I was reading Eragon today and something that i noticed was that most of the time, magic and the supernatural are connected with religion. In Eragon, or actually the second book Eldest, Eragon meets the elves who say that they don't believe in god. They believe that laws govern the world and that there is no higher power. That difference between that idealology and the norm is that since magic cannot be explained, it must be attributted to something higher. With the indian burial grounds, and the cave drawings, the supernatural was still attributed to the gods. That what they had to do was connected with the gods. Jesus performed miracles because god gave him permission and the power to do it.In many shows like supernatural and charmed, the magic only exists because there exists the higher power. all the demons in supernatural come out of hell. the charmed ones get their powers from the highest power and use it to battle the evilest power.
I really don't have an answer for this, but why can't magic exist without reason? does a magical world signify a high greatness? Just a little food for thought
maybe "magic" is the controlled use of our worlds energy/forces and being able to transfer it in a way thats visual to other individuals?
ReplyDeleteIn terms of popular culture, have you thought about Harry Potter? If you really consider it, you'll notice that religion is almost completely absent from Harry's world; the students "celebrate" Christmas and Easter in the most secular sense--gifts are given but they don't go to mass or any special services. The magic in their world is a matter of genetics, inherited as a recessive trait from either magic or non-magic parents.
ReplyDeleteContinuing in the vein of popular culture, both types of magic are included in the world of Dungeons and Dragons, as well as a third type. Clerics and paladins use the "religious" magic that you discuss, sorcerers have inherent magical ability like in Harry Potter, and the third type belongs to wizards, who can simply learn magic without religious conotations and without any prerequisites beyond a sufficient ability score in intelligence.
Now that I've established myself as a complete nerd, I'll conclude by saying that while popular culture does have a prominent position, it's not the only kind out there. (If you're interested in the Harry Potter stuff, I'd reccommend taking the "Thinking About Harry Potter" course here at LU)
This is very true. I think it's just because we don't know how to explain certain phenomena and magic or some 'higher power' explains it all. It's really crazy how people have to try and explain everything, but I suppose that's just the way humans are.
ReplyDeleteit is interesting to contemplate magic and religion, how does one determine the differences between magic and religion? Can they really be separated? Or can they really be connected? I dunno, but it definitely would be interesting to discuss.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many things that exist without a reason. For example, God. The Bible states that God created everything else, but in the beginning before the Beginning did God create itself?
ReplyDeleteAnother question that comes out of your post is what's the difference between magic and miracles? And if there is no God, as many people think, then are miracles illusions or just huge coincidences?
i was going to agree with meg about the harry potter magic. but also, there are a whole slew of books where magic is inherent to the earth itself and then gets channeled through people.
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