Magic
A word for practices meant to bring about results by means outside ordinary cause and effect, and a word whose meaning is still argued over.
Also: magick, the magical arts, magia
The English word comes through Latin and Greek from the Old Persian magu, a priest of the Median and Persian world. Greek writers used magos both for a learned Persian priest and for a fraud, and that double sense has never left the word. Scholars still disagree on what it covers. Some define it by method, such as spells and rites that are said to work by themselves. Others define it by social position, as whatever a dominant religion disowns. Practitioners often reject the label or use their own terms. This site uses magic as a broad heading for what people believe, do and make, and it takes no side on whether any of it works.