The films "Bell, Book and Candle" and "I Married a Witch" are precursors to Bewitched I'd say, though both feature malevolent witches who are derailed by love for the target of their wrath.
There was also Glinda in "The Wizard of Oz".
And some probable Wiccan inaccuracies to one side (Though what is called Wicca these days is, as I understand it, an artifical construct put together in the 20th century rather than an ancient tradition in it's own right), in what sense was "Charmed" less successful than "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" in terms of showing female magic users?
In Charmed as the show progressed the charactered showed increased resistance to any of the magical stuff they encountered, in addition to being kind of terribly sexist towards men and women at the same time in a similar way to Twilight.
In Sabrina the focus remained balanced between magic and real life and wasn't nearly as offensive as Charmed could be sometimes.
In what way resistance? One of them was married a White Lighter (Who even when he lost all his powers, still became a teacher at Hogwarts "Magic School") and raised two powerful male wizards (at least), another married a Cupid (after finally getting over being married to an on-again, off-again Lord of All Evil) and the third one became a combination Social Worker/ White Lighter.
If it had an issue I'd have thought it was that the threats became too esoteric as they ran out of standard warlocks and demons to fight. They were dealing with entities who were closer to metaphysical concepts.
As the series progressed, they seemed to become annoyed at actually having to help people, willingly endanger the lives of thousands of people just to make a point (such as vanishing the Golden Gate Bridge while people were still on it, and not putting a power lock on their baby son so he couldn't summon dragons that destroy a chunk of San Francisco, for example).
And then there's things like them prodding Cole back into becoming a villain, and other morally skeevy things they got up to, in addition to a lot of shallow characterisation that got on once several of the actresses got in charge, leading to the show becoming more about them living vicariously through their characters.
While you certainly have a pretty good grasp on the evolution of the fictional magician, I can help you with a few points about their real-world counterparts...
Merlin as a representative of Pre-Christian Britain is not a modern invention. Merlin shows up in Welsh stories going back to before the Arthurian myths. In Geoffery of Monmouth's depiction he's already got strong pagan influences.
Most of the Alchemists of middle ages and renaissance were mystics much moreso than scientists. Their writings (some of them) are still extant today, and it's clear that they believed that all the elements of the natural world had their reflection in God and therefore, because man was a reflection of God, were reflected in turn in the soul. So, the physical alchemy was primarily about the perfection of self, and the discoveries they made through these experiments led to incidental scientific realizations. Later, when you get to Enlightenment era alchemists, then you start to have some more genuine scientists working on the base of their mystical predecessors. Although you're right about Newton.
The old woman witches living on the outskirts of town were not a leap of logic, or a matter of scapegoating the mentally unstable. They were an actual thing. Going back to Pre-Christian Europe, medicine women (or cunning women) often lived on the outskirts of town, and were paid for services of healing, prophecy, blessings, and the lifting of curses (also the laying of curses, but you didn't talk about that). When the Christians came in the cunning women were largely left to do their business (at least at first), not because they approved, but because she was kind of a pillar of the community, and towns would fall apart without her. Hell, the priests would even send sick people to them. However, the first famine or plague to come along would inevitably be blamed on her. Hence, her fictional counterpart (but really, even in the pagan heyday, she was still feared because of the whole cursing thing).
You hit Crowley on the head. That bit about "the douche who spells magic as 'magick'" had me in stitches. However the cliche of the upper-class secret society of magicians goes back way further. In the early 1600s, a number of pamphlets were disseminated across Europe claiming that there was a secret society of doctor-mystic-alchemists called the Rosicrucian Order, and that they were planning to unleash revolutions in science, religion and philosophy upon the public. No hard evidence has ever been found that these guys actually existed, but the pamphlets and mysterious posters stirred up quite a panic in Germany, France and England. If they were real, they were really good at maintaining their own secrecy. But, after them, secret societies became all the rage. The 18th century saw the formation of the Freemasons and the Illuminati (who were actually atheists), the Theosophical society and the Golden Dawn came together in the 19th among many, many others. And Crowley himself was a member of the Golden Dawn prior to taking over the OTO.
The "satanic panic" was primarily caused by a gentleman named Anton LaVey and his "Church of Satan", Michael Aquino's "Temple of Set", as well as the Manson Family murders.
Well, you're correct that alchemists weren't scientists in the sense of the scientific method . That said, some attention deserves to be paid to the field of "Natural Magic," which involved the study of natural, as opposed to supernatural, forces. So, physics and botany, in addition to astrology and alchemy. John Dee was certainly a mystic, who practiced Kabbalah and did his best to communicate with angels, but he was also one of the foremost navigational experts in England at the time (and by all appearances a fairly savvy political figure, who helped lay down the philosophical justifications for the creation of the British empire).
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no subject
Date: 2013-06-26 06:28 pm (UTC)There was also Glinda in "The Wizard of Oz".
And some probable Wiccan inaccuracies to one side (Though what is called Wicca these days is, as I understand it, an artifical construct put together in the 20th century rather than an ancient tradition in it's own right), in what sense was "Charmed" less successful than "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" in terms of showing female magic users?
no subject
Date: 2013-06-26 06:50 pm (UTC)In Sabrina the focus remained balanced between magic and real life and wasn't nearly as offensive as Charmed could be sometimes.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-26 08:53 pm (UTC)Hogwarts"Magic School") and raised two powerful male wizards (at least), another married a Cupid (after finally getting over being married to an on-again, off-again Lord of All Evil) and the third one became a combination Social Worker/ White Lighter.If it had an issue I'd have thought it was that the threats became too esoteric as they ran out of standard warlocks and demons to fight. They were dealing with entities who were closer to metaphysical concepts.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-26 09:37 pm (UTC)And then there's things like them prodding Cole back into becoming a villain, and other morally skeevy things they got up to, in addition to a lot of shallow characterisation that got on once several of the actresses got in charge, leading to the show becoming more about them living vicariously through their characters.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-26 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-26 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-27 12:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-27 10:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-27 11:59 am (UTC)A few historical points on magic...
Date: 2013-06-27 06:00 pm (UTC)Merlin as a representative of Pre-Christian Britain is not a modern invention. Merlin shows up in Welsh stories going back to before the Arthurian myths. In Geoffery of Monmouth's depiction he's already got strong pagan influences.
Most of the Alchemists of middle ages and renaissance were mystics much moreso than scientists. Their writings (some of them) are still extant today, and it's clear that they believed that all the elements of the natural world had their reflection in God and therefore, because man was a reflection of God, were reflected in turn in the soul. So, the physical alchemy was primarily about the perfection of self, and the discoveries they made through these experiments led to incidental scientific realizations. Later, when you get to Enlightenment era alchemists, then you start to have some more genuine scientists working on the base of their mystical predecessors. Although you're right about Newton.
The old woman witches living on the outskirts of town were not a leap of logic, or a matter of scapegoating the mentally unstable. They were an actual thing. Going back to Pre-Christian Europe, medicine women (or cunning women) often lived on the outskirts of town, and were paid for services of healing, prophecy, blessings, and the lifting of curses (also the laying of curses, but you didn't talk about that). When the Christians came in the cunning women were largely left to do their business (at least at first), not because they approved, but because she was kind of a pillar of the community, and towns would fall apart without her. Hell, the priests would even send sick people to them. However, the first famine or plague to come along would inevitably be blamed on her. Hence, her fictional counterpart (but really, even in the pagan heyday, she was still feared because of the whole cursing thing).
You hit Crowley on the head. That bit about "the douche who spells magic as 'magick'" had me in stitches. However the cliche of the upper-class secret society of magicians goes back way further. In the early 1600s, a number of pamphlets were disseminated across Europe claiming that there was a secret society of doctor-mystic-alchemists called the Rosicrucian Order, and that they were planning to unleash revolutions in science, religion and philosophy upon the public. No hard evidence has ever been found that these guys actually existed, but the pamphlets and mysterious posters stirred up quite a panic in Germany, France and England. If they were real, they were really good at maintaining their own secrecy. But, after them, secret societies became all the rage. The 18th century saw the formation of the Freemasons and the Illuminati (who were actually atheists), the Theosophical society and the Golden Dawn came together in the 19th among many, many others. And Crowley himself was a member of the Golden Dawn prior to taking over the OTO.
The "satanic panic" was primarily caused by a gentleman named Anton LaVey and his "Church of Satan", Michael Aquino's "Temple of Set", as well as the Manson Family murders.
Re: A few historical points on magic...
Date: 2013-06-29 04:35 am (UTC)