Ancient Churches Lexicon Entry:
Magic
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Magic is the perversion of order, and is especially the abuse of correspondences (AC 6692). As the Ancient Church spread, innovators corrupted its worship until all the representatives and significatives they had learned from the Most Ancient Church were turned into idolatry and magic. This was the end of the First Ancient Church, so the Lord re-established the church with Eber and the Hebrew nation (AC 1241). When that church eventually fell, the Lord restored the representatives and significatives with the Israelitish people; these people could not turn representatives and significatives into magic, for they were completely external and had no belief in anything internal (AC 6692).
Magicians (or magi, wisemen, or diviners) were people who had learned about correspondences from the Ancient Church and used them to communicate with spirits. In this way they learned the arts of illusion, which they used to perform miracles that involved magic (AC 5223). Many people in the Ancient Church communicated with good spirits, but some people opened communication with evil spirits (AC 6692). They then devised their own rituals that did not contain anything spiritual, but were merely from reasonings and factual knowledge (AC 1195). They used all this knowledge to attempt to enter into spiritual things by means of their own power (AC 1462). Several different kinds of enchantments were also in use among the ancients (AR 462).
Egypt was a center of magic in ancient times because the Egyptians, more than others, had cultivated the factual knowledge of the Ancient Church, which consisted of representatives and significatives (AC 9391, AC 5700). In time the Egyptians completely inverted this knowledge and turned it into magic (AC 5700).
See also:
Communication with the Spiritual World,
Correspondences, Eber, Egypt,
Hieroglyphics, Idolatry, Representatives,
Respiration, Rituals, Significatives
Passages relating to Magic and the Ancient Churches:
AC 1195; AC 1241; AC 1462; AC 2243; AC 4013; AC 4680; AC 4749; AC 4964;
AC 5223; AC 5700; AC 6052; AC 6692; AC 6846; AC 6917; AC 6988; AC 7039;
AC 7079; AC 7779; AC 9391; AC 10252; AC 10355; AC 10407; AC 10437; AC
10632; AC 10643; AE 141; AE 555; AE 633; AE 654; AE 827; AE 1182; AR 399;
AR 462; AR 503; Coro 42; Coro 45; DP 264; SE 263; SE 1755; SE 3004; SE
4848; SS 22; TCR 137; TCR 203; TCR 204
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