The insights of the magic and supernatural or paranormal occurrences
have influenced the various sects and religions of the present day
and it can be evidently seen in the behaviors and norms of the
people of these religions. In this paper, we would attempt to
compare and contrast the influences as depicted by the beliefs,
rituals and lifestyles of the people from Christianity, Islam and
Judaism.
As the basic themes and the events of the paranormal activities are
the same, the differences occur when in the difference in religion.
Therefore, in order to understand, compare and contrast the
influence on the lifestyles and practices, we first need to
distinguish and explain the three religions. In the next step, the
basic theory of magic and the supernatural being, and their origin
would be taken into account. Then there would be a full text
explanation and comparison of the beliefs, norms and lifestyles.
Judaism, Christianity and Islam
All the three religions confess to the Oneness of God mighty, who is
the Creator of all, gives His wisdom to the mankind and answers to
prayers. They believe in life after death, doom’s day and the
concept of hell and heaven, and that there are holy spirits. The
differences among the Christian and Judaism belief if of the
uniqueness of God where as Christianity propagate the ideals of
father and son relationship between the God and the Jesus and the
presence of the Holy Spirit. This uniqueness belief is the same as
that in Islam. All the three believes in the reincarnation of the
Messiah and the resurrection. Apart from these two Islam offers only
two choices for mankind: belief or unbelief, God or Satan, with the
result that they will attain either Paradise or the fire of hell.
Defining the magic and the Supernatural
By definition, magic is an effort to command the world through
spells and sorcery. It is not faith in God and it requires no
reliance upon God and no submission to His will. But magic is a
power, or an exertion to be a power, that can be exercised
independently of God. Magic entails the application of charms,
spells, divination, and rituals to control events and to knock in to
the supernatural forces for the intention of influencing others. In
the modern sense and the other meaning could be the use of the
technology, such as the Harry Potter’s charms, spells, divination,
and rituals, so as to take the command of one's own fate and also
the fate of others. Spell may be defined as the formula that has
magical power to influence others. Spell casting also causes a
spirit of fear, because the one who is the receiver of the spell
believes he or she is under its influence.
Supernatural magic is something beyond or above the natural.
Magicians use spells to call spirits or demons in attendance and
make them do things they want them to do. However, Natural magic has
nothing to do with the supernatural. Rather, it worked with what was
natural but was hidden from science in the olden days.
Comparison
Starting with the most adorned Sufism culture in the Islamic rites,
ceremonial magic or rituals bears a legitimate place in Islam unlike
Christianity, which gives way to mysticism. Where as Judaism
completely ignores the two ideas, In the Islamic law, Sihr-al-halal
is a permitted magic and may be used as a vehicle for religious
discovery. This has given Sufis space to sustain magical practices
from the ancient world, which were immaculately unstated in Europe
and had to wait for the revival for their re-introduction. Sufis
have constantly sought to preserve their impartiality within
orthodox religion and an intelligent tradition in perpetuity from
the Hellenistic culture of the last few centuries as contrast to the
Qabalah of Judaism. The practice of demonic magic that is summoning
and binding demons has a central role in the magic which does not
comply with the present day Sufis, who like to stress the more
image-friendly "spiritual development" side of their tradition.
Notwithstanding, demonic magic is presumably one of the most archaic
threads in the Sufi tapestry, dating back to the ancient
Babylonian/Egyptian cultures.
Belief in supernatural spirits is still prevalent in three religious
rites. All encompass the belief that the spirits could act either
for good or for evil, and so there was no division between them as
there has been between angels and demons. In Christianity, the power
of these spirits is called manna, which can be either helpful or
hurtful to people. Many Judaism works of art and literature depicts
the fascination with angels and demons. The paintings, stained
glass, mosaics, and sculptures of the Middle Ages and present day
revival of the ancient beliefs of the supernatural are especially
full with figures of both.
An extension of the Sufis and the Qabalah are the popular forms of
divination of reading horoscopes, consulting with spirits, reading
faces and figures, physiognomy, casting lots, and numerology.
Horoscope clairvoyance is grounded on the idea that the time of
birth fixes one’s personality and fortune. Divination through
spirits embraces diviners going into trances and taking advice from
various spirits of supernatural origin. Some spiritualists
specialize in reading faces as a means of discriminating character,
personality, sexuality, and potential for future prosperity.
Palmists are the diviners who include face and hand reading in their
practice. Numerology is one of the tools put to use by spiritual
diviners. Casting lots consists of tossing eight sticks of bamboo,
metal rods, or three coins a set number of times and interpreting
the design they form. Despite the attempts by both the Church and
science to suppress astrology, survives in daily newspapers as well
as in telephone lines. Theurgy, the invocation of spirits through
incantation and trance, survived to become a real craze in
nineteenth century Christianity and continues today in modern
spiritualism.
The Christian celebrates holy events of the resurrection of Jesus
during the Easter season, which gave his life on the cross for the
sins of the whole world. Through the resurrection of Jesus, even
death loses its power. In the ultimate defeat of evil, Jesus
conquers death. This faith is very similar to the faith in the
supernatural and the resurrection and invocation phenomena of the
magical world. The crowning conversion of pagan rites to Christian
order may have taken place in the Renaissance. This revival is
depicted in their art and literature, science and mathematics.
Pythagoreanism, with its ancient teachings of purification,
initiation, communion with spirits and emphasis on the Magus is
being brought to life again.
One way social groups tend to maintain their sacred identity and get
distinguished from other sects is the ritual. All religions,
Christianity, Judaism and Islam have established rites or rules of
conduct concerning how people should behave in the presence of
sacred objects, like when Muslims perform Hajj and the celebration
of the Ash Wednesday, for instance by practicing Catholics and
Episcopalians who may go to work wearing ashes on their foreheads as
a sign of penitence. As ritual also provides an obvious way to
distinguish members from nonmembers, whenever individuals enter a
church, synagogue, or mosque at a funeral or a wedding, their
familiarity or lack of familiarity with the order of service, types
of prayers, and bodily movements divides members from nonmembers.
In recent years, public interest in various types of occultism has
increased. Many books on witchcraft and astrology have been
published, and persons purporting to be witches have appeared in
Europe and the U.S. Emerging technology and science of mentalism has
fascinated many people from both Christianity and Judaism. In this
phenomenon, which is the mere extension to the psychology and
science of mind, mental psychic is exposed. It is the branch in
which the magician simulates telepathy, clairvoyance, and
precognition. The influence on the Christian believes and the
rituals ands customs can be see in the celebration of events such as
the Halloween, Christmas, valentine and the Easter celebrations. To
prove the fact, a brief description of the background of the
celebrations is provided.
Halloween or "All Hallows' Eve" (Breininger, 2001) celebration is
based on satanic and spiritualistic (occult) customs of the Druids
and Celtics who habituated Ireland, Scotland, England and parts of
Europe Christianity. The celebration occurred at the end of the
summer to honor their god "Samhain" (Breininger, 2001), Lord of the
Dead. These rites had nothing to do with fun and thrill, and were
the festivals of fire, the dead, and the powers of darkness. Samhain
was later named as Halligan and Hallowmass, and the today name
Halloween. Sacrifice of humans, trances and spells were the rites of
the festival. The people dressed up in costumes and masks, just as
today, to imitate the roaming of the evil spirits of the dead. Food
and drink were given to placate or to keep them from doing harm.
There has also been an increase in the revival of sedate pagan and
esoteric exercises in the West and of pre-Christian paganism that
puts humans in the same category with all other natural phenomena,
at the mercy of capricious, invisible spirits and forces. Fertility
rites, white witchcraft, divination, palmistry, fortune-telling and
astrology have gained credibility and acceptance over the years, and
many bookshops have sections set aside for the occult. This view
assigns power and authority to unseen spirits and forces in this
world and implicitly denies the power and presence of God in
everyday affairs in the lives of Christians. This animistic
worldview rejects the insights of science. While modern scientists
often reject God, science itself emerged within the context of a
Christian worldview. Many Christians are now turning to the healing,
miracles, success and prosperity forming into a new kind of
Christian magic. Christian magic is very much a part of our times.
We all know the magical influences were incomplete without the
sacrifice of human blood. In Muslim culture, the Sufis or Pirs are
known to contact the occult creatures to obtain the spirituality and
the healing power. We see that many people in the Muslim world
consult these spiritual healers for their depressions which they
think is due to the influence of a supernatural power or an evil
spirit. These healers then use blood of animals to refrain the evil
from entrapping the body of the victim again. This ritual is similar
to the pagan sacrifice of the human to call in the evil spirit. But
it is different in the sense that it uses holy verses to do the job.
Black magic is cursed not only in Islam but also in Christianity and
Judaism. One who practices black magic or any form of magic is
doomed to be expelled for the circle of the faith. As a convergence
of the thought, the magical mystics still prevails in the form of
Sufis, spiritual healers and Popes. Magical symbols such as black
color or cloak used in the funeral ceremonies depicts death (beyond
life: supernatural) as in the ancient times, the numbers 7 and 13,
which are still considered as can bring harm, the black cat as a
symbol of curse. All these and many more have roots from the
previous magical influences. Tattoo pasting is another common
phenomena of present day, which has its roots in the ancient magic.
The life styles of modern Christians and Jews can be predicted in
these carvings. Muslims, in contrast believes in the stones and the
holiness in them. It is said that they bring in good or evil deed
depending upon the suitability to the individual. Tattooing is
considered a childish behavior. The dancing and rejoicing,
especially in the present day pop culture where the fun loving
people gets on the mood to excessively express themselves is also
under the cultural influence of the magic of ancient times. The
sexual orgy, which is considered as the ritual of the black magic,
can be evidently experienced in the present day Christianity and the
Judaism lifestyle. In contrast, the Islamic society has by large
refrained from this sexual orgy. However, the excessive rejoicing
and the pop culture are evident in the lifestyle of Muslims.
The common thing in all the three religion is the belief of
resurrection. In the magic of supernatural, this resurrection event
occurs through the initiation of the evil spirits, bringing back the
dead from life beyond. Whether this idea is present in the divine
belief of the followers, is not the question here. It is the
extenuation of the belief and the influence on the events of the
daily life and the life styles of the people.
Conclusion
The ancient mystical past has shaped the present lifestyles of the
people from the three sects. Much is attributed to the invention of
science and technology for the detachment from the occult practices.
But again, it’s the revelation of science, which has again brought
to the occult. The desperation and suppression has made them return
to the powers of the supernatural, which they think can bring cure
if captured and tamed.
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