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4.18
Common religious concept-wisdom
  
  Wisdom is one concept that finds its way into the fundamental vocabulary of almost every religion of the planet since ancient times. Because of the universal nature of the concept, it is important that we review the word.  
  The origin of the word Wisdom  
  It was the Greeks created the word wisdom ( translated as weistum) meaning "legal sentence, precedent". In translation, the word in Old English became wisdom.  
  The original meaning of wisdom essentially means "The quality or character of being wise, or something in which this is exhibited."  
  The word wise in ancient Greek originally meant sophia meaning "form, shape, kind, state of things, course of action."  
  In this, wise essentially inferred "things as they are, the correct course of action", while wisdom originally inferred "the quality of knowing things as they are and the right course of action."  
  Therefore, the earliest of definitions of wise speak of " To show the way ( to a person); to guide, direct" and " (a) Having or exercising sound judgment or discernment; having the ability to perceive and adopt the best means for accomplishing an end: characterized by good sense and prudence. (b) Of action speech, personal attributes, etc: proceeding from, indicating or suggesting sound judgment or good sense."  
  The value of wisdom  
  Within the word wise and wisdom is the assumption that:  
 
(a) a person must know how things are in terms of form, shape, kind, state of things first, in order to be wise;
(b) once knowing how things are, a person may direct the right course of action.
 
  This is distinct from knowledge, or even information. I might have information in the form of newspaper articles on a range of subjects. On one or two subjects, I may have a deeper sense of understanding that is knowledge. Yet on how many subjects would I feel confident in saying (a) that I understand how things really are in terms of form, shape, kind, state?  
  This is the separation of people who are wise versus people who are not, from wisdom and knowledge.  
  Wise and wisdom therefore implies a deep level of understanding. The output of wisdom is a deep and rich sense of knowledge.  
  When we apply these definitions to a subject such as the operation of the Universe, the divisions of society into people who live and generally accept what they are told and those that question and seek deeper levels of understanding appear strongest. Simply, most of humanity has always been busy in living to spend the time of contemplation and forced separation that is required to consider such large questions and concepts.  
  Wisdom therefore has always been a rare commodity.  
  Wisdom and the teacher and sage  
  In ancient societies trying to understand how things are and why things happen why they do, people who exhibited strong common sense and could overcome the superstitions of old theories to pierce through and understand were to be revered and feared.  
  These people were the prophets, the holy men, the sages. People who could understand the world and what is in it. These people were the teachers.  
  In societies that recognized or allowed wisdom to be exhibited and put into practice, these were the living Gods. To other societies with great superstition, fear kept many people away and in some cases doomed such people to terrible deaths.  
  It has always been this fine line that the wise person, the prophet, the sage treads. To speak of things as they are, when social structures are often based on best approximations and sometimes on quite fallacious grounds is dangerous. It is why so many wise people of history have suffered under the accusation of either treason, heresy or both.  
  Yet there have also been times in history when wisdom was allowed to flourish and enable it to be transmitted into some form of permanent thought via written language. This remains one of the most important features of Ancient Greece- a period where minds were allowed to questions and explore.  
  The missing ancient definitions of wisdom  
  There is a definition and meaning of wisdom and wise that has been lost to today's society. The lost meaning(s) are as old as the word itself and literally dates back to the the times of Plato and Aristotle.  
  The connection and association may appear so far fetched as initially to sound absurd. Yet, even four hundred years ago, the connection There is a definition of wise and wisdom, that interchanges the word with another ancient word. In fact, according to the original meaning of the words and wisdom, the lost ancient meaning was literally and figuratively interchangeable.  
  The Magi of Persia  
  If you have read the New Testament of the Bible, you would have heard the story of the three Wise Men that attended the birth of Jesus. In another translation, they are called Magi, in another translation it is shepherds that attend the birth.  
  All three descriptions are essentially complimentary descriptions of the same thing, given that wisdom and teaching (shepherding) are interchangeable and the Ancient Magi of Persia were regarded at the time of the birth of Jesus as some of the wisest of the wise to have ever lived in the ancient worlds.  
  The word "Magi" is in fact an ancient Persian word, translated in Latin to Magus (as in Simon Magus, a contemporary of Jesus). The Magi were the priestly caste of Persia, and hence in touch with most of the ancient scriptures and writings of the agriculturalist societies that maintained a reverence to the Mesopotamia/Tigris basin as a "Mecca" a touchstone of common and ancient ancestry.  
  From as far a field as China came the writings of the I Ching. From India, the great writings of the Brahmans, and understanding the essential nature of the Universe as being "mind", then the knowledge of Egypt and the methods of developing immortality of mind. The Magi had access to all this knowledge and more. They were consummate astrologers. They were also magicians and sorcerers.  
  The word "magic" itself is derived from Magi and originally meant "the ability to alter matter and the spirit world, through ritual and personal skill and understanding." Magic as a word, came into being from the Latin word magicus, describing the skill of one called Magi, or in Latin magus.  
  Magic and Wisdom are interchangeable  
  The association between the words Magic and Wisdom is simple and common sense, once the legacy of hundreds of years of misinformation are ignored for a moment.  
  At the heart of wisdom is the deep knowledge of how things are. This translates into communication of this knowledge. When this knowledge is applied, the people who have a deep understanding of it can also alter the structure of certain things within their community. To an ancient race of human beings, the knowledge of how to create fire on demand would have been both wisdom and magic- something to be revered in awe and feared at the same time.  
  The surprising thing is that once magic is returned to its connection to wisdom, the natural human reactions to pure wisdom make sense. Pure wisdom is at once enlightening and frightening when shone against the assumptions and frail structures of social reality. Facades of reality may crumble at the slightest beam of pure wisdom.  
  Putting some knowledge into action in a codified sense meant ritual. Ritual still today is the backbone of magic. Therefore magic in a sense was the practical application of a large section of wisdom.  
  Sadly this relationship was lost and deliberately sullied. The ancient rituals of magic and their connection to common sense wisdom have been obscured by superstition and plain fanciful descriptions. The word magic now has lost most of its potency and is now seen largely as the field of delusion practiced by new-age pagans.  
  Yet, the direct implication of our original story about the visiting Magi to the birth of Jesus is that they were also wise men AND shepherds at the same time. More importantly and interestingly, they were also A-grade sorcerers.  
  Before we even ask the question why the Bible would speak of three sorcerers attending the birth of Jesus, let us investigate another connection between the words "wisdom and magic."  
  The wise king Solomon  
  In the old testament, two figures stand out as exceptional priest-kings, King David and his Son (by Queen Behersheba) King Solomon.  
  Both kings are regarded as men who in history were exceptionally wise. Given our understanding of the double meaning of the word wise, it is worth investigating if other parts of history also attribute any "magical" powers to the men as well.  
  As it turns out, it was King David who created the hexagram symbol while King Solomon and his court who created and used the pentagram symbol, so synonymous with magic and sorcery as his main coat of arms. This may appear difficult to fathom to present day readers as the history of magic and the history of knowledge from the period has largely been homogenized via the Rabbinic Jewish and Christian religions. Yet it is both a historical and cultural fact that the Pentagram is one of the oldest and most important symbols of religious iconography that has its heritage in Jewish religious and political history.
  Yet whether we choose to look into the detail of connections between the early religious leaders of the Old Testament and hence the jewish and Christian faiths, there is one simple and eloquent legacy of the connection between the understanding between Wisdom and Magic. King Solomon is regarded as having been spiritually wise, to the point that wisdom is almost synonymous with the concept of Solomon like wisdom. In magic, it is the conjuring of spirits supposedly commanded by Solomon to build the great Temple of Jerusalem that are part of the rituals of Black and White Magic, adding of course the pentagram, the symbol of King Solomon.
  The historic need to separate magic and wisdom by Christianity and Judaism
  In Western civilization, as opposed to the continued practice by tribal races that continued their practices until the weight of christianity bore down on them, the connection between magic and wisdom has for the large part been deliberately broken since the early formation of the church.
  There are many reasons for this, few reflecting positively on Rabbinic Judaism, nor on Roman Christianity. Essentially, the reasons appear not to be from fear, but from the desire to keep the true wisdom (therefore the true nature of magic) secret from the common person and to use this magic in its most potent form by way of fear.
  This has been one of the greatest strengths of the Christian religions throughout the ages, the practice of mysticism- developing this up as a replacement to magic. Mysticism implies some deeper connection to the spiritual world, without the connotations of wisdom, implying that the operator understands what he/she is doing and in fact can command such occurrences at will.
  In fact, the Roman Christian religion has successfully written out magic from almost all the ancient wisdom texts. That magic was synonymous with most schools of wise thought throughout ancient Europe is almost lost. Pythagoras is possibly one of the few schools of ancient Greece where it was virtually impossible to separate the knowledge and magic side. Instead, the word mystic is used, a kind of merlot, a blend and mix of the truth, to cloud over the specific understanding and rituals of these schools.
  Just as two thousand years ago, pure wisdom like pure magic represents a fundamental threat to those organisations that operate on foundations other than pure truth and common sense- that operate on old superstitions and fear. That operate on the control of wisdom and the magic arts to maintain control.
  To these organisations, the continued connection between magic and wisdom represent a fundamental danger. The solution has been to describe wisdom being on the one hand the goal of Roman Christian and Rabbinic Judaism's path, while things magical are those things that are not wisdom, but superstition and therefore unwise and bad.
  Such twisting and deceit has largely succeeded over the two thousand years due to the fact that the ancient wisdom and common sense knowledge of the world has been lost. It has also failed as those that possessed the pure wisdom and pure magic chose to hide it, rather than combat the churches head on.
  Those organisations that did choose to fight the church with their own game have also experienced the terrible losses of genocides by the Roman Christian Church, the massacre of the Gnostic groups throughout Europe, the perfidy and deceit, regarded as the ultimate evils of humanity.
   
 
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