"The terms “superstition” and “magic” both began their career as neutral or positive terms. Superstitio is Latin for the Greek deisidaimonia, in which deisi could mean “fear” but also “awe” or “respect,” while daimones could be gods, goddesses, semi-divinities, or any other kind of superhuman being, regardless of their good or evil intentions (Hanegraaff 2012: 159; cf. Martin 2004). Hence, we have, potentially at least, the complete spectrum ranging from what we might now perceive as a “superstitious” fear of demons to a “religious” respect for divinity or a “god-fearing” attitude: for instance, when the apostle Paul addressed the Athenians as deisidaimones (Acts 17.22), this was still meant as an expression of respect, not as an accusation."
То есть "суеверие" и "страх божий" — это буквально одно и то же понятие. По-моему, это прекрасно!
АПД: Ахахаха!!!! Там же, про внезапное "сотворение" магии из ниоткуда, применительно к греческим магическим папирусам:
"To give just one example, in his extremely influential standard translation of the Greek “magical” (!) papyri, Karl Preisendanz kept arbitrarily adding the prefix “Zauber-” and interpreting everything as “magical” by default: for instance, any reference to praxis and pragmateia (act, acting) was turned into a “magical act (Zauberhandlung),” botanai (plants) became “magical plants,” charakteras (signs) became “magical signs,” epaoidais (songs) became “magical songs,” and onomai (names) became “magical names” (Otto 2011: 385). This is a particularly clear example of how the power of prototypes can trick scholars into actually creating “magic” (in order to keep it apart from “religion”) while making them believe that they are discovering it in their materials."
Вот, блин, надо таки учить греческий же! Потому что проверить я этого не могу, но если всё так, как пишет Ханеграаф, то текущая мода на греческие практики среди западных оккультистов создана ошибкой переводчика.