Myths and folklore from all over the world inform us of people with supernatural abilities who walked among us. Whether their abilities are attributed to God, the Devil, nature, or some other source, the ancient world is full of records of people who could reportedly perform magic at will. History has not been kind to the word “wizard”; when we hear it, we are inclined to think of fairy tales and fiction–and yet, when a religion recognizes people with the same powers, many of us are willing to call them saints and prophets of God. We are willing to believe in saints but dismiss wizards out of hand. Why should this be so?
We will explore several historical cases of people who seemed to have had magical powers and are listed in the “wizard” category. This is a brief history as all the facts on any of them could constitute many books. There are many more in history that have also risen to the rank of wizard (or a similar designation), but we have picked out a few examples to raise the question of whether these figures truly existed and if they truly had powers.
Cassandra (Greek Mythology)
