Editing Magic and religion (section)

==Connection==
This separation of the terms 'religion' and 'magic' in a functional sense is disputed. It has been argued that abandoning the term magic in favour of discussing "belief in spiritual beings" will help to create a more meaningful understanding of all associated ritual practices.<ref>Otto, B-C. 2013. "Towards Historicizing 'Magic' in Antiquity", ''Numen'' 60. 308-347.</ref> However using the word 'magic' alongside 'religion' is one method of trying to understand the supernatural world, even if some other term can eventually take its place.<ref name="Versnel" />

It is a postulate of modern [[anthropology]], at least since early 1930s, that there is complete continuity between magic and religion.

[[Robert Ranulph Marett]] (1932) said:

{{blockquote|Many leading anthropologists, including the author of The Golden Bough, would wholly or in the main refuse the title of religion to these almost inarticulate ceremonies of very humble folk. I am afraid, however, that I cannot follow them. [...] They are mysteries, and are therefore at least generically akin to religion. Moreover, they are held in the highest public esteem as of infinite worth whether in themselves or for their effects. To label them, then, with the opprobrious name of magic as if they were on a par with the mummeries that enable certain knaves to batten on the nerves of fools is quite unscientific; for it mixes up two things which the student of human culture must keep rigidly apart, namely, a normal development of the social life and one of its morbid by-products. Hence for me they belong to religion, but of course to rudimentary religion—to an early phase of the same world-wide institution that we know by that name among ourselves. I am bound to postulate the strictest continuity between these stages of what I have here undertaken to interpret as a natural growth.<ref>[[Robert Ranulph Marett]] (1932) [http://www.giffordlectures.org/Browse.asp?PubID=TPFHCR&Volume=0&Issue=0&TOC=True ''Faith, Hope and Charity in Primitive Religion''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111119025854/http://www.giffordlectures.org/Browse.asp?PubID=TPFHCR&Volume=0&Issue=0&TOC=True |date=2011-11-19}}, in [[Gifford Lectures]]. Lecture II [https://archive.today/20120731050138/http://www.giffordlectures.org/Browse.asp?PubID=TPFHCR&Volume=0&Issue=0&ArticleID=3 ''Hope''].</ref>}}

[[Ernst Cassirer]] (1944) wrote:

{{blockquote|It seems to be one of the postulates of modern anthropology that there is complete continuity between magic and religion. [note 35: See, for instance, RR Marett, Faith, Hope, and Charity in Primitive Religion, the Gifford Lectures (Macmillan, 1932), Lecture II, pp. 21 ff.] ... We have no empirical evidence at all that there ever was an age of magic that has been followed and superseded by an age of religion.<ref>[[Ernst Cassirer|Cassirer, Ernst]] (1944) [https://books.google.com/books?id=pe9fWSv-iLsC&pg=PA102 ''An Essay On Man''], pt.II, ch.7 ''Myth and Religion'', pp.122-3.</ref>}}

In ancient Egypt, the religion held that the gods' actions maintained ''maat'' and created and sustained all living things.{{sfn|Tobin|1989|pp=197–200}} They did this work using a force the Egyptians called ''[[heku|heka]]'', a term usually translated as "magic". ''Heka'' was a fundamental power that the creator god used to form the world and the gods themselves.{{sfn|Hornung|1982|pp= 207–209}} Magic (personified as the god [[Heka (god)|''heka'']]) was an integral part of religion and culture which is known to us through a substantial corpus of texts which are products of the Egyptian tradition.<ref>Bell, H.I., Nock, A.D., Thompson, H., Magical Texts From A Bilingual Papyrus In The British Museum, Proceedings of The British Academy, Vol, XVII, London, p 24.</ref> While the category magic has been contentious for modern Egyptology, there is clear support for its applicability from ancient terminology.<ref name="Ritner, R.K. 2001, p 321">Ritner, R.K., Magic: An Overview in Redford, D.B., Oxford Encyclopedia Of Ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press, 2001, p 321</ref> The Coptic term ''hik'' is the descendant of the pharaonic term ''heka'', which, unlike its Coptic counterpart, had no connotation of impiety or illegality, and is attested from the Old Kingdom through to the Roman era.<ref name="Ritner, R.K. 2001, p 321"/> ''Heka'' was considered morally neutral and was applied to the practices and beliefs of both foreigners and Egyptians alike.<ref>Ritner, R.K., Magic: An Overview in Redford, D.B., Oxford Encyclopedia Of Ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 321–322</ref> The Instructions for Merikare informs us that ''heka'' was a beneficence gifted by the creator to humanity "... in order to be weapons to ward off the blow of events".<ref>Ritner, R.K., Magic: An Overview in Redford, D.B., Oxford Encyclopedia Of Ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 322</ref> Magic was practiced by both the literate priestly hierarchy and by illiterate farmers and herdsmen, and the principle of ''heka'' underlay all ritual activity, both in the temples and in private settings.<ref>Ritner, R.K., Magic: An Overview in Redford, D.B., Oxford Encyclopedia Of Ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 323</ref>

The English word magic has its origins in [[ancient Greece]].{{sfn|Bremmer|2002|p=1}}
During the late sixth and early fifth centuries BCE, the Persian ''maguš'' was Graecicized and introduced into the ancient Greek language as ''μάγος'' and ''μαγεία''.{{sfn|Otto|Stausberg|2013|p=16}}  In doing so it transformed meaning, gaining negative connotations, with the ''magos'' being regarded as a charlatan whose ritual practices were fraudulent, strange, unconventional, and dangerous.{{sfn|Otto|Stausberg|2013|p=16}} As noted by Davies, for the ancient Greeks—and subsequently for the ancient Romans—"magic was not distinct from religion but rather an unwelcome, improper expression of it—the religion of the other".{{sfn|Davies|2012|p=41}} The historian Richard Gordon suggested that for the ancient Greeks, being accused of practicing magic was "a form of insult".{{sfn|Gordon|1999|p=163}} [[Pliny the Elder]] seems to acknowledge that [[Magi]] are priests of a foreign religion, along the lines of the [[druid]]s of the [[Celts]] in Britain and Gaul.<ref>{{cite book|author= Pliny, the Elder|translator= H. Rackham|translator2= D. E. Eichholz|translator3= W. H. S. Jones|title=Natural History|location=London|publisher=Heinemann|date=1963}}</ref>

Connotations of magic have varied from positive to negative at times throughout history,{{sfn|Bailey|2018|pp=1-5}} Within [[Western culture]], magic has been linked to ideas of the [[Other (philosophy)|Other]],{{sfnm|1a1=Bogdan|1y=2012|1p=2|2a1=Graham|2y=2018|2p=255}} foreignness,{{sfn|Bailey|2018|p=89}} and primitivism;{{sfn|Davies|2012|p=1}} indicating that it is "a powerful marker of cultural difference"{{sfn|Styers|2004|p=14}} and likewise, a non-modern phenomenon.{{sfn|Styers|2004|p=8}} During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Western intellectuals perceived the practice of magic to be a sign of a primitive mentality and also commonly attributed it to marginalised groups of people.{{sfn|Styers|2004|p=14}}