MAGGIORE 



3591 



MAGIC 



and varies from two to seventy miles in 

 breadth. It separates the continent of South 

 America from the islands of Tierra del Fuego, 

 meaning fire, probably so named from the nu- 

 merous fires of the natives seen from the ships. 

 See HORN [CAPE] ; TIERRA DEL FUEGO. 



Consult Towle's Magellan, First around the 

 World; Ober's Ferdinand Magellan. 



MAGGIORE, LAKE, or LAGO MAGGIORE, 



lah'go mahdjo'ray, is one of the largest lakes 

 in Italy; its name is an Italian word meaning 

 greater. It is surrounded on the north and 

 west by granitic mountains rising 7,000 feet 

 above the sea, and on the south and east by 

 picturesque vineyard-covered hills. Although 

 situated for the most part in Northern Italy, 

 part of the lake lies also in the Swiss canton 

 of Ticino. Several interesting towns and vil- 

 lages have sprung up around its shores, the 

 most important being the flourishing city of 

 Pallanza, with a population of about 5,000. 

 Lake Maggiore, which lies 646 miles above sea 

 level, and in some places is over 1,000 feet 

 deep, is thirty-nine miles in length. 



MAGI, ma'ji, the name applied to the schol- 

 arly priests of ancient Media and Persia, who 

 had official charge of all sacred rites and who 

 interpreted dreams and practiced magic. Origi- 

 nally they worshiped Ahriman, the god of evil, 

 as well as Ormazd, the god of good, but devil- 

 worship was forbidden by Zoroaster, the founder 

 of their faith, and the magi became highly- 

 venerated priests of the reformed faith. The 

 three wise men who came from the East to do 

 homage to the newborn Saviour were magi. 

 Their names were Melchior, Balthasar and Gas- 

 par, and it is claimed that their bones are pre- 

 served in the Cathedral of Cologne. The 

 youngest of them is represented in works of 

 art as a Moor. The magi, originally of the 

 highest order, gradually lost caste and in time 

 became ordinary jugglers and fortune tellers. 



MAGIC, maj'ik, a term which refers to the 

 power to command natural and supernatural 

 forces by the priestly adept; it includes also 

 the mystic lore and practice developed to sup- 

 port the view of the operations of nature from 

 which such power is derived. The conception 

 of the world and its regulation in which magic 

 finds its place is that which pVevails among 

 primitive peoples. In simpler cultures magic 

 is religion and philosophy, science and art; it 

 brings man into relation with the powers above 

 him; it protects against evil, foresees the fu- 

 ture, prescribes for disease and determines the 

 relations of life. 



Magic affiliates with the conception of the 

 world and its happenings, as significant for hu- 

 man fate ; omens abound in nature and must be 

 sought in signs. Also it affiliates with the view 

 of the animation of sun, moon, stars, sea, river, 

 grove, wind, rain, lightning, by spirit forces; 

 also with the belief in the survival of ancestral 

 ghosts, and thus the creation of an unseen 

 world peopled with spirits that control human 

 fate. Whether strongly spiritual or leaning to 

 the search for power by control over hidden 

 processes of nature, the magical view surrounds 

 life with constant obligations and dangers; and 

 it is in the prescription and proscription, the 

 securing of good fortune and avoidance of evil, 

 that the magician finds his occupation and 

 magic its systematic elaboration. "Magic is the 

 physics of mankind in a state of nature." 



The scope of magical belief and practice is so 

 vast that it requires consideration from many 

 aspects. This is given in the articles in these 

 volumes upon conjuring, divination, supersti- 

 tion and witchcrajt (which see). The present 

 article will be confined- to a general survey of 

 its development. 



The three most general products of magic are 

 divination, the intercourse with spirits and the 

 control of supernatural (or unusual) forces by 

 a penetration of the secrets of nature. Where 

 magic prevails, it shapes belief generally and 

 prescribes what must be done and not done 

 (taboo) to avoid evil and secure good fortune ; 

 and it develops special regulations for the cure 

 of disease, the punishment of enemies, the man- 

 ner of conducting agriculture, the chase, war 

 and the common affairs of life. In early civili- 

 zations these beliefs assume a systematic form. 

 They appear prominently in the practices of 

 the Babylonians, Assyrians and Egyptians; and 

 some trace of this Oriental character persists in 

 the Greco-Roman tradition and in the wide- 

 spread revival of magic in medieval times un- 

 der the added influence of Christian doctrine. 

 The Egyptians made much of the good and evil 

 days (astrologically determined) for taking 

 medicine, for letting blood, for sacrifice, for 

 sowing and reaping, for undertaking new enter- 

 prises. In Ezekiel XXI, 21 it is said of the king 

 of Babylon that "he shuffled arrows, he con- 

 sulted teraphim; he looked in the liver." The 

 control of unusual power by the priest magi- 

 cian appears in the story of Aaron's staff. 



It was in the intercourse with the spirit world 

 which is typically represented (though in a 

 modern form) in the Faust legend that the 

 most dreaded power of the magician lay. In 



