starling

Simply stated, Christianity, along with most centralized religions, exists to make you submit to authority without question or complaint. Therefore religious magic is always done by the orders of an unassailable authority, and non-religious magic is universally defamed, attacked and persecuted. It has nothing to do with whether or not it is magic. It is all about controlling your mind, your behavior and your beliefs. Praise authority, and condemn independant action to persecution and death.

Lógos Sokratikós

"Kyrie Eleison" and "Go, son, your sins are forgiven you" are as magical to me as "Abracadabra" and "Vipera evanesca". When your words and your sujective world seem to you to opearte changes in reality... that's magic to me!

Holy Jesus Potter, Batman!

Clivedurdle

I like that! Religion=magic + authority!

muTron the homeless

Vork:

Thanks for the link...it was very interesting. Love the magical Jesus charms on there.

I will also try to track down the books your and Criddle suggested. My histotry prof was big into Meier.

I find it interesting that Apollonius of Tyanna was considered a magician and heretic in the book of Acts by the followers of Christ and set up as an anti-christ of sorts compared to Jesus' authenticity as an authoratative agent of Yahweh. I have read that conversley the followers of Apollonius considered Jesus to be the crooked magician while Apollonius was seen as an authentic divine character. It seems that humans tend to call religion the doings that represent the side they prefer while any opposition is seen as magical.

My god can beat up your wizard....

andrewcriddle

Some very eminent scholars eg Durkheim and Mauss have indeed held that the real basis of the distinction between what is labelled as religion and what is labelled as magic is acceptability or otherwise to the central structures of authority in society.

One of the problems with this criteria is that it works much better in Roman Christian and Jewish society than elsewhere.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

By Apollonius of Tyana do you mean Simon Magus ?

Apollonius of Tyana is not mentioned (at least by that name) in the Book of Acts

Andrew Criddle

gurugeorge

I'd say both magick and mysticism are part of religion, and then there is "licenced" magick and "unlicenced" magick - i.e. a religion that is tied to temporal power will be able to marginalise or outlaw certain magickal practices (perhaps ones that implicitly question the dogma).

I'd say religion, generally, is cosmic orientation (this would fit both re-ligio and re-ligare), and this can be in an individual or a social context, or both at the same time.

In this context, then, magick is orientation to the external world, to things, etc. (including "gods"). It involves discovery, journey, meeting new things (including "gods" - e.g. in visions), adventure, knowledge, manipulation, power. (In a way, science is magick that works - after trying lots of bizarre stuff, people eventually home in on things that work. The urge to orient oneself and control things underlies both. The main difference between magick and science is basically that science is open-source magick - it accelerates discovery by distributing processing amongst many minds, instead of the situation where you have one guy, desparate and in charge of a tribe, say, wanting to know everything about everything now. Science is social and science is patient, and doesn't mind waiting generations so long we get to the bottom of things eventually.)

Mysticism, OTOH, is orientation 180 degrees around towards the inner world, the "light" by which things, etc., are experienced (e.g. the Hindu Atman, the Christian Christ), or the "space" in which they occur (e.g. the Buddhist Sunyata).

Most religions offer a blend of these two functions. One orients oneself in the universe at large, and one discovers who or what one really, really is.

Whether philosophy is attached to these matters seems to be a question of the preferences of individual practitioners. Some magicians and mystics were no doubt interested in the whys and wherefores, others were content simply to influence and experience, without much regard to theory.

muTron the homeless

Mr. Criddle,

Oops. <slaps self on forehead>

That will teach me to post at work. Apollonius is certainly not mentioned in Acts....or elsewhere in the NT that I can find after my exhaustive 2 second glance in my concordance.

Silly me.

Where was he first mentioned in pro-Xian propaganda or apologies? I seem to remember something about Euesubius mentioning something about it....

Toto

here Against Hierocles

judge

Religion: Thy will be done

Magic: My will be done.