Scared Magic And Necromancy Case Study

Scared magic and necromancy at first glance seem like polar opposites; with closer inspection you will start to see many similarities. Socially speaking they were quite different. In a ritualistic manner they were very similar. The social pressure from the church, and who was providing the information about the magic is what mainly defined these types of magic as different.

Magic originated with paganism, which was a pantheism view; they believed in more than one god. When the Christian church took over paganism they deemed all there practices and rituals to be satanic and that they used demons. The church had a monotheism view; they believed in only one god. The threat to the church was the notion of gnosis; that an initiate could unveil the

They turned their demons into angels and made the pagan rituals their own. From then on, paganism was associated with demons and necromancy, which used the dead and/or blood sacrifice for magic. Because of this the church outlawed magic for a period of time, unless conducted by holy men. Any academics at this point had to be careful about how they talked about magic. For instances, Roger Bacon would talk about magic as Art (Bacon, Concerning the Marvelous Power of Art & Nature & Concerning the Nullity of Magic, 41) to avoid any troubles from the church. Bacon was trying to resurrect the occult virtues in magic but had to avoid saying magic because it was related to necromancy or black magic. He talked of a natural magic with occult virtues of how materials promoted growth or healing. Anything that used magic out of this context was deemed demonic and not to be trusted; that the power came from demons. Magical symbols were frequently used in necromancy and magic. However, Bacon rejected the notion of magic symbols because he believed they were communicating with demons but supported the idea of nature being more powerful with the help of art (magic). Bacon was trying to remove the

Given he had noble linage and was able to talk more freely about what he thinks magic is because he was not under the churches thumb per-se. Pico studied many old doctrines and claimed to have found a hidden truth within them, most notably the Cabala. He claimed that an adept initiated into the occult science would acquire gnosis and the secret messages in the doctrines would appear for them. Once again the threat of gnosis is taken as a threat by the church. However, from this notion, Pico intertwined the Cabala traditions into Christianity. Pico claimed that the Cabala provides proof of Christ because of the holy names within it (Pico, Thesis 9.9; Thesis 11.7). Pico believed in magic and wrote about it openly. He believed that all doctrines point to the same truth, a pantheism point of view. However, Pico still had to present his theories along the lines of the Christian church. Pico claimed that the divine (Hebrew) name IHVH in the Cabala protected the magician from the demonic forces because it also related back to Jesus (Pico, Thesis 11.7). Pico is saying that you can use the Cabala to do magic without worrying that you are calling upon demons because it uses the power of Jesus to protect you. However, if you are not well versed in the Cabala and do not have pure intentions you would be destroyed by the kiss of death (Pico, Thesis 11.13). Because of this Pico supported the use of symbols in magic because he was protected. Agrippa believed the