Fairies and Wolfe

Jeff Wilson · 02 Apr 2012, 22:50 · from 2012-April.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at clueland.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 17:50:44 -0500
Subject: (urth) Fairies and Wolfe
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W53BAF090D56894D9448FD7CF4C0 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W53BAF090D56894D9448FD7CF4C0 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <b4382c85ba363429c1fc0f002d3707e8.squirrel at webmail.prismnet.com>


On Mon, April 2, 2012 14:08, Lee Berman wrote:
>
>>Jeff Wilson: Off the cuff, I'd say magic is characterized as an agency
>> that
>>is similar to divine power except that it can be made to do a mortal's
>>bidding. Magic can be couched in material vessels like charms, fetishes,
>>or talking fish, but has the capacity to do what the the invoker
>>subjectively means to do rather than what the material vessels would
>>otherwise do as judged by objective observers.
>
> To play devil's (heh) advocate, I don't then see the distinction between
> magic
> and divine power.

"except that it can be made to do a mortal's bidding"

Moses uses magic when he strikes the rock in defiance of G-d's command.
The events that conspire to keep Jonah from shirking his visit to Nineveh
are manifested of divine power.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - < jwilson at clueland.com >
A&M Texarkana Computational Intelligence Lab
< http://www.tamut.edu/cil >

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