The Greco- Roman tradition held that magicians possessed arcane or secret knowledge and the ability to channel power from or through any of the polytheistic deities, spirits, or ancestors of the ancient pantheons. The concept has been used in association with divergent practices such as folk medicine, divination, palmistry, necromancy (communication with the dead), astrology, alchemy, spiritualism, occultism (the study of hidden or paranormal things), illusionism, neo-paganism (the worship of natural forces, often modelled after ancient religions), and New Age spirituality.

It has been persuasively argued (Tambiah 1990: 12-5) that evolutionistic ideas of magic as distinct from and inferior to religion were likely fuelled by Protestantism’s deep dislike of occult practices and Biblical characterizations of magic as diabolical. Making ‘science’ from ‘superstition’: attitudes to knowledge legitimacy among contemporary Yijing diviners.

Azande witchcraft theory thus inhibited socially disruptive behaviours, thereby strengthening the stability of what Evans-Pritchard saw as a social system. The latter group encompassed novel professional figures as diverse as besuited stage illusionists, proponents of a disenchanted version of magic as pure entertainment and skill, and erudite scholars of ‘native trickery’: early anthropologists (Jones 2017).

Caldwell embraced hip hop as much as hip hop embraced him – What You Won’t Do for Love became Do for Love by Tupac. Some of their ideas are still compelling and they are frequently referenced by contemporary occultists themselves. Given their history of having almost everything looted and their cultures debased or dismissively ridiculed, Black people in particular feel an understandable sting at cultural appropriation. Also in the high Middle Ages the demonization of Muslims and Jews contributed to the suspicion of the "other. Scholars in the turn-of-the-century French sociological tradition came up with yet different reasons to push magic to the margins of spiritual life.As people from Latin America, to central Africa, to Mongolia, to the US and Europe become engulfed in urbanization, capitalist markets, and dreams of social mobility, ideas about the occult gain currency. As Greenwood put it, while participating in magical consciousness, the question of belief in the ‘real’ existence of spiritual forces and beings frequently becomes ‘irrelevant’ (2014: 203). Down on his luck, his mother suggested he approach Henry Stone’s TK Records, a Miami-based independent powerhouse best known for cultivating the rise of disco with genre-defining hits such as Rock Your Baby by George McCrae (which topped charts in the UK, the US and across Europe), Ring My Bell by Anita Ward (another massive No 1 in Britain and the US), and an avalanche of hit records by KC and the Sunshine Band. In such a re-enchanted world, many practitioners take ‘occulture’ – an eclectic milieu mixing esotericism, pop culture, and urban mysticism – to be perfectly compatible with logical thinking and a sensible outlook on life.

most facts are also ‘injected’ as top level variables preserving the ansible_ prefix, but some are dropped due to conflicts. Drawing Down the Moon is the richest and most thoughtful investigation into the magic of the ancient Greco-Roman world currently available. However, magic offered a framework to explain why something happened to a particular person and not someone else.

There is also evidence of courtly interest in magic, particularly that involving automatons and gemstones. It is impossible to omit the role of anthropology itself in construing the idea of magic that was to become dominant in the modern era. In the scholarly sense of the word, magic is a continuum of practices that run from small-scale informal ritual acts to large-scale events in sacred buildings, both inside and outside of sanctioned religions.