People who believe in magic can be found in all societies, regardless of whether they have organized religious hierarchies, including formal clergy, or more informal systems.
It has been argued that abandoning the term magic in favour of discussing "belief in spiritual beings" will help to create a more meaningful understanding of all associated ritual practices.
Robert Ranulph Marett (1932) said: Many leading anthropologists, including the author of The Golden Bough, would wholly or in the main refuse the title of religion to these almost inarticulate ceremonies of very humble folk.
[9] Magic (personified as the god heka) was an integral part of religion and culture which is known to us through a substantial corpus of texts which are products of the Egyptian tradition.
[12] The Instructions for Merikare informs us that heka was a beneficence gifted by the creator to humanity "... in order to be weapons to ward off the blow of events".
[13] Magic was practiced by both the literate priestly hierarchy and by illiterate farmers and herdsmen, and the principle of heka underlay all ritual activity, both in the temples and in private settings.
[15] During the late sixth and early fifth centuries BCE, the Persian maguš was Graecicized and introduced into the ancient Greek language as μάγος and μαγεία.
[16] In doing so it transformed meaning, gaining negative connotations, with the magos being regarded as a charlatan whose ritual practices were fraudulent, strange, unconventional, and dangerous.
[18] Pliny the Elder seems to acknowledge that Magi are priests of a foreign religion, along the lines of the druids of the Celts in Britain and Gaul.
[25] During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Western intellectuals perceived the practice of magic to be a sign of a primitive mentality and also commonly attributed it to marginalised groups of people.
[24] Even in places and times where magic and religion are considered distinct, separate concepts there have been numerous historical intersections where aspects from one would be syncretized with or borrowed from the other.
The King James Version of the Bible included the famous translation "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Exodus 22:18),[30] and Saul is rebuked by God for seeking advice from a diviner who could contact spirits.