Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2
One difference in the concept of psioncs vs. magic (or other names), is that the term 'magic' is often misapplied in today's world in fantasy stories, RPGs, etc.
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I would go through your post and respond to your points individually, but you're just proceeding from false premises here. You're speaking of magic as if it were some specific thing that works in some specific way, but it isn't. It's as varied as any human social construct. Every known human culture has beliefs about the supernatural, and beliefs about how people can
do things by supernatural means, but details vary quite a lot. Sometimes this is understood to involve the action of spirits, and sometimes it isn't. Sometimes the user is held to possess a special power, and sometimes they aren't. Sometimes
both criteria are true! And the definitions of terms like "magic", "sorcery", "witchcraft", etc., are nebulous and often loaded, change with time and place—and, of course, the language being spoken.
Oftentimes the explanations of a particular thaumaturgical practice, and the terms and categories used to characterize it, are contentious even within their native cultural context. Is she a vile witch, or just a harmless cunning-woman?
This even applies to the miracles of Jesus, with the 2nd-century philosopher Celsus
polemically accusing Jesus of having practiced mageia—an obvious cognate of
magic, but one that has exotic, sinister connotations analogous to the lowercase-v version of the term
voodoo.
But we're speaking Modern English, not Koine Greek.
Magic and
mageia are different words. The modern meaning of the term "magic" has influenced by centuries of linguistic drift, and has never referred to any one practice or set of practices. Saying that the word "magic" can only correctly be applied to practices understood to involve spirits is like saying that the word "religion" can only be applied to the worship of gods.