Wizards?

English is a hopelessly bastardized language. When translations of Deuteronomy and Leviticus prohibit all enchanters, soothsayers, sorcerers, etc. how can we possibly understand these terms without any historical context? Wouldn't the warning to avoid these things necessitate at least some anthropological study of their practice? Moreover, how did the translators choose these labels? Was their intent to sharpen laws against local custom? In anycase, so many have been persecuted and died over these terms, their very utterance calls forth condemning shades. As modern practitioners of timeless wisdom, we just have to accept much of this mystical jargon as damaged and publicly useless for serious conversation, let alone a profession.

Of all the terms we might use for ourselves, "wizard" seems to have survived the dark ages - perhaps by virtue of stories about Taliesin, Merlin, or Prospero. I believe it to be a more practical word for the archetype of a sage, or someone actively seeking the virtue of sagacity. As an adept figure of wisdom, established in the experience of divinity, it denotes those who impart the myserties of sapience through miraculous works or words. By its very etymology, we prefer this label for our members; we are definitively not "magicians," as this is a term historically confused and appropriative, if not pejorative, of Zarathustra's living lineage of priests. We hold it to be a faux pas among our ranks to embrace the word "magic" or claim it as a divine reality apart from belief. Adding a final 'k' to distinguish it from sleight of hand is a moot point made by Aleister Crowley and maintained by those lost in the privileged fantasy of occult powers. While we do acknowledge that miracles are everyone's right to perform, we do not profess any exclusive ownership of secrets or special abilities. To this end, we study and train in the edifying demonstration of everyone's latent potential. If anything, we may be called ritualists, in that we aim to hold space as mediators of prayer, establishing within others an understanding of the sacred.

Alongside "magicians," there is so much ambiguity around the term "witch," both etymologically and semantically, we should simply reserve it for followers of Wicca; may they salvage its worth. We extend the benefit of the doubt to anyone who professes to practice "witchcraft," understood as seeking spiritual remediation or physical healing through natural correspondences and traditional folk rites... always in general interest of welfare and natural balance, not toward cursing or manipulating free will. Regarding those "wicked arts" or the many theories of witchcraft nigh diabolism now gaining currency, we do not endorse acts of abomination or acknowledge the efficacy of baneful spells under the theory of antithesis or desecration. While we don't necessarily distinguish ritual craft as having either "high" or "low" techniques, we do draw a definitive boundary between benevolent and malevolent intents. While this is not the place to address the errors of demonolatry apart from the theory and practice of "theurgy" and "thaumaturgy," i.e. Divine-working and Miracle-working specific to the curriculum within our College, such are the genres of ritual defined within which we may operate licitly for the public.

Wizard, i.e. Wise One = Middle English wysard, derived from wīs "wise" with adjective suffix. Traditionally, the word meant a learned person, sage broadly, often in practical philosophy or natural knowledge; its mystic trope developed over the centuries, from medieval romances like the Arthurian Legends to later Renaissance works informed by Shakespeare and Goethe.

Cunning folk, i.e. Able Knower = Old English cunnan, meaning “to know, to be able to.” Derived from Old Norse kunna "to know," via German können "to be able to." See also, Dutch kunnen and Gothic kunnan. This term is a polite designation for traditionalist healers, herbalists, and often midwives, who knew something about folk remedies and intuitive healing, through spirits or otherwise.

Soothsayer, i.e. Truth Sayer = Old English sooth "truth" and secgan "to say." The term referred to the practice of augury or divination by various means and omens. This word has been stained biblically with a shade meaning "specious proclamation."

Sorcerer, i.e. Sorter of Lots = Latin sortiarius, meaning "one who casts lots." Derived from sors "lot, fate, or fortune." Cf. the divinatory technique of sortilege. This word has taken on such nefarious connotation over the centuries that it has generally come to signify someone "skilled in wicked arts." A particularly uncharitable interpretation of sorcery, one which highlights the inherent danger of fortune-telling, might be "to arrange someone's future by manipulation with deceitful logic, or ill advice, framed as fate or a mysterious and inevitable prophecy."

Witch = Old English wicca / wicce, female and male respectively. Possibly derived from Proto-Germanic wikkōn / wikkjaz, via Indo-European root *weik "to bend, shape, turn, or twist," i.e. "deviate / deviant," alternatively, "to sort, divide, or separate," possibly linking it to the early Germanic practices of cleromancy reported by Tacitus. The word could also be derived from the Indo-European root *weg, meaning "to animate, awaken, liven," thus, “one who animates, brings to life, awakens.” Another possibility is from Old English wīgl "divination," from wig / wih "idol, sacred object, consecrated place." The Brothers Grimm note the term is cognate with Gothic weihs, meaning "sacred." A circa 1250 translation of The Book of Exodus (1:17) into Middle English, calls the midwives saving the newborn sons of the Hebrews witches: "Ðe wicches hidden hem forðan, Biforen pharaun nolden he ben." Elsewhere in scripture, the "Witch of Endor," Hebrew ’ōshephet Endor, mentioned in 1 Samuel 28, is based upon a root word meaning "to whisper, to consult, or to call up," likewise used in Leviticus 19:31 & 20:6 to describe forbidden necromantic practices. When translated to Greek, the Septuagint used pharmakeuousa, which no doubt influenced the European association of witches with pharmacological potions, poisons, and herbology. Cf. Anglo-Saxon term lybbestre, meaning "witch or sorceress," from lybb "drug, poison, charm." All this considering, a "witch" could definitionally mean (at best) Enlivener and Shaper, or (at worst) Dead-raiser and Deviant-maker. As much as we might like to fantasize about a coherent spiritual tradition only recently expunged by the church of fear-mongers, all possible etymologies of the term are tentative at best; it cannot be rescued from ambiguity. 

Hag, i.e. Spirit Trapper = Old English hægtes or hægtesse, from Old High German hagazussa, likely combining "enclosure, hedge, fence" and "spirit, being." Alternatively, it could be a class of genus loci, literally "hedge-spirit." This word evolved into the English word hex "curse," derived from Pennsylvania German Hexen "spellcaster." 

Saḥir = Derived from the Arabic trilateral s-h-r meaning "to stay awake" or "to watch," it commonly denotes a "practitioner of evil crafts," one which stays awake at odd hours to work under the cover of darkness. In Islam, witchcraft is associated with "the evil of those who blow into knots” who notoriously cursed the prophet (Surah Al‑Falaq 113:4). And moreover, in Chapter of the Red Heifer (Surah Al‑Baqarah 2:102), the enticement of magic is a test: "And they followed what the devils recited during the reign of Solomon. And Solomon did not disbelieve, but the devils disbelieved, teaching people magic and that which was revealed to the two angels at Babylon, Harut and Marut. But the two angels do not teach anyone until they say, ‘We are only a trial, so do not disbelieve.’ And yet they learn from them that by which they cause divorce and enmity between a man and his wife. But they do not harm anyone through it except by permission of God. And they learn what harms them and does not benefit them. And certainly they know that whoever purchases this magic would have no share in the Hereafter. And wretched is that for which they sold themselves, if they only knew.” In the wake of The Greek Magical Papyri, it is extremely curious to read about techniques for binding lovers in this light.

Magician, i.e. Indo-Iranian Priest = Old Persian magush "priest" was appropriated into Greek as magos, and then into Latin as magus plural magi. The practice of these priests, their mageia or magia, Greek and Latin respectively, developed into the Old English word magik via French magicien. Zoroastrian rituals are known to be long and rather complex, as is their cosmology and metaphysics. Thus, as the word was associated with the ritual knowledge of manipulating unseen forces, "magic" as a forbidden art was distinctly separated from orthodox religion in the Middle Ages. Classically, it was used as a general name for a foreign sage or exotic sage (viz. The Three Magi), but it developed a suspicious air in the 5th century BCE. The Codex Theodosianus, written in 438 CE, bans Zoroastrians from practicing nefarious "magic" in Roman society: "If any magus therefore or person imbued with magical contamination (magicis contaminibus) who is called by custom of the people an evil (maleficus) magician [...] should be apprehended in my retinue, or in that of the Caesar, he shall not escape punishment and torture by the protection of his rank."

Necromancer, i.e. Ghost Whisperer = Greek nekromantēs, from nekros "dead" and manteia "prophecy." This defines a person who consults spirits of the deceased for secret knowledge, often accomplished by unearthing a corpse from its grave. Such practices as made there way to Europe likely derive from charnel grounds in medieval India, where aghori sadhus would ceremonially enthrone unburied bodies to serve as vessels for a Vetala or Vetali, i.e. ancient vampiric spirits; once inhabited, the animated corpse would converse with the practitioner, and, if made servile by potent rites, could even become slave or sexual consort. However, the danger was always present that they would kill the summoner and go on murderous rampage. Curiously, such spirits have a certain prominence in tantric Buddhism - which developed among Buddhists inhabiting the same charnel grounds as those involved with this practice. 

Conjuror, i.e. Oath Joiner = Latin prefix con “together, with” and jurare “to swear, take an oath.” This word refers explicitly to the practice of contractually binding demons, viz. the Solomonic Grimoires or "Goetia." This genre of conjuring came to its label sometime in the sixteenth century CE, likely originating from use of the term by Plato and Dinarchus describing magic and bewitchment in the fourth century BCE. Derived from Greek goētēs “sorcerer, charmer.” The word is likely necromantic in origin, etymologically related to goaō, a "loud cry, wailing, groaning lament," the likes of which women ritually performed at funerals to placate the deceased or call forth the shades of Hades. Thus, summarily, it may be said that conjurors are those who explicitly seek to "make pacts with the Devil" or further distress the dead through slavery. 

Warlock, i.e. Oath Breaker = Old English wǣrloga, commonly meaning "traitor, scoundrel, monster, devil." Derived from wǣr "covenant" and lēogan "belie, deny." By definition the term is blatantly antinomian and antichristic, meaning a willful "denial of the covenant" between God and humanity, or a literal "out-law" of social morality. As such, this term holds absolutely no virtue.