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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 2380216" data-attributes="member: 2067">A lot of monotheistic traditions hold that magic falls into one of two categories:-- things inspired by God, and thus are Good and Heroes Do Them-- things inspired by Other Powers, which are at best iffy, but obviously have some power, even if it's not very holy.Christian Arthur had Merlin, but Merlin wasn't a priest. Janni inspire poets in Muslim tradition, but they are servants of Satan. You can always worship a "false God" from the time of Ankhenaten.Heck, even in many preliterate cultures, a dichotomy exists. The Patamona tribes of New Guinea have two kinds of shamans: Piya, the shamans that sit in tents and cure people and unify the village; and Kanaima, the shamans that transform into jaguars and kill people and drink their life-essence."Light Magic" and "Dark Magic" is a useful dichotomy, and Divine and Arcane magic pretty much form that divide. It's not exacting and detialed, nor should it be, since good shamans can still kill and bad shamans can still cure, and Merlin didn't have to be evil, and priests could still be corrupt, but the categories are VERY useful in that mythological vien.</blockquote>