Jake Stratton-Kent doth schreibble :
>
> 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.
The words Magos and Goes are also related through
their connotations of trickery and jugglery. Gorgias
( c. 480 - c. 375 ) uses the terms interchangeably
when he writes of charms crafted by the Goeteia and
the Mageia that give pleasure or remove pain in his
/Helen/, asserting that they both use techniques to
influence the soul and deceive the mind.
Magic and machines share exactly the same ambiguity,
the idea of a trick or a counterfeit, of machination
and scheming, of ingenious engines and cunning devices :
*Machine*
1549, "structure of any kind," from Middle French
machine "device, contrivance," from Latin machina
"machine, engine, fabric, frame, device, trick"
(cf. Spanish maquina, Italian macchina), from Greek
makhana, Doric variant of mekhane "device, means,"
related to mekhos "means, expedient, contrivance,"
from the ProtoIndoEuropean *maghana- "that which
enables," from base *magh- "to be able, have power"
(cf. Old Church Slavonic mogo "be able," Old English
mæg "I can;" see /might/).
Main modern sense of "device made of moving parts
for applying mechanical power" (1673) probably grew
out of 17c. senses of "apparatus, appliance" (1650)
and "military siege-tower" (1656).
Machinery (1687) was originally theatrical, "devices
for creating stage effects;" meaning "machines
collectively" is attested from 1731.
~ from :
*Etymology Online Dictionary*
http://tinyurl.com/nbqvcr
Entry : magh-
Definition : To be able, to have power.
Derivatives include dismay, might1, machine,
and magic.
1a. may1, from Old English magan, to be able;
b. dismay, from Old French esmaier, to frighten.
Both a and b from Germanic *magan, to be able.
2. might1, from Old English miht, power, from
Germanic suffixed form *mah-ti-, power.
3. main, from Old English mægen, power, from
Germanic suffixed form *mag-inam, power.
4. Suffixed lengthened-grade form *mgh-an-,
"that which enables."
machine, mechanic, mechanism, mechano-,
from Greek (Attic) mkhan, (Doric) mkhan,
device.
5. Possibly suffixed form *magh-u-. magic,
magus, from Old Persian magu, member
of a priestly caste (< "mighty one").
(Pokorny magh- 695.)
~ from :
*The American Heritage Dictionary of the*
*English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.*
Appendix I
Indo-European Roots
http://tinyurl.com/mm8dcl
*Engine*
c.1300, from Old French engin "skill, cleverness,"
also "war machine," from Latin ingenium
"inborn qualities, talent," from in- "in" + gen-,
root of gignere "to beget, produce."
At first meaning a trick or device, or any
machine (especially military); sense of one
that converts energy to mechanical power is
18c., especially of steam engines.
~ from :
*Etymology Online Dictionary*
http://tinyurl.com/kkaeu4
*Ingenious*
1483, "intellectual, talented," from Middle
French ingénieux "clever, ingenious" (Old
French engeignos), from Latin ingeniosus
"of good capacity, gifted with genius," from
ingenium "innate qualities, ability," literally
"that which is inborn," from in- "in" +
gignere, from ProtoIndoEuropean *gen-
"produce."
Sense of "skillful, clever" first recorded
1548.
~ from :
*Etymology Online Dictionary*
http://tinyurl.com/kp9j3m
" The words engine and engineer (as well as
ingenious) developed in parallel from the
Latin root ingeniosus, meaning "skilled".
An engineer is thus a clever, practical,
problem solver. "
~ from :
*Etymology of Engineering*
http://tinyurl.com/lhebx3
" The word engine obviously comes from
the Latin ingenium (from /in/ and
/gigno/, /genui/, to produce), which
signifies primarily the innate natural
quality of a thing, then of a person,
the natural capacity or disposition,
and very soon in Latin even, talents,
abilities, and especially the faculty
of invention, genius, and wit; and so
an engine signifies properly a machine
or other means skillfully adapted to
effect a purpose, and an engineer is
one skilled in constructing engines
or devising plans. "
~ from :
*Significant Etymology*
*or, Roots, Stems, and Branches*
*of the English Language*
by James Mitchell
http://tinyurl.com/lafaqg
"Having observed the forces of all things
natural and celestial and having examined
by painstaking investigation the sympathy
among those things, we bring into the open
powers hidden and stored away in nature;
thus magic links lower things (as if they
were magical *enticements* (note connection
between a *gin/snare/trap* and an *engine*,
and see also Giordano Bruno's *De Vinculus* )
to the gifts of higher things... so that
astonishing miracles thereby occur, not so
much as by art as by nature to which - as
nature works these wonders - this art of
magic offers herself as handmaiden."
~ Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa
"Nature is a magician, as Plotinus and
Synesius say, everywhere baiting *traps* with
particular foods for particular objects...
The farmer prepares his field and seeds for
gifts from heaven and uses various grafts
to prolong life in his plant and change it
to a new and better species. The physician,
the scientist and the surgeon bring about
similar effects in our bodies...
The philosopher, who is learned in natural
science and astronomy and whom we are
wont rightly to call a magician, likewise
implants heavenly things in earthly objects
by means of certain alluring charms used
at the right moment."
~ Marsilio Ficino.
> 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.).
According to Matthew Dickie, there is no evidence
that /goetes/ originally had anything to do with
calling up the dead - see his *Magic and Magicians*
*in the Greco-Roman World.*
Cors in Manu Domine,
~ Khem Caigan
<[log in to unmask]>
" Heat and Moisture are Active to Generation;
Cold and Dryness are Passive, in and to each Thing;
Fire and Air, Active by Elementation;
Water and Earth, Passive to Generation. "
~ Simon Forman, *Of the Division of Chaos*
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