Welcome to Nuggets of Academic Knowledge with Dr Angela Puca, where we explore Religious Studies concepts that pertain to magic and Esotericism.

Were all types of magic deemed prohibited in the Middle Ages?

The short answer is it depends on how magic was defined!

It was indeed interesting the distinction that emerged at the time between Natural Magic and Demonic Magic, where the first one was deemed allowed and the second not. As Peter J. Forshaw in the Occult World explains, despite the opposition of 12th-century theologians to the acceptance of any type of magic within the realm of legitimate learning, the influence of newly translated Arabic treatises in the domain of natural philosophy introduced the concept of a new branch of science, natural magic, to learned discourse. Rather than simply rejecting all magic as demonic, some writers argued for a distinction between a licit form of natural magic and illicit demonic magic.

Natural magic enabled human beings to know and make use of the occult virtues of natural things, the properties of stones, metals, plants, and animals, and the sympathies and antipathies existing in the whole of nature, without the assistance of or manipulation by demons. Not only could discerning scholars know about these natural virtues and offer naturalistic explanations for the phenomena, but they could apply the knowledge for the benefit of mankind through practical magic that made use of the things of nature.

So, in this view, Natural Magic was the practical aspect of Natural Philosophy, a term that at the time defined what we would now call science! It was thus the communion with spirits, mostly deemed as demonic entities, that made witchcraft unacceptable and illicit.

This is it for this Nugget Episode!

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REFERENCE
Forshaw, P.J. 2016. The Occult Middle Ages In: C. Partridge, ed. The Occult World. London: Routledge, pp.34–48.