Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2020 February 10

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February 10

A well-respected naval surgeon, sentenced to hang for homosexuality

In Coughlan, Sean. "The 200-year-old diary that's rewriting gay history". BBC News. Retrieved 10 February 2020. we read of "a big sex scandal of the day [the reign of George III] - in which a well-respected naval surgeon had been found to be engaging in homosexual acts", and that "A court martial had ordered him to be hanged". Who was that well-respected man, and did he escape the noose? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 02:54, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

This may be a good start for your research. --Jayron32 13:34, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks - was just coming here to say I'd had an answer from elsewhere, James Nehemiah Taylor was the well-respected man, see this, which gives a lot more detail. He was hanged, poor sod. DuncanHill (talk) 14:12, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Interesting choice of words there. Matt Deres (talk) 14:22, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Well one word, anyway. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:25, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Friend and foe alike agreed that he was hung. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:06, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

thaumaturgy

Are there some interesting examples of thaumaturgy in real life or fiction? Not saying it necessarily works in the real life case, but only that it's supposed to work according to the performer. Exorcism and voodoo might be real examples, and the book/movie The Exorcist a fictional one. But for fiction I'm preferably looking for something more like D&D clerics casting spells to resurrect dead people, smite their opponents with lightning bolts, and stuff like that. It is ok if this comes from the fantasy genre since I don't know where else to find it. But I'd say e.g. Raiders of the Lost Ark doesn't count, since the supernatural power was in the artifact rather than being invoked by a person performing a spell or ritual. "Magic" a la Harry Potter (that doesn't come from a deity) doesn't count at all. I'm looking for divine magic. Thanks. Added: Dracula might count since he is driven away by crucifixes and killed (if that's the word) with a wooden stake. 73.93.153.166 (talk) 21:31, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Faith healers... AnonMoos (talk) 22:04, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Your definition of thaumaturgy is going well beyond what the word is typically used to mean.

In the more traditional sense of "miracle," the Bible and the Golden Legend features plenty of stories, and we have articles on the Miracles of Gautama Buddha, the Miracles of Jesus, and the Miracles of Muhammad. Some are flashier than others. Technically, Gautama's doesn't come from a deity but in some editions of D&D would still be considered divine magic because devotion to a higher ideal was involved or something (and not just because the psionics rules either haven't been written or they're buggy or because D&D generally fucks up its own artificial divisions between arcane, divine, and psionic magic and can't even begin to handle the even blurrier borders in real-world folklore).

A lot of Grimoires actually say they'll only work if the practitioner is a devout follower of a particular religion (e.g. the Arbatel de magia veterum requires the practitioner to be Christian, while the the Shams al-Ma'arif assumes they could only be Muslim). Buuuuutt-- A lot of books like this, such as the Sefer Raziel HaMalakh, magicians of related religions would just downplay which religion, or straight up replace that religion with their own. Nevertheless, it was not until the 19th century that you had anyone actually practicing these things while claiming that you could do them without being religious. Now, yes, mainstream religious authorities were generally negative, but not always.

Natural magic (which is where the fantasy genre gets its quasi-scientific arcane magic from) similarly claimed that its ultimate origin was from God, even if it works for everyone. See for example the writings of Albertus Magnus. In effect, these are trial miracles that God is willing to let anyone try just to let people know what a nice fellow He is (compare with the Benjamin Franklin quote "Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, and which incorporates itself with the grapes to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy!").

Also, Dracula wasn't killed by a wooden stake, he (the fictional vampire) was held in place with a Bowie knife to the chest while being decapitated with a kukri. However, Dracula being driven away by the power of the cross is why D&D clerics can turn undead away with their holy symbols. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:57, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Ah, thanks, I wasn't really familiar with the words thaumaturgy or theurgy before. I found them while trying to find the terms for the kind of magic D&D clerics do. Ritual magic also seems apropos. Your other points are informative too, and Anonmoos's faith healers were well spotted. 2601:648:8202:96B0:0:0:0:7AC0 (talk) 02:05, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

IIRC, Raymond E. Feist's The Riftwar Cycle (which was based on his D&D game with his friends) did call divine magic "theurgy" and arcane magic "thaumaturgy."

The first edition AD&D player's handbook says "All clerics have their own spells, bestowed upon them by their deity for correct and diligent prayers and deeds" (page 20). Miracle would be a good word, though that's also the name of a specific in some editions. However, thaumaturgy does mean "miracle working." Meanwhile, the same Player's Handbook uses both "theurgist" and "thaumaturgist" as level-based titles for magic-users (i.e. wizards). (Gygax was pretty clearly going through the thesaurus and just using any word for spellcasters in there).

Before I wrote this, I was feeling pretty sure that Gygax's knee-jerk reaction would have been that Ritual magic (along with the grimoires I mentioned) belongs to arcane magic, as everything I could remember from the first two editions (and the early chunk of the third) that resembled ritual magic was well outside of the divine locus. That said, the Aerial Servant cleric spell actually does require the caster to create a magic circle against evil (including a pentagram and triangle) or else be killed by the Aerial Servant, which suggests that someone at TSR either read the Key of Solomon or else a fantasy book that drew upon the KoS for some important magical scene. Later on, Wizards of the Coast authors have added rules for rituals that are divine, though these are more in line with rituals in general, not ceremonial magic specifically.

You might want to check our article on the Sources and influences on the development of Dungeons & Dragons. According to this, a number of spells were also inspired by effects in Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions (like a ton of other elements). Ian.thomson (talk) 10:39, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

• For a historical treatment of the belief, also see Marc Bloch's Rois et Thaumaturges (trans. 1973 as The Royal Touch: Monarchy and Miracles in France and England ). ——SN54129 10:59, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

The_Golden_Bough might be worth a look too. (I don't think modern scholarship supports all its hypotheses, but that's not necessarily a problem for this question). It's a long time since I've read it, but I think it notes a distinction between "religion" (what would be considered divine magic in D&D), based on the idea that the world is ruled or inhabited by gods and spirits that can be persuaded/entreated/tricked/forced to perform miracles for you, and "magic" (what would be considered arcane magic in D&D, and could be considered a primitive attempt at science), based on the idea that the world works according to certain rules, and if you know those rules you can predict or influence events. Iapetus (talk) 12:11, 11 February 2020 (UTC)