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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ydars" data-source="post: 4598802" data-attributes="member: 62992">Oh and the idea that people in a world ruled by magic would be as blase about it as we are about technology only have to think about the medieval world to realise this is not true. Ancient peoples all believed in magical forces and realms beyound their own senses and up to thw 18th century, people were afraid of the dead walking in the the UK and of possession by evil humours and miasmas that were often associated with magical forces. Even most religions were thought of as magical to most peasant folk and the divide between the arcane and divine did not exist. The queen's own physican cast horoscopes before giving treatment in the 1700s, as did the famous herbalist Culpeper. it was all part making sense of a magical world. We understand such things are nonsense because of education and even someone who has never been to school understands a hundred times more about the way the world works than any person in the medieval world because of TV and other ways of acquiring "general knowledge". The key thing about magic is AWE; this was a very familiar feeling to ancient peoples. They could observe many more things than we can now about the natural world as they lived so close to it. Yet they could explain almost none of it and so stood in awe of the majesty of it all.</blockquote>