Your discussion of "magic" that uses the trappings of religion, psalms as spells and etc., reminds me of certain negative aspects of Christian Eschatology. Basically, certain theologians believe you can use numerical analysis of bible verses to divine the future. Usually said future is a mashup of concepts from the Book of Revelations.

I call this the Brain Eater version of eschatology, because it has been the ruin of a number of prominent theologians.

Basically, they decide "I'm special because I know so much about the Bible" and they then suppose that they can unlock hidden wisdom, usually about the End Times, that no one else can see. The result is a pernicious form of false prophecy that they defend with furious pseudo-logic.

This results in controversy, and usually ends with the Brain Eater victim making some kind of public prediction like the date of the Second Coming, and becoming a laughingstock when it doesn't come to pass.

But anyway, to get back to the main subject, this idea that you can analyse the bible to divine some kind of revelation seems like the kind of thing you were talking about.

Oh, and if you do know the time and place of the Second Coming, sorry, man.

Quote from: D-ko on May 07, 2025, 04:36:33 PM

Quote from: weirdguy564 on May 01, 2025, 09:55:24 PMWait.  They didn't think magic worked based on slots per day or amnesia after you spoke the words?

Slots emulate mana. Casting a spell takes energy.

The idea that casting a spell takes energy is part of Vancian conception, but that's a non-medieval view of magic.

Mana per se is a Polynesian concept that is more like "sacredness" and has little in common with the impersonal "magical energy" of RPG magic systems.

I was under the impression that mana as slang was loosely referring to the Abrahamic Moses performing miracles and being exhausted afterward, which I suppose is still debatable if it's really relevant. It's time for me to close the gamebooks and open up more history books. Heh.

Quote from: D-ko on May 08, 2025, 03:01:52 AMI was under the impression that mana as slang was loosely referring to the Abrahamic Moses performing miracles and being exhausted afterward, which I suppose is still debatable if it's really relevant. It's time for me to close the gamebooks and open up more history books. Heh.

Mana as a term used in relation to magic comes from Polynesia and even then not until the 20th century.

Mana from the Bible was the food God created for the people of Israel while they wandered in the desert for 40 years.

The English term for Moses would be a Thaumaturge (from the Greek "Miracle Worker"). There was no concept that Moses had some finite pool of magical power. Moses had NO power. He asked God for aid and/or God told him to do some performative act ("strike the river with your staff") and then God did all the work.

There was a time in battle where Moses was commanded to keep his arms aloft and when they were the Israelites had the better of the fight, but when he got tired (of holding them up, like a normal person would... not from expending magic power) and let them fall the strength of the Israelites waned... so the Israelites got men to help hold Moses arms up until they'd won.

That was pretty typical of miracles in general. There was no formal ritual associated with them, rather someone with God's favor asked for or needed something, God replied with a request for an action that typically required a degree of faith (ex. using the last of your flour and oil to make bread for a stranger) and then God provided a miracle (the pots of flour and oil did not run empty for a year until after the famine had passed).

It's when you get into the non-Jewish and Christian faiths that magic takes on a lot more formalized ritual; sacrifices, specific invocations and tools, etc.

But even then; other than possible blood or fluid loss from ritual cutting or sex; it's not like those forms of magic were seen as expending some form of internal energy either. The rituals and sacrifices were to entice supernatural forces to provide the aid that was requested of them. Different only in scale, but not purpose, to leaving food at the grave of an ancestor in order to have their favor.

The underlying metaphysics of most non-Judeo-Christian magic was fundamentally transactional and bargaining; "I'll give you this, in hopes you'll give me that."

Once you get to Christianity though one of its core tenants was that Jesus Christ was the "final sacrifice." What of more value could be offered up to God than God in the flesh? Thus, all you needed for a miracle was to ask for God's aid... God in his infinite goodness has already paid any price for any request that is for the good.

This is also the reason that Christian thought regarded the transactional exchanges of pagan magical practices as having derived from Satan and his demons; God asks for nothing save your devotion to Him so any physical sacrifices asked for by these other religions are specifically asking for you to put faith in something other than God; which is Satan's mission, to pull people away from God (using good things more often than bad... what's a pile of gold worth compared to an immortal human soul stolen away from the Creator you wish to spite with your whole being?).

The "natural magics" (what we today call science) were sort of in their own category to the calling for the aid of spirits magic. A lot of the concern was more along the lines of calling upon spirits for aid in working with the natural magics... the fallen angels were there when the heavens and the Earth were made after all; they know all the secrets of how it all functions.

But those too did not have the concept of mana. Sure you could run low on saltpeter and sulfur when using "al-chemical" explosive black powder, but it's not like you're infusing spiritual energy into the stuff to make it explode.

Mana really didn't enter the lexicon of Western magic until Larry Niven in the late 60s/early 70's wrote a series of stories called "The Magic Goes Away" where he took the Maori/Hawaiian term for spiritual power (Mana) and used it as a metaphor for Peak Oil and with magic as a finite resource that was being depleted and so "the magic goes away."

It really didn't see broad use in relation to "magic points" until it got used for... Magic the Gathering in 1993 and Warcraft in 1994.

THAT is how NEW the concept of mana as finite pools of magical energy is... obscurely about half a century ago, and not mainstream (within the gamer community anyway) until barely 30 years ago because of Wizards of the Coast and Blizzard.

Both of you, thank you. I do apologize that my knowledge of Abrahamic is heavily tainted by being raised as Mormon and a lot of Biblical details got retconned in the process. I had no idea that mana just happened to be two completely unrealated words, that is insane-- though I suppose it is a fairly simple two-syllable word so it shouldn't come as such a big surprise.