When the term “Magic” is used you may think of Harry Potter, love-binding spells, secret rituals, or even stage magicians. But where does the term Magic come from? And what was its original meaning? Stay tuned if you want to find out.

Hello everyone, I’m Angela and welcome to my channel. Today we will talk about the birth of the term Magic. Where does the term Magic come from? Since they are Latin and ancient Greek terms I will pronounce them accordingly. I will leave all the spellings on the screen for those of you who are not familiar with Latin or ancient Greek.

According to Bremer, the oldest attestation of the word Magos occurs in a passage by the Philosopher Heraclitus, as referenced by Clement of Alexandria in the Protreptikos. Here Heraclitus is explaining who is the object of prophecies, ‘Those who wander in the night: Magi, bacchants, maenads, initiates.’ Therefore the term Mageia, meaning the activity of the Magus and Magic and magic in a loose sense, first appears in the first century BCE. We find it in “On the Sacred Disease” by Hippocrates and in Plato, among others. It often refers to the Persian Magoi including the famous Zoroaster. Afterwards, the term appears in a number of Greek tragedies including Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex” in most cases with the negative connotation of a charlatan.

The correlation between Magoi, Mageia, and Magic, therefore, first occurs in Greek tragedies and again mainly referenced to Persians. The term was later associated with purifiers and healers following an inferior theology and cosmology. Herodotus associates Magoi with Magic, describing them as interpreters of dreams, stars, and sorcerers.

To sum it up, in the Greek classical period Magic encompasses a number of practices such as purification, blood sacrifices, invocation of the dead, the writing of curse tablets and binding spells, the use of charms and drugs, as well as the fabrication of wax figurines. There are also broader claims attributed to Magicians like drawing down the moon, eclipsing the sun, and controlling the weather. In Empedocles, we also find the ability to resist the onset of old age and drawing back the life force of the dead. In tragedy, rhetoric, and early philosophy Magus is a term of abuse. Whereas historians[?] and Aristotelians take the Magi or the Magoi seriously. These two traditions converge in the fourth century when the later group fosters a distinction between the real Magi and the abusive interpretation of the first group. This doesn’t mean that from that moment on Magos, Mageia would become the preferred term to describe Magic and those who practice Magic. And that is because the Greeks already had a term for Magicians and Magic and this other term for Magic was góês, goêteia which was used in reference to magical endeavours. And this term remained in use alongside magus, Mageia. Since Mageia was associated with Persian practitioners, who pronounced their incantations in a foreign language and in whispers, this may have contributed to giving this term a more esoteric and mystical connotation since the Greeks used to use their own language and speak out loud.

Since Greek linguistic purists of the Roman period deemed góês, goêteia more Attic than magus, Mageia the latter never became popular in the later Greek culture. On the other hand, Romans did not have this prejudice at all and therefore, used Magia, Magicus and Magus, Maga much more frequently than the Greeks ever did. The increasing popularity of the term, generated by the Romans, allowed magic to become the preferred term to refer to magical practices and Magic, from that moment onwards. So much so that this was still the case in early modern Europe.

The term then came to be the English Magic through the old French magique, which derives from the Latin magicus. And there you have it. How the term Magic was born and introduced into the English language.

Hoped you enjoyed this brief overview on the birth of the term magic. Many more videos will come on the topic of Magic on this channel. So, if you are interested in the topic of Magic, subscribe to the channel and activate the notification bell so that you won’t miss anything out.

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REFERENCES

Bremmer, J. N. (1999) ‘The Birth of the Term “Magic”’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, vol. 126, pp. 1–12.

Collins, D. (2008) Magic in the Ancient Greek World, John Wiley & Sons.

Hoad, T. F. H. F. (2003) ‘Magic’, in Hoad, T. F. (ed), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford University Press [Online].

First uploaded 5 Oct 2019