Witchcraft & Heresy Lesson 6

2nd lesson and description here, Lesson 3, 4, and 5.

Original: As we have been consistently learning about, the distinguishing differences between natural magic and demonic magic as well as black and white magic, one must notice that these distinctions are almost contradictory. Contradictory, mostly from the perspective of the Church. Why define what makes “magic” good and what makes “magic” bad when the Church essentially believes that all magic is all bad. I am not saying that defining types of magic is worthless, but merely interesting and especially so when the Church did have a lot of influence during that time in which magic continued to grow. I see how defining types of magic is useful for studies today as we prefer to categorize and label things present and in history, however it does not necessarily seem useful in the Middle Ages where any practitioner will be frowned upon by the Church. Of course as magic becomes more widespread and more complicated then more complications arise as to what sort of punishments and degrees of punishments are to be enforced for specific types of magical practices. Magic is just so complex and difficult to prove as well as to catch one in the act of doing so, it seems so redundant to me. Well, that’s at least how I feel about the punishments in general; they’re inhumane as well as unnecessary. Just as one might view a person being arrested for practicing astrology today. Also similar to other punishments in the olden days for sexual intercourse as well as adultery, how does one convict one of that and how does one prove it? You can see the problems that could arise of accusing an innocent merely for revenge or any such reasons. This creates a bigger problem than what is already present.
Student response #1: I especially liked, as in the other responses stated, how you described what is probably the biggest difference between magic and religion as magic is a man’s work whereas religion is depending on a higher power. Magic is very much the manipulation of such natural or supernatural forces while religion is the devotion and submission to this higher power. You also brought up an interesting point in regards to Christian versus pagan beliefs. It is very interesting how Christian literature took upon pagan stories and changed and created different characters and such to Christianize pagan beliefs. It almost reminds me of some sort of form of commercialism, to gain favor of a larger group, to bring in more favor. And it is also worthy of note that the Church disregarded magic to such an extent yet eventually took in this magical literature.
Student response #2: You bring up several good points here. First, you describe how Christians view pagan magic versus how pagans view their own “magic.” This is excellent because it shows how this whole so called battle between magic and religion is merely differences in perspective, background, and opinions. I feel it is incredibly immoral to judge another group’s actions as wrong, bad, or evil only because it differs from your own. This is a perfect example of narrow-minded prejudice. If only acceptance of differences was practiced, there would be no wiping out of different cultural/religious/magical groups and practices. The other good point you made was the fact that many people of higher education had relatively more scientific magical practices.