Magic (supernatural)  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

In 1963, Roger Corman directed The Raven, a horror-comedy written by Richard Matheson very loosely based on the poem, "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe. It stars Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Boris Karloff as a trio of rival sorcerers.

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Magic and sorcery are the influencing of events, objects, people and physical phenomena by mystical, paranormal or supernatural means. The terms can also refer to the practices employed by a person to wield this influence, and to beliefs that explain various events and phenomena in such terms.

Examples

Healing or harming others

• One of the most widespread magical procedures for healing, harming or otherwise influencing someone from a distance involves making an effigy of him or her from any material. Actions performed on the effigy are believed to result in analogous effects upon the target person, so that, for example, a part of the effigy's body may be damaged in order to cause pain or disease in the same part of the target's body. This magical technique may be employed for maleficent or beneficent ends, and even for giving help to gods against malignant demons. --Freud (1950, 79).