ABSTRACT
Martin Nilsson makes the interesting observation that ‘the belief in magic vanishes from the Greek religion, although the rites upon which it was created remain’. At Crannon rain magic was carried out by a cart carrying an amphora. The cart was pushed about so that the water splashed, and the rattle of the cart would be a similar sympathetic magic for thunder. Martin Nilsson makes the interesting observation that ‘the belief in magic vanishes from the Greek religion, although the rites upon which it was created remain’. He notes too that magicians are conspicuously absent in classical Greece. The magical rites become sacral rites. Another great section of magic is ‘contagious’, that is to say that by acting upon an object which has been in contact with a person or thing it is believed to be possible to affect the person or thing itself. One of the most important magical documents is the so-called Mithrasliturgy.
