Natural Magick (1584)

Starting with the premise that our mind doesn't actually perceive reality directly, but rather creates an internal representation based on external sensory inputs, I would say that the definition of magic is "the intentional manipulation of another person's internal representation of reality." Which should cover a lot of what most people consider to be magic tricks.

Magic, science, religion and philosophy are three dimensions of this issue. Magic and science are the practical dimensions, while religion and philosophy are the theoretical dimensions.

There is overlap, so religion has it's practical side, but here I realy mean theology.

In the early eras magic and science were essentially indistinguishable, because people had limited intellectual tools to determine what really worked and what didn't. As those tools became more codified and more reliable, science started to distinguish itself. So for example modern chemistry extricated itself from alchemy.

Nowadays we look at these questions in hindsight using the lens of modern rationalism and scientific methods, so we can distinguish between activities that were effective and reliable from those based on fanciful ideas and 'magical' thinking.

A lot of historical magic was based on a religious view of the world. So there were spells for summoning demons that could help you find treasure, or protect you from evil influences, or make someone fall in love with you. These evolved from religious practices, but then again what is a marriage ceremony or blessing if not a magical spell? They are attempts to invoke esoteric powers to make a change in the world.

Other forms of magic evolved from natural philosophy. This includes a lot of early medicine that tried to manipulate the balance of the humours in the body, or magic that invoked elemental powers or principles. The modern equivalent is crystal healing and such.

So one way to look at it is that magic is stuff based on theological or folkloric ideas, or (to not put too fine a point on it) false philosophy. That's a very modern way to slice things though. Modern occultists have also invented new and interesting ways to redefine magic, Crowley for example. And yes, I'd put him in the modern category.

My personal definition of magic is an effect that cannot be repeated- say, something like cold fusion. Perhaps you performed a magickal act once and it had an effect - but the same effect will never repeat itself no matter how often you repeat the exact same magickal act. But, maybe you can find another Act that will have the same Effect.

... or in nay case that was a definition of magic that I was planning on basing an entire (homebrew) RPG supplement on :)

My definition of science, on the other hand is absolutely "magic that works". Modern science is achieving everything that ancient cultures tried to do with magic. Except, we found the way to understand how the world works and how to do all those things for real- the scientific method. Which doesn't always work of course- but if anything does, that's science.

It helps with the worldview, but it doesn't give us context as to how it's contemporaries interpreted it - was this a popular book that was accepted and acknowledged, or was it a fringe effort that remains?

As a knowledge structure (axioms and theorems), math is absolutely invented.

The fact that it often corresponds to our experience of reality is a consequence of thousands of years of refinement with the goal of making it describe reality as closely as possible while remaining internally consistent.

But that doesn't make it any less invented... just a very helpful tool for modeling reality.