Part One

Fantasy, some have said, is the gateway to devil worship, sorcery, and the occult. The assertion is not entirely unreasonable: the Bible does condemn sorcery, and fantasy literature does contain an awful lot of (positively portrayed) sorcery. The argument is clear. The argument is also wrong, when applied to all fantasy, for one reason: it relies on an unconscious equivocation. Whatever word you choose (magic, sorcery, etc.¹), it must be defined before it can be used, or you run the risk of condemning a house cat to death when you’re hunting a lion. Put simply, many fantasy stories use ‘magic’ or similar terms for phenomenon or practices which do not fit the Biblical definition (or usage) of that word, despite their superficial similarities. Furthermore, to include sorcery (as Biblically defined) in a story is not inherently evil, so long as care is taken in its portrayal. Put simply, not all fantasy magic is the same as real-life magic, and the moral cant of the depiction must be assessed before judgement is passed.

On a side note, brace yourselves to hear a lot about The Lord of the Rings in just a little bit.

Before we get to the fun stuff, we must first define what the Bible means when it speaks of magic, sorcery, and the like. The sorcery condemned by the Bible is consistently linked with cult practices and idolatry; careful inspection of the various passages yields the following loose definition: ‘the Biblical conception of sorcery is of practices endeavoring to harness or entreat the power of the demonic (in recognized² or unrecognized form)’. For instance, divination, a practice still part of the modern occult³, consists of supplication to the demonic (or the generically supernatural, though a bit of thought will show that this is necessarily a supplication to the demonic regardless, as it is not towards God) for knowledge (at least in its fullest form).

We can see this in several passages. In Isaiah 57, for instance, the ‘sons of the sorceress’ (v3) are those who ‘burn with lust’, ‘slaughter [their] children’, ‘to [the stones] [they] pour out a drink offering’⁴. In Deuteronomy 18:10-12, God links sorcery and subsets (divination, necromancy, mediums) to human sacrifice, “There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord.” True, this sacrifice is not directly connected to the demonic in the passage, but insofar as any effect is to be expected from these sacrifices, surely it must proceed from demons. After all, God is not responsible; He condemns it as ‘abomination’ (a very, very strong condemnation- see also Rev. 21:8⁵).

This ‘magic’ is both real and dangerous, particularly to the soul of its ostensible wielder. Christians in ages past were not being silly or facetious when they sang the words of St. Patrick’s Breastplate, praying to God for protection “against the demon snares of sin,… against all Satan’s spells and wiles,… against the knowledge that defiles,… against the wizard’s evil craft”⁶. Now, much of the ostensible supernatural works of the modern day- spirit healers, mediums, psychics, etc.⁷– are likely fraud, not true sorcery, but some truly practice abominations, knowingly or not. The demonic is real, else Pharaoh’s sorcerers would not have been able to do what they did (Ex. 7:22, 8:7), and God is not joking when He tells Israel that the sorcerer is to be put to death (Ex. 22:18). Even aside from the tempting, alluring power of sorcery, of divination, at least one false religion has originated from a man- Joseph Smith- with a history of the occult.

If magic is worthy of death, why do I write fantasy fiction which depicts magic as being used by both antagonist and protagonist⁸? Am I not calling people to death, committing (by my own standards) a grave sin by tempting all who read towards evil (Matt. 18:6)? Simply put, not all ‘magic’ fits the above definition, and if it doesn’t fit the definition, the condemnation applied to the defined practices is not applicable. Let’s look at some examples of magic which don’t fall under this condemnation, with specifics from both The Lord of the Rings and my own works, published and not-yet.

Innate magic, as I’ve termed it, is ‘magic’ which works off of internal power, not external supernatural beings. A magic system, for instance, which posits that people (or maybe people with certain heritages) can naturally launch matter-transmuting energy bolts from their fingertips, is not what the Bible calls ‘sorcery’. The Lord of the Rings has Gandalf (as well as a whole lot of characters in The Silmarillion) who perform ostensible magic. Gandalf is even called a ‘wizard’. If you read the lore, however, Gandalf is not a man (or elf or dwarf or animal) who derives power from another. To introduce a term foreign to the world, Gandalf is essentially an angel, a being created by Eru Iluvatar (the equivalent of God in the story of Arda) with innate ‘supernatural’ powers. Likewise, in my own stories (the first of which is available here), elves have several innate capabilities humans do not, including the ability to open (within certain narrow limits) portals from one place to another. This ‘magic’ is as natural to them as lifting weights is to a regular human. Innate magic, as I’ve explained it here, is not condemned by the Bible. It is, in principle, no different than, as mentioned, lifting weights, except that it’s not possible (in other words, it’s fictional). No demonic elements are involved.

Part Two picks up right where Part One ends.

Due to it’s length, this is Part One of two. We’ll continue HERE next week with another example fantasy magic that isn’t Biblically condemned, then move on to more borderline and negative possibilities. Part Two picks up right where Part One ends.

Footnotes

1 – ‘Divination’ and ‘necromancy’ are slightly more edge cases, as we’ll discuss, though the same general argument applies.

2 – Guises adopted by the demonic (historically and in modern day) include energy beings (see note 3), false gods (Is. 57:3-7), and aliens (LINK). If you came from Part Two, click here.

3 – A good resource on the nature of Biblically-defined sorcery is found here. Please do consider it if you’re unclear on its reality, gravity, or attributes.

4 – Parentheses used to elucidate pronouns by replacing them with their antecedents and change it from second to third person.

5 – We can also rule out angels, because they (barring the fallen angels, a.k.a. the demons) do not act against God’s law, as this would manifestly be; likewise we can rule out another supernatural creature because it is the consistent implication of the Bible (in its silence, primarily) that such does not exist. Even if it did, though, the fact that the practice is condemned as abomination would render this hypothetical creature no better than a demon (and no more prone to repentance).

6 – Quoted in honor of this being written on St. Patrick’s Day. Citation: Cantus Christi (hymnal), page 349. Published by Canon Press, 2004.

7 – On spirit healers, here’s a sample. On the rest, reference the link from note #3.

8 – Particularly the antagonist in Why Ought I to Die?, though the story currently being drafted has more protagonist use of magic.