies actually divided up their world. It'll be a difficult task, but the end result would be worth it. Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:25, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

WP:NPOV states that all relevant point of view should be in the article, we have the opinion of these academics that think that is a Western concept (at least as an academic field), but where are the other points of views in the section "Definition"? (specially the non-western points of view) It seems unbalanced and I don't think that is neutral to use that point of view as justification to delete relevant content. Rupert Loup (talk) 00:17, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Magic as separate from religion and science

@Midnightblueowl: Please don't keep removing this cited information. While you are absolutely correct to assert that the concept of magic existed prior to The Enlightenment, it was always regarded as being within the domain of what we call religion. Indeed in many ancient societies, for instance ancient Egypt, and up until The Enlightenment in the Western world, it was not possible to distinguish between what we now call religion and science or magic. All three were indivisible as all things were seen as caused by or related to the divine. It was therefore impossible to have anything that didn't have what we would call a religious character. Being as the category science didn't exist until The Enlightenment it is impossible for it to have been differentiated from either magic or religion until that time. If you like I will be more than happy to write a cited paragraph for the body of the article that goes into this in more detail. Morgan Leigh | Talk 09:17, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Morgan, there is no consensus for this alteration of the opening sentence. In this scenario, you should not be edit warring to have your (controversial) addition included in the article (you were warned in October for doing this to another article [1]). When concerns were first raised you should have taken the topic to the Talk Page. That would have been the correct procedure. Please, cease re-adding it and allow for the discussion to take place here.

My concern with your addition is that it causes confusion for the reader. Your suggested text basically implies that magic is a post-Enlightenment concept. It does not acknowledge that the concept had been developing in European culture for many centuries before this. The concept of magic did not even exist in ancient Egypt, so I'm not sure referencing that society is of much relevance. Moreover the statement that "it was always regarded as being within the domain of what we call religion" is again misleading; perhaps under some present definitions of "religion" most of what was once called "magic" would be categorised as "religion", but that is not how people at the time saw it. In medieval Europe, "magic" was very much distinct from "religion"; just look at the writings of people like Isidore of Seville. Of course, present understandings of the boundaries between magic, religion, and science only developed since the Enlightenment (and continue to shift and develop), but that does not mean that these concepts did not exist prior. I'm certainly not averse to including some mention of the Enlightenment and its impact on these concepts in the lead, but the opening sentence would not be the appropriate place; chronologically, the end of the second paragraph probably would. Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:25, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Just a thought, but we could alter "considered separate from both religion and science" to something along the lines of "considered separate from religion and later also from science." As prose, it is clunkier and less reader friendly, but perhaps deals with your concerns about the relationship between 'magic' and 'science' not taking shape until the Enlightenment. Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:28, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Dude. Chill. I revert your edit and your response was to go and try to find something I had done previously that you could use to try to make me look bad. You say I shouldn't have reverted but should have taken it to the talk page. I reverted once and immediately posted on the talk page. You reverted twice, once after I posted here, and yet you are accusing me of edit warring. Just stop and think about that.

I do just have to say something about your claim that the concept of magic didn't exist in ancient Egypt. I actually don't know where to start, so all I will say is you might like to check out;

Ritner, R.K., (1997), The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization), Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

Kousoulis, P., (2011), Ancient Egyptian Demonology. Studies on the Boundaries between the Demonic and the Divine in Egyptian Magic (Orientalia ::Lovaniensia Analecta), Peeters.

Szpakowska, K., (2006), Through a Glass Darkly: Magic, Dreams and Prophecy in Ancient Egypt, Classical Press of Wales.

Wilkinson, R., (1999), Symbol and Magic in Egyptian Art, Thames & Hudson.

Pinch, G., (1994), Magic in Ancient Egypt, British Museum Press.

Rankine, D., (2006), Heka: The Practices of Ancient Egyptian Ritual and Magic, Avalonia.

Morgan, M., (2008), Supernatural Assault in Ancient Egypt, Mandrake.

If you are interested in finding out more about this I'd be happy to work with you to add something about ancient Egyptian magic to the article.

I don't agree that the edit gives the impression that magic didn't exist until The Enlightenment. I am certainly not advocating for any such view. That is true however for science, which didn't exist as a category until then. I think it is very important to stipulate, as the source I cited says, that the categories of magic and religion were not conceptualised as being separable until The Enlightenment. As the source says, its not that people could not distinguish between magic and religion, but rather that magic was bad religion. Thus magic was a sub set of religion. Often magic was just what the other guy did while religion was what one did one's self. Since The Enlightenment it has been possible to conceive of magic that is not about religion at all, especially New Age practices. Therefore I agree with your suggestion to change it to be more specific. How about, "Magic is a category in Western culture into which have been placed various beliefs and practices usually considered separate from religion and, since the Enlightenment, from science." This is supported by the source. I'd also be happy to work with you to put together a paragraph to include in the body that fleshes this out more. Morgan Leigh | Talk 02:10, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

"Magic is a category in Western culture into which have been placed various beliefs and practices usually considered separate from religion and, since the Enlightenment, from science." That would work fine from my perspective. A little clunky perhaps, but it does the job. We don't need any citations in the lead so long as the material is properly cited in the main body of the article. I also agree with you that a paragraph examining the impact of the Enlightenment and the emergence of "science" on concepts of "magic" would be a good idea.

Regarding ancient Egypt, I stand by my comment but should clarify: as I said, the concept of magic did not exist in ancient Egypt. Practices and beliefs that later societies (including our own) label "magic" did. Thus, some scholars might talk about "magic" in ancient Egypt, but in said contexts it is an etic term, rather than an emic one. The concept of magic emerges in Ancient Greece (borrowing an Old Persian word) and then adapts and develops in the Roman Empire, Christian Europe, and modern Western society. It is therefore an emic category in those societies but is culturally alien to others (barring of course some level of cultural diffusion). We did once have a section on ancient Egyptian magic in this article (and ancient Mesopotamian magic) but they was removed without any concern after this point was raised. Were we to include a section on "magic in ancient Egypt", there would be no reason not to have "magic among the Trobrianders", "magic in medieval China", "magic in the Inca Empire" etc. It would be nearly endless and would be further complicated by arguments over what we would actually consider "magic" for the purposes of this article; would we use Durkheim's definition or Frazer's?. Best to stick to describing the concept of magic itself in this article. Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:26, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Pardon me for intruding, but the top sentence as amended by this discussion was very confusing. I have attempted a radical simplification into: Magic is a set of beliefs and practices considered separate from both religion and science in Western culture. Hope this is acceptable. — JFG ^talk 15:52, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate the well-meaning attempt at simplification but I think that that introduces some additional problems. "Magic is a set of beliefs and practices" implies a greater deal of cohesion that there actually is; "magic" has meant different things in different contexts and what can be considered "magic" and what cannot has shifted accordingly. Referring to "a set" suggests that there is a clearly demarcated collection of things which are unambiguously "magical". If only it were that simple. Placing "in Western culture" at the end also suggests that the term has only been applied to things existing in Western culture, which again would be incorrect. "Magic" as a concept exists within Western culture but is often used in reference to things outside of it (such as various ancient Egyptian practices, for example). I know that that probably wasn't what you intended, but is a potential reading of the sentence. Midnightblueowl (talk) 23:37, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Upon first reading the article, I honestly wondered why "Western culture" was thrown in the first sentence, then I read this discussion and realized that perhaps there was consensus among experts that what Western culture calls "magic" may be what another culture calls "religion", and therefore that it would be important to note that the categorization of magic as separate from science and religion was a purely Western thing. I have no idea if that's the case. I expect to be educated by Wikipedia, and that first sentence certainly did not educate me. If you think that the nuances about how Western culture approaches the definition of magic are undue for the first sentence, I would wholeheartedly agree, and leave this to further explanations below.

The shocking start of the first sentence as it stood before my edit was "Magic is a category". No it isn't. We wouldn't start any other article with "Art is a category", "Religion is a category" or "Philosophy is a category". "Magic is a set of beliefs and practices" sounds much clearer, and the reader is then ready to be educated on the specific beliefs and practices that have been called magic by various people at various times. I would even be so bold as to add "traditional" in there, because to my layman's Weltanschauung, magic is deeply intertwined with tradition, wherever it appears.

In short, I would amend my edit by simply suppressing "Western culture" at the end, and adding "traditional" in the middle, so that the first sentence would read: Magic is a set of traditional beliefs and practices that are distinct from both science and religion. Note that if we remove "in Western culture", we must also throw away the weasel word "considered", because it begs the question "considered by whom?", to which "Western culture" possibly answered. No Western culture ratiocinating about magic, no observer to "consider" it something.

Let me know if that helps. — JFG ^talk 00:11, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

I have to agree with @JFG: here about a couple of things. The first sentence is way too clunky. Firstly, I absolutely agree that removing "western culture" is an improvement as magic isn't just a thing in western culture. It is ubiquitous among human societies so removing these words will internationalize the article. This is something the article badly needs as it focuses almost exclusively on the conceptions of magic in the Western world, while there is a rich vein of other magical traditions that could be mentioned. While Midnightblueowl seems to think that adding sections on magic in other cultures is a liability I suggest it is a feature. Most especially why should we have sections on Greco-Roman magic and Christian magic but not other cultures? It is incomprehensible to me that there is no mention of ancient Egyptian magic as it was an entirely magical culture that was a huge influence on Greco-Roman magic. It's where Isis came from!

Secondly, you are correct JFG that this article does give the impression that magic is always considered to be separate from religion. This is absolutely not the case, but rather is a long standing prejudicing of the other that goes back at least as far as pagan Romans accusing Christians of magic, and then once Christianity was in the ascendant, Christians accusing pagans of magic in return (Ritner, The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice, p4). This trend continued through the entirety of Christian culture, often with one group of Christians accusing the other. This then was the inheritance of modern writers, the most notable of whom was probably Fraser in The Golden Bough, "Fraser postulated an explicit dichotomy between religion and magic based on the pious or threatening attitude of the practitioner" (Ritner, The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice, p9). This prejudicial view, further developed by Malinowsky, has remained strong in Western culture, but was and is absent from views of magic in most other cultures, most notably in ancient Egypt. In ancient Egypt, and in many present day religions, there is no suggestion that magic and religion are opposed. I have to respectfully say to @Midnightblueowl: that you are absolutely incorrect in your assertion that magic was not an emic term in ancient Egypt. Magic, or Heka as it is called in middle Egyptian, is a practical technique within a religious worldview that is intermingled with, and a vital part of, religious practice. Indeed it was the gods who were the foremost practitioners of Heka (Ritner, The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice, p8). It is notable that since Evans-Pritchard's theorising as a result of his studies of the Azande magic has been considered to be "...not as the 'great delusion' of Fraser, but as an important force in sustaining a static society..."(Ritner, The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice, p11). This is covered in the article to some degree but the article remains centered on Abrahamic conceptions of magic and reinforces colonialist stereotypes of magic as other and evil.

I do agree with Midnightblueowl that saying "a set of" implies that there is one global set, whereas there are a bunch of sets. The category text is in the article as a result of disputes over the validity or not of magic. Some editors didn't want to have it say or even imply that magic actually existed and so chose to say it's a category. So... what we need in a first sentence is something that says that magic is about culturally specific practice based on culturally specific beliefs and that may or may not be seen as a usual part of religion and that, since the concept of science arose in the West, has increasingly been seen as separate from science. It's probably worth noting that the reason for this demarcation from science is exactly the same as the demarcation from religion in the west, i.e. what I am doing is science and wholly good and what you are doing is alchemy and wholly bad. Morgan Leigh | Talk 02:49, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

I disagree with the removal of "Western culture": magic as a concept is fundamentally Western, although Westerners (including scholars) have of course used it to describe various beliefs and practices found in non-Western societies. The concept of "magic" does not arise or even exist in many (most?) other societies. As I said before, and I must reiterate, ancient Egypt did not have the concept of magic: heka is a separate construct that some later scholars have argued could be translated as magic. I'm not up to scratch on contemporary Egyptology but I am not even sure if today's Egyptologists continue to gloss heka as magic; certainly, many scholars of Classical and Biblical studies have stopped glossing various ancient terms from other languages as magic.

I don't want to be too much of a stick in the mud here, folks, but I would ask if the other editors commenting here have read and familiarised themselves with the latest academic research on the topic? (I'm being rhetorical here; you don't really need to answer). My point is that it's very easy to come into an article with a set of assumptions coming from either popular culture or from older (and often more widely read) scholarship without understanding what it is that scholars now think about a subject. (We all do it at times). If you read through Randall Styers' Making Magic: Religion, Magic, and Science in the Modern World or Berndt-Christian Otto and Michael Stausberg's Defining Magic: A Reader you'll get a good understanding of present thought, which understands magic as a category that has developed in Western culture precisely in order to distinguish certain things, first from religion and then from science. What those things are has often changed according to context; the concept of magic existed precisely so that people could say "what I do is (good, righteous) religion; what you do is (bad, wicked) magic". That is why, to quote Wouter Hanegraaff, "the term magic is an important object of historical research, but not intended for doing research."

I believe that it is this unfamiliarity with the last decade to two decades of academic research which has resulted in some of the confusion and objections arising here. That is reflected, I feel, in Morgan's comment that "Some editors didn't want to have it say or even imply that magic actually existed and so chose to say it's a category." Morgan, I understand (and forgive me if I am incorrect) that you are a practicing occultist and that this influences your understanding of magic as something that is a cross-cultural practice that has a specific meaning throughout. However, whether the spell-casting of either contemporary occultists or ancient Egyptian heka-practitioners had any real world impact is, really, immaterial here. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. The point is that contemporary scholarship doesn't tend to go around labelling this and that practice as magical anymore; rather it focuses on looking at how the concept of magic developed in Western society and how it was adapted and changed according to shifting historical conditions. Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:48, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Suggesting others haven't read the research and just really don't know what they are talking about because they are expressing a different view is veering into ad hominem, and making comments on editors personal proclivities is certainly more than veering, so I am going to suggest to you again that we stick to discussing text we'd like to add and published research to support it.

I absolutely did not say that magic is a cross cultural practice that has a specific meaning across cultures. In fact I said the opposite i.e. "culturally specific". I did say that the thing we call magic in English is ubiquitous in human societies and that it is regarded in different ways in different cultures. I cited this view to Ritner, but let me give you a quotation, "This highly divergent attitude between even contemporary cultures should serve as a further warning of the general inapplicability of culturally or temporally bound definitions of magic" (Ritner, The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice, p9). Can you cite the view you expressed that the concept of magic does not arise in other societies?

I absolutely agree that the view you are expressing that magic is a category employed to label the other is one view of present scholarship and I am happy to include it in the article. However it is not the only view. That a certain scholar holds a particular view does not invalidate the positions of other scholars who hold different views. In the humanities there is not just one answer. In fact the humanities are founded on the principle that one can have any argument one likes as long as one can support it. There is also a well supported view that magic is sets of techniques employed with a view to achieving particular ends, sometimes as a part of religious practice - see Ritner again. In fact many scholars have noted that magic is intrinsically about doing e.g. Hume, L, Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia, both in the contemporary context and in ancient Egyptian and Hindu thought.

My previous paragraphs have explicit citations that present scholar's views and I suggest they be taken into account for both the first sentence and the article generally. Ritner is an Egyptologist presently working in the field and he has the view I described above i.e. that Heka is what we call magic, that was an emic term in ancient Egypt, and was a technique of religious practice that was usually employed as a force for good. Moreover Karenga is explicit that "Thus, Heka in this case and in creation activity acts as a positive force.".(Karenga, M, (2006), The Moral Idea in Ancient Egypt, p187) As Ritner says, this view is not limited to scholars of the magic of antiquity. Can you cite the view you expressed that Heka is not what we would call magic?

There is much contemporary scholarship on neopaganism that is explicit that magic is an integrated part of those religions, and that's just what's going on in the anglophone world. There is a lot of African contemporary work on this topic too. I'll get some citations for these as soon as I finish painting my library and get my books back out of storage... Hopefully that will be in only a few days because I am having some savage book withdrawls! Morgan Leigh | Talk 00:46, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

"There is also a well supported view that magic is sets of techniques employed with a view to achieving particular ends, sometimes as a part of religious practice." But this is something that the article already covers in some depth; see the entire "Academic definitions" section and the third paragraph of the lead. It is certainly not the case that I am trying to hide this particular approach. Far from it. But at the same time different academics have come up with very different definitions of which particular "set of techniques" should be classed as "magic" and why . What I oppose is the selection of just one of these for particular promotion in the article. Midnightblueowl (talk) 14:13, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

I'n not sure why you continue to think I am advocating that any specific set of beliefs or practices be especially mentioned, especially when I have explicitly said that there isn't a specific set of beliefs and practices across cultures. To make sure we know what we are talking about how about we stick to discussing specific text. Considering the input of all three editors who have contributed to this discussion I suggest we go with "Magic is a category into which have been placed various beliefs and practices sometimes considered separate from religion and, since the Enlightenment, from science." Morgan Leigh | Talk 23:10, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

I agree with sticking to discussions of specific text; there really is no need for messy theoretical debates here. That probably just wastes our time (which I'm sure that we can both put to more constructive use!). I'm broadly happy with your proposed wording, although think "sometimes" would better work as "usually". Also, we need to have "Western" in there somewhere; what we could do, if you wanted to avoid "Western" in the first sentence, is to have it in the second, by incorporating it into the present second sentence. Something along the lines of "The concept developed in Ancient Greece and has been present throughout Western history, where it has typically had pejorative connotations and been applied to phenomenon regarded as being primitive, foreign, and Other." How does that sound? 16:20, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

How about I meet you half way and agree with your suggestion to have 'Western' in the second sentence but we keep 'sometimes' in the first sentence. I can't however agree that the concept originated in ancient Greece because it was present in ancient Egypt and Vedic thought. So how about we just go with 'antiquity'? Morgan Leigh | Talk 04:48, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

The reliable sources are very explicit about the concept's origins in ancient Greece. Magic as a concept did not exist in ancient Egypt and Vedic South Asia. Certain concepts that later writers have glossed as magic may well have done, but that is not the same thing. It is imperative that we follow the example of the reliable sources: Davies, Bailey, Hanegraaff et al. Midnightblueowl (talk) 17:51, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

This was a WP:POVSPLIT, there was no consensus to split the content in the first place according with the two requested moves above. Your statements contradict the sources on that content, and also the sources that you are talking about are about the academic field developed in Europe. This article is about "magic" in general including the non academic and the academic aspects and both from a western and non-western perspective. The very academic sources in this article say that there is no accepted consensus on what magic is. Trying to exclude other points of view fails WP:NPOV. @Morgan Leigh: and @JFG: would you review the edits? Rupert Loup (talk) 18:29, 12 May 2020 (UTC)