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Magic or Magick?

post #1 of 6
9/21/10 at 3:22pm
Thread Starter 
I'm Catholic and happy to be so, and I have very little knowledge of paganism, wicca and so on which is why I am asking this question. I was reading another thread in this forum and it made me wonder why sometimes I see magic spelled magick with a "k" on the end. Is magick with a k different than plain old magic with a "c"?

Just curious!
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post #2 of 6
9/21/10 at 11:20pm
Former pagan, revert Catholic here

Magick with a "k" refers to actual magick- manipulation of energy, raising of energy, etc...

Magic with a "c" refers to slight of hand, like stage magic- card tricks, ring tricks, levitation, etc...

I hope that helps!
post #3 of 6
9/22/10 at 1:28pm
It can actually get a little more complicated though... a lot depends on the community or the specific religious group involved, and in academic texts the two terms will usually be discussed (with the specific meaning given to each by the author) in an appendix or forward since the two terms do get used differently by different pagan groups.

Basically, Aleister Crowley used "with a k" (as a way to set himself apart from stage craft) and so groups/individuals that draw from that history tend to use "with a k" while groups/individuals that draw from other histories use "with a c". There's a nice wiki page here that explains how/why Crowley coined the term and how it is used by different groups now.

But in the end... both "magic with a c" and "magick with a k" can be used to mean the same thing. It's always a good idea to ask the individual author if it seems like they are distinguishing between the two.




ETA- I realized I was tossing around names that might have no meaning for non-pagans. Mea culpa! Crowley was a rather flamboyant and controversial founder of a specific type of paganism. His wiki page is here. He is a very important figure to some pagan traditions and completely uninvolved in other pagan traditions
post #4 of 6
9/22/10 at 5:15pm
Thanks! This just made me think of how many things I would not know without reading here. Sometimes my dh has been very surprised by something I know.... and then says "Oh, yeah, Mothering!"
post #5 of 6
9/22/10 at 6:23pm
Wasn't Crowley an avowed Satanist? Or am I thinking of someone else?
post #6 of 6
9/22/10 at 7:06pm
Crowley was a little bit of everything, and extremely shocking to the people of the day (he might not stand out so much today ). He was certainly called a Satanist, and his name has been used in close proximity to Satanic themes (Mr Crowley by Ozzy for example, or as a model for Rosemary's Baby) but I don't think he ever claimed that label or identified as such. He was very much the ceremonial/fraternal/golden dawn/oto "guy".

You may be thinking of Anton LaVey? Founder of the Church of Satan and also a controversial/flamboyant person.