On 6 March 2010 00:57, Noah Gardiner <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Some medieval Islamic thinkers seem to side with Khem on this issue, at
> least to some degree. Ibn Khaldun and Ibn al-Akfani, two 14th-c. Muslim
> thinkers who lived much of their lives in Cairo, discuss magic as an inborn
> ability peculiar to the 'soul' (nafs) of certain individuals.
innate ability seems to be assumed in the Greek 'goes'; his art,
'goetia' (which is named after the practitioner rather than the other
way round as is usual) is often negatively portrayed as trickery.
This is also a secondary meaning of techne (art, cunning artifice
etc.), and this term is certainly employed in ancient discussion of
magic in both a positive and negative sense.
This ability
> belongs only to some individuals, to greater and lesser degrees, and this
> natural ability must be intentionally developed through practice if it's to
> be used effectively.
as I understand it this is also the Greek view. So far as the 'goes'
is concerned this 'technology' comes with fundamental assumptions (as
opposed to secondary theorising, as say in later philosophical
systems). These assumptions are best described in brief as concerned
with eschatology (death, judgement, 'heaven' & 'hell').
Thus goetia is a spiritual technology; it is nevertheless distinct
from religion (which its presence influences in new directions), and
is only 'explained' after the fact by philosophy.
Such magic at its primal level - before religious and philosophical
explanations or theories obscure it - is a technique/technology that
specialists employ to effect eschatological outcomes (necromancy,
laying ghosts, guiding souls, inducing the dead to perform various
tasks etc.).
Incidentally 'Daemonic Astrology' is an outgrowth of these tendencies,
in Greek practice at least. It results from the relocation of the
afterlife into the sky (as in the Vision of Er etc.), perhaps under
'Chaldean' influence via Orphism.
Thus - despite the astrological basis apparent in later texts etc. -
the backbone of Western magic is goetic practice as defined above,
whose primary concerns are 'chthonic'.
ALWays
Jake
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