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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 9309908" data-attributes="member: 6799660">If you include folklore and myth, it's a pretty mixed bag (but generally not studious guy with books very often). Ancient societies like Egypt and Babylon a lot of magic is interwoven with priestly rites or with trafficking with demons or the like. The later seems very warlockish, but there's always how someone learned to traffic with the demons.In Greek myth it is muddied because just about everyone of import at least sometimes (depending on the depiction) had deific or nymph blood in their heritage, or having been directly touched by the gods (most oracles, excepting those that had divine heritage). Likewise there are lots of priests and priestess, and it's not always clear if their magic is provided by the gods, or through special knowledge shared amongst the clergy. Similarly, a lot of sorceresses like Medea and Circe 'practice sorcery' or the like, but it isn't exactly clear if this is a knowledge-process or innate thing. Likewise, 'witches' across cultures like Hecate, Ceridwen, Baba Yagga, etc. seem to often just know their magic, and exactly what or how is often unexplained (other than they are often off by themselves and where they might be getting books of knowledge would be unclear).I think the earliest clear 'magic as knowledge transfer' example I can think of is Shakespeare's Prospero, who explicitly learned his sorcery from books. After that as you advance through the enlightenment and into the more modern era you start getting Prester John and Hermetic orders and alchemy and Aleister Crowley and magic kinda retroactively gets a lot of bookishness to it and we end up with the Wizard of Id-style wizard as something of a standard.</blockquote>

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