Talk:Magic (paranormal)

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Contents 1 Archived Discussion 2 Missing a view point in this? 3 Section on Islamic Magic 4 Developed Introductory Paragraph 5 Requests for clarification section "middle ages" 6 THE simble of the gosts 7 White/black magic and elements/chaos 8 Thanks 9 Black Pullet NOT about conjuring demons 10 British Isles part of Europe? 11 What about Buddhism? 12 Adequate framing 13 Error 14 Picture 15 New Sections, Move/Eliminate Older Ones?

[edit] Archived Discussion

Discussions prior to the following have been archived. These discussions can be accessed via the archive box. GooferMan 23:01, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok. I'm new and I was wondering why there are no spells ? Darkogome (talk) 01:30, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I dont know who removed my example of the use of magic in christianity from the section on "magic in christianity" which has so far included no exanples of magic in christianity, but I have noticed lately that far too many of my contributions have been removed by what I can only call vandalism. The supposed reason for removing this fix to a glaring ommission was some BS about needing an RS. I have no clue what an RS is, but I can assure you that transubstantiation is a magical act, and it is "widely accepted" that this takes place in the roman catholic canon. Ergo, you have removed -trashed- my contribution and removed the only statement on magic in christianity in the article on magic in christianity.

I can only assume that whereas all other religions are viewed as "wierd" by christians, and as they also view magic as "wierd", they dont want to tarnish their own religion as they tarnish others by using the word "magic" in association with it. OK. So Christianity uses no magic and other religions do. You have succcessfullly whitewashed this page and I mean WHITE washed it, by your vandalism. So be it. I'm not going to bother with wikipedia anymore. I have had it with people dumping any chages I make without justification. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.17.115.195 (talk) 21:42, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Missing a view point in this?

To wit, where is the sceptical view of magic in this article?

I'm reposting Fuzzypeg's link for adequate framing here : Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Paranormal#Principles

I did an unscientific sampling of other wiki articles (ghosts, god, telekinesis, and a sample religion (Christian Science), and I found the following.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghosts#Skeptical_analysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God#Existence_of_God

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telekinesis#Skepticism_and_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Science#Medical_Controversies

In short, all four of them gave a voice to the critics of the paranormal. Shouldn't there be something similar here? Tall Dan 03:05, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

This article is full of skeptical viewpoint, after all, a lot of the article is about Frazer's view, and if you've read frazer's view, it was basically written from the viewpoint that magick is not real, and people that believe in it are delusional because they can't see reality logically. I'd say there's plenty of skepticism here.

--Arkayne Magii 16:18, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I have read Frazer's view, or at least sentences we have on him there. But... he said that in 1911, and we don't seem to have anyone from the scientific or skeptical community in there. Further, that whole section is "Anthropological and psychological origins" not "Skepticism and controversy". As far as I can tell from our Framing advice, we aren't supposed to have skepticism through out the entire article. The article is about magic, let it be about magic. But let there be a sub-heading somewhere that states outright there is controversy, and goes over what the controversy is. Tall Dan 17:59, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Tall Dan, if you would like to add in appropriate material along these lines, go for it. I suspect the main reason there isn't more material along these lines is that serious scientific rebuttals of magical theory are very rare. Specific paranormal effects such as telekinesis, telepathy, or homeopathic treatment are obvious contenders for scientific testing, since they predict a very specific physical or biological effect that should be measurable and repeatable. However magic in the broad sense doesn't lend itself very well to scientific testing, since results can occur in such a wide variety of ways, and normally take the easiest, least miraculous route to manifestation. If, for instance, a magician performs magic to receive money, banknotes don't (normally) materialise out of thin air. Rather, say, an old long-forgotten loan is repaid, or something like that. And many magical effects could be explained psychologically as extreme cases of placebo effect or auto-suggestion. Also, designing any decent experiment would require the scientist to steep themselves in magical theory, something most scientists are both unwilling and unequipped to do.

For instance a long term experiment regarding Astrology finished a couple of years ago. It had thousands of subjects, and was run for several years, and showed no significant correlation between supposed astrological predictors and life events. The conclusion was that Astrology doesn't work. However within the magical community this came as no surprise: of course the experiment would fail, since it effectively removed any opportunity for any synchronicity to occur: astrology requires the alignment not only of the planets and the moment of a person's birth, but also of the moment that the person consults their astrologer and the events surrounding their decision to do so. By removing the opportunity for personal fate to play a role in determining how and when and from whom the test subjects had their fates foretold, synchronicity was simultaneously removed. Or rather, any synchronicity in action was more tied to the fates of the scientists conducting the experiment. Without getting too technical, suffice it to say that that experiment was designed based on a very naive model of what astrology is and how it works; unsurprising considering the designers were expert scientists but not expert astrologers or expert magicians.

I haven't actively searched for scientific treatments of magic, but in the hundreds of New Scientist issues I've skimmed through I've never come across such a thing. I know there are certain findings in the field of cognition that suggest mechanisms for superstition to arise, but these would be best presented in the Superstition article (of course). If you find anything suitable for this article you are very welcome to add it. Fuzzypeg☻ 01:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong, I agree that most things should be approached with a healthy degree of skepticism, but the majority of people that edit this article with a "scientific" scepticism end up vandalizing the article, filling it full of harmful negative POV, changing the entire article to say "Magic is not real, and those who practice it are delusional, deranged, or con artists." I put that in quotes because it is almost word for word the various changes towards this POV within this article that I have seen in the past. This is why I defend so heartily the NPOV within the articles dealing with magic(k), and seriously question people who want to add the terms "supposed", "alleged", etc. into the article.

I think that adding a "skeptical and controversial" section is fine, so long as it is balanced. Remember, doing this could easily end up being the same as adding a "Magick is Real" section, but under the guise of skepticism and doubt. So anything that goes into such a section must add something to the article itself, rather than simply being a POV. In other words, the NPOV of such a section would have to be very closely monitored because of the ease of which POV could be implied.

A great example of POV being quietly brought into this article is under the external links section, wherein each link leads to a page about magick by an obviously biased source, and there are absolutely no links to pages or groups that support magick in a positive way. (a point I have brought up before.)

I agree that external links should add to the article and be encyclopedic in nature, but there are plenty of resources out there of an encyclopedic nature that show magick in a neutral and/or positive light without implied bias against it, and some of these links have been on the page in the past, but slowly, all of these links have dissapeared, leaving only those that link to biased groups and information.

This is exactly the sort of thing I worry about when someone suggests "adding skepticism" to the article. The question really is, does this information I have found reflect a healthy skepticism of Magic, or does it instead imply bias and negative POV?

Just a few things to think about.

--Arkayne Magii 02:08, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I can see how a flat statement of "Magic isn't real" would be hopelessly POV, and also impossible to prove. That comment about needing to understand Magic in order to test it isn't true however. Testing and evaluation normally come long before understanding. I don't need to understand electricity to put a key in a light socket. If someone comes up with a key-socket test for magic then there will be a dozen conflicting theories about it in a week and dozens of scientists fighting over a Noble prize in 10 years.

Would it be relevent to bring up the Randi challenge? 1 Million dollars is a lot of money, but no one is rushing forward to claim it. http://www.randi.org/research/index.html Tall Dan 02:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly enough, an article came out last month showing that the "Randi Challenge" was biased in that in most cases, the applicants for this "challenge" were being judged in the negative, saying that their claims were false while at the same time, none of their evedence was ever even looked at. Someone actually caught him doing this; claiming illigitimacy of paranormal claims without even looking at the evidence. It seems that "The Amazing Randi" of the Randi challenge is so completely biased that the Randi challenge is not in any way a good measure of the legitimacy of a paranormal event. This actually made headline news. It's no wonder no one has ever won. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arkayne Magii (talk • contribs) 17:37, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know the details of the Randi challenge, but I don't recall it being specifically aimed at "magic"... Whatever. And perhaps my point above got lost in my extended waffle, but the main point was that such studies are very rare. I was just surmising why that might be... But go ahead, find the studies, add them to the article, and we'll figure out how to arrange them. Fuzzypeg☻ 07:01, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I would like to suggest that the issue here has nothing to do with skepticism regarding the topic. As an encyclopedic entry, the goal is to offer a description of the phenomenon using methodological distance. Thus, the relevant questions are: what is it? who practices it? what is its history? what are the socio-cultural contexts in which it exists? etc. etc. Therefore, it is neither about proving, nor disproving that magic exists. This is basic historical/anthropological method.

We know that certain things do exist though: we know that people across the globe practice magic (these people exist), we know that this practice has a long history (this practice exists), we know that in Europe and the Middle East, magical systems had a great influence on the development of scientific thought (this influence exists). An encyclopedic entry should make the best effort to describe these things as accurately as possible. Because it is an encyclopedia, and not a how-to book on magic, I don't think it is not necessary for the editors to ensure that "both sides" are fairly represented regarding whether or not magical practices actually work. Why? Because that is not the point of the article, it is not about the efficacy of magic, it is about an encylcopedic description of the phenomenon. Thus, the question of efficacy is not relevant in this context.

As an example of the style of writing refered to when I say "methodological distance," here are two books that deal with the European Witchcraft trials:

• Carlo Ginzburg, The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century ISBN 0801843863
• Briggs, Robin, Witches and Neighbors: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft ISBN 0140144382

In both of these texts, the authors never had to tell the reader that either they did or did not believe in magic, nor did they have to include sceptical discussions about its efficacy. If they had it would have been laughable. Instead, there job as scholars was to report on what the beliefs were, and in these contexts, offer explanations as to why the trials were so severe in some areas as opposed to others. These are two highly regarded books on the subject and the quality of their work is why these books are used in graduate seminars on the subject of Medieval European witchcraft and the resulting trials. They are also representative of the approach we should take while writing a wikipedia article.

Please let's keep the content and discussion of magic related to these issues. {deleted irrelevant comment} And on a side note, can we start focusing on cleaning up the organization and adding some citations and references. Looking forward to working with you. GooferMan 23:45, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Simple as this - science is the same where ever it 'happens', e.g. 4 + 5 always equals 9. But it seems that every occult art (and indeed, religion) varies from region to region. It is the invention of man, not the observation. Thusly, they are only as real as we make them, unlike science which is (seemingly) universal. It does'nt matter who is right or wrong, we just need to find what works for us. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.221.227.2 (talk) 23:29, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Section on Islamic Magic

I expanded the section on Islamic magic. One of the things that I know will come up is the difference between magic and sorcery. That's something that I think we need more discussion on. I noticed that magic and sorcery are treated as the same in this article. However, most anthropological language reserves the term sorcery for negative forms of magic. That's the way my sources used it and I've replicated that here. However, this makes the terms a bit ambiguous in how we are using them in the article. Any thoughts on where to go with this? The reason I ask is that many cultures have a distinction between negative and positive forms of magic. Anthropologists usually keep that distinction by using sorcery or witchcraft as negative forms. At the very least I think there needs to be a discussion in the early stages of the article relating to the various ways these terms are applied culturally. At least acknowledging the negative connotation for some uses.GooferMan 00:55, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Someone inserted the following into the article which I deleted:

(This part of the article is full of wrong informations.for example-in this article ,Fatima(R), the daughter of Prophet Mohammad(SM)is mentioned as his wife!!,(Nauzubillah!).So You can understand how reliable this writing is!!Whoever wrote this article did not know what he was writing or he was misleading people by providing misinterpreted, distorted informations with a bad intention.This type of activity is a direct attempt to cover the truth with the lies,and preaching lies to create misunderstanding about Islam among people.People must be careful about the information pollution and anybody who is seeking true knowldge should find a pure source, If you want to know what Islam say about what, you must nread Holy Quran.Browsing internet,wikipedia or any other thing is no option,Because finding truth is serious business.Thank you)

Yes, I made an error by calling Fatima, Muhammad's wife. That error was corrected. However, making this error, which was an oversight and not a lack of knowledge of Islam on my part, does not constitute calling the facts of the entire section into question. To do that, we must discuss or challenge the sources that I have used. It is a fact that magic exists in Islamic society, just as it has in Judaism and Christianity. It is a fact, that Muslim practitioners of magic have sought to justify their practices as "approved" and morally right. Does this mean that orthdox legal opinions agree? No, it does not, and I think that I made that clear in the section. If I did not, please continue this discussion on the talk pages.GooferMan 19:17, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I would add to Goofer's comments by reminding our editors to assume good faith. If his edits can be put down to a simple error rather than an anti-Muslim conspiracy, then surely that's a more obvious conclusion. This encyclopedia is a work in progress, and at any point in time it will contain many thousands of errors. If you spot one, then help us clean it up, rather than accuse us of having the morals of George Bush. :) Fuzzypeg☻ 00:49, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Developed Introductory Paragraph

I deleted the following sentence: "Magic and sorcery are the influencing of events, objects, people, and physical phenomena by mystical, paranormal or supernatural means."

And developed the introduction more fully. I also deleted the first citation, regarding Gardner's statement: "Belief in magic and the efficacy of various magical practices is under pressure from either organised monotheistic religions or from scepticism about the reality of magic, and the ascendancy of scientism" . This is an obvious observation and doesn't need attribution. To clarify the issue though, I added some explanatory material to the footnotes. GooferMan 19:14, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requests for clarification section "middle ages"

This sentence: "Medieval authors, under the control of the Church, confined their magic to compilations of wonderlore and collections of spells" needs citation and clarification. What is this "wonderlore" and was this time frame exactly limited to just this and collecting spells? Did this period not have any development of thought? We need to back this up with a solid reference.

The sentence: "There were other, officially proscribed varieties of Christianized magic" needs clarification and citation. In what ways were these varieties of magic "proscribed?" Who engaged in them and who proscribed them, etc? The sentence begs more questions than the section provides answers for.

The sentence: "In the 13th century, astrology had some great names: in England Johannes de Sacrobosco, in Europe the Italian Guido Bonatti from Forlì" needs more discussing these individuals. Otherwise, it's just a dangling sentence, just teasing the reader with ever so slightly revealing the information. GooferMan 21:03, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] THE simble of the gosts

the simble is when youspeak with the gosts —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.19.190.93 (talk) 20:36, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Now why didn't I think of that? Fuzzypeg☻ 21:55, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] White/black magic and elements/chaos

I just removed a brief section that had been added about white and black magic. I believe these have already been covered in this article, and the new section read like an essay containing original research. In particular it characterised magic utilising the elements as white (good), and chaos magic as black. This is a very odd distinction to make, and one which in my experience doesn't correspond with reality. Fuzzypeg☻ 22:23, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

From some reading experience this can be a pretty fraught subject, arguments over black and white go back and forth, and worse chaos uses the colour black as its symbol too - but it is not simply 'black' magic. Chaos doesn't see itself as evil directly though many adherents might tend towards that path, it doesn't help that it is often closely connected with Satanism either. - Though of course many Satanists don't see themselves as evil either. As a one time Satanist myself I would regard Jehovah as pretty 'evil', and Satan as the first rebel against him as a controversial symbol of good. - (democracy itself often only begins with rebellion against a king).

Chaos ironically often connects itself more heavily with science, particularly either Relativity or Quantum Mechanics. Magically science itself is also often represented by black, it is associated with the Tarot symbol of the Magician (whose description is very similar to a scientist) and black is his colour. (Black being the colour of the unexplored and mystery and mysticism).

A good example of the problem is the upright pentagram in circle, which was once a traditional symbol of both good and evil magic - but has now been largely appropriated by the 'white' side. La Vey has a great deal to answer for in this area as well of course.

Sorry for pontificating, since this only has the status of debate or research its probably not includable in the article. Lucien86 (talk) 03:01, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

I will keep this short so as not to annoy anyone. I would personally like to thank all of the editors who have contributed to the Magic (Paranormal) article recently, and I must say that you have all done a fine job and produced a very good encyclopedic article on the subject - One that I very much enjoyed reading. I applaud your hard work and dilligence! Arkayne Magii (talk) 08:48, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I must agree it looks much better than it used to. It's still not great though, and may need further ToC tweaks to avoid redundancies. But it certainly fulfills its function of giving a decent overview of the topic. dab (𒁳) 08:09, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Black Pullet NOT about conjuring demons

I am once again editting the blurb on the Black Pullet, owing to the mischaracterization of the text as being based on compelling demons to do one's bidding. Evidently, some people have confused the Black Pullet with the Goetia. Please, do not revert.24.239.162.98 (talk) 23:57, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] British Isles part of Europe?

I didn't claim that the British Isles are not part of Europe, merely that this designation depends on point of view and it's probably safer to make this explicit in the article. Europe has two basic meanings: 'Continental' Europe, in which the British Isles are often not included, since they are not actually part of the continent, and the European Union, of which both the UK and Ireland are members. See Europe#Definition for more info. Because the sentence in question is talking about historical Europe (and the British Isles), the modern political designation of the term 'Europe' is clearly not intended, and we are left with the geographical one.

Before the formation of the EU it was common for British residents to use the term 'Europe' synonymously with 'the Continent', to indicate continental Europe as opposed to the British Isles.

I may possibly have misunderstood you, though. If, by mentioning "OR", you mean that you're not convinced that the inhabitants of the ancient British Isles pursued shamanistic contact with the spirit-world, good authors to read would be Keith Thomas or Emma Wilby. I can supply refs if you wish. Fuzzypeg★ 00:45, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, re-reading your comment I see I didn't misunderstand you. Fuzzypeg★ 00:47, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

This is the English language wikipedia, and not the British version of an encyclopedia. Referring to "Europe and the British Isles" is parochial and incorrect in the context of a global english-language encyclopedia. In addition, the term "British Isles" is a geographical term and (according to discussions on Talk:British Isles) should be used for geographical articles. Since this is primarily a "cultural" article, it is probably best to use geopolitical terms such as "Britain and Ireland" if you wish to specifically refer to these places. Thank you. --Bardcom (talk) 09:47, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Please remember that the English language has largely been shaped by English points of view and English sensibilities. While not being from the British Isles, I am an English speaker, and where I come from "Europe" is seen as a different place to "Britain". That distinction is not limited to British Isles residents! The problem with using geopolitical terms when discussing history is that political boundaries change so often, and you have to be careful to choose the terms appropriate to the period. Using "Europe" in the sense of "European Union" when you're discussing anything prior to 1993 is clearly wrong.

The term "Europe" is imprecise, therefore it is not wrong to just say "Europe", and it is equally not wrong to say "Europe and the British Isles". It is, however, clearer to say the latter.

Anyway, This is a trifling point and I'm not going to bother arguing any further. Do what you want. Fuzzypeg★ 23:46, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I strongly support references include explicit mentionings of the British Isles. The term "Europe" as mentioned, has strong indications of exclusion of the UK in many areas. As such, it is worth while to mention that one is also speaking of British culture as well and not merely continental. In fact, perhaps one should avoid referencing "Europe" at all, and merely speak of the West.24.239.162.198 (talk) 09:09, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What about Buddhism?

Nothing to be said?

Austerlitz -- 88.75.72.76 (talk) 11:21, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

This article needs substantial work done in lots of respects. If you think something could/should be added about buddhism, who better than you to do it? Fuzzypeg★ 04:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Adequate framing

There has been a bit of edit warring recently over whether the lead section needs to state that magic is not real. Fortunately there has been a ruling on this: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Paranormal#Adequate framing. Further statements to the effect that magic is not real introduce a bias towards one point of view and provide no extra information to the reader. Some (skeptics) will feel their intelligence is being insulted, while others (believers) will feel their beliefs are being insulted. Such statements serve no purpose other than to prove a point. Fuzzypeg★ 03:20, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Error

Just for the record...Alchemy is not a magic, but a science. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomdiepstrap (talk • contribs) 17:54, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Isn't it a protoscience? Verbal chat 19:42, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Alchemy is the use of chemistry (or proto-chemistry) to effect magical outcomes by employing symbolism and linking it to intention.-- self-ref (nagasiva yronwode) (talk) 08:38, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

A few alchemists may not have linked alchemy with magic, but most European alchemists, I believe, would have been working roughly within the Hermetic tradition, and would have subscribed to the theories of "natural magic" that were prominent in that tradition. Albertus Magnus, for example, wrote much on astrology and natural magic. The theories of natural magic would explain many facets of alchemy, such as the relationship between the "inner elixir" of the alchemist's own being and the "outer elixir" of the laboratory work.

Going back further, the earliest writings still extant regarding alchemy, from Egypt, were compiled together with other, quite definitely magical writings.

The only reason I can see for distancing alchemy from magic is if you hold magic in disdain and alchemy in high regard, or vice-versa. This is a common attitude amongst those who subscribe to a particular pseudoscience, and feel they need to validate themselves as still being sensible and respectable by denigrating all other pseudosciences. Fuzzypeg★ 21:51, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Picture

Perhaps the main picture could best be the Image:Pentacle 1.svg instead of the witch. The witch picture is best used in a seperate section on black magic —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.245.167.177 (talk) 11:29, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I disagree, as the term 'witch' does not immediately refer to 'black magic' but also is used as an alternative term for wiccans. The pentacle would be perfectly fine as a picture in this sense, as although it is used as a symbol of wicca, it's origins and use are far older, and relate to the orbital pattern of the planet venus as seen from earth and observed by many ancient cultures, even predating Pythagoras who is often credited with it's origin and the discovery of it's connection to the planet's orbit. Because of this connection, it has been used in magickal practice by many cultures, and would thus be a fine symbolic referrence to magic and magickal practice in general. However, the image of a person actually in the midst of practicing magick, as the 'witch' picture, would also be equally fitting if one were to go with more of a practical view than a symbolic reference. Either way is fine with me, I just have to disagree on the 'witch' equals 'black magic' concept. -Arkayne Magii (talk) 19:32, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] New Sections, Move/Eliminate Older Ones?

We have added several new sections specifically relating to the theoretical basis and characterization of magical practice and beliefs. With these new sections though the article is rather long. Perhaps some of the older sections (specifically history of Western Magic, and Magic in Religion) would be better served as their own pages with this main magic page reserved for more general information on magic. Magicephs (talk) 00:36, 19 May 2009 (UTC)Magicephs 5/18/09