Magick

Magick [Imagie (French), magia (Italian and latin) mageoi’a (Greek)]

is by some distinguished into 4 kinds.

Natural Magick natural philosophy, or the application of natural active causes to passive causes: by means of which many surprizing, but natural, effects are produced; but the Arabians corrupting it, and filling it with many superstitious vanities, the name of it began to be understood in an ill sense.

Natural Magick [according to the description of some]

is by art and industry to produce vegetables before their natural time, as ripe roses, figs &c. in February; also the causing lightening, thunder, rain, winds, transfigurations and transmutations of animals, such as Roger Bacon is said to have performed by Natural Magick.

Divine Magick which is performed by the immediate grace of the almighty, and depends on that spirit and power, which discovers it self in noble operations; such as prophecy, miracles; such magicians were Moses, Joshua, the prophets and apostles.

Celestial Magick attributes to spirits a kind of rule or dominion over the planets, and to the planets, a dominion over men, and on this it raises a ridiculous kind of system, nearly bordering on judiciary astrology.

White Magick call’d also Theurgick, performed by the assistance of an angel, which, upon account of religion, enjoins fasting, piety and purity, that the soul which is desirous of commerce with the superior deities, may not be in any thing diverted by the body, being sinful or polluted.

Definition taken from The Universal Etymological English Dictionary, edited by Nathan Bailey (1736)

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