Power and authority: magic for this purpose

Magic as power and authority is the use of ritual to make or hold rank: kings with sacred duties, court astrologers, rainmakers, chiefs who are said to hold spiritual force, and priests who keep a state religion. It includes the Egyptian pharaoh, the Mongol shamans at the court of the khan, the Chinese Taoist masters, the Zulu and Shona spirit mediums, and the astrologers who advised Mughal and European rulers. This page asks how magic and politics feed each other. Where this happens, magic is less about individual wishes and more about who is allowed to speak for the unseen.

Sacred rulers

In many kingdoms the ruler was believed to hold a power linked to harvest, rain or victory. Pharaohs performed rites to keep order, and the Divine Right of kings in Europe included the royal touch, a rite by which French and English monarchs touched people with scrofula. Chinese emperors held the Mandate of Heaven, which natural omens could confirm or withdraw. The Mongol khans consulted shamans and diviners. Kings also commissioned astrologers to choose coronation dates.

Advisers and rivals

Courts employed diviners, astrologers and mages. John Dee advised Elizabeth I, and Indian and Persian kings kept court astrologers. Such advisers also faced risk: in Rome, astrologers were expelled several times, and accusations of sorcery were used to remove rivals at courts from Byzantium to Ming China. Magic offered influence to people with little formal rank. Sorcery charges were used against queens and ministers in several courts, and the fall of a favourite was often explained by a spell.

Resistance and the state

Spirit mediums have led resistance. In Zimbabwe, the spirit mediums Nehanda and Kaguvi were central to the 1896 uprising against British rule, and Nehanda was hanged in 1898. In Kenya and Tanzania, the Maji Maji rebellion of 1905 drew on a water said to protect against bullets. Colonial states responded with witchcraft ordinances, which often banned healers and protected nobody. In Africa, chiefs are often described as guardians of a land and its rain, and ruling families have held rites for the whole community.

Modern politics

Some leaders consult astrologers or healers, and political use of the occult is reported from India to Latin America. Accusations of witchcraft are used against opponents and in land disputes. Scholars read these links as part of how power is made visible and legitimate. Citizens may wish to ask who benefits when magic is used in public life. Many states now regulate healers and diviners, or use them for public health messages, which shows how much influence they still have.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

Cowrie: NOAA (Photo Collection of Dr. James P. McVey, NOAA Sea Grant Program), Public domain, source

Greek divination: Berthold Werner, CC BY-SA 3.0, source

Palmistry: Pietro della Vecchia, Public domain, source

Astrology: Wilfredor, CC0, source

Chinese shamanism: No machine-readable author provided. +上帝+ assumed (based on copyright, CC BY-SA 3.0, source

Ifá: Toluaye, Public domain, source

Bibliomancy: Albert Robida, Public domain, source

Dhikr: Eugène Baugnies, Public domain, source

Fortune-telling: Taras Shevchenko, Public domain, source

Ancient Egyptian religion: Moh hakem, CC BY-SA 4.0, source

Magic in the Greco-Roman world: ArchaiOptix, CC BY-SA 4.0, source

Germanic seeress: Emil Doepler, Public domain, source

The Magician: Pamela Colman Smith, Public domain, source

Renaissance magic: Unknown author, Public domain, source

Oracle: John William Waterhouse, Public domain, source

Geomancy: Jacopo188, CC BY-SA 3.0, source

Oracle bone: Unknown author, CC0, source

Power and authority