EMBRACING MAGIC

Valerie I. J. Flint, The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1991) (Sometimes, of course, magic is employed now simply as a term of abuse: but at least as often, I would contend, it is used to describe a type of excitement, or wonder, or sudden delight, that is not only wholly proper but without which life might be seriously the poorer. As such it can become a term of high praise, and one that might denote a certain spiritual elevation." "This distinction of values, and different weighting of terms, existed in early Europe as it does now, and to a greatly intensified degree. The word magic weighed heavily, and so few of the activities ranged under this rubric could readily be rescued from the burden of imperial proscription. But some could. And not only could they be, but many people become increasingly convinced that they had to be, and that in pursuit precisely of the enrichment of human life with which some today incline to link the word magic; in pursuit, that is, of those gifts persons might receive 'merely by remaining unwittingly in an undemocratic state of grace,' This is, in the main, what this book is about. It is about a double process. One, firstly, of a rejection of magic, a rejection shared both by imperial Rome and by many of its more powerful medieval heirs; and then, and centrally, a complex second one of the second thoughts of some of Rome's early medieval successors. These second thoughts led, I shall attempt here to prove, not merely to the halting of the process of rejection and to the tolerance of certain 'magical' survivals, but to the active rescue, preservation and encouragement of very many of these last; and all for the furtherance  of a relationship between people and the supernatural that, it was fervently believed, would improve human life." Id. at 3-4, citations omitted.).