Micah 5:12 - "and I will cut off sorceries from your hand, and you shall have no more soothsayers;"

Acts 8:9 - "But there was a man named Simon who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the nation of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great."

Throughout history man has been fascinated by the thought of defying or controlling the laws of nature. A man who can place his hand in a roaring fire and bring it out unharmed will attract as much attention today as he did 5,000 years ago. Primitive peoples worshiped sun gods, moon gods, river gods, and forest gods, and their priests often claimed that they could persuade these dieties to do their bidding. It was also commonly believed that hosts of spirits, both good and evil, inhabited the earth and that they could, if they desired, grant any human being the most miraculous powers.

Magic, the performance of seemingly impossible acts, was orginally an important part of religion. Such works as Homer’s ODYSSEY and THE ARABIAN NIGHTS depict the ancient world as a place of mystery and miracles, where only those religions which offered "proof" of the gods’ powers could survive for very long. The responsibility for providing this proof lay with the priests, who were probably the world’s first magicians.

The priests’ magic was of two kinds. First, there was the magic which they were SUPPOSED to perform. Like the rain dancers among the American Indians of today, the ancient priests were supposed to be able to control the elements for the good of their people. They were supposed to be able to call upon the evil spirits to destroy their enemies and through the assistance of supernatural powers to be able to foretell the future. This was primarily the field of the sorcerer.

This was geniune magic, which for many centuries remained the special province of the priest. The Old Testament tells of Hebrew prophets who competed with the priests of Egypt to prove the superiority of their magic and, consequently, of their religion. Early Christian missionaries entered into similar contests with pagan priests. In time, however, Christianity and magic became violently opposed, and during the Middle Ages those who claimed miraculous powers were regarded as the Devil’s servants. Their unholy practices were called BLACK MAGIC.

But magic was probably as generally accepted in the Middle Ages as it had been in the ancient world. It is interesting to note that all of the references to magic in the Bible are prohibitions against it, which is natural enough, since it not only implied acceptance of heathen tenets, but also denigrated God. However, we find that the prohibitions are so frequent that we are led to conclude that the people themselves indulged extensively. And it continued so down through the ages. In medieval times, everyone believed in witchcraft (how about the resurgence of that belief today!), and the most learned men used weird rites and incantations in their attempts to learn the secrets of the universe. They sought to summon good or evil spirits and to raise up the spirits of the dead. They experimented with astrology and gazed into crystal balls to divine what was in store for their noble patrons. And today, astrologers, palmists, crystalgazers and clairvoyants continue to reveal the future to eager customers.

This type of magic is called natural because no supernatural claims to power are ever made in connection with it. In fact, the magicians who perform it are, as a rule, the most outspoken skeptics on the subject of genuine magic. It is their business to mystify, and they know that their public is easily fooled. They achieve their effects by the skillful use of illusioned trickery.

The first magicians of this type were probably those very priests who were supposed to perform genuine magic. To mystify and impress their followers they used tricks which were closely related to the modern magician’s stock in trade. Perhaps the purest and oldest form of natural magic is the sleight of hand, or legerdemain. The priest who failed to make the rain fall might regain prestige by making a pebble disappear with a clever twist of his wrist. Pebbles and similar small objects have been "disappearing" up magicians’ sleeves for centuries.

It is believed that ancient priests also made use of mechanical equipment and whatever knowledge of science they possessed to mystify visitors to their temples and shrines. Like modern performers they had foolproof methods of prophesying, of reading minds, and of conjuring up spirits. The history of natural magic is largely the story of refining and developing the certain methods of trickery. It’s not hard to see why the practitioners of these arts were strictly anathematized by the Lord!