mysto-magic
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Probably derived from the Mysto Magic playsets, sold from 1909 through the 1960s.[1]
Noun[edit]
- (informal, rare, dated) Something involving superstition, magical thinking, or clevery trickery; voodoo, hocus-pocus.
- 1932, William Harlan Hale, Challenge to Defeat: Modern Man in Goethe's World and Spengler's Century, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, page 125:
- Or, put differently: the deeper art goes, the more meaningless it should become. For superficial matters, sense is valid, but for the most profound levels of human life, nonsense, mysto-magic, and something approaching mumbo-jumbo are the valid mediums of expression.
- 1952, A[lbert] T[heodore] Mollegen, “A Christian View of Psychoanalysis”, in Christianity and Psychoanalysis: Four Lectures and Panel Discussion, The Organizing Committee, Christianity and Modern Man, page 17:
- That there is such a revelation; that it is not mysto-magic or mechanical mental telepathy, but that it has a history; and that this history moves progressively towards a great climax, has been the understanding and the experience of literally millions of Christians for over two thousand years.
- 1952 Autumn, John P[aul] Frank, “The United States Supreme Court: 1951–52”, in University of Chicago Law Review, volume 20, number 1, Chicago, I.L.: University of Chicago Law School, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 11:
- In one of the paradoxes of democratic government, the main strength of seizure as a device for settling labor disputes is its very cumbersomeness, its legal mysto-magic, its flummery. Simplicity is not always a prime virtue in a democracy.
- 1968, Luther H. Harshbarger, John A. Mourant, Judaism and Christianity: Perspectives and Traditions, Allyn and Bacon, Inc., pages 266–267:
- By fusing the mysto-magic of the mysteries with the secrecies of Jewish wisdom, the Judaism of Paul and paganism became one, so that time is fulfilled, not in waiting for the Messiah, but in the mystery of the sacraments.
Related terms[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ “Gilbert Mysto Magic Sets”, in The A.C. Gilbert Heritage Society[1], n.d., archived from the original on 21 July 2023