Historically, however, there is no evidence as to which had precedence. In the most ancient times both Egypt and Mesopotamia had devel oped, together with complex mythologies, elabo rate systems of magical practice. All such prac tices fall into three main divisions: Sympathetic magic, including most that passes for witchcraft. sorcery. enchantment. and healing magic: divina tion. including astrology, clairvoyance. necro mancy, and the ninny forms of the reading of signs; and wonder-working, or thaumaturgy jugglery, enchantment and demon control, mira cles. From remote times all of these forms were present, hut in general the Persian and Medean Magi appear to have excelled in the first. as did the eh:tithe:ins in astrology and the Egyptians in thaumaturgy. In each country, as is the case among savages, the magician was also physician and priest. The practice of magic was primarily religious, hut it also embodied whatever scientific knowledge the age possessed. Thus, especially in magic aimed to cure disease, there were many rites and ceremonies to be performed, all thought to be of a religious nature, but often including the administration of a healing drug or other beneficial treatment. At the same time there were formuhe for exorcising the demon of disease, which priest as well as layman rigidly believed to be essential to the cure. On the other hand, there were many deceptive tricks, especially among the Egyptians and classic peoples, made possible by the possession of rudimentary knowledge of phys ics and chemistry or by legerdemain and other forms of juggling. Such were the apparitions of gods and demons produced by the use of con cave mirrors: such were the speaking statues and many of the oracles; such, very likely, the tricks of the priests who measured arms with Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh.
Both in Egypt and Mesopotamia the purposes of magic were as manifold as the happenings of human life. In Egypt have been discovered hurt ffreds of magical recipes ranging from invoca tions of divinities and lures for happiness. friends and fortune, to spells for causing gold to rust, for separating man and wife, and for murdering by occasioning sleepless nights until the victim dies. Indeed, the Egyptians were not content to limit their maple to this world; the famous "Ritual of the Dead" is a series of incantations supposed to carry the soul safely through the perils of under-world journeying.
Chaldxan incantations abound in passages showing the many kinds of baneful magic feared by the Mesopotamians, which the incantations were designed. of course. to ward off. These are often long and monotonously exact enumerations, it being essential that the language of the spell should leave no loophole for unincluded ills or demons. Thus: "The wizard has charmed me with the charm, has charmed me with his charm: the witch has charmed me with the charm, has charmed me with her charm; the sorcerer has bewitched me with the spell, has bewitched me with his spell; the sorceress has bewitched me with the spell, has bewitched me with her spell; he who enchants images has charmed away my life by an image: he has taken the enchanted philter, and has soiled my life with it, he has torn my garment and dragged it in the dust of my feet. May the god Fire, the hero, dispel their enchantments." ( Lenormant.) Amulets and talismans were used in great pro fusion by all ancient peoples. sometimes carved in the form of protecting divinities, sometimes engraved with magical inscriptions. and usually
ceremonially prepared according to minute speei fications. They were either of general value, as when wearing of a magic ring procured prosper ity; or of specific usefulness, as when an image of a certain demon was applied to a part of the body, supposed to he suffering from that demon, to effect a cure. Frequently they were designed as protection from the evil eye. which all ancient peoples believed to be peculiarly sinister. and for this purpose they were often made in imi tation of eyes. Especially in later antiquity certain semi-seientific designs were conceived to possess magical powers. Thus the pentagram, probably adopted first by the Pythagoreans as a sign of fellowship and to commemorate its dis co•ery, afterwards became a popular talismanic figure. persisting throughout the Middle Ages. Magic squares (q.v.) were similarly used. From very ancient times archaic or foreign names of deities were thought to confer power over these deities upon the possessor of them—probably a persistence of common superstition of savages that a stranger's knowledge of their own names will subject them to his power. Such names were frequent in incantations and often placed upon charms. Other words were chosen for mys tical reasons, as Abraxas. Abracadabra (qq.v.).
The classic peoples added little that was orig inal to the vast body of Oriental magic which, for the most part, they readily assimilated. To be sure, classical polytheism was from the be ginning permeated with magical rites and prac tices, but the mythological and intellectual ele ment was relatively stronger than in the East: their polytheism was a hero worship rather than a demon or spirit worship. Nevertheless in Greece many magical cults were adopted from Asia and one at least—the cult of Hecate—appears to have been native, and to have left us as its legacy our many superstitions in connection with the moon, which that goddess impersonated as patroness of sorcerers. The Greeks, too, in their myths em phasized forms of enchantment resulting in metamorphosis—for example, Circe—thus giv ing to the art an imaginative prestige quite for eign to the more primitive superstitions of the East. Again, even where it could not overthrow magical belief. Western philosophy raised this belief to something resembling scientific form. Thus the semi-mystical metaphysic of the Pyth agoreans, who found the essential nature of all things in numerical relations, which, lending it self readily to magical interpretations, resulted in a magic which seemed to those who held it only an enlightened philosophy of nature. and doubtless was an advance over current mytho logical conceptions. The science of astrology (q.v.), which both Egyptians and Chalth•rms had elaborated, was accompanied by no small real knowledge of the stars, and it was further ration alized by a physical theory of elements. These elements or 'humors' were four: two creative and nourishing, heat and moisture; and two unhealthy and destructive, cold and dryness. The different planets were supposed to dominate one or more of these elements and through these to produce their effects. Granting the premises. as trology was thus a true science. Later the Neo Platonists and the Gnostics developed elaborate systems of magic, throughout in accord with care fully wrought theories of the universe.