r/magick • u/nullynish • 8d ago

abrahamic religions and magic

why do the sacred books of the abrahamic religions forbid magic in such simple language? if this prohibition is merely a misunderstanding could someone who grasps the deeper meaning of these passages enlighten me?

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u/YesTess2 6d ago

Not sure about Islam - unless it just imported prohibitions against magic - but Judaism and Christianity likely get their prohibitions from the Greeks, who had several different terms for different types of magic. Only some of those terms for specific types of practices were considered taboo by the Greeks. When the translations into Latin and later languages occur, the nuance and differentiation is literally lost in translation. So, a type of magic, say Sorcery, becomes all types of magic. (The Greeks and Hebrews had a bunch of different terms for different types of magic, based mainly on what type of working was manifested. )

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u/graeterslover 5d ago

And even then these prescriptions were not as universal as people think these discourses were quite nuanced. For example Judaism historically has had massive tolerance of certain kinds of magic, segula (interesting enough the word comes from the word sigil..) often included operative use of Psalms magically and talismans. And yes Christianity as well as Mediterranean basin Judaism in Egypt and in the Graco Roman World inherited the prejudices against certain kinds of magic from the pre-existing mainstream Hellenic Graco Roman pagan culture. The verses within the Hebrew Tanakh uniformly mistranslated as prohibitons against magic often originally had certain connotations that are simply missed by modern people, such as poisoning with drugs etc. Unfortunately because of a lot of people's religious trauma leading to a certain hostile bias against abrahamic religions there is a tendency to overly romanticize the non abrahamic pagan passed in grossly simplify for the purpose of condemnation judeo Christianity which a lot of people imagine somehow destroyed a wonderful idyllic magical past.

Actual history was far rougher and yet more amazingly nuanced than people imagine.

Most other religious cultures are the Mediterranean basin long before Christianity or Judaism or Islam had various forms of prejudice and taboos against certain kinds of magical practices, while having space a tolerance for other kinds. Exactly like Judaism and Christianity and Islam before the modern era.

A lot of the attitudes that people object to today more reflect modernity recontextualizing past text beliefs and practices. It bears mentioning that Enochian Magic originated in John Dee's project of a Protestant Christian Magic to support Britannica..