Anyone breaking this or any other rule may be expelled. Members give their word not to willfully disclose magic secrets other than to bona fide students of magic. The motto of the society is the Latin indocilis privata loqui, which the club claims to mean "not apt to disclose secrets" (but actually makes little sense and means something like "Private things not teachable or to be spoken "). In 2014, Megan Knowles-Bacon became the first female officer in The Magic Circle, as well as the youngest person to be elected as an officer she was elected as secretary. As of 2010 there were around eighty female members of The Magic Circle, including Paul Daniels' wife, Debbie McGee. The club was male-only until 1991, when more than 75% of members voted to admit women. The Magic Circular claims to be the longest-running regular magic magazine in conjuring history. The first official meeting was at the Green Man public house in Soho, but meetings were later in a room at St George's Hall in Langham Place, where David Devant and John Nevil Maskelyne were regularly seen performing.ĭevant became the first president of The Magic Circle, and in 1906, Maskelyne edited the first issue of The Magic Circular magazine, a regular feature for members ever since. However, it was finally agreed that the name "Magic Circle", which shares the same initials as those of Martin Chapender, would be more appropriate. At this founders meeting, chaired by Servais Le Roy, those present decided upon the name of the Society: it was initially felt that the name of the Society should be the Martin Chapender Club, in memory of the performer and founding member who had recently died at the age of 25. The magic water was then drunk by the patient, or used to wash their wound.The Magic Circle was founded in 1905 after a meeting of 23 amateur and professional magicians at London's Pinoli's Restaurant. The power in these words and images could be accessed by pouring water over the cippus. The story ends with the promise that anyone who is suffering will be healed, as Horus was healed. Some have inscriptions describing how Horus was poisoned by his enemies, and how Isis, his mother, pleaded for her son's life, until the sun god Ra sent Thoth to cure him. A statue of King Ramesses III (c.1184-1153 BC), set up in the desert, provided spells to banish snakes and cure snakebites.Ī type of magical stela known as a cippus always shows the infant god Horus overcoming dangerous animals and reptiles. Acting out the myth would ensure that the patient would be cured, like Horus.Ĭollections of healing and protective spells were sometimes inscribed on statues and stone slabs (stelae) for public use. The doctor may have proclaimed that he was Thoth, the god of magical knowledge who healed the wounded eye of the god Horus. Many spells included speeches, which the doctor or the patient recited in order to identify themselves with characters in Egyptian myth. It is not until the Roman period that there is much evidence of individual magicians practising harmful magic for financial reward. Only foreigners were regularly accused of using evil magic. None of these uses of magic was disapproved of - either by the state or the priesthood. Midwives and nurses also included magic among their skills, and wise women might be consulted about which ghost or deity was causing a person trouble.Īmulets were another source of magic power, obtainable from 'protection-makers', who could be male or female. Lower in status were the scorpion-charmers, who used magic to rid an area of poisonous reptiles and insects. Healing magic was a speciality of the priests who served Sekhmet, the fearsome goddess of plague. By the first millennium BC, their role seems to have been taken over by magicians (hekau). Real lector priests performed magical rituals to protect their king, and to help the dead to rebirth. In popular stories such men were credited with the power to bring wax animals to life, or roll back the waters of a lake. The most respected users of magic were the lector priests, who could read the ancient books of magic kept in temple and palace libraries. Priests were the main practitioners of magic in pharaonic Egypt, where they were seen as guardians of a secret knowledge given by the gods to humanity to 'ward off the blows of fate'.
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