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7/9/2025, 10:42:50 AM
>>509904503
>By the first century AD, in his Natural History, Pliny made Zoroaster the founder of magic:
>"Undoubtedly magic began in Persia with Zoroaster, as authorities are agreed. But there is insufficient agreement about whether he was the only man by that name, or whether there was another and later Zoroaster. What is particularly surprising is that the tradition and craft should have endured for so long; no original writings survive, nor are they preserved by any well-known or continuous line of subsequent authorities. For few people know anything by reputation of those who survive only in name and lack any memorials, as, for example, Apusorus and Zaratas of Media, Marmarus and Arabantiphocus of Babylon, or Tarmoendas of Assyria."
>Though the Magi had continued the magical traditions of the Chaldeans, they were primarily recognized as specialists in theurgy, or necromancy, that is, divination by means of summoning the spirits of the dead, or as Plato defined the practice, in the Alcibiades I, “the service of the gods.” Pliny transmitted a definition of magic by a famous Magi named Osthanes: “there are several forms of it (i.e. magic); he professes to divine from water, globes, air, stars, lamps, basins and axes, and by many other methods, and besides to converse with ghosts and those in the underworld.” Therefore, when Roman satirist Lucian wishes to send one of his characters down to the realm of the dead, he resorts to the renowned experts: “as I was puzzling over these matters, it occurred to me to go to Babylon and ask one of the Magi, Zoroaster’s disciples and successors. I had heard that they could open the gates of the underworld with certain spells and rites and conduct and bring back up safely whomever they wished
>By the first century AD, in his Natural History, Pliny made Zoroaster the founder of magic:
>"Undoubtedly magic began in Persia with Zoroaster, as authorities are agreed. But there is insufficient agreement about whether he was the only man by that name, or whether there was another and later Zoroaster. What is particularly surprising is that the tradition and craft should have endured for so long; no original writings survive, nor are they preserved by any well-known or continuous line of subsequent authorities. For few people know anything by reputation of those who survive only in name and lack any memorials, as, for example, Apusorus and Zaratas of Media, Marmarus and Arabantiphocus of Babylon, or Tarmoendas of Assyria."
>Though the Magi had continued the magical traditions of the Chaldeans, they were primarily recognized as specialists in theurgy, or necromancy, that is, divination by means of summoning the spirits of the dead, or as Plato defined the practice, in the Alcibiades I, “the service of the gods.” Pliny transmitted a definition of magic by a famous Magi named Osthanes: “there are several forms of it (i.e. magic); he professes to divine from water, globes, air, stars, lamps, basins and axes, and by many other methods, and besides to converse with ghosts and those in the underworld.” Therefore, when Roman satirist Lucian wishes to send one of his characters down to the realm of the dead, he resorts to the renowned experts: “as I was puzzling over these matters, it occurred to me to go to Babylon and ask one of the Magi, Zoroaster’s disciples and successors. I had heard that they could open the gates of the underworld with certain spells and rites and conduct and bring back up safely whomever they wished
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