Mythology

"The notion that poetry is a kind of magic and that the poet knows secrets and has powers not shared by other men is deeply rooted in the human race."

"December will be magic again. Take a husky to the ice While Bing Crosby sings White Christmas. He makes you feel nice. December will be magic again."

"There is magic within There is magic without Follow me and you'll learn Just what life's all about."

"A life of love is one of continual growth, where the doors and windows of experience are always open to the wonder and magic that life offers. To love is to risk living fully."

"“Magic?” said Sykes. “Magic is that power that dwells somewhere in the back of our dreams, that makes us wish that miracles were possible and that a mortal man could have the ability to grasp a part of eternity, if only for a moment. Magic is the total of all the mysteries we can’t understand and the culmination of all the hopes we’ve ever thought possible. It is our last true miracle, and you know that it exists every time you feel the rain on your face, or hear the sound of children asking questions, or an old man laughing at a slightly off-color joke his nine-year-old grandson told at dinner. It is with us always, and it will comfort and protect us when the darkness arrive, holding our hand until the morning is in sight. It’s the reason that we go on living, even in the face of hopelessness. It’s the final mystery of the human heart, my friend. For it is there and only there that all true wizardry lies.”"

"Magic, White, or “Beneficent Magic”, so-called, is divine magic, devoid of selfishness, love of power, of ambition, or lucre, and bent only on doing good to the world in general, and one’s neighbour in particular. The smallest attempt to use one’s abnormal powers for the gratification of self, makes of these powers sorcery or black magic."

"Magic is a dual power: nothing is easier than to turn it into Sorcery; an evil thought suffices for it. Therefore while theoretical Occultism is harmless, and may do good, practical Magic, or the fruits of the Tree of Life and Knowledge, or otherwise the “Science of Good and Evil,” is fraught with dangers and perils."

"On the dead soil of the long by-gone past stand their sacred oaks, now dried up and stripped of their spiritual meaning by the venomous breath of materialism. But for the student of occult learning, their vegetation is still as verdant and luxuriant, and as full of deep and sacred truths, as at that hour when the arch-druid performed his magical cures, and waving the branch of mistletoe, severed with his golden sickle the green bough from its mother oak-tree. Magic is as old as man. It is as impossible to name the time when it sprang into existence as to indicate on what day the first man himself was born."

"In the West we find magic of as high an antiquity as in the East. The Druids of Great Britain practised it in the silent crypts of their deep caves; and Pliny devotes many a chapter to the "wisdom" of the leaders of the Celts. The Semothees,--the Druids of the Gauls, expounded the physical as well as the spiritual sciences. They taught the secrets of the universe, the harmonious progress of the heavenly bodies, the formation of the earth, and above all--the immortality of the soul. Into their sacred groves--natural academies built by the hand of the Invisible Architect--the initiates assembled at the still hour of midnight to learn about what man once was and what he will be. They needed no artificial illumination, nor life-drawing gas, to light up their temples, for the chaste goddess of night beamed her most silvery rays on their oak-crowned heads; and their white-robed sacred bards knew how to converse with the solitary queen of the starry vault."

"It is an insult to human nature to brand magic and the occult science with the name of imposture. To believe that for so many thousands of years, one-half of mankind practiced deception and fraud on the other half, is equivalent to saying that the human race was composed only of knaves and incurable idiots. Where is the country in which magic was not practised? At what age was it wholly forgotten? p. 19"

"Magician. — This term, once a title of renown and distinction, has come to be wholly perverted from its true meaning. Once the synonym of all that was honorable and reverent, of a possessor of learning and wisdom, it has become degraded into an epithet to designate one who is a pretender and a juggler; a charlatan, in short, or one who has "sold his soul to the Evil One"; who misuses his knowledge, and employs it for low and dangerous uses, according to the teachings of the clergy, and a mass of superstitious fools who believe the magician a sorcerer and an enchanter. But Christians forget, apparently, that Moses was also a magician, and Daniel, "Master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers" (Daniel, v. II). The word magician then, scientifically speaking, is derived from Magh, Mah, Hindu or Sanscrit Maha — great; a man well versed in the secret or esoteric knowledge; properly a Sacerdote."

"Evil power disappears Demons worry when the wizard is near He turns tears into joy Everyone's happy when the wizard walks by."

"SORCERY, n. The ancient prototype and forerunner of political influence. It was, however, deemed less respectable and sometimes was punished by torture and death. Augustine Nicholas relates that a poor peasant who had been accused of sorcery was put to the torture to compel a confession. After enduring a few gentle agonies the suffering simpleton admitted his guilt, but naively asked his tormentors if it were not possible to be a sorcerer without knowing it."

"MAGIC, n. An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them."

"The Will of the Black Magician has the strength of iron, pointing ever to the personal end, and it strikes against the great Will, and sooner or later must shiver itself into pieces against it."

"When the Will is exercised for the advantage of the lower self, when it is employed for personal ends and aims, then is the man a Black Magician, a danger to the race, and his results obstruct and delay human evolution."

"The difference between White and Black Magic lies in the motive which determines the Will; when that Will is set to benefit others, to help and bless all who come within its scope, then is the man a White Magician, and the results which he brings about by the exercise of his trained Will are beneficial, and aid the course of human evolution. He is ever expanding by such exercise"

"I would remind you also that in that home of ancient magic which you call Egypt, the magical work there performed was definitely concentrated upon the producing of physical effects and material results. p. 119"

"The cultivation of emotional tranquility is one of the first steps towards the achievement of the needed equipment of the white magician."

"Much is said amongst occult students these days anent white and black magic, and much that is said is without force, or truth... The distinction between the two exists in both motive and method, and might be summed up as follows: The white magician has for motive that which will be of benefit to the group for whom he is expending his energy and time. The magician of the left hand path ever works alone, or if he at any time co-operates with others, it is with a hidden selfish purpose."

"Many secrets of art and nature are thought by the unlearned to be magical."

"Above all, every relation must be considered as suspicious, which depends in any degree upon religion, as the prodigies of Livy: And no less so, everything that is to be found in the writers of natural magic or alchemy, or such authors, who seem, all of them, to have an unconquerable appetite for falsehood and fable."

"The greatest action is not conforming with the world's ways. The greatest magic is transmuting the passions."

"There is no magic in parchment or in wax."

"Gerry Durrell was, to use the modern idiom, Magic. You imbibe it in his books, you feel it in his Zoo, you see it in the eyes of his trainees, and you hear it in even the most restrained tones of zoo directors, who may command budgets ten times the size that he ever did. Magic people, as all well read children know, are especially susceptible to mortal dangers and Gerry was no exception, but, before it finally ran out, he sprinkled his Magic in such vast quantities, that much of it has germinated, and hundreds of good gardeners are feeding the new growth as if their lives, and the lives of other animals depend upon it — and indeed they do."

"The warrior said, “Much can be achieved without magic. We do not trick or compel materials to behave against their nature. Instead, we learn what each material can do.”"

"Look at the children around you and you will find the magic curtain, magic indeed in this respect, that instead of dropping slowly down before your wondering eyes, it is growing up, unfolding and expanding some new beauty or exposing some well-remembered fault. What pleasure to note the many wonders of this all-revealing scene! What innocence in the sweet child face, what purity in the clear child eyes!"

"Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."

"She sowed in my mind the idea that reality is not only what we see on the surface; it has a magical dimension as well and, if we so desire, it is legitimate to enhance it and color it to make our journey through life less trying."

"The abolition of magic will be a white stone on the path of the World. 249."

"It must not be forgotten that the old methods of magic were connected with other forms of life. Of course, magic is based on precise fulfillment of technical conditions, but if all the formulas of life have been altered, then too all magical effects must be correspondingly changed. This is why contemporary magic has sunk into necromancy and the other low manifestations."

"Splitting the Arrow. A 2007 film. Sometime in the 12th Century, a Documentary Crew entered Sherwood Forest in search of a legend. This is what followed. Calvert Tooley plays Robin Hood."

"Robin Hood Daffy, a 1958 Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc theatrical cartoon comedy short, starring Daffy Duck (in the role of Robin Hood) and Porky Pig."

"Ivanhoe (1986 film), 1986 animated TV movie with Robert Coleby providing the voice of Robin Hood."

"The Adventures of Robin Hoodnik, a 1972 TV movie produced by Hanna-Barbera whose all-animal cast predates the Disney version by one year."

"King Arthur's Disasters, a 2005 British animated series features Robin Hood who rivals Arthur."

"Young Robin Hood, a 1991 animated series developed by Cinar and Hanna-Barbera, tells a version of the story in which Robin (Voiced by Thor Bishopric) and his men, as well as Maid Marian, are teenagers. This version also incorporates several fantasy elements. For example, Robin is sometimes assisted by a forest-dwelling old woman who knows magic."

"Robin Hood (Japanese: ロビンフッドの大冒険, Robin Hood no Daibōken), a Japanese animated series developed by Tatsunoko Productions, airing from 1990-1992, which tells a version of the story in which Robin (Voiced by Kazue Ikura) and his men (and women), as well as Maid Marian, are — in majority — children. This version also incorporates several fantasy elements, mainly expressed in mystic powers of the nature and a powerful treasure protected by the forest Sherwood itself. The whole series contains strong environmental messages as well as morals relating to real life."

"Alyas Robin Hood, a 2016 Philippine primetime series produced by GMA Network."

"Robin Hood 2006 TV series) a BBC One television series,and most likely the best version of Robin Hood out there, was produced by Tiger Aspect. It was first broadcast as thirteen-episode series in the UK from October to December 2006, with a second series following in 2007, and third in 2009. Jonas Armstrong stars in the title role."

"Back to Sherwood, a 1999 children's series featuring a teenage descendant of Robin ("Robyn Hood") who discovers she has the power to travel back in time, and joins with the children of her ancestor's band (Joan Little, Phil Scarlet, etc.)."

"Ivanhoe, a 1997 TV mini-series featuring Aden Gillett as Robin of Locksley."

"The New Adventures of Robin Hood, a 1997-1998 France–U.S. TV series, starred Matthew Porretta as a black-leather-clad Robin in the first two seasons and John Bradley taking over the lead role in the final two seasons. The tone of the series resembled its contemporaries Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess. Porretta had appeared as Will Scarlet O'Hara in Men in Tights."

"Maid Marian and her Merry Men, a 1989-1994 British children's TV show, rewrote the legend somewhat, with Marian as the dynamic leader of the resistance against Prince John, Robin as her thick-headed, cowardly, buffoonish figurehead, and Nottingham as John's put-upon, sarcastic enforcer."

"Robin of Sherwood, a 1984-1986 fantasy-style British television series starring Michael Praed and later Jason Connery as Robin. The series set the template for many of the adaptations that followed, most notably the introduction of a Saracen (Muslim) outlaw and the move to a grittier tone."

"When Things Were Rotten, a 1975 comedy TV series produced by Mel Brooks and starring Richard Gautier (as an imbecilic Robin Hood), Bernie Kopell and Misty Rowe."

"The Legend of Robin Hood a 1975 six-episode BBC miniseries starring Martin Potter in the title role, Paul Darrow as the Sheriff of Nottingham and Diane Keen as Lady Marion. The adaptation was aired on public television in the USA later in the 1970s."

"Ivanhoe, a 1958-1959 TV series starring Roger Moore as Ivanhoe. Features Emerton Court[16] as "Sir Robert" in the episode "Arms and the Women"."

"The Adventures of Robin Hood, a long-running (1955-1959) British series starring Richard Greene that is also remembered for its catchy theme tune."

"Robin Hood a 1953 television series on BBC Television, featured Patrick Troughton, in the first representation of Robin Hood on television."