But Sorcery does not exist in the real world. Unless you substitute Sorcery for sleight of hand scam artist,
Yes Luke from the Bible was a Physician but back in his day little white tablets pushed by Big Pharma did not grow on trees.
Some rather interesting points have been brought up here that I never thought about.
I would agree with
@AppleGold that much of what we see today are magicians parlor tricks; which is probably true of history in general.
Much of what we see today as magic is entertainment.
Anyone who knows much about Harry Houdini though can get a glimpse of the other side of this. Harry had become part of the spiritist movement of the day and really wanted to contact his deceased mother. He so wanted to believe this was possible that he'd participate in seances and soon became quite disillusioned with the whole movement because as an entertaining magician; he knew all the tricks.
So Houdini posed a challenge to anyone willing to take him up on it. He would give them X amount of money if he could not prove they were a fraud. In the beginning, he had many who took him up on this offer. He exposed every single one of them and before too much longer there weren't any more challengers. Consequently the public interest in the spiritist movement died pretty quickly.
So in that sense, I think Houdini taught us all a valuable lesson about spiritual truth even. The question he brought to the forefront of exposure actually has to do with the closing of Scripture cannon and whether or not God is still bringing additional revelation. (Subject of another thread though.)
What Houdini apparently demonstrated though is that there was no more breaking of the supernatural burier between demonic forces and the material living world. Not to say that Satan or his minions aren't alive and well and actively attempting as well as deceiving people; they certainly are. They just do so via "lying signs and wonders". None of it is real, as far as breaking the burier between natural and supernatural world.
And here is where I always understood genuine "sorcery" to be referenced in the Scripture as. (The breaking of the burier between natural and supernatural as opposed to magician parlor tricks.)
Now obviously very dark things continue to happen that are incredibly deceptive. There's rumors of trafficking, pedophilia, human sacrifice, cannibalism etc. alleged to be connected to people of power. Which... does that represent supernatural events or as
@Billy UK has pointed out; people manipulated by use of drugs?
The evil is certainly real. What more does it amount to than abject wickedness? I don't know?
@Billy UK does bring up a point I'd never put together before, in speaking of use of drugging the victim. I never knew that was the basis of the Greek word.
And that's an interesting connection, because I do remember watching a documentary about an African Christian preacher who'd been a tribal "medicine man". And he was talking about the process of "zombification". This is obviously something quite well entrenched in traditional African culture and he'd brought a lot of people to saving faith by exposing how these "medicine men" do this. (They use drugs that make the person appear to be dead; and then they bring them back as "zombies".) Now of course this is all done to control the community and to make the people support these "witch doctors". Obviously it's all a scam though because these people aren't really dead. They are just in a drug induced stupor.
So.. if I were to give my hypothesis on this; concerning "legitimate supernatural" or "drug induced". I'd say one is used as a gate way to believing the other. I don't believe Satan has the legitimate ability to break the burier between the natural and supernatural world. That being said though; he's certainly capable of deceiving people!
Now of course the use of medicine and the pharmaceutical industry is a whole other subject. I don't think human invented drugs are wrong, depending on what they are used for. I certainly wouldn't want to have surgery without anesthesia.
But again; parsing of knowledge God has given us. What man uses for evil; God meant for good.
