What is magic? We have no lack of answers to this question. There is Crowley's famous "Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will", Chaos Magic's M = w + i + g (Magical act = will + imagination + gnosis), the recent revival of the so-called Spirit Model in occultism has led to versions such as "Magic is causing change through the agency of spirits."
Several years ago on this blog I proposed the definition that magic is the process of making the impossible possible. Later, on Gods and Radicals, I explored the relationship between social hierarchy, religion, mysticism and magic and claimed that magic is inherently anti-hierarchical and revolutionary in the essay "Magic is the Revolution".
It was never my intention to come up with the one right definition of magic. Indeed, I do not believe such a thing is possible or desirable. I have also not come to disagree strongly with any of my previous proposals for how to understand magic. These days, however, my attention is focused much more on the question of the nature of magic within a specifically pagan worldview. How did the Mycenaean and Archaic Greeks, for example, understand the place and role of magic in the cosmos? How did the pagan Celts or Norse? Much of this thought is informed by insights I had while writing my book True to the Earth: Pagan Political Theology and is able to integrate and add depth to aspect of my former ideas.
To get a sense of where my thoughts are leaning, consider the following passages from the Greek Magical Papyri (admittedly of much later cultural periods than those of my primary interest). Each is addressing a god (I have made minor changes from the Betz version for the sake of clarity without adding anything not in the text ):
[Accomplish]... all that I have written... and I will leave [the east] and the west [where] he was established, and the flesh of Osiris and I will not break [the] bonds with which you bound Typhon, and I will not call those who have died a violent death but will leave them alone, and I will not pour out the oil of Syrian cedar [but] will leave it alone, and I will save Ammon and not kill him, and I will [not] scatter the limbs of Osiris, and I will hide you [from the] giants. (PGM LVII. 1-10)
Unless I know what is in the minds of everyone... I will pour the blood of the black dog-face as a drink offering in a new, faultless jar and put it on a new base and burn under it the bones of Hesies, and I would shout in the port of Busiris that he remained in the river 3 days and 3 nights, Hesies, that he was carried by the current of the river into the sea, that he was surrounded by the waves of the sea and by the mist of the air. Your belly is eaten by fish, and I will not stop the fish chewing your body with their mouths, nor will the fish shut their mouths. I will take the fatherless boy away from his mother. The pole [of the sky] will be brought down, and the two mountains will be one. I will let anoixis loose against you and she will do what she wants. I will not let god or goddess give oracles until I know through and through what is in the minds of all men... (PGM V. 256-290)There are numerous similar passages in which the practitioner threatens to upend the very order of the cosmos, "the pole of the sky will be brought down", as well as offering direct assaults against divinities throughout the Greek Magical Papyri. There are also good reasons to think that this type of practice is derived from older Archaic roots. This tells us, I think, something rather telling about the relationship between magic and religion, as well as about the unique place of magic in a pagan cosmos.
Consider joining me at the Salem Summer Symposium to hear more and to share your own thoughts on the subject!
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