The Fundamentals of Magic

Lesson 1: A Short History of Magic

Magic is a simple word. It comes up commonly in conversation, as often as a metaphor as an allusion to what the word directly means. But it's a word with weight. Ask ten people what it means, and you'll get ten different answers, and the odds are that at least a couple of those people will have very strong convictions about the existence or non-existence of the thing we call magic. But what is it? What do we know about magic?

First, I will make a distinction. I'm not referring to stage magic, the performance art of illusions and misdirection. That is an enormous subject, and a topic for another time. What I mean is "real" magic, the concept that brings to mind ancient mages casting secret spells over a mystical circle. What do we know? We know that it is ancient. Magic has been around throughout history, as a part of every ancient culture and virtually every religion. We know that it is mysterious. It is made up of secrets that are kept somehow from the rank and file of humanity, and as such it is an elite art. What else do we know? Well, we know that magic is well, magical. It is a thing that is strongly tied to wonder, creativity, and imagination, and is sometimes at odds with logical and empirical laws.

A great deal of work has been done in studying magic through the ages, although not necessarily with that specific goal in mind. Magic is so much a part of historical culture and religion, it is impossible to separate them, and so cultural anthropology is always, to some extent, a study of magic. In Sir James G. Frazer's 1890 anthropology work The Golden Bough, Frazer connects various ancient religions studied through history and archeology and outlines them in terms of commonalities. As part of his theories, he defines the apparent laws of what he terms "sympathetic magic," which is the basic form of making magical change occur using symbolic connection between events and objects. Frazer's research even connected these principles to modern Christianity (with the attending allusions that such Christian rituals as the Holy Communion and Christ's sacrifice are, in fact, sympathetic magic), a fact which caused his work to be highly abridged in his day.

Along similar lines to Frazer's The Golden Bough, Joseph Campbell published his famous The Hero with a Thousand Faces in 1949. This work has had immense popularity, and widespread academic criticism, ever since. In it, Campbell attempts

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