Magician. The name given to an enchanter, who actually makes or who appears to make supernatural actions. It also signifies a soothsayer or a seer. During the centuries of barbarity or ignorance, he made a good enough living, but Philosophy and, above all, experimental physics, more developed and better known, have led to the loss of credibility and fashion of this marvelous art. The name of magician is often found in holy writings; which justifies the ancient remark that among the sacred writers, there were few if any philosophers.

Moses, for example, prohibited consulting this type of person, under pain of death; Leviticus 19:31, telling them to turn away from wizards and soothsayers, Leviticus 20:6. As to those who would follow the wizards and soothsayers, in following mindlessly after them, I would face that person squarely and put him back with his own people , since he was violating the laws of a sensible government, in the plan of the Jewish theocracy, from not dealing ruthlessly with those who derogate the religion of the one true God, going to consult the agents of the Devil or the father of lies. Besides, Moses who had been in Pharaoh’s court grappling with the prince’s leading magicians , knew from his own experience of what they were capable and, in order to resist them, that he would need no less than a divine and supernatural power. Similarly, he wanted such a wise protection that would enable him to foresee the dangerous and disastrous illusions into which those who were weak enough to run after the minions of error would necessarily fall.

We read in Exodus 7:10-11 that Pharaoh was stunned to see that the rod which Aaron threw down before him and his servants turned into a dragon. This attracted the sages, enchanters and magicians of Egypt who, by their magic accomplished the same feat; they threw their rods down before them and turned them into dragons, but Aaron’s swallowed them.

We know little of the meaning of the original terms; the Vulgate translates but two, which were undoubtedly seen as useless synonyms. Each signified the sages , but of their knowledge, one could read both a good and bad part, or true wisdom or a wisdom which was illusory, evil, dangerous and false by itself. Thus at all times, there were men clever and politic enough to create the appearance that Philosophy would serve their earthly interests, often even their passions.

Mecasphim comes from the word caschaph , which always indicates a divination or an explanation of hidden things. Thus, these are the diviners, readers of horoscopes, interpreters of dreams or fortune tellers. Carthumiens are magicians, enchanters or people who by their cleverness and artifice deceive one’s eyes and seem to work fantastic changes in objects or senses, such as those whom Pharaoh had compete with the enchantments of Moses and Aaron, and they made the same thing by their enchantments . The original expressions come from the books of spells, the secret words which are spoken quietly by muttering magicians or those who pass themselves off as such. Their effect more than half convinces simple folk that these empty words pronounced in a husky voice can produce miracles; how many authors owe their reputation to the good fortune of their own obscurity? This type of magic is the only type which is practiced today with success.

It would be very difficult, not to say impossible, to decide if the miracle of the metamorphosis of the rods into serpents was real and certified by the Pharaoh’s magicians ; both sides are equally plausible and can be supported; but the rabbis who wrote about the life of Moses presented the event in a manner still more glorious for the chief of the Hebrews: vie de Moïse , published by Gaulmin (1629) . They say that Balaam, seeing that the rod which Moses changed into a serpent devoured the others which had changed into serpents, believed that it was not at all a miracle since the serpent is a voracious and carnivorous animal, but that it was necessary to see if the wooden rod remained a rod while eating the others. Moses accepted the challenge and threw the rod on the floor which then consumed those of the magicians without changing its form.

The chiefs of the Pharaoh’s magicians are not named in Exodus, but St. Paul preserved their names for us; he called them Jamnes and Mambres : these names are even found in the Chaldean paraphrases, in the Talmud, the Gemara and other Hebrew books; the rabbis wished that they had been sons of the false prophet Balaam, that they accompanied their father as he went to Balac, the king of Moab. The Orientals called them Sabour and Gadour , and believed them descended from the Thebans. According to the Orientals, their father having been long dead, their mother had recommended that, before they launched on their course, they should consult with their late father’s soul on the success of their voyage. They invoked it and called it by his name. He heard their voice and responded and, after having learned from them the subject which they brought to his grave, he told them to be mindful of the rod of Moses and Aaron which had been transformed into a serpent while the two Grand Magicians were sleeping, because the enchantments of a magician could be of no effect while he slept, and also to be aware that if death would otherwise come to them, no creature would be capable of resisting it. Arriving at Memphis, Sabour and Gadour learned that the rod of Moses and Aaron had changed into a serpent which stayed on guard, as soon as they would start to sleep, and not let anyone get close to them. They were stunned by this wonder and were not allowed to present themselves before the King with all the other magicians of the country (who had come from all corners and amounted to a total of seventy thousand), because the famous magicians , Giath and Mossa, presented themselves to Pharaoh with a more numerous following. Simeon and the chief magician and head priest of the Egyptians also came followed by a very great entourage.

All of the magicians had seen that Moses’ rod had changed into a serpent, and also threw to the ground the ropes and wands that they had filled with mercury. Those that were warmed by the sun began to move, but the miraculous rod of Moses leapt upon them and consumed them in their presence. The Orientals added, if one can believe Herbelot, that Sabour and Gadour converted to Moses’ side and renounced their vain profession. Pharaoh, seeing that they had been won by the Israelites for favoring the two Hebrew brothers, had their hands and feet cut off and hung their bodies from a gallows.

The Persians taught that Moses was instructed in all of the Egyptians’ sciences by Jamnes and Mambres, wanting to reduce all the miracles to something ordinary enough. It is the disciples who often went further than their master. Chardin, Voyage de Perse, Bk. III, P. 207.

Pliny spoke of a type of great magician who was led by Moses, Jannes and Jotapel or Jocabel, all Jews. By all appearances, the last refers to Joseph, whom the Egyptians always regarded as one of their most famous sages.

Daniel also spoke of magicians and of the Chaldean soothsayers under Nebuchadnezzar. He divided them into four types: Chartumins , enchanters; Asaphins , divine interpreters of dreams or readers of horoscopes; Mecasphins , magicians , witches or those who use herbs, drugs, victims’ blood or the bones of the dead for their superstitious rituals; Casdins , that is to say, Chaldeans, astrologers who claim to read the future in the stars or omens, and who also get involved with explaining dreams and interpreting oracles. There were a great number of these honest people and they had remarkable credibility in the courts of the greatest kings of the world. Nothing was decided without them; they constituted a body of men whose decisions were quite respected since they were also priests, so they couched their advice in religious terms which strengthened their authority and that they had the ability to persuade credulous kings who didn’t know the first thing about philosophy as well as the people who were so ignorant that it was difficult to find among them a sharp enough mind who would dare to doubt them. They had, I say, the ability of persuading such judges that they were the first confidants of their gods. It would be hard to believe such an incomprehensible change of mind, if we were not told so by such trustworthy writers, who were regarded as divinely inspired.

The Jewish people were too coarse to come under the yoke of this superstition. It seems, to the contrary, that the grace that God granted them in sending them frequent prophets to teach them morals had put them in a trap in this regard. The authority of these prophets, their miracles, the free access that they had to kings, their influence in royal deliberations and public affairs, made them respected by the masses and excited in them a natural envy of the prophets’ privileges and their taking on themselves the gift of prophecy; so much so that if one could say that Egypt saw everything in terms of God, there was a time when one could say that Palestine saw everything in terms of prophets. Among the prodigious number of seers, a majority were doubtlessly false. The first were validated by their miracles and this pious obscurity of their speeches which always dazzled the people; it was necessary for that to have recourse to the occult arts and sciences. Magic was used to create an altar to combat another altar; to support the glory of various objects of a cult that was often idolatrous, rarely reasonable and nearly always superstitious enough to supply the resources to those who aspired to pass themselves off as magicians .

Thus, although both human and divine laws dealt ruthlessly with this illusory art, it was practiced nearly continuously by a great number of imposters. If the evangelical eras were rich in fiends, neither did they lack magicians and soothsayers. They appeared even among those who claimed a little philosophic method, and who were not wholly unsuccessful; witness the bitter reproaches of one master who had freed his poor servant from an oracular spirit, on the considerable loss that this cure caused him, seeing that his servant’s divinations had benefited him greatly. And Simon, the rich magician of Samaria, who by his enchantments had captured the minds of all the people, and said to be a great personage, to which both the great and small bore allegiance to the point of calling him the great power of God. Acts VIII: 9 et seq . As to the remainder, there was no one who didn’t have an apologist. Judas had his as an instrument in the hand of God for the well-being of humanity. Simon’s viewed him as a bad man, sincerely converted, and who wanted, through divine intervention, to renounce his agreement with the devil and attack and destroy as much of the devil’s empire that he had worked to build through his spells. But St. Peter did not furnish the materials for his repentance and the deal with the magician Simon was so strongly criticized in the church that it required eloquence more than magic to re-establish his decayed reputation today. The author of the Acts of the Apostles hardly touches on the curious things that surrounded the books that the Ephesians, as new converts to the Christian faith, devoutly burned. Suffice it to say that the price of those books was found to be 50,000 pieces of silver. If those curious things were magical, as there is every reason to believe, certainly the acolytes of the great Diane were very poor philosophers who had extra cash and paid dearly for bad drugs.

I return to the Pharaoh’s magicians . There was a great controversy on the subject of the miracles that they worked and that Moses reported. Many interpreters claim that these honors were only appearances and were actually solely due to their hard work and quick fingers; so much so that they convinced the spectators to believe their own judgment and not actual evidence of the miracle to which they had been persuaded to give their sanction.

Others wanted these miracles to be real and attributed them to the secrets of the magical arts or the action of demons, which two causes are most consistent with the reason and analogy of the time. It is equally difficult and dangerous to decide, and one must be audacious to presume to judge in such a famous case.

The illusion of trickery, prestidigitation, the cleverness of shell games, all the mechanisms can be startling or, more properly, surprising. The admirable secrets of chemistry, the numberless wonders of the extent of nature and the beautiful experiences that have been revealed within its most secret activities; we know all of these things today up to a certain point. But it is necessary to acknowledge that we know but little or hardly anything about demons and the infernal powers which depend on him. It seems even that thanks to the interests of Science, which are incrementally gaining, the demon’s empire continues to decline.

However it may be, Moses told us that Pharaoh’s magicians worked miracles, true or false, and that he, himself, supported by divine power, accomplished greater ones and grievously afflicted Egypt because the heart of his King was hardened. We have to believe this religiously and we are glad not to have claimed to have seen it ourselves.

The balance of the material on this topic is in the article on Magic.