Relatively recent research has shown that the ancient Greeks, despite their reputation for philosophy, believed in a variety of magical practices. Does this affect your view of the Greeks and if so, how?
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Sgt. Widget will die from finals
ANSWERS: 8
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Greek society, like other related societies (eg North Indian Aryan) had two distinct religious traditions. One was the community/folk religion, which developed into the classic Greek mythology we know, and the other was a personal introspective religion. (Hinduism did the same thing.) The existence of magic is hardly a surprise. It is part of the folk religious tradition, the attempt to control the forces of nature. and even the great philosophers resorted to it at times...LOL
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I know that the Spartans (Greeks from the city state of Sparta) went to Oracles in times of need. Oracles were the equivilant of fortune tellers I think, and were widely respected and revered in Sparta. King Leonidas of Sparta went to see one before the battle of Thermopylae (A battle where the Greek Armies held off a Persian Invasion led by Xerxes in a thin pass called the Thermopylae Pass) and took advice from them. They were thought to have mystical control over the future and present.
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"Relatively recent"? Historians of ancient Greece and anthropolgists have known this for a century. It's Grade School teachers and secular humanists who've been slow to get the message. The Greeks were a very superstitious and religious (pagan) people who believed in blood guilt, expiation of unclean spirits, fertility objects, charms & talismans, generational curses, magic spells, good luck idols, volumes of arcane taboos, and a spirit/demonic basis to good and bad luck.
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It humanizes them. Even rational people may occasionally turn to religion for comfort.
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As stated in other answers, this is hardly news. Nor is it surprising. The culture of science that we have today is a very new phenomenon. Look at it this way. We worship differently, but we worship all the same. We place a high value on rationality, whether this actually serves us or not. We attack or look down on nature based values, psychic stuff and a variety of other things that don't match our belief system. We're not as different as we think we are.
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Magick is only natural energy being manipulated. If anything, this makes me respect them more.
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Not exactly news. There was great superstition in ancient societies and the Greeks were no exception. I don't think all Ancient Greek thinkers subscribed to all of the superstitions but a large number did. Pythagoras for example was a notorious mystic. Further there are a more than a few great scientists who have been somewhat mystical as well. Pauli if I recall was quite the mystic. Newton was highly religious and interested in mysticism. Modern society is supposedly 'enlightened' in this regard however there is a sizeable portion of the population that believe in all sorts of mystical and magical phenomena. Take UFOlogy as just one example. Also religion shows little sign of abating in our societies so we aren't all that different. Maybe the myths are different but mysticism and so forth is still prevalent. So it doesn't really change my opinions of the Greeks as I have known this for some time. Some of their ideas were excellent. Some not so excellent. Take the better ones and not the poorer ones. Even Einstein made mistakes.
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It doesn't surprise me. Science as it is known now is a relatively recent phenomenon. People of The Hellenistic Era believed in magic since it was the most mundane explanation availible to them. For example they believed the Sun was pulled across the sky by a god named Helios. Now granted we know now that The sun is not actually being pulled by anyone but rather the Earth is revolving thus the sun appears at diferent positions throughout the day. But at that time there was no way man could travel to space and observe this and telescopes were very primitive.
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