I. Abstract

Christian magic is a tradition that employs deified Christian figures (Mary, the apostles, saints, and important figures) to allow a personal relationship with the Divine in the Roman Catholic Church and older Christian traditions. Additionally, it incorporates a number of other religions’ themes, gods, and traditions into its own system. It may also utilize spells, incantations, amulets, rituals, and other occult practices to call upon divine forces for intervention in the affairs of the world. Christian magic has arguably been around as long as Christianity itself, and continues to be a part of some belief systems in the modern world.

II. Scope and Purpose of the System

Magic, in a Christian context, is most easily defined as an unorganized system of religious belief and practice that allows individuals to receive or invoke divine intervention without the help of a clergy member. Christian magic incorporates many different rites, rituals, and ceremonies into a single tradition. However, the participants in these traditions may be wholly unaware of the existence of parallel forms of magic in other cultures.

Those who practice a form of Christian magic use it as a form of self-help. It acts as a personal conduit to ask assistance from holy Christian figures such as Jesus Christ, Mary, various apostles or saints, and God. However, this tradition is especially marked by its incorporation of other religion’s deities into its prayers. Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Jewish, and local pagan gods and customs are often included. Those who use one of these systems might be praying for any number of reasons including: healing of an ailment or an affliction, divine protection against enemies, sexual vigor, or personal prosperity.[1] However, not all prayers and actions were for positive results. Many charms and spells were curses aimed at doing harm to enemies ranging from curses against a woman’s face, to a curse to make a man tongue-tied, to a curse to bring seventy diseases upon person.[2]

Both wealthy and poor people may have made use of magic. However, in more modern times it is most often associated with the uneducated. Before the Reformation and the addition of non-Latin masses, parishioners might not have understood the worship ceremony or the reasons behind it. This fact might have led the less-educated portion of the population to turn to a more personal source for divine understanding. Those who believed in and comprehended Biblical texts would often be skeptical of the techniques of Christian magic or condemn them outright as blasphemous.

III. Authority Structure

A. Sources and Criteria of Valid Knowledge:

Christian magic, or “Christian ritual power” as Meyer and Smith term it, is founded in a complex belief structure, owing both to the Judeo-Christian biblical texts and Roman Catholic hierarchy, as well as localized traditions, pagan customs, and earlier religious beliefs.[3] This amalgamation of different belief structures does not have a single source from which it can draw its practices. Rather, it accepts the supreme authority of the Christian god, but incorporates different (and often different from each other) hierarchies not acknowledged or supported by the Christian Church. Those practicing Christian magic might pray to both pagan deities and Christian figures. For instance, one such incantation from Cologne during the seventh century attempts to cure fever by invoking Jesus Christ, the Greek God Apollo, and the Egyptian God Horus at the same time.[4] Thus, one can say that every religious text in the known world might be incorporated into some facet of Christian magic. Any deity and any tradition, as long as it carried some authority with the person speaking the incantation or designing the amulet might be invoked.

Texts, scriptures, and books were compiled describing and explaining these rituals. For instance, in Egypt during the seventh century, collections were written down on papyrus, such as the Great Magical Papyrus of Paris and the Old Coptic Schmidt Papyrus (names later given to the texts). These works and many others like them were based on Christian ideas and other religious traditions, yet later became sources of authority by themselves. During the middle ages and the post-Reformation period, many new and falsified texts appeared and some of these gained a measure of legitimacy as well.

B. Methods of Inquiry

It was customary for people interested in the practical application of Christian magic to consult a specialist. Many of these practitioners functioned both as local physicians and as magical wise men. Since there was no system of accreditation measuring a person’s qualifications, the techniques and spells varied from place to place and from person to person. Those interested in becoming truly knowledgeable about the art of Christian magic would have had to apprentice a person with a working knowledge of spells, incantations, amulet making, and curses.

Since the only proof for its success or failure as a method are personal accounts (many times unverifiable), the idea of Christian magic currently falls under the realm of the occult to many people. However, in the past, sufficient proof would have been derived from an individual’s experience. After visiting the practitioner, one might be given a prayer to read or an amulet to wear that was designed to solve one’s problem. For instance, amulets could be contrived to hold sacred words or patterns of words (many of these do not have any definition and are used in the manner that Hindu rituals may harness the power of a mantra such as “Om”). One such example is an amulet to heal a person named Ahmed from fevers, the evil eye, and other general problems. After an incantation of mantra-like words, the practitioner desired to invoke the Christian angels to “bring out the cold and the slight chill and the evil eyes and the mania and the crying from Ahmed son of Mariam, at the moment that he wears you…at once.”[5] As with many traditions, if the “prescription” worked, the talisman was said to be effective. If it did not, the error in its use lay with the client.

C. Institutions and Professional Structure

Christian magic is an independent tradition. Those who participated in and administered it had private control over their own establishments. Although it draws its source of power from other religions and customs with rigid hierarchies, the most complete institution would be that of the master and apprentice. Particularly well-regarded practitioners might have had an advantage in a city, but this was not the case in more rural areas, where the town could only support one or two such men. Although there were many people who knew about tiny portions of Christian magic, their limited knowledge would have paled in comparison to skilled practitioners.

The Catholic Church was vehemently opposed to the use of “magic” or witchcraft by laypersons, or those not part of the Church’s formal group of clergy. However, the Church’s argument against its practice was muddled by contradictions. The Roman Catholic clergy performed regular rituals at worship services where laymen would witness sacraments being performed that invoked God to perform small miracles. The fact that the church could perform “magical” looking rituals on behalf of some people led many to believe that these unendorsed rituals were likewise powerful. Further, the Church could neither stop the use of Christian magic due to its unwillingness to discredit its own practices, nor find a way to discourage its use without admitting the validity of the exercise.

IV. History

The dominance of the Roman Catholic Church over other potential centers of Christianity was both a function of who started it and where it was located. The predominance of the Apostle Peter in the New Testament and the power of Rome during the beginning of the common era gave the Roman Catholic church a distinctive air of authority over many other Christian sects vying for supremacy (Peter’s church relocated from Jerusalem to Rome between 36 C.E. and 65 C.E.). Among the churches set up in the early fragmented days of Christianity, the Church of Rome emerged as the center of western Christian thought.

The Roman Catholic Church embraced seven sacraments, many of them potentially magical in nature.[6] The rites of baptism, confirmation, extreme unction, Mass, ordination, penance, and marriage were often considered magical in their application. For instance, during a baptism, a certain ceremony and prayer was performed to exorcise the child of any demonic spirits arising from the sin of conception and childbirth. Another instance of perceived magic took place at a Catholic Mass. One would partake in communion and receive bread and wine, which they believed would transubstantiate into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. According to many Christians during the period of the Reformation, these practices were merely superstitious. That is, the acts and ceremonies were meaningless or were in fact flouting God’s law and essential nature. One of Martin Luther’s largest contentions was that during Latin ceremonies, the scriptures and acts sounded much like magical incantations.

Another facet of Roman Catholic belief was veneration for saints.[7] The church defines a saint as a person who has been particularly holy in life, and after death retains a privileged position in heaven. This tradition allows that Catholics may pray to and ask assistance from those the Catholic Church deemed as saints. Many Catholics believed that the piety of a saint might be harnessed through use of a talisman. Catholics would carry around amulets or holy “relics” said to be imbued with the spirit and power of a particular saint. This power would be transferred to them through their possession of the blessed scripture or artifact. Individual churches would have patron saints and encourage the worship of a particular saint on his or her specific holy day. For instance, during Medieval times, English villages would often have a representation of Saint Christopher that would “offer a day’s preservation from illness or death to all those who looked upon it”.[8]

Protestant movements, the Lollards, and other reformist groups saw the veneration of saints as not only against God’s law, but also as a form of supernatural conjuration. They did not believe that it was possible to transmit God’s power into everyday objects. In fact, some Puritan groups believed that the use of saintly artifacts was nothing more than witchcraft.

Originally, the Catholic Church did not view the idea of Christian magic as heretical. It embraced practices like churching, whereby a woman was kept indoors, dressed in white on white linen, and prevented from looking at the ground after she had given birth. This was to prevent her impurities from corrupting the world around her.[9] Members of the clergy derived special benefits from being a link between Earth and Heaven and during the medieval period.

Today, many of these magical practices are considered antiquated, ineffective, or blasphemous to numerous sects of Christianity. However, a large number still believe that these practices and ideas are genuine and beneficial. For instance, although the Catholic Church believes in transubstantiation, most Protestant sects do not. The Roman Catholic Church has made modifications to their ritual since Reformation times, incorporating many reformist ideas (non-Latin Mass, removal of extreme unction, an end to churching, etc.).

V. Representative Examples of Argumentation

Many texts, artifacts, and relics have been preserved, providing a relatively accurate picture of Christian magic over the last two millennia. These sources show a tradition marked by a concoction of beliefs. Pre-Christian, foreign, Christian, and occult ideas were all amalgamated into new religious systems. These traditions were open-minded in the sense that they were inclusive of all religious approaches to achieve a particular purpose. One such combination of traditions was the incorporation of Christian saint veneration into the tradition of Egyptian Oracle prophecy, whereby one would ask the oracle an “if” or “if not” question:

O God almighty, holy, truthful, lover of humanity and creator, O Father of the Lord and savior Jesus Christ, reveal to me the truth in you: If you wish me to go up to Chiout or do I find that you are with me as helper and benefactor. Let it be so. Amen![10]

This text demonstrates a desire by the participant to reach Christian spiritual figures through an old Egyptian practice. Christian magic appropriates other traditions and sees each method as just another conduit by which a believer can communicate with true deities. Another example of this was found in prayers of the Christian cult of Theotokos: “For this reason we now call the Holy Virgin Mary, ‘Theotokos’…She is the bridal chamber in which the Logos wedded the flesh”.[11] Platonic thought was incorporated into Christian rhetoric.

These cases are just a few of the many texts and amulets that have survived until the modern day. They provide great insight into this tradition and into the variety of the religions woven into Christian magic. Christian magic had the potential to gain a large following because nearly all of the world’s religious concepts were readily accepted. It provided an umbrella faith for older religions where people could still keep their conventions, practices, and rituals and yet still accept Christianity.

VI. Suggested Position in Comparative Scales

A. Relative Emphasis on Traditional Authority (1) or the Testimony of Experience (10): 9

This system of knowledge is understood through apprenticeship and personal experience. There is no traditional authority to determine right from wrong. The practitioner may copy techniques from another practitioner, but that person does not have any authority either (except perhaps popularity).

B. Relative Centralization of Authority (1) or Decentralization (10): 9

There is not any established authority for this magical art. Although, it derived its authority from the Catholic Church at one time, it is mostly practiced in a decentralized and individual environment. Practitioners determine what texts they will use, what methods they use to achieve a result, and where to practice.

C. Relative Emphasis on the Invisible Realities (1) or Material Earthy Realities (10): 8

The main purpose for visiting one of these practitioners and asking for their help in communicating with God is to invoke divine intervention in the Earthly world. Although people might also have requested spiritual forgiveness, they were attempting to use God’s power to receive help in some form, whether it be for healing or a curse.

D. Mainly Spiritual or Moral Objectives (1) or Pragmatic Aims: 8

For the most part, people had pragmatic aims in their use of Christian Magic. They wished to heal an ailment or put a curse on a person, or ask for help in love. However, occasionally spells were designed to provide for prosperity in the afterlife, an overlap with accepted Christian practices.

E. Most Power or Agency Reserved for a Divine Being (1) or Realizable in Individuals (10): 9

Individuals who mastered the techniques of Christian magic could ask for divine assistance, create object with divine power for personal use, or invoke a deity at any time. It was a very personal tradition that emphasized individual prayer, unlike collective prayer in the Church.

Bibliography

Primary Sources:

Meyer, Marvin and Richard Smith. Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power. HarperCollins Publishers: San Francisco. 1994.

This book offers a number of translated Coptic texts and prayers. This valuable book illustrated the wide variety of prayers and amulets used in Egypt. It also provided excellent examples of blended traditions (Greek, Egyptian, Christian, Jewish, etc.)

Valantasis, Richard. Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ. 2000.

This is a comprehensive book with translations from a large variety of religious texts. It includes several translated pieces from Christian traditions.

Secondary Sources:

Howes, Michael. Amulets. Robert Hale & Company: London. 1975.

This book describes the use of amulets in many cultures. Several chapters are devoted to the use of amulets in Christianity during the Middle Ages.

Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic. Oxford University Press: New York. 1971.

Thomas is one of the best scholars on Christian magic and this book describes many components of the tradition. It offers a copious amount of examples, especially of magical practices within the Catholic Church.

[1] Meyer, Marvin and Richard Smith. Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power. HarperCollins Publishers: San Francisco. 1994. 79,105, 147, 233.

[6] Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic. Oxford University Press: New York. 1971.33.

[10] David Frankfurter. Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ. 2000. 469-471.

[11] Vasiliki Limberis. Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ. 2000. 469-471.