Why Does The Church Oppose Magic And What Counts As Magic?

[mortify ii]

I would say aspects of the Liturgy appear more "magickal" rather than prayer

[The Hierophant]

I wanted to avoid the liturgy to avoid scandal, but yes, the liturgy could easily be seen as a public act of high ceremonial magic, albeit one whose method is of divine origin and has been given a divine guarantee.

[Nihil Obstat]

Have you read about the Good Friday LSD experiments?

Hm... no I have not! I have read about some of the MKUltra stuff, but not this. Reading now.

 

I would say aspects of the Liturgy appear more "magickal" rather than prayer

I would say that this is probably blasphemous.

[Benedictus]

I wanted to avoid the liturgy to avoid scandal, but yes, the liturgy could easily be seen as a public act of high ceremonial magic, albeit one whose method is of divine origin and has been given a divine guarantee.

 

It isn't just about semantics IMHO. Magic isn't necessarily about deity, actually a large part of it isn't about that at all. Magic, in general terms, uses ritual, symbol, gestures etc to seek to control, harvest or direct change in the world (or beyond) directly. This makes sense if we take into account many traditions believe in using natural energies or spiritual forces to determine speicific outcomes. In many traditions it's about getting the knowledge and expertise to do this, which may or may not seek out deities, ascended beings or spirits as an aid to acheive this. But the power is usually with the peron doing the magic, unlike prayer.  Users attempt to fine tune the practices or techniques to cultivate better results. It could, depending on the use, include psychological techniques (plus work on ones own psyche) and other hidden means of exerting ones will in a specific environment. Traditions that use magic virtually always mean it in a diffeent way to prayer, especially if we compare it with Christian prayer and worship.

Prayer in very different. It's more about the interior. It's about petition, supplications, affirmation and communion (cultivating relationship). These elements are also present in the mass. It's a process of seeking divine connection, a deeper reliance and relationship. It's not about outcomes or techniques as the aim. Performing acts also doesn't bind God. He isn't influenced or forced to act on our bidding. He doesn't reward someone for doing a ritual a specific way. He goes into their hearts with his spirit and works there! This is different, depending on the tradition, to how magic is used.

If anyone is doing 'special' spiritual things (I'm being general here) aside from what is already set out within the church then I have to ask why and their intentions.

Edited July 15, 2014 by Benedictus

[Basilisa Marie]

I'm not so sure we should celebrate.  Let's think of the answers:

 

- Magic has an attitude of control and expectation, prayer supplication.  Originally I gave this some credence, but I want to partially retract that.  It is certainly true that many magicians who practice "theurgy" have an attitude of expectation, but so do many people praying the Rosary or Chaplet; we do not call the latter people magicians.  Moreover, some of what comes out in "theurgy" appears to be a devotional practice.

 

- Magic is wrong because it isn't right worship.  But that says something about magic, but doesn't get at the question of what magic is.  We could just as easily say that Catholic prayers are magic and that it is permitted magic.

 

If ritualism isn't the distinguishing characteristic of magic - as prayers many prayers are also quite formulaic and ritualistic - then I don't think we have a good answer.  So perhaps we could say the following:  'magic' is used in two senses, and the sense it is used in the Catechism is too narrow to encompass much of what is called "theurgy".  Those aspects of "theurgy" not covered by 'magic' in this sense of the word would be more properly called wrong worship.  In which case the question becomes - why, if it calls upon the God of Christians, would it be wrong worship?

 

A final possibility is that some of what esotericists call magic is actually not prohibited - it doesn't fall under the rubric of magic as 'magic' is used by catechists and is not wrong worship.  I'll admit that may be a very tiny sliver of Western esotericism, since much of it is also mucked with paganism, but there might be something to preserve here:  perhaps that's why Balthasar was so impressed with this Meditations on the Tarot, JPII had a copy of the German two-volume edition on his desk, and Ratzinger reportedly authorized a Russian edition (need more detail on this last point).

 

Ok, but seriously, why bother insisting that in a very specific, particular circumstance it's okay to play with tarot cards? What's really the point? Any benefit that can come from it seems to me to be mitigated by the much greater potential for an occasion of sin or scandal. And willingly placing yourself in an occasion of sin can be sinful in itself, so... I'm having a hard time trying to figure out where the good is? 

 

There are some similarities between magic and religion, sure. Both involve humans interacting with the supernatural. It comes down to how you define magic. If you're going to define magic as any kind of supernatural "stuff" then yeah, religion is a kind of magic. But that's not how the Church defines magic. 

We can't just worship however we want. God has revealed that he wants us to worship in specific ways, and has done so since the very beginning of salvation history. You get special sanctifying grace from the sacraments, but for the sacraments to be valid you have to use the right words and the right tools. Frankly, dealing with the supernatural is serious and dangerous stuff, so through the Church God gives us ways to do it that won't cause us harm. We're totally ill-equipped to deal with anything supernatural without the guidance of the Church. 

[Basilisa Marie]

I wanted to avoid the liturgy to avoid scandal, but yes, the liturgy could easily be seen as a public act of high ceremonial magic, albeit one whose method is of divine origin and has been given a divine guarantee.

 

It sounds like you're defining magic as anything dealing with the supernatural in a ritualized or methodical way. There are LOADS of problems that come up when you blur the line between religion and magic. 

 

But there's the rub - divine origin, divine guarantee. If it isn't Church-sanctioned, it doesn't have an origin in God, and it doesn't have the "guarentee" seal of approval. So...why are we bothering with things that don't have a divine origin? 

[mortify ii]

Hm... no I have not! I have read about some of the MKUltra stuff, but not this. Reading now.

I would say that this is probably blasphemous.

The point is "magick" is a lose term with a wide array of meanings. Learning to play golf is "magick" in some sense. Now in the narrow sense it generally means employing the power of a fallen spirit to create a particular end, and associating the liturgrgy in this sense is blasphemous, but that was not my point obviously. The way hiwrphant uses it, anything of a ritual nature appears magickal, and academically speaking, there is a very thin line between magick and religion.

[The Hierophant]

"Why bother?" is a good question.  It is a question, however, that could also be asked of luminaries like Thomas Merton, who became deeply entrenched in Zen.  I think the simple answer is that other spiritual traditions have their own things to offer, provided they are compatible with and can be absorbed into the Christian stream.  There is a danger here of excess, but that shouldn't be used to stop all exploration.

[Credo in Deum]

"Why bother?" is a good question. It is a question, however, that could also be asked of luminaries like Thomas Merton, who became deeply entrenched in Zen. I think the simple answer is that other spiritual traditions have their own things to offer, provided they are compatible with and can be absorbed into the Christian stream. There is a danger here of excess, but that shouldn't be used to stop all exploration.

Since we have the fullness of the Truth (who is Jesus Christ) in the Catholic Faith, then what benefit is there in the exploration of other faiths? If all they can offer are partial truths, then why pursue them as if they're going to provide us with something the Catholic Church doesn't already posses? Apart from trying to have a better understanding of these faiths, I do not see any reason to explore them further.

[mortify ii]

"Why bother?" is a good question.  It is a question, however, that could also be asked of luminaries like Thomas Merton, who became deeply entrenched in Zen.  I think the simple answer is that other spiritual traditions have their own things to offer, provided they are compatible with and can be absorbed into the Christian stream.  There is a danger here of excess, but that shouldn't be used to stop all exploration.

 

I think there is a yearning for depth that may sometimes be lacking. Some people are naturally not content with stopping at a basic grasp of the faith. They want to delve into the esoteric and advance themselves spiritually. Sad but sometimes Catholics turn to the spiritually advanced in other religions, perhaps because we lack them in our own?

[Basilisa Marie]

"Why bother?" is a good question.  It is a question, however, that could also be asked of luminaries like Thomas Merton, who became deeply entrenched in Zen.  I think the simple answer is that other spiritual traditions have their own things to offer, provided they are compatible with and can be absorbed into the Christian stream.  There is a danger here of excess, but that shouldn't be used to stop all exploration.

 

But that exploration is dangerous; you know exactly what kinds of things can start happening when you get involved in magic. You've experienced them. Scientific research into something like ESP would be different, because you're observing measurable, inherently natural phenomena, assigning no spiritual value to it. But even the body builder has to be careful that he or she isn't strengthening his or her body for vanity's sake, or out of a need to feel powerful. 

Take the idea that other spiritual traditions have things to offer and it's good that they be absorbed into Christianity to its logical conclusion. You have to put serious limits on what you mean by that. Otherwise, you're implying that the Church doesn't have the full deposit of divine revelation, because the Church is somehow missing something that it needs to get from some other source. Other religions are good in so much as they have things in common with us. It's not that we both participate in some higher concept (or Platonic form) of Good. It's that they're similar to us. Sometimes the Church has "absorbed" (or "baptized") various practices of other cultures or tailored explanations to a particular context, but all of that happens on a practical level of "discipline." It's all done in order to help people better understand the Gospel message, not to augment the Gospel with something external. It's a fine distinction, like walking the edge of a cliff. 

You talk about the danger of excess, but who is the judge of what's excessive? Yourself? How can you be sure you won't be blinded by your own desires that may be corrupted by temptation and going too far? You would have to be under the care of an experienced, holy spiritual director and be able to trust his or her judgment. If the Church consistently urges serious caution to people who experience supernatural occurrences that are considered to be of divine origin, why would the Church give any less caution to someone dabbling in non-Christian practices?  

So again, why? It all seems to me like a serious occasion of sin against prudence. And serious occasions of sin can turn into sins themselves, when they deal with serious matters and one voluntarily and needlessly places oneself in that position. I'm not saying this to cast judgment on you, but to illustrate that there's some pretty high stakes in the game. 

[Basilisa Marie]

Oh, and welcome to Phatmass. :)  

[truthfinder]

I think there is a yearning for depth that may sometimes be lacking. Some people are naturally not content with stopping at a basic grasp of the faith. They want to delve into the esoteric and advance themselves spiritually. Sad but sometimes Catholics turn to the spiritually advanced in other religions, perhaps because we lack them in our own?

 

If we start saying that the Catholic faith lack something, it begins to be seen less as the true faith.  Spiritual advancement is not something that we can necessarily force.  We can do our best to attain holiness by cutting out sin, but as a type of mystical advancement, that is a grace (and I dare say also the opportunity for large crosses.)  

[The Hierophant]

I don't think that Catholicism lacks spiritually advanced individuals; I just wanted to point out that, as far as I know, people like Thomas Merton and Bede Griffiths never ran afoul of any Church authority when investigating Zen and Hinduism.  For one thing, even if there is nothing doctrinal to be gained, there might be techniques that are of spiritual value that Christians have never come across or developed.  Such may be the case with certain forms of meditation, for example.  While Catholic mysticism has always placed a great importance on grace and the supernatural, I don't see why that means we can't take advantage of the natural.  Something analogous may be involved here, insofar as some Hermetic rituals are essentially meditative prayers and involve no paganism.  But I think that there is little more that I can say on this matter that could be persuasive.

[Socrates]

All forms of divination and "magick" are clearly condemned in Catholic teaching as grave offenses against the First Commandment:

 

2116 All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future.⁴⁸ Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.

 

2117 All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one's service and have a supernatural power over others - even if this were for the sake of restoring their health - are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another's credulity.

 

 

~ Catechism of the Catholic Church

 

I basically second everything Nihil, Basilia, and others have said in this thread.

 

Any involvement with the occult, "magick" or pagan rituals should be avoided like the plague.

It opens you up to demonic influence, which is always bad news.

 

"For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils" ~ Psalm 96

 

Hinduism contains a lot of weird and evil stuff, and I'd recommend staying away from it altogether.  Demons, being fallen angels, can work preternatural "miracles," and often mix truth with lies to deceive persons.  Best to just avoid non-Christian religion altogether.