Talk:Spell (ritual)

Perhaps this page should be merged with prayer Prayer

I wouldn't merge with Prayer, but I would merge with Magic (paranormal). The concept of 'spell' is so closely affiliated with 'magic' that there's no point having a separate article. As you can already see, there's a lot of repeated information. The title of the article is a bit of a giveaway too: "Spell (ritual)". Spells aren't necessarily ritualised, but they are necessarily magical. It seems that this article is merely presenting someone's conception of the ritual side of magic. Fuzzypeg☻ 03:20, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow! There's so much original research in this article. A lot of the facts seem to be plucked out of thin air, and seem totally false to me. How does the term "black magic" have anything to do with the Vodou Lwa, for instance? I don't think there was sufficient traffic between Europe and West Africa for the European literati to have even heard of Lwa, let alone based their common magical definitions on them! I've removed the statements that just seemed patently ridiculous; several remain that need to be verified. Much of this material is not particularly relevant, or is not representative, or enters into controversial areas of pseudohistory. There's very little that has been developed to the point of being useful information, and as it stands it's more misleading than anything else.

Regarding moving usable information to other articles, my analysis, section by section, is as follows:

Intro: All covered in Magic (paranormal).

History of Spell: neolithic spells and "massive official holidays" are unsourced, and look like they would need a lot of effort to get anything meaningful out of them. Magic in indigenous traditions ("seems to be nearly universal in the early development of human communities") is dealt with in Magic (paranormal). Persecution is dealt with in Magic (paranormal); theories about Christian "magic" are liable to be controversial, since it all depends on your definition of "magic" or "spell", so I don't think this is usable without a lot of work. Witch-hunt and Witch trial contain all the info about witch-burnings etc.

Typical characteristics of a spell: This seems an arbitrary classification devised to draw parallels with certain Christian ritual. The system of classification and the comparison with Christian ritual both need to be cited as coming from a reliable source. I don't think any of this is usable.

Black magic and white magic: This is covered more concisely in Magic (paranormal), without making unlikely claims about the terms being a Christian invention. The rest is fully covered in Magic (paranormal) and Wicca.

Spells and Christianity: a rather minor detail from Aquinas, I can't think of what article it might be notable in (including this one). If it were more developed, such as stating what influence this idea had, or if it were used to illustrate a particular attitude towards magic and legality, it would be different! I'll move it to the talk page of Magic (paranormal) in case anyone finds a use for it.

See also: the Galðr and Carmen (verse) links I don't think are worth moving to Magic (paranormal) since they refer to very specific elements of their magical traditions.

External links: The Cauldron's grimoire might be a contender for putting in Magic (paranormal), but probably not. As an encyclopedia, we don't need to double up on this particular job that google can do. A "collection of spells" doesn't really serve any encyclopedic purpose.

So it seems to me there's nothing here to merit keeping it as a separate article. Everything is either covered elsewhere or too contentious to be worth the effort. I note that most of the contentious stuff also relates to "magic" in general, and not specifically to "spells". I'll leave the article as it is for a few days and then turn it into a redirect. Fuzzypeg☻ 05:28, 9 November 2006 (UTC)