Introduction

The conceptual history of “magic” spans around 2500 years and pervades a huge number of texts and different cultural-religious epochs (see Otto 2011). In order to understand the degree to which the academic debate inherited ideas and valuation patterns from former pre-academic discourses, in this part we present twelve key texts that illustrate main features of the conceptual history of “magic”. These texts have been selected because of their historical impact, their mainly theoretical and often encyclopaedic approach, and the variety of semantic patterns and connotations they exemplify. As we shall see, the preacademic conceptual legacy of “magic” is characterized by some haziness and polyvalence that has not least contributed to the academic problem of “defining magic”.

Etymologically, the concept of “magic” goes back to the ancient Iranian appellative maguš, but the etymology of this word is unclear. Greek sources ascribe a variety of functions to the Iranian mágoi. According to Herodotus, who also refers to them as one of seven Median tribes, besides being in charge of religious rites such as sacrifices and the interpretation of dreams, the mágoi served as functionaries at the Persian (Achaemenian) court and advisers to the king (Histories, e.g., 1.101f; 3.30f; 7.19f, 37f, 113f, 191f).

During the late sixth and early fifth centuries bce, the term maguš was picked up and Graecicized (into μάγος, μαγεία) by ancient Greek authors and thereby developed a life of its own.