Quote from: Chris24601 on May 19, 2024, 11:53:16 AM

Quote from: yosemitemike on May 19, 2024, 09:28:09 AMPriests or holy men don't actually perform miracles.  They pray for intercession.  If a miracle is performed, it's by God. 

Fair. It's what I get for using broad shorthand.

Technically, the sorcerer isn't doing the magic either. It's whatever spirit they're calling upon that is acting.

The point stands that the modern distinction between the Catholic priest ritually performing the Eucharistic blessing (miracle) and a Sorcerer calling on a spirit (magic) is which supernatural entity they're seeking the aid from.

=8|  Holy what?

For all that is good, never have this conversation with your devoted aunt.  You will give her a stroke.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 19, 2024, 11:53:16 AM

Quote from: yosemitemike on May 19, 2024, 09:28:09 AMPriests or holy men don't actually perform miracles.  They pray for intercession.  If a miracle is performed, it's by God. 

Fair. It's what I get for using broad shorthand.

Technically, the sorcerer isn't doing the magic either. It's whatever spirit they're calling upon that is acting.

The point stands that the modern distinction between the Catholic priest ritually performing the Eucharistic blessing (miracle) and a Sorcerer calling on a spirit (magic) is which supernatural entity they're seeking the aid from.

=8|  Holy what?

For all that is good, never have this conversation with your devoted aunt.  You will give her a stroke.

Quote from: BadApple on May 19, 2024, 12:53:04 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 19, 2024, 11:53:16 AM

Quote from: yosemitemike on May 19, 2024, 09:28:09 AMPriests or holy men don't actually perform miracles.  They pray for intercession.  If a miracle is performed, it's by God. 

Fair. It's what I get for using broad shorthand.

Technically, the sorcerer isn't doing the magic either. It's whatever spirit they're calling upon that is acting.

The point stands that the modern distinction between the Catholic priest ritually performing the Eucharistic blessing (miracle) and a Sorcerer calling on a spirit (magic) is which supernatural entity they're seeking the aid from.

=8|  Holy what?

For all that is good, never have this conversation with your devoted aunt.  You will give her a stroke.

I have had this conversation with my devoted aunt and mother. We're all faithful Catholics.

This perspective isn't anything radical for Catholics. We believe Satan is real and he and his demons prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. A demon is just an angel that broke faith with God and so retain all the abilities natural to angels. They are not (yet) confined to Hell but remain free in the world. We believe in Demonic oppression and possession and that our bishops and priests have been granted authority by God to cast out the fallen angels and perform other signs and wonders as needed to fulfill God's plan.

We declare the reality of supernatural powers at work in the world every time we recite our Creed and say we believe in "all things visible and invisible." We believe that there is a spiritual war going on in the invisible world for the souls of Men.

We call upon God because we can be sure of His intentions (because He entered the world, taught us, and then died as payment for our transgressions against Him because of His love for His creations) and so can be sure that calling upon Him for aid is safe for us spiritually and can even cast out any and all evil spirits.

We do NOT know for certain the intention of any other spirit and that many seek to lead us into eternal damnation, which is why interacting with them, except by trained experts (i.e. exorcists), is forbidden and even apparitions claiming to be angels or saints are studied for years before they're either declared invalid or "worthy of belief" (note - not REQUIRED for belief).

As relates to the subject at hand, this isn't that far off from the understanding of Medieval Catholics about "magic." There isn't a hard divide between "natural" and "supernatural" because all of it was created by God. Smiths knew secrets (arcane and occult both essentially mean little known/secret) they wove into the items they created; the sword of a master smith had properties beyond what was understood to be natural at the time.

What mattered at the time (and is still the basis for Catholic understanding of Charisms and other spiritual gifts) is using the gifts given by God for the good and to avoid instances of sin which hostile spirits (that can disguise themselves as benign ones) will seek to lead us into, and we leave ourselves particularly open to that when we deliberately call upon those other spirits.

It may seem shocking to the Protestants, but to devout Catholics the Medieval mindset on the supernatural and spirits; miracles and magic; isn't all that alien to us.

Chris

Well said.

I started a Sunday school lesson today for my adult class that covers that exactly. I' Baptist, so some of our beliefs may be a little different, but the core of it is the same.

We may not see or understand 'the spiritual world/war' but it is there and we are dead center of it.

Now place that back in time 500+ years, with less knowledge in the science side of the house, and significantly more belief in spirit side, plus, as CS Lewis points out 'the fact that the under command of the fallen angels allowed mages to actively be made' and you have a view that yes priest cause miracles from God with their prayers, village wise men/women know the tricks to chase off ilf sickness for your cow (and other special little secrets some form the good side, some may be from the bad side so be careful) and some fall to the fallen side even if at first the spirit seems good, but it leads those that follow it astray.

I have mentioned before that in some stories Oni possess the magical art of creating new life out of mixed human remains. A 13th century Japanese text expands on this idea giving a process which could be learned from the Oni (but still requires their cooperation):

Take assorted human remains and organize them into a complete human form or at least a complete skeleton. Paint the bones with arsenic, then sprinkle crumbled hebiichigo over them, then sprinkle leaves of chickweed over them. Tie the bones together with threads and vines and wash them many times with water. Rub upon the skull, in the region from which hair grows, ash from burnt leaves of saikai (saikachi) and Hibiscus. Keep the body protected from the wind and rain and wait for a period of fourteen days or more. Before beginning the next part of the operation the caster must have fasted and remained pure for seven days. Burn musk and milk in veneration of the Oni and miscellaneous daemons before performing the Secret Rite of Soul Recalling (a multi-purpose necromantic ritual jealously guarded by certain Tendai, Shingon, and Onmyo lineages).

If all goes well the caster will have created a perfect simulacra of a human being with unique features inherited from the remains used. If all doesn't go well the ritual may fail or create a sickly person trapped in a vegetative state though they may be able to moan or make meaningless utterances. It should be noted that humans created with this spell, while intelligent, have no soul and are incredibly fragile. The creature must be treated gently and taken good care of lest they break and return to their constituent elements; however, if 100 days pass without incident ensoulment will occur and they shall be true humans.

It is worth noting that humans performing this art can gain the notice of gods or spirits of the underworld who will be angered by this behavior. It is possible that one may get off with a warning (perhaps in a dream) on a first offense, but a curse (likely a deadly one) is likely. Also worth noting is that there are tales of Oni using this practice in a partial form to restore severed limbs or other body parts. For example, an Oni tears off the arms of a monk and shortly thereafter another Oni to whom the monk once showed compassion passes by. This Oni creates and attaches new arms for the monk created from the remains of the dead.

Quote from: yosemitemike on May 19, 2024, 08:33:57 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 16, 2024, 10:21:45 PMThe answer to this depends on how one defines magicians. For all of the middle ages, most peasant villages had some kind of wise man or cunning woman, who did folk magic. They were generally valued by the people; and contrary to the claims of some modern wiccans or whatever, they absolutely considered themselves to be Christians (at least after the very earliest part of the middle ages).

Complicating this is the fact that modern Wiccans are rather prone to making false and rather outlandish claims about witches and witchcraft in the Middle Ages.  One of them is buried in the phrase modern Wiccans.  This implies that there was such a thing as ancient Wiccans.  This fits in with the claims made by some Wiccans that Wicca is the survival of some Pre-Christian European tradition.  This is simply false.  All Wiccans are modern Wiccans.  Wicca is a modern practice invented in the 1950s by a guy named Gerald Gardner aka Scire.  The ancient coven that supposedly inducted him was pure fabrication.  He made it all up.  There are some rather outlandish claims about the persecution of witches by the Church in the Middle Ages too.  People talk about "The Burning Times" when millions of witches were supposedly burned by the Catholic Church.  Supposedly, so many witches were burned that the smoke blackened the sky.  This claim is, of course, absurd.  Some Wiccan authors, like Scott Cunningham, are honest about the origins of Wicca while others still promote these falsehoods. 

Then again, there are people who still promote Margaret Murray's work as if it had any validity at all.

As demonstrated by European fairy-tales, witches were originally not conceived to be human at all, but cannibalistic monsters/demons who looked like elderly women. "Witch" and "hag" were thus synonymous.

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 13, 2024, 11:21:44 PMAs it turns out my article on the four terrible creatures isn't going to be going into the Pundit Files after all, it will be in the next issue of Mad Scribe Magazine.

I assume you mean issue #6 and not #5?

Quote from: WERDNA on May 20, 2024, 06:49:23 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 13, 2024, 11:21:44 PMAs it turns out my article on the four terrible creatures isn't going to be going into the Pundit Files after all, it will be in the next issue of Mad Scribe Magazine.

I assume you mean issue #6 and not #5?

I think 6, yes. Not the one that just came out, the next one.