THE PRACTICE OF MAGIC

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Magic was practiced through the use of wands,

 "medicine" ritual, and incantations, and it was customary for the practitioner to work unclothed. Women outnumbered the men among primitive magicians. In magic, "medicine" means mystery, not treatment. The savage never doctored himself; he never used medicines except on the advice of the specialists in magic. And the voodoo doctors of the twentieth century are typical of the magicians of old.
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 There was both a public and a private phase to magic.

 That performed by the medicine man, shaman, or priest was supposed to be for the good of the whole tribe. Witches, sorcerers, and wizards dispensed private magic, personal and selfish magic which was employed as a coercive method of bringing evil on one's enemies. The concept of dual spiritism, good and bad spirits, gave rise to the later beliefs in white and black magic. And as religion evolved, magic was the term applied to spirit operations outside one's own cult, and it also referred to older ghost beliefs.
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 Word combinations, the ritual of chants and incantations,

 were highly magical. Some early incantations finally evolved into prayers. Presently, imitative magic was practiced; prayers were acted out; magical dances were nothing but dramatic prayers. Prayer gradually displaced magic as the associate of sacrifice.

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 Gesture, being older than speech, was the more holy

 and magical, and mimicry was believed to have strong magical power. The red men often staged a buffalo dance in which one of their number would play the part of a buffalo and, in being caught, would insure the success of the impending hunt.
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The sex festivities of May Day were simply imitative magic, a suggestive appeal to the sex passions of the plant world. The doll was first employed as a magic talisman by the barren wife.
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 Magic was the branch off the evolutionary religious tree

 which eventually bore the fruit of a scientific age. Belief in astrology led to the development of astronomy; belief in a philosopher's stone led to the mastery of metals, while belief in magic numbers founded the science of mathematics.
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 But a world so filled with charms did much to destroy all personal ambition and initiative. The fruits of extra labor or of diligence were looked upon as magical. If a man had more grain in his field than his neighbor, he might be haled before the chief and charged with enticing this extra grain from the indolent neighbor's field. Indeed, in the days of barbarism it was dangerous to know very much; there was always the chance of being executed as a black artist.

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Gradually science is removing the gambling element from life. But if modern methods of education should fail, there would be an almost immediate reversion to the primitive beliefs in magic. These superstitions still linger in the minds of many so-called civilized people. Language contains many fossils which testify that the race has long been steeped in magical superstition, such words as spellbound, ill-starred, possessions, inspiration, spirit away, ingenuity, entrancing, thunderstruck, and astonished. And intelligent human beings still believe in good luck, evil eye, and astrology.
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 Ancient magic was the cocoon of modern science,

 indispensable in its time but now no longer useful. And so the phantasms of ignorant superstition agitated the primitive minds of men until the concepts of science could be born. Today, Urantia is in the twilight zone of this intellectual evolution. One half the world is grasping eagerly for the light of truth and the facts of scientific discovery, while the other half languishes in the arms of ancient superstition and but thinly disguised magic.

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From THE URANTIA BOOK
Part III, 88, 9
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[It should be noted that THE URANTIA BOOK
was revealed in the first half of the last century.
The status of the belief in magic in the 21st century
can be only conjecture.]
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ASTROLOGERS, SHAMANS, PRIESTS, SEERS, WIZARDS & WITCHES

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Spirit conjuring was a very precise and

highly complicated procedure, comparable to

present-day church rituals conducted in an

ancient tongue. The human race very early sought

for superhuman help, for revelation; and men believed

that the shaman actually received such revelations.

While the shamans utilized the great power of

suggestion in their work, it was almost invariably

negative suggestion; only in very recent times

has the technique of positive suggestion been

employed. In the early development of their

profession the shamans began to specialize in such

vocations as rain making, disease healing, and

crime detecting. To heal diseases was not,

however,the chief function of a shamanic

medicine man; it was, rather, to know

and to control the hazards of living.

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Ancient black art, both religious and secular,

was called white art when practiced by either

priests, seers, shamans, or medicine men.

The practitioners of the black art were called

sorcerers, magicians, wizards, witches, enchanters,

necromancers, conjurers, and soothsayers.

As time passed, all such purported contact

with the supernatural was classified either

as witchcraft or shamancraft.

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Witchcraft embraced the magic performed

by earlier, irregular, and unrecognized spirits;

shamancraft had to do with miracles performed

by regular spirits and recognized gods of the tribe.

In later times the witch became associated with

the devil, and thus was the stage set for the many

comparatively recent exhibitions of religious

intolerance. Witchcraft was a religion with

many primitive tribes.

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The shamans were great believers in the

mission of chance as revelatory of the will

of the spirits; they frequently cast lots to

arrive at decisions. Modern survivals of this

proclivity for casting lots are illustrated,

not only in the many games of chance,

but also in the well-known "counting-out"

rhymes. Once, the person counted out must die;

now, he is only it in some childish game.

That which was serious business to primitive man

has survived as a diversion of the modern child.

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The medicine men put great trust in signs and omens,

such as, "When you hear the sound of a rustling

in the tops of the mulberry trees, then shall you

bestir yourself." Very early in the history of the race

the shamans turned their attention to the stars.

Primitive astrology was a world-wide

belief and practice;

dream interpreting also became widespread.

All this was soon followed by the appearance of

those temperamental shamanesses who professed to

be able to communicate with the spirits of the dead.

.Though of ancient origin, the rain makers,

or weather shamans, have persisted right on down

through the ages. A severe drought meant death

to the early agriculturists; weather control

was the object of much ancient magic.

Civilized man still makes the weather the common

topic of conversation. The olden peoples all believed

in the power of the shaman as a rain maker,

but it was customary to kill him when he failed,

unless he could offer a plausible excuse

to account for the failure.

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Again and again did the Caesars banish

the astrologers, but they invariably returned because

of the popular belief in their powers.

They could not be driven out, and even in

the sixteenth century after Christ the directors

of Occidental church and state were

the patrons of astrology.

Thousands of supposedly intelligent people

still believe that one may be born under the

domination of a lucky or an unlucky star;

that the juxtaposition of the heavenly bodies

determines the outcome of various terrestrial

adventures. Fortunetellers are still patronized

by the credulous.

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The Greeks believed in the efficacy of oracular advice,

the Chinese used magic as protection against demons,

shamanism flourished in India,

and it still openly persists in central Asia.

It is an only recently abandoned practice

throughout much of the world.

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Ever and anon, true prophets and teachers arose

to denounce and expose shamanism. Even the vanishing

red man had such a prophet within the past hundred

years, the Shawnee Tenskwatawa, who predicted

the eclipse of the sun in 1808 and denounced

the vices of the white man.
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Many true teachers have appeared among the

various tribes and races all through the long ages

of evolutionary history. And they will ever continue to

appear to challenge the shamans or priests of any age

who oppose general education and attempt

to thwart scientific progress.

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In many ways and by devious methods the

olden shamans established their reputations as

voices of God and custodians of providence.

They sprinkled the newborn with water and conferred

names upon them; they circumcised the males.

They presided over all burial ceremonies and made

due announcement of the safe arrival

of the dead in spiritland.

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The shamanic priests and medicine men

often became very wealthy through the accretion

of their various fees which were ostensibly offerings

to the spirits. Not infrequently a shaman would

accumulate practically all the material wealth

of his tribe.
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Upon the death of a wealthy man it was customary

to divide his property equally with the shaman

and some public enterprise or charity.

This practice still obtains in some parts of Tibet,

where one half the male population belongs to

this class of nonproducers.
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The shamans dressed well and usually had

a number of wives; they were the original aristocracy,

being exempt from all tribal restrictions.

They were very often of low-grade mind and morals.

They suppressed their rivals by denominating them

witches or sorcerers and very frequently rose to

such positions of influence and power that they

were able to dominate the chiefs or kings.

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Primitive man regarded the shaman as

a necessary evil; he feared him but did not love him.

Early man respected knowledge; he honored and

rewarded wisdom. The shaman was mostly fraud,

but the veneration for shamanism well illustrates

the premium put upon wisdom in

the evolution of the race.

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THE URANTIA BOOK, III, 90, 2
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