The Ancient Near East

1. Ancient Near East Daniel Schwemer 2. Ancient Egypt Friedhelm Hoffmann 3. Early Greco-Roman antiquity Kimberly B. Stratton 4. Imperial Rome Kyle A. Fraser 5. The early church Maijastina Kahlos 6. The early medieval west Yitzhak Hen 7. Magic in medieval Byzantium Alicia Walker 8. Magic, marvel, and miracle in early Islamic thought Travis Zadeh 9. Jewish magic in the Middle Ages Gideon Bohak 10. Common magic Catherine Rider 11. Learned magic David J. Collins, S.J. 12. Diabolic magic Michael D. Bailey 13. Magic and priestcraft: reformers and reformation Helen L. Parish 14. Spain and Mexico Louise Burkhart 15. Folk magic in North America Richard Godbeer 16. Colonial magic: the Dutch East Indies Margaret Wiener 17. Magic in common and legal perspectives Owen Davies 18. Elite magic in the nineteenth century David Allen Harvey 19. Magic in the postcolonial Americas Raquel Romberg 20. New-age and neo-pagan magic Sabina Magliocco.

The Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West: From Antiquity to the Present

Astrology is a science which has had an uncertain status throughout its history, from its beginnings in Greco-Roman Antiquity to the medieval Islamic world and Christian Europe which led to frequent debates about its validity and what kind of a place it should have, if any, in various cultures. Written in the second century A.D., Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos is not the earliest surviving text on astrology. However, the complex defense given in the Tetrabiblos will be treated as an important starting point because it changed the way astrology would be justified in Christian and Muslim works and the influence Ptolemy’s presentation had on later works represents a continuation of the method introduced in the Tetrabiblos. Abû Ma‘shar’s Kitâb al. Madkhal al-kabîr ilâ ‘ilm ahkâm al-nujûm, written in the ninth century, was the most thorough surviving defense from the Islamic world. Roger Bacon’s Opus maius, although not focused solely on advocating astrology, nevertheless, does contain a significant defense which has definite links to the works of both Abû Ma‘shar and Ptolemy. As such, he demonstrates another stage in the development of astrology. These three works together reveal the threads of a trend of a rationalized astrology separated from its mythical origins which began with Ptolemy and survived through both medieval Islam and medieval Europe. In the two examples of defending ii astrology I have used, Abû Ma‘shar and Roger Bacon, Ptolemy’s influence can be seen to have persisted from the second century through to the thirteenth, and the nature of the differences in their defenses illustrates the continuation and evolution of the tradition of defending astrology.

Strategies of Defending Astrology: A Continuing Tradition

The greater part of Western Esoterism holds beliefs in five important matrices. This branch of esoterism, rooted in a Hermetic milieu, is labelled dialectical esoterism because of the dialectical relationship between the ‘lower’ (man, earth) and the ‘higher’ (heaven, the divine, God). These five matrices are:

I: Purpose (pronoia), rather than karma or sin. 
II: The dialectical relationship between Man and God (or the divine), including the healing of other people, society and/or the Earth. 
III: The inter-dependency of Dualism and Monism, including the mind and/or the world as a stairway to heaven. 
IV: Scientific laws are synonymous with spiritual principles. 
V: The holistic cosmos, including the concept of ‘sympathy’ between its parts.

The aim of this thesis is to make clear that Western Esoterism is unique because of the presence of the five matrices and deals with both ‘beliefs’ (recognition) and ‘doing’ (religious practices, e.g. astrology, alchemy, magic and clairvoyance). As a consequence it is also demonstrated that foreign religious ideas and practices can be assimilated because they are transformed and hence adopt new meanings in order to fit the important USP of Western Esoterism.

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Western esoterism : Ultimate Sacred Postulates and Ritual Fields

This chapter approaches magic in the early church from two angles. In first, it examines the ways in which different groups of people performing rituals were depicted as practitioners of magic. In second, the discussion of Late Antique practices deemed to be magical focuses on the competition for spiritual authority between ritual experts. In the eyes of Graeco-Roman outsiders, Christian practices resembled widespread stereotypes of magic. Origen was a Christian apologist who addressed allegations of magic against Christians by reframing the terms. Celsus had accused Christians of attaining their powers by using the names of demons in their incantations. Christian writers connected magic with demons and designated Graeco-Roman cult practices as magic and asserted that they dealt with evil spirits. The association of magic with paganism and heresy in imperial legislation shows how the imperial government aimed at harnessing magic for various social, political and religious goals.

Frank Klaassen

Papers

Medieval ritual magic in the renaissance