Talk:Magic in the Greco-Roman world

Comments

It seems that this article is merely a dump of a research paper. Peter O. (Talk) 15:26, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

That's the impression I get, too.Aeronox 14:50, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Even if this page is overflowing with seemingly useless hyperlinks, it nevertheless yields in some part accurate information. In addition, the Hellenistic period needs to make references to the origins of Hermeticism to at least some extent. The organization and contextualization, however, are my chief concerns.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.4.24.148 (talk • contribs)

The article works well as a template, continuing modifications should bring the article up to a good standard. (84.9.143.173)

it is poorly writtten and should be scrapped sot that we can strart over okay? I'll delete it then if yu guys od\nt minSmith Jones

Lol, good one Smith Jones, the irony is appreciated.(84.9.143.173)

I wouldn't say that the information is entirely accurate. I think that saying that the practice of magic was a part of everyday life is an overstatement. It was only practiced(if at all practiced) by marginal members of society. People went to sorcerers if they felt that their child had been bewitched. Magic was practiced by people who believed there were ways to control nature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicoya730 (talk • contribs) 06:12, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree that the practice of magic is overstated in this article, and it also seems to rely on the Christian demonization of the Greco-Roman world to include religious practices under the label to validate the overstatement. --151.201.147.150 (talk) 18:13, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I would have to track down references, but to my knowledge the employment of magic was fairly widespread. To give you some idea, one of the most common applications for magic charms was not healing severe illness or any such extreme situation, but rather ensuring the success of the chariot team one supported in the regular chariot races. I believe the intro to the Greek Magical Papyri in Translation gives a bit more detail about this. Also, I don't think that the normal ritual procedures of the state religions are intended to be included under the definition of magic here, and in fact the article's lead section makes that explicit. If there's anything in the article that's actually referring to rituals of the state religion, then please point them out. Cheers, Fuzzypeg★ 02:08, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. A more correct statement is what is defined as magic by the Christian Church was fairly widespread. The ritualism, healing practices, and other forms of religious and spiritual practices of public, household, and mystery religions are not considered as magic from a more historical POV. Magic is traditionally identified as anti-religious or unscrupulous paranormal activity. This is why many ancient cultures had laws against curses, love spells, and other such activity, and this is why "pagan" practices are typically identified as magic by the Christian Church. The Christian Church set itself up as the only true religion, therefore any practices not of the Church where against the Church and labeled magic. The religious and spiritual practices are as much magic as is the religious and spiritual practices of Eastern religions such as Buddhism, Hindu, Taoism, and Shinto. --151.201.149.209 (talk) 13:52, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

No, when I say "magic" I'm not talking about the pre-Christian state religions, nor the mystery religions, although orpheotelestoi and similar characters were attributed with magical powers. I'm talking about the magic that, as a profession (In Georg Luck's words) "remained suspect and feared among the Greeks", not only amongst the Christians. (Luck, Arcana Mundi p. 5). Despite their tenuous position in society, such magicians were well patronised. According to Hans Dieter Betz, they were widely employed by ordinary people throughout the Greco-Roman world, to administer “remedies for a thousand petty troubles plaguing mankind: everything from migraine to runny nose to bedbugs to horse races, and, of course, all the troubles of love and money” (Betz The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation. 1992 p. xlvii).

I disagree that the normal religions of the time are now looked on as "magic"; at least, they aren't seen that way by any reputable scholar. I also disagree that magic is "traditionally identified as being anti-religious or unscrupulous", except by the kind of people who put credence in the theory of diabolical conspiracies against the One True Church. Magic was seen as unscrupulous during the early modern age in Europe, when thousands of innocents were burnt as 'witches', but nowadays, with rationalism under our belts, and with modern approaches to the study of our fellow man, such judgements are no longer made except in religious polemics. Fuzzypeg★ 23:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Do you really want to cite Georg Luck's Arcana Mundi for what was seen as "magic" and what was not? Luck included the oracles, seers, and the divination performed in Greece and Rome under his definition. These were religious acts. Not that the book is without value, but the audience it was written for needs to be taken into consideration. He paints what is included under the label of magic with a broad brush, including religious and spiritual acts and magical, and philosophers as sorcerers. If this is not using the standards created by Christianity to label what is and is not magic, then what is? Luck presents a single POV, while Wikipedia is suppose to be encyclopedic and neutral. --151.201.149.209 (talk) 13:19, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

A basic definition of magic, to separate it from religion, is something done to effect change in the real world. Oracular vision is indeed "magic", regardless of any context in religion. A lot of time, the lazy definitions seem to fall into the binary of "contemporary religion is relgion, and dead religions are magic." Luck's definition is fine, as far as I know. Ford MF (talk) 15:19, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

And, I believe you are using a biased POV based on Christinization. Lesley and Roy Adkins write in Handbook to Life in Ancient Greece (1997, p 360) that what was considered magic must be separated from what was considered religious, and that magicians had disappeared by the time of Classical Greece. A personal interpretation of any "dead religion" as magic is fine, but it is not worthy of an article meant to be encyclopedic and neutral. In fact, this article seems to be more original research, than anything else, without an appreciation for the historic time-line. --151.201.149.209 (talk) 15:53, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

You seem to have taken my comment to mean the opposite of what I actually meant; I was not endorsing the lazy view that dead religions were magic. But the idea that magic and religion are mutually exclusive is simply wrong. Oracular vision was just as magic then as seances are today; both are religion, both are magic. The Lesley and Adkins book, while a fine resource and a fascinating thing to dip into, is a general reference, not a definitive academic resource, and not intended for specialists of classics or anthropology. Ford MF (talk) 00:11, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

My response remains the same. A personal interpretation of whatever you want as magic is fine, but it is not worthy of an article meant to be encyclopedic and neutral. --151.201.149.209 (talk) 13:59, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

And if they assert that magicians had disappeared by the time of Classical Greece, then, well, they must have reappeared again, because they were fairly common in late antiquity, according to Betz and the various books I've seen on the subject. Magika Hiera ed. by Faraone and Obbink has a good range of information. Ancient Greece and Rome used to be idolised as a golden age of (relative) rationalism, and the growing quantity of evidence surrounding magic and "superstition" in those times has not always been gratefully received, but it is now well established among Classicists and not to my knowledge questioned by anyone. Now, to clear up any misunderstandings regarding what Luck terms "magic", what the Christian Church termed "magic", what the pagans termed "magic", and all such interfaces between different semantic systems, see Arcana Mundi pp. 457 to about 474. Fuzzypeg★ 02:17, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Again, look at your source. It is a book written for an audience who want to believe the philosophers were magicians, and magic was intimately woven into the Greek religion. One becomes hard-pressed to find that opinion being pushed in books specifically on the history of Ancient Greece, the Greek religion, or the philosophers, even with the CM's best friend Iamblichus. All this article does is take aspects of Greek myth, religious practice, and thought, and insist they are magic. I mean really, the section "Definition" says so much by somewhat explaining what was considered magic by the Greeks and then making references to Judaism an Christianity to validate an opinion they were wrong about themselves. This is a nice essay for an Occult site, but I don't believe it meets Wikipedia standards. --151.201.149.209 (talk) 13:59, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

You're moving from the ridiculous to the sublime. I have mentioned more than one source, and none of them claim that the philosophers were all magicians or that magic was a core part of Greek religion (in the pages I've cited above, Luck discusses how Christianity at times regarded philosophers as magicians, and certain pagan practices as magic). Furthermore, the sources I have mentioned are standard works on the subject. You seem to be both misunderstanding Georg Luck, and painting him as an ideosynchratic crank, whereas he is an extremely highly regarded professor emeritus at the head of his field. Your arguments are so disconnected from the sources I've read, I don't really know what to make of them. I'm struggling to take anything concrete out of what you're saying.

You do mention this book by Lesley and Adkins, and say it claims that "magicians had disappeared by the time of Classical Greece". That's the most concrete thing you've said so far, but it sounds very surprising. Could you give us an exact quote perhaps, so we can be sure exactly what they're saying? The reason I'm surprised is that we have plenty of archeological examples of things like curse tablets dating from the time; we have the Greek magical papyri (from Hellenised Egypt); we have records of theurgy; we have famous trials of those accused as magicians, such as Lucius Apuleius (who acquitted himself); and we have contemporary accounts of professional sorcerers selling their services in the streets. Thessaly was famous for its magicians, and from the time of the Persian war the Eastern approach to sorcery spread from here through the entire Greek world. Basically, there's a hell of a lot of evidence to explain away here if you want to say there were no magicians in Greece. Fuzzypeg★ 01:22, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

The reason I quoted Lesley and Roy Adkins is because their book is one of very few that even entertain the word beyond a very limited notation, but I have more.

Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical by Walter Burkert, on Page 55, states in a small snippet on a larger discussion regarding religious ritual, "In early Greece, where the cult belongs in the communal, public sphere, the importance of magic is correspondingly minimal. And however much the Greeks may hope that good things will flow from pious acts, they are nevertheless always aware that fulfilment in not guaranteed, but lie in the lap of the Gods."

In Ancient Greek Religion, Jon D. Mikalson discusses magic only on pages 193 and 194, and states "Such stories were certainly told in classical Athens, and amulets, evil-eyes, and other magical means were employed against these fearful things (evil spirits), but they are very much matters of private practice, outside and perhaps beneath the notice of the traditional religious system..."

In Athenian Popular Religion, Mikalson, on page 23, states "The lack of mention of such magic rites in the more public sources suggests that while they may have been privately practiced, they to some extent lacked public acceptability." Mikalson goes on to state on the same page these practices where considered impious.

In A Handbook of Greek Religion by Arthur Fairbanks, page 35, it is states, "Worship, in truth, was no more magic or barter than it was purely spiritual adoration." On page 124, Fairbanks states the Greeks had an "epic aversion to magic." And later, on page 146, in discussing the banishing of evil spirits, he states, "In later Greek practice such rites were not yet extinct; they have, however, so little of religion about them, they are so definitely magic and not worship, that they hardly require our consideration"

Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus by George Shaw only discusses magic in regards to the "Letter of Porphery to Anebo" as today being notoriously used "as an apology for the practice of magic," but makes no other references linking theurgy to magic.

This article, like the books Magika Hiera and Arcana Mundi, spends a good bit of time validating calling practices magic that are not seen as magic.

Let's really look at this article for a moment. It's title is "Magic in the Greco-Roman world", and correctly defines Greco-Roman as the post-hellenistic world of the Greeks and Romans. Yet, the article relies on non-Greco-Roman periods of Greece, and seems to ignore what is considered magic, in many respects. BTW, in the section on "Magic in Classical Greece", the article states Orpheus is a mythical figure, said to have lived in Thrace “a generation before Homer”, and that would be at the dawn of the Archaic or even within the Dark Age of Greece, not Classical Greece.

It then goes on to define what the Greeks saw as magic, but attempts to dismiss it by using Jewish and Christian references to validate what the contributors want to call magic. The section on "Homeric magic" continues to try to make the argument for use of magic. This really should be a subsection of the "Definition", don't you think? In any event, it is rather telling that a good third of the article if used to validated what contributors want to call magic in the later Greco-Roman world.

The article also calls Orpheus, Pythagoras, and Empedocles Greek magoi when it earlier stated that during that time period the word was associated with the Magi of Persia. The article continues with implying that gifts of healing and prophecy are magical, when these gifts were part of public religion and not considered magic.

A step further, the section on magic in the Hellenistic period almost exclusively talks about Greco-Roman Egypt. The Hellenistic period ended first with the defeat of Greece, and a final death blow with the defeat of Cleopatra and Rome taking full control of Egypt. It is after these events that we start talking about the Greco-Roman world. If there were "plenty of archaeological examples" of magic then you would have greater discussion of that outside of works written for audiences wanting to learn about magic. You should also take a good read of some of those Greek curse tablets. They read as petitions and pleadings to the Gods. They are prayers. Maybe not the fluff many think a prayer should be, but the Greeks did not have fluffy Gods.

The fact is, modern scholarship tends to avoid using labels, such as magic, for the religious acts of ancient cultures. This article begins correctly stating "magic is generally seen as a ritual or supernatural practice to influence the world, but distinct from religion or science," but then wants to include acts such as healing, divination, spirit communication, petitioning the Gods, gifts from the Gods, mystical contemplation, and so on as magic. These were part of the religion, and are not anything that should be called magic in an article with a NPOV, and again, the fact that a third or more of the article needs to define and defend the use of the word is evidence of that. --151.201.149.209 (talk) 14:58, 22 September 2008 (UTC)