| MAGICAL MYTHS 101 Lesson Five |
| Magic today�belief in magic began to decline during the mid-seventeenth century as people began to discover more practical and effective ways to deal with their problems. Modern chemistry led to the creation of new medicines and that replaced cures preformed by the herbologist, astrologist, and the natural magicians. With the rise of scientific thinking, ideas about how the world worked were tested by experiment, and the power of magic words, spells, amulets, and talismans, was increasingly called into question.
Obtaining extraordinary powers today or conjuring spirits has disappeared from most parts of the modern world. But it is also true that the modern world is more magical than it has ever been! Things once thought impossible are being done everyday�flying or talking to someone halfway across the world happens daily. Nature �magic� is used everyday in our medicines, vitamins, and drinks, food. Course this is all �Muggle� stuff, we of course have been flying about, curing sickness, and speaking to those far away for many, many years! Magician: Wizard. Witch. Sorcerer. Warlock. Enchantress. Conjurer. Charmer. Diviner. These are just a few of the many guise of the �magician�. A magician is simply someone who does magic, whether it is �real� magic like that of Albus Dumbledore, or something that simply appears to be magical, like the spell casting of a village witch or wizard or the great escapes of a stage magician like Harry Houdini. |
| Magic Mirrors:
Most of us take mirrors fro granted. We don�t expect them to show us our heart�s deepest desire as the Mirror of Erised does, or speak to us, like the mirror owned by the evil queen in �Snow White�. The Mirror of Galadriel, in Lord of the Rings, when showing it to Sam and Frodo, she said, �Many things I can command the Mirror to reveal�, she answered, �and to some I can show what they desire to see. But Mirror will also show things unbidden, and those are often stranger and more profitable than things, which we wish to behold. What you will see, if you leave the Mirror free to work, I cannot tell. For it shows things that were, and things that are, and things that yet may be. But which it is that he sees, even the wisest cannot always tell. Do you wish to look?� (Would you look?) Today we just look in them to brush out teeth, comb our hair, and see if we look fine in the outfit without giving them a second thought. But the presence of mirrors in our midst has not always been accepted so causally. In the earliest days of human history, the only places that men and women could see themselves were in still pools of water and they seldom really understood what they were looking at. Many ancient cultures actually regarded reflections as human souls, which they thought, could exist independently of the human body. In some societies, including ancient Greece, it was even considered dangerous to see your won reflection; since it meant that your soul had left your body and was in danger of being captured by evil spirits or water nymphs. |
| So when they appeared some 4,500 years ago, they were perceived as miraculous magical objects! The word �mirror� comes from a Latin term, mirari or mirus, meaning �marvelous� or �wonderful�. The ancient Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Egyptians, and Central Americans all believed that mirrors were potent talismans, capable of bewitching men�s minds, befuddling evil spirits, and carrying off the souls of the living and the dead. We will end here, and pick up with the �mirror� and predicting the future! |
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| Quiz:
1.) There was quite a change in the mid-seventieth century about magic...explain. 2.) What is the difference between the old world and the modern world that we live in today? 3.) What is a magician? 4.) Give 4 other names for a Magician. 5.) What are the uses of a magical mirror in the magical world? 6.) What the uses for a mirror in the Muggle world? 7.) What is the difference or similarities between the Greeks, Romans, the Chinese, Egyptians and Central Americans regarding the mirror? 8.) In the HP books and the LOTR books, the magical mirror had their uses, select one, either HP or LOTR, and state what happened when the hero looked into the mirror. (Harry Potter or Frodo Baggins) 9.) If you could get a magical mirror, what do you think you would see if you looked into it?. |
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