Clarke's Third Law and the Nature of Magic

[starshipcat]

Recently I saw an online discussion of Clarke's famous dictum any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic to the uninitiated, in which the argument against it rested upon a very specific definition of "magic" in the field of theology, which restricts the term to involve a pact with unclean spirits

Comments

[whswhs]

I don't think I go for either of those senses of "magic."

Benedek Lang's Unlocked Books talks about medieval canon law's categories of magic. It did classify two sorts of magic as prohibited: any magic that involved calling on spirits for help, because that approximated to worship, and "thou shalt have no other gods before me"; and most forms of divination, because they attempted to share God's omniscience. But there were other categories of magic that were perfectly licet, such as natural magic, which made use of the hidden virtues of metals and plants and other things. The idea that magic as such involves dealings with unclean spirits is not merely theology, but one specific version of theology. (And even more narrowly, of Christian theology. A Hindu or a Shintoist might have other definitions.)

I would also note that "dealings with unclean spirits" seems a better fit to goetia than to magia. Tolkien alludes to that distinction, I think, in one of his letters, and it relates to his having Galadriel comment on mortals using "magic"

[kalimac]

You get that in reactions to fantasy literature, in which the religious believers are either anxious to verify that no harm will ensure from reading Tolkien or Lewis, or who castigate the entire genre as a tool of the devil.

I must have grown up with the assumption that "magic" meant congress with unclean spirits, because on first encountering neopagans I was very confused on how to distinguish them from satanists.

I suspect that Clarke's Law provides for either of your definitions of "magic," thus explaining the wide variety of reactions in stories to sufficiently advanced technologies.