Editing Magic (supernatural) (section)

==Etymology==
[[File:Herodotos Met 91.8.jpg|thumb|upright|right|One of the earliest surviving accounts of the Persian ''mágoi'' was provided by the Greek historian [[Herodotus]].]]
The English words ''magic'', ''mage'' and ''magician'' come from the [[Latin term]] ''magus'', through the [[Greek language|Greek]] μάγος, which is from the [[Old Persian]] ''maguš''. (𐎶𐎦𐎢𐏁|𐎶𐎦𐎢𐏁, magician).{{sfnm|1a1=Hanegraaff|1y=2012|1p=169|2a1=Otto|2a2=Stausberg|2y=2013|2p=16}} The Old Persian ''magu-'' is derived from the [[Proto-Indo-European]] megʰ-''*magh'' (be able). The Persian term may have led to the [[Old Chinese|Old Sinitic]] ''*M<sup>γ</sup>ag'' (mage or [[shaman]]).{{sfn|Mair|2015|p=47}} The Old Persian form seems to have permeated ancient [[Semitic languages]] as the [[Jewish Babylonian Aramaic]] ''magosh'', the [[Aramaic]] ''amgusha'' (magician), and the [[Chaldea]]n ''maghdim'' (wisdom and philosophy); from the first century BCE onwards, [[Syria]]n ''magusai'' gained notoriety as magicians and soothsayers.{{sfn|Mair|2015|p=36}}

During the late-sixth and early-fifth centuries BCE, the term ''[[goetia]]'' found its way into [[ancient Greek]], where it was used with negative connotations to apply to rites that were regarded as fraudulent, unconventional, and dangerous;{{sfn|Otto|Stausberg|2013|p=16}} in particular they dedicate themselves to the evocation and invocation of ''[[daimon]]s'' (lesser divinities or spirits) to control and acquire powers. This concept remained pervasive throughout the Hellenistic period, when Hellenistic authors categorised a diverse range of practices—such as enchantment, [[witchcraft]], [[incantation]]s, [[divination]], [[necromancy]], and [[astrology]]—under the label "magic".{{sfn|Graf|1997|p={{page needed|date=December 2023}}}}

The Latin language adopted this meaning of the term in the first century BCE. Via Latin, the concept became incorporated into [[Christian theology]] during the first century CE. [[Early Christians]] associated magic with [[demons]], and thus regarded it as against Christian religion.  In [[early modern Europe]], [[Protestantism|Protestants]] often claimed that [[Roman Catholicism]] was magic rather than religion, and as Christian Europeans began [[European colonial era|colonizing other parts of the world]] in the sixteenth century, they labelled the non-Christian beliefs they encountered as magical. In that same period, Italian [[Humanism|humanists]] reinterpreted the term in a positive sense to express the idea of [[natural magic]]. Both negative and positive understandings of the term recurred in Western culture over the following centuries.{{citation needed|date=December 2023}}

Since the nineteenth century, academics in various disciplines have employed the term magic but have defined it in different ways and used it in reference to different things. One approach, associated with the [[anthropology|anthropologists]] [[Edward Tylor]] (1832–1917) and [[James G. Frazer]] (1854–1941), uses the term to describe beliefs in [[sympathetic magic|hidden sympathies]] between objects that allow one to influence the other. Defined in this way, magic is portrayed as the opposite to science. An alternative approach, associated with the [[sociology|sociologist]] [[Marcel Mauss]] (1872–1950) and his uncle [[Émile Durkheim]] (1858–1917), employs the term to describe private rites and ceremonies and contrasts it with religion, which it defines as a communal and organised activity. By the 1990s many scholars were rejecting the term's utility for scholarship. They argued that the label drew arbitrary lines between similar beliefs and practices that were alternatively considered religious, and that it constituted [[ethnocentrism|ethnocentric]] to apply the connotations of magic—rooted in Western and Christian history—to other cultures.{{citation needed|date=December 2023}}