tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/magic-5366/articlesMagic – The Conversation2023-11-16T06:05:41Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2163192023-11-16T06:05:41Z2023-11-16T06:05:41ZCreative minds are vulnerable to mental illness – but magicians escape the curse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557995/original/file-20231107-25-ya20uw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=132%2C114%2C3650%2C2420&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/magician-playing-cards-fantasy-card-black-1006971310">1STudio.az/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Can you think of a comedian, actor, poet or writer who suffered from mental illness? Maybe the actor <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/robin-williams-mental-health-zak-son/">Robin Williams</a> or comedian <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/stephen-fry-mental-health-bipolar-disorder-fearne-cotton-podcast-happy-place-a8274051.html">Stephen Fry</a> came to your mind. Perhaps it was the writer <a href="https://www.scielo.br/j/rbp/a/zPQjcnbcv4Kyy3cHkyJJQ7z/#:%7E:text=Virginia%20went%20through%20several%20severe,the%20severity%20of%20the%20episode.">Virginia Woolf</a>. All three have had well-documented struggles with bipolar disorder.</p>
<p>Mental illnesses have been associated with creative thinking for a long time. For instance, mathematician <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1994/nash/facts/">John Nash’s</a> battle with schizophrenia was immortalised in the film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268978/">A Beautiful Mind</a> (2001).</p>
<p>Research supports this link, showing that people with mental illnesses such as schizophrenia are more likely to work in <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/creativity-and-mental-disorder-family-study-of-300-000-people-with-severe-mental-disorder/D45848CE35BFC3397FD3CC4F3E15055F">creative jobs</a>. It also shows that creative groups, including <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/psychotic-traits-in-comedians/AB69ACDB8B48B934DC4DE15B0EA3E2A8">stand-up comedians</a>, artists and scientists, are often more likely to face challenges with their mental health.</p>
<p>But are all creative people created equal? Our new <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-open/article/psychotic-and-autistic-traits-among-magicians-and-their-relationship-with-creative-beliefs/A404241D8126664D0EDD1989288F431D">study</a> aimed to explore whether a unique creative group that had never been studied before – magicians – exhibited similar proclivities to some mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. We also looked at whether they were more likely to have a neurodivergent difference, such as autism.</p>
<p>Many researchers believe that both mental illness and neurodivergence can enhance creative thinking. Scientist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Temple-Grandin">Temple Grandin</a> is a famous example of this. She credits her experience of being on the autism spectrum for the development of a <a href="https://truhugs.com/research-science/do-weighted-blankets-work-temple-grandin-hugging-machine/">hug machine</a> that helps handle livestock in a more humane way, and was later adopted by other autistic people. </p>
<p>Mental health conditions may range from anxiety or depression to personality disorders or psychosis. When someone experiences psychosis, it is measured on a <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16417985/">continuum</a>, with only those experiencing certain patterns and episodes being diagnosed with schizophrenia. </p>
<p>People not clinically diagnosed with schizophrenia, for example, such as those with fewer episodes or less intense symptoms of psychosis, sometimes experience mind wandering and disorganised thinking. This can be challenging for focus but may be beneficial for fostering creativity.</p>
<p>Magicians are unique in that they both create their own shows and perform them. In this sense, they are similar to comedians. Most other creative groups either create or perform but not both. However, unlike comedians, there is much more at stake in a magic performance. If a comedian’s joke falls flat, it may be unpleasant, but it’s unlikely to ruin the entire show. </p>
<p>With a few good jokes that make the audience laugh, the comedian can get back on track. In contrast, one failed magic trick can be disastrous and opportunities to recover during the act can be few and far between.</p>
<p>Magicians, therefore, need to be extremely precise in their performance and possess highly technical skills, all while entertaining the audience simultaneously. This unique work environment and skill set make them an intriguing creative group to study. We carried out our own research with the assistance of a professional magician.</p>
<h2>Magical thinking</h2>
<p>Our study included 195 magicians, primarily from the UK and the US, with an average of 35 years of experience in performing magic. This included close-up magicians, mentalists, card experts and large-stage magicians. The magicians completed questionnaires assessing their tendencies toward autistic and psychotic traits. These were then compared to a sample of non-magicians with a similar age range and and gender distribution, as well as other creative groups such as comedians, poets, actors and musicians.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Hieronymus Bosch painter of a magician." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557993/original/file-20231107-25-2m00rf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557993/original/file-20231107-25-2m00rf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557993/original/file-20231107-25-2m00rf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557993/original/file-20231107-25-2m00rf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557993/original/file-20231107-25-2m00rf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557993/original/file-20231107-25-2m00rf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557993/original/file-20231107-25-2m00rf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hieronymus Bosch painter of a magician.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">wikipedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The magicians did not exhibit any predisposition for autistic traits, scoring similarly to the general population. However, magicians scored lower on nearly every psychotic symptom compared to the general sample and other creative groups.</p>
<p>In particular, these magicians demonstrated a very high ability to concentrate, lower levels of social anxiety and fewer instances of unusual experiences, distorted thoughts and hallucinations. All these traits are highly advantageous for the work of magicians, as they enable them to focus and pay attention to their craft without distractions. </p>
<p>The magicians we studied also did not display any tendency for anti-social behaviour and had good self-control. While these traits are valuable for many creative groups, such as artists and comedians, they are less critical for a magic performance. Magic performances are social events, often involving the audience and sometimes using assistants. So being friendly and affable is a key ingredient for a successful show.</p>
<p>In this regard, magicians are more similar to scientists who also score low on psychotic symptoms. Both require high levels of organisation and perseverance in their work. Moreover, just as scientists often explore different solutions to the same problem, magicians can perform the same magic trick in multiple ways.</p>
<p>Magicians vary in the level of creativity in their performances. While some magicians can be edgy and innovative (just watch David Copperfield’s famous flying illusion below), many magicians can build successful careers by performing familiar tricks, sometimes with their own tweaks, without the need to create new tricks. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/112EIHu5gFc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>Unlike other creative groups who have more flexibility in their work and may improvise during their performances, magic shows require discipline and need to be repeated exactly the same way for the tricks to work.</p>
<p>The magician’s oath not to reveal the secrets behind the tricks allows them to perform the same tricks repeatedly without the audience getting bored and also preserves the mystery of the act.</p>
<p>So unlike with other creative endeavours, mental illness and developmental differences may be counterproductive to magician’s work. It is possible that aspiring magicians with higher levels of psychotic and autistic traits find it very difficult to succeed in this profession.</p>
<p>Ultimately, our study illustrates that not all creative individuals are created equal, and the association between creativity and psychopathology is more complex than previously thought.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216319/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gil Greengross does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research suggests magicians lack magical thinking.Gil Greengross, Lecturer in Psychology, Aberystwyth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2028092023-03-29T09:40:49Z2023-03-29T09:40:49ZMystic Meg: fortunetellers have always been popular, despite a long history of efforts to silence them<p>Since her death on March 9, celebrities and clients have been paying tribute to Margaret Ann Lake, better known by her stage name “Mystic Meg”. In a career spanning five decades, Mystic Meg went from writing horoscopes to predicting winners on the live National Lottery broadcast from 1994 to 2000.</p>
<p>From Joseph interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams, to Elizabeth I’s astrologer John Dee (1527-1608), predicting the future has long been a path to fame and fortune. But unlike the many fortunetellers who came before her, Meg was able to practice her art without fear of persecution.</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2rOqEAAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&ots=g0T9IElnUH&dq=oxford%20history%20witchcraft&lr&pg=PT30#v=onepage&q&f=false">biblical Judaic culture</a> of Joseph, magical practices were tolerated, but considered suspect and dangerous. And John Dee may have earned the protection of the queen, but he needed it. Throughout his <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=c4MTlyKu6aIC&lpg=PR8&ots=8CV9sVuiqP&dq=%22john%20dee%22%20%22witchcraft%22&lr&pg=PA60#v=onepage&q&f=false">long career as an astrologer,</a> he was accused of witchcraft several times.</p>
<p>These accusations of harmful magic were often combined with the suspicion that fortunetellers were frauds taking advantage of popular credulity. In the 17th and 18th centuries, many European countries abandoned attempts to prosecute witches. </p>
<p>New legislation, such as the UK’s 1735 Witchcraft Act, focused on fraudulence alone. The act was used against spiritualists, psychics and astrologers up <a href="https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/8767/">until the second world war</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518001/original/file-20230328-28-gyii6c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of a woman with dark hair in a long dress stood by a steaming cauldron." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518001/original/file-20230328-28-gyii6c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518001/original/file-20230328-28-gyii6c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518001/original/file-20230328-28-gyii6c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518001/original/file-20230328-28-gyii6c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518001/original/file-20230328-28-gyii6c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518001/original/file-20230328-28-gyii6c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518001/original/file-20230328-28-gyii6c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Magic Circle by John William Waterhouse, (1886).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_William_Waterhouse_-_Magic_Circle.JPG">Tate Britain</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Across the Channel, from the 18th to the 20th centuries, the French authorities waged a long and unsuccessful war on magicians of all kinds. Although many of the men and women who ended up on trial were rural “wise women”, “wizards”, or “<a href="https://bit.ly/42l6kqr">cunning folk</a>”, others were not that different from Mystic Meg and the astrology hotlines of the 1990s. </p>
<p>The “Red Witch”, Jean-Jacques-Maurice Talazac, preferred telling fortunes by post in an age when telephones were still a luxury. But unlike Meg, Talazac’s trade was illegal. He was <a href="https://artefake.fr/talazac-et-michaella/">prosecuted in 1908</a> and again in 1916 and sentenced to several months in prison, as well as a fine and costs.</p>
<p>So why is it that whenever the authorities have tried to repress fortunetellers for good, they have failed? Perhaps a fellow magician’s Twitter tribute to Meg offers a clue: “She defied the dreary sceptic,” wrote <a href="https://twitter.com/theurigeller/status/1633776067637915649?s=20">Uri Geller</a>, “as did her fans.”</p>
<h2>Fortunetellers and their fans</h2>
<p>Critics of astrology, <a href="https://theconversation.com/tarot-resurgence-is-less-about-occult-than-fun-and-self-help-just-like-throughout-history-139448">tarot</a> and other popular magical practices tend to have a black and white view of what draws people to supernatural pursuits and how audiences treat prophecies and divination.</p>
<p>European thinkers in the 19th century saw attitudes to magic in racial terms, arguing that where “civilised” Europeans knew the difference between entertainment and reality, <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.14318/hau7.3.022">non-western cultures were too primitive</a> to see magic as deception. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518003/original/file-20230328-720-7zjvi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A pamphlet showing a cartoon witch dunking in the river." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518003/original/file-20230328-720-7zjvi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518003/original/file-20230328-720-7zjvi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518003/original/file-20230328-720-7zjvi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518003/original/file-20230328-720-7zjvi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518003/original/file-20230328-720-7zjvi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518003/original/file-20230328-720-7zjvi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518003/original/file-20230328-720-7zjvi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Witches apprehended, a British pamphlet from 1613.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/ejamevpq/items">Wellcome Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>More recent work by anthropologists, sociologists and historians has not only questioned these racist assumptions about primitive credulity, but also increasingly shown that attitudes to magic in modern Europe remain <a href="https://academic.oup.com/past/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pastj/gtad002/7043291?login=false">flexible and uncertain</a>.</p>
<p>Mystic Meg’s many fans could enjoy her predictions on the National Lottery Live or read her horoscopes in the paper without coming to any final decision about the reality or impossibility of the powers she professed. </p>
<p>In desperate times, even the most rational among us find it <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24550769?socuuid=bf04b65c-10cd-4993-af99-7a2df297e033">hard to dismiss bad omens</a>. Why is it so hard to <a href="https://academic.oup.com/past/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pastj/gtad002/7043291?login=false">throw darts at a picture of someone you love</a>, if you do not believe this symbolic attack can cause real physical harm? As musician <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYl_Fkd_x0o">Regina Spektor sings</a>: “no one laughs at God in a hospital.”</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518006/original/file-20230328-22-3xnvfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of a woman with a black dog reading a man's palm." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518006/original/file-20230328-22-3xnvfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518006/original/file-20230328-22-3xnvfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518006/original/file-20230328-22-3xnvfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518006/original/file-20230328-22-3xnvfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518006/original/file-20230328-22-3xnvfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518006/original/file-20230328-22-3xnvfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518006/original/file-20230328-22-3xnvfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gypsy Fortune-Teller by Taras Shevchenko (1841).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Шевченко_Т._Г._(1841)_Циганка-ворожка.jpg">National Museum Тaras Shevchenko</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Critics of superstition have often painted openness to magical interpretations as weakness or moral failing. From 18th century crusaders, such as Voltaire, to more recent <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2466/pr0.1991.68.3c.1387">psychologists</a>, many have pointed out the real social costs of erroneous beliefs. But historians have discovered that where magic led, science often <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/esm/3/1/article-p32_2.xml">followed</a>.</p>
<p>When the Nobel prize-winning scientists Frederick Soddy and Ernest Rutherford proved that atoms could be broken in 1901, Soddy’s first thought was that this was “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/690079">transmutation</a>” – like the famed transformation of lead into gold sought in Renaissance alchemy.</p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lKc76z3r454C&pg=PA111&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false">Rutherford retorted</a>: “For Mike’s sake, Soddy, don’t call it transmutation. They’ll have our heads off as alchemists.” </p>
<p>Mystic Meg’s claims were largely limited to the star signs of likely lottery winners, or romantic predictions for the week ahead. But perhaps her own good fortune was to have risen to fame in a culture where the most dangerous associations of magic had mostly disappeared.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202809/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William G Pooley received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to work on creative histories of modern witchcraft in France.</span></em></p>Critics of superstition have often painted openness to magical interpretations as weakness or moral failing.William G Pooley, Lecturer in Modern European History, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1984702023-02-23T13:15:46Z2023-02-23T13:15:46ZSage, sacred to Native Americans, is being used in purification rituals, raising issues of cultural appropriation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511784/original/file-20230222-22-nhg75m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5630%2C3728&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">White sage is being commonly used for purification rituals.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/midsection-of-sage-holding-feather-with-smudge-royalty-free-image/1207222673?phrase=sage%20smudging&adppopup=true">Stevica Mrdja / EyeEm via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>White sage, which is sacred to a number of Native American tribes in the southwest United States, has been adopted by both some contemporary Pagans and New Age practitioners <a href="https://religionnews.com/2023/01/12/witches-urge-alternatives-to-sage-amid-concern-about-appropriation-overharvesting/">for purification rites</a>. As Emily McFarlan Miller reported in a recent Religion News Service article, this is resulting in overharvesting and shortages of the plant, making it harder for Native Americans to find enough for their sacred ceremonies. </p>
<p>In her groundbreaking book “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Purity-and-Danger-An-Analysis-of-Concepts-of-Pollution-and-Taboo/Douglas/p/book/9780415289955">Purity and Danger</a>,” anthropologist <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199766567/obo-9780199766567-0075.xml">Mary Douglas</a> illustrates how purity and its maintenance are central to religion. It is a way to keep danger at bay as well as provide a way to separate the sacred from the mundane.</p>
<p>As a <a href="http://www.helenaliceberger.com/">sociologist of religion</a> who has studied contemporary Paganism for more than 30 years, I am aware of how important both contact with the spirit world and purification are in this religion. Contemporary Paganism is a set of religions that base their practice on what is known about pre-Christian religions in Europe, mixed with literature, science fiction and personal inspiration.</p>
<p>Within these religions <a href="https://uscpress.com/A-Community-of-Witches">nature is viewed as sacred</a>, to be celebrated and protected. The celebration of nature takes several forms, the most common being a series of rituals that commemorate the changing seasons. Cleansing is a way to provide a safe place to interact with the spirit world, which is always part of Pagan rituals. </p>
<p>Purification can be done using a number of substances, including salt, rosemary and sometimes white sage. When purification includes the use of sage, it raises the issue of appropriation, as it has traditionally been used by Native Americans in their rituals. </p>
<h2>Protection and cleansing</h2>
<p>Pagan rituals take place outdoors, when possible, or sometimes in people’s homes or in occult bookstores. There is no set liturgy that everyone follows, and it is possible for people to create their own rituals. </p>
<p>Because there is no dedicated sanctified place, cleansing and protection become <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Community_of_Witches.html?id=H7p1mwEACAAJ">particularly important within Paganism</a>. More mainstream religions have buildings, such as churches or synagogues, where they maintain sanctuaries for religious purposes only. </p>
<p>Pagans, to the contrary, have ritual areas that must be transformed from mundane to sacred use. Possibly more importantly, rituals are meant to open up the individual to the spiritual or other world. Magic, the process of changing reality to your will through incantations, is done in this realm. </p>
<p>As I learned <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Community_of_Witches.html?id=H7p1mwEACAAJ">when I was doing my research</a>, most Pagans believe entering this realm holds both great possibilities and dangers. The cleansing and purification of the place and the participants are meant to protect them by keeping out unsavory spirits. </p>
<p>Purification can be done in several ways. When I began my research in 1986, it was most commonly done using salt and water. At Pagan ceremonies that I attended as a researcher, those leading the ritual would “cut” a sacred circle. This entailed walking around the circle carrying a ritual knife known as an athame while chanting an incantation that marked the area as a safe place that only the spirits called would enter. They then used salt and water to purify the circle.</p>
<p>In some of the rituals participants were already standing in the circle when this part of the ritual was done; in others they entered afterward. The participants were also purified, with salt, water, smoke from a candle, incense or rosemary and a crystal or rock, symbolizing Mother Earth. </p>
<h2>White sage and cultural appropriation</h2>
<p>Sometimes white sage was used for purification in a ritual. It was used because it was associated with Native American practice. As religious studies scholar <a href="https://www.csuchico.edu/corh/people/faculty/sarah-pike.shtml">Sarah Pike</a> found among contemporary Pagans, cultural borrowing from Native Americans was seen as <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520220867/earthly-bodies-magical-selves">connecting the participants to the spirits</a> that lived in the land around them. </p>
<p>Participants believed they were honoring the first people on the continent by incorporating elements of their spiritual practice. Some of the Pagan practitioners had received training from a Native American teacher. For many contemporary Pagans, Native American spirituality was a practice they wanted to emulate because of its connection to the land, to a spirit world, and because it predates Christianity and is native to the region. As contemporary Pagans often piece together different elements to create their spirituality, for many it seemed natural to include Native American practices. </p>
<p>As Pike notes, in the early 1990s Native Americans from several tribes began to express their rage at what they saw as “cultural strip mining,” the stealing and watering down of their culture and their spirituality, which they described as an extension of colonization that had stripped them of their original lands. The use of sage was not the only cultural artifact that these Native American spokespeople objected to being used by nonnatives. Traditional dress and eagles’ feathers were two other examples of <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520220867/earthly-bodies-magical-selves">commonly appropriated items</a>. </p>
<p>As Pagans pride themselves on being sensitive to practices of diverse cultures, most quickly gave up the use of sage; the use of other Native American artifacts in Pagan practices became less common as well. Those who had been using sage returned to using either salt and water or rosemary for purification. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510709/original/file-20230216-18-5za3y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C8%2C5542%2C3692&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in a sun hat and white t-shirt sitting in a field." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510709/original/file-20230216-18-5za3y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C8%2C5542%2C3692&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510709/original/file-20230216-18-5za3y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510709/original/file-20230216-18-5za3y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510709/original/file-20230216-18-5za3y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510709/original/file-20230216-18-5za3y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510709/original/file-20230216-18-5za3y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510709/original/file-20230216-18-5za3y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman harvesting sage in a field.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/june-2020-saxony-freital-cindy-richter-field-worker-news-photo/1216875633?phrase=sage%20&adppopup=true">Sebastian Kahnert/picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The use of sage by non-Native Americans is again becoming more prevalent. I noticed while doing my research in 1986 that white sage was sold at stores catering to the occult. It is now being more widely marketed by stores such as Walmart and Anthropologie. </p>
<p>The market has become larger as aspects of Pagan or New Age practices have seeped into more general practice and the <a href="https://bigthink.com/the-present/modern-paganism/?fbclid=IwAR220aeQVXJjYP3r8eP0xfYsvbWERyb-ZkWt5ZxyIa17co4y9guUdPYuEKg">number of Pagans has increased</a>. It has become common, for example, for younger Americans to <a href="https://religionnews.com/2023/01/12/witches-urge-alternatives-to-sage-amid-concern-about-appropriation-overharvesting/">cleanse their homes of bad spirits</a> with white sage even if they do not identify as Pagans. Added to this, those who are new to Paganism are often unaware of the history of appropriation and are repeating the errors of an earlier generation of Pagans and <a href="https://bigthink.com/the-present/modern-paganism/?fbclid=IwAR220aeQVXJjYP3r8eP0xfYsvbWERyb-ZkWt5ZxyIa17co4y9guUdPYuEKg**">using sage in their rituals</a></p>
<p>Native Americans who normally pick the herb as they need it are complaining that they are unable to find enough for their spiritual needs. Fears have also been raised that overharvesting could result in the plant’s becoming extinct, <a href="https://medium.com/the-reynolds-media-lab/the-current-popularity-of-white-sage-is-causing-its-extinction-on-the-border-of-mexico-and-the-63f9527a8d3a">resulting in the extinction of the animals</a> that are dependent on it as well. </p>
<p>It would be both ironic and sad if in celebrating Mother Earth, Pagans helped to make a sacred herb extinct.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198470/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen A. Berger receives funding from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Association for the Sociology of Religion, and West Chester University.</span></em></p>Native Americans are struggling to find sage for their spiritual practices as the plant is being overharvested for sale to the wider public.Helen A. Berger, Affliated Scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1967842022-12-18T12:20:18Z2022-12-18T12:20:18ZHow to live up to the true spirit of Christmas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501649/original/file-20221217-22510-tt2p4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People enjoying Christmas decorations in Johannesburg, South Africa. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Luca Sola/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If the media, popular entertainment, and retail habits are taken as indicators then the celebration of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christmas">Christmas</a> is no longer just the reserve of Christians. This has some consequences for the religious and non-religious alike.</p>
<p>In popular culture and the media, Christmas is portrayed as a time of happiness, togetherness, generosity, and peace. In the “made for Christmas” movies, such as those on the popular <a href="https://www.hallmarkchannel.com/christmas">Hallmark Channel</a>, a “feel good” message is the order of the day.</p>
<p>Whether it be the rekindling of a <a href="https://www.hallmarkchannel.com/christmas-in-tahoe">long-lost love</a> or <a href="https://www.hallmarkchannel.com/christmas-at-the-golden-dragon">reconciling</a> between family members after a long and painful conflict, viewers are led to believe that there is a certain kind of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508419867205">“magic”</a> at work during what has become known in largely <a href="https://chrestomathy.cofc.edu/documents/vol11/davis.pdf">secular terms</a> as “the holiday season”. </p>
<p>Many people believe, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021516410457">either overtly or tacitly</a>, that Christmas and the celebrations surrounding it will bring them joy, peace, happiness and togetherness.</p>
<p>In my <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ids.v56i1.2849">research</a>, which is in a field called <a href="https://www.otago.ac.nz/ctpi/what/">public theology</a>, I study such “beliefs” to try to understand where they come from, why people hold them, and what implications they have for our social, political and economic life.</p>
<p>I call these <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?hl=en&lr=&id=_3PnDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT17&dq=dion+forster+secular&ots=R7LY9TV9Ea&sig=Qp3CMnur46BuSNxLb6TKRyLvxv0#v=onepage&q=dion%20forster%20secular&f=false">“secular beliefs”</a> to differentiate them from traditional “religious beliefs”. A secular belief is not formally attached to a religion, or has become detached from a particular religion over time. In this sense, Christmas has come to embody a kind of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09345-1_5">“secular spirituality”</a>. This has much more in common with the dominant symbols and aspirations of our age (such as leisure, pleasure, social control and consumption) than it does with its religious roots.</p>
<h2>Understanding Christmas</h2>
<p>Christmas, as the name suggests, is linked to the birth of Jesus the Christ. As a professor of theology, I have often jokingly said, “Christ is not Jesus’s surname”. The word “Christ” comes from the Greek word <em>Χρίστος</em> (Chrístos), which is the Greek translation for the Hebrew word “messiah” (<em>מָשִׁיחַ</em> or <em>māšīaḥ</em>). For Jewish people, and later for Christians (people who name themselves after their messiah, Jesus the Christ), the messiah was God’s <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?hl=en&lr=&id=wJe_SIyxwEkC&oi=fnd&pg=PR12&dq=messiah+as+liberator&ots=HPiqhXM9jn&sig=LDQwEKNz2FV2dQZL7fv46_Xaydc#v=onepage&q=messiah%20as%20liberator&f=false">promised liberator</a> – a King who would come to liberate God’s people from their oppressors and lead them in peace and prosperity.</p>
<p>Christians believe that Jesus is the promised messiah (according to passages in the Bible, such as Isaiah 9:6-7, John 4:25 and Acts 2:38). He came preaching a message of love, peace and anti-materialism. </p>
<p>Early in Christian history, Christians began to celebrate the birth of Jesus the Christ (the promised liberator) in special services, what became known as the <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/mass">“mass”</a> after the Latin word <em>missa</em>. Hence, it was the combination of those two words that later became one word, Christmas, a feast that celebrates liberation, peace and joy through the messiah.</p>
<p>When presented in these terms, it would not be surprising to ask what the contemporary presentations of Christmas (particularly in the western world) have to do with the celebration of Jesus the Christ. Santa Claus, snowmen and reindeer seem to have replaced Jesus and his disciples. </p>
<p>Instead of focusing on messianic liberation and anti-materialism, Christmas is focused on parties, family gatherings, and gift-giving. In other words, like so much of western modernity, the focus has turned from the <a href="https://www.google.de/books/edition/A_Secular_Age/hWRXYY3HRFoC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=charles+taylor+secular+age&printsec=frontcover">sacred to the secular</a> and from God to the human self.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021516410457">Research shows</a> that there are seven primary activities and experiences that are attached to the contemporary Christmas holiday:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Spending time with family </p></li>
<li><p>Participating in religious activities</p></li>
<li><p>Maintaining cultural, national, or family traditions (such as decorating a Christmas tree) </p></li>
<li><p>Spending money on others to buy gifts </p></li>
<li><p>Receiving gifts from others</p></li>
<li><p>Helping others (such as a local charity) and</p></li>
<li><p>Enjoying the sensual aspects of the holiday (such as good food and drink, rest, and relaxation).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>However, the same research shows that for many people, these “peaceful” and “joyous” expectations are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021516410457">not met</a>. Christmas is no longer a time of joy, generosity, family togetherness and rest. </p>
<p>Rather, the contemporary expectations of the festive “season” – such as the costs associated with gift giving, travel, celebrations (such as work functions, family gatherings, and community events) – can lead to dissatisfaction, stress, conflict and disappointment. Perhaps you can relate? </p>
<p>Moreover, the burden on <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/17/3/333/1822554?login=false">women</a> is often much higher than it is on men. Women are often expected to arrange gatherings, buy gifts, prepare food, clean up the aftermath and keep the peace.</p>
<h2>Rekindling the true spirit of Christmas</h2>
<p>So, taking these realities into account, what might you do to rediscover the “true”, or at least the historical “spirit” of Christmas this year (whether you are religious or not)?</p>
<p>Here are a few suggestions, based on sociological research.</p>
<p>First, social and psychological research shows that in general, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021516410457">but also at Christmas</a>, people report far greater “well-being”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>when experiences of family closeness and helping others were particularly salient.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Second, that “diminished well-being” is reported where people’s experiences and expectations “focused on the materialistic aspects of the season (spending and receiving)”. Moreover, the research <a href="https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021516410457">showed</a> that religious people who actively participated in religious gatherings tended to have a more positive experience of Christmas, with their expectations largely being fulfilled.</p>
<p>So, whether you are Christian, or have more of a secular spirituality, it may well be wise to recapture something of the historical “spirit” of the Christ-mass message by engaging in the responsible use of money and time, choosing positive consumption practices, while seeking to foster good relationships with family, friends and colleagues.</p>
<p>Moreover, pay careful attention to issues such as the gendered division of labour and responsibility by sharing the work and effort. In doing so, you just may have a happier Christmas.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196784/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dion Forster currently receives funding from the South African National Research Foundation (NRF), the HB Thom fund, and the Humboldt University of Berlin. He is affiliated with the Methodist Church of Southern Africa where is and ordained minister of religion.</span></em></p>Research shows that religious people who actively participate in religious gatherings tend to have a more positive experience of Christmas, with expectations largely fulfilled.Dion Forster, Full Professor of Ethics and Head of Department, Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology, Director of the Beyers Naudé Centre for Public Theology, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1951592022-12-12T13:38:52Z2022-12-12T13:38:52ZWho were the 3 wise men who visited Jesus?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498572/original/file-20221201-12-ffufr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C6000%2C3970&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scholars have provided different interpretations of who the 'wise men' were who visited Jesus soon after his birth.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/inside-the-saint-sulpice-church-in-paris-royalty-free-image/1296007408?phrase=three%20wise%20men%20and%20jesus&adppopup=true">Christophe Lehenaff/Collection Moment via Getty images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Christmas Nativity scenes around the world feature a familiar cast of characters: Jesus, Mary, Joseph, an angel or two, some barnyard animals, shepherds and, of course, the three wise men led by a star. </p>
<p>Within the New Testament, the story of the wise men is found only in the Gospel of Matthew. It spans <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+2%3A1-12&version=NRSVUE">12 short verses</a>, and is simpler than most readers likely remember. The wise men arrive in Jerusalem from an unnamed location “in the East,” led by a star and in search of a new king. They make their way to Bethlehem, where they bow before Jesus and offer gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Then, they return home by a different route.</p>
<p>The details in this story are slim, and so it raises more questions than it answers. Where were the wise men actually from? Why were they interested in Jesus? And, above all, who were they?</p>
<p>I am <a href="https://vandeneykel.hcommons.org">a scholar of early Christian literature</a> who has spent years <a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9781506473734/The-Magi">researching and writing about the wise men</a>. I maintain that their identity in Matthew’s Gospel is ultimately more mysterious and more complex than what traditional Christmas stories suggest. One of the keys to understanding them lies in what Matthew calls them: “magi.”</p>
<h2>What’s in a name?</h2>
<p>“Magi” is a Greek word that is difficult to translate. Some versions of the New Testament render it as “<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+2&version=KJV">wise men</a>” and others say “<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%202%3A1&version=TLB">astrologers</a>.” But neither of these captures the full sense of the term. </p>
<p>“Magi” is where the English word “magic” derives from, and just as magic can have both positive and negative connotations today, so too did magi have a range of meanings and uses in the ancient world. Some ancient authors speak positively of individuals they describe as magi, while others consider the label to be more of an insult.</p>
<p>Take, for example, the New Testament Book of Acts, which mentions two magi: <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+8%3A9-24&version=NRSVUE">one is named Simon</a>, and <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+13%3A4-12&version=NRSVUE">the other is named Elymas</a>. </p>
<p>Simon is a performer who amazes crowds with his ability to do magic, and he angers Jesus’ apostles by offering them money in exchange for some of their powers. Elymas is an adviser to a government official on the island of Cyprus, and he is referred to as a “false prophet.” He is struck blind for trying to interfere with <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Paul-the-Apostle">the apostle Paul’s</a> attempts to <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+13%3A8-11&version=NRSVUE">convert the official</a> to Christianity.</p>
<p>When it comes to both of these characters, the label “magi” is meant negatively. It was intended to suggest to readers that they are sinister charlatans, and not to be trusted.</p>
<p>In other ancient literature, however, magi are sought-after specialists who possess valuable skills like divination. In <a href="https://www.biblestudytools.com/lxx/daniel/2.html">the Greek translation of the Book of Daniel</a>, the king of Babylon summons magi to his court and asks them to decipher the details of a strange dream. </p>
<p>The Greek historian Herodotus <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+1.107&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126">tells a similar story</a> in which the Median king Astyages asks magi about a dream featuring his daughter, and they foretell the birth of the Persian king Cyrus the Great. The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria <a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak/courses/999/Essenes.htm#Gymnosophists">likewise speaks of magi</a> as people with the special ability to understand mysterious visions.</p>
<p>Many ancient authors who speak of people as magi also frequently do so in the context of religion and ritual. One of the more well-known instances of this is a teacher named Zoroaster, from whom <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zoroastrianism">Zoroastrianism</a> takes its name. </p>
<p>The Greek biographer Diogenes Laertius <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0258">says that Zoroaster was actually the first of all the magi</a>. He <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0258#%5B6%5D">also writes</a> that magi lived simple, ascetic lives characterized by limited comforts, and that they had a reputation for worshiping their gods through sacrifice. </p>
<p>The Greek biographer Plutarch <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0240%3Asection%3D46">speaks similarly of Zoroaster</a> as a magi who taught a form of spiritual dualism, good versus evil.</p>
<h2>The identity of Matthew’s magi</h2>
<p>Who, then, are the magi who visit Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew? The answer, it turns out, is complicated. Matthew doesn’t tell his readers exactly what he means when he refers to his visitors in this way, and so it is up to them to figure it out.</p>
<p>Biblical scholars <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300140088/the-birth-of-the-messiah-a-new-updated-edition/">often argue</a> that Matthew intended for the magi in his Gospel to be understood as gentiles or non-Jews who come to Bethlehem to worship Jesus. They surmise that this story is meant to foreshadow the fact that Christianity would eventually become a gentile religious movement instead of a Jewish one. </p>
<p>The argument that the magi are meant to be understood as gentiles is based in part on the fact that they come to Jerusalem and Bethlehem “from the East,” which could suggest that they are “outsiders.” But in light of how magi are spoken of in other ancient literature, this understanding is too simple. Had Matthew intended to say that gentiles came to Bethlehem, he would have done so without using a loaded word like magi.</p>
<p>Because Matthew doesn’t bother to say exactly who these visitors were supposed to be, the magi have fascinated readers and kept them guessing for nearly 2,000 years. </p>
<p>They have been imagined as <a href="https://members.efn.org/%7Eopal/therealmagi.html">Zoroastrian priests</a>, <a href="https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/article/astrologers-met-jesus-toddler/">astrologers</a> and, of course, as <a href="https://www.classical-music.com/features/articles/we-three-kings-lyrics/">kings</a>. They have appeared in various forms in <a href="https://www.artbible.info/art/verses/36.html">paintings</a>, in <a href="https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2qklsb">film</a>, in <a href="https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/1-the_gift_of_the_magi_0.pdf">literature</a> and in <a href="https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/jamestaylor/homebyanotherway.html">song</a>.</p>
<p>Given the complex nature of the word magi in the ancient world, one has to wonder if Matthew chose this word precisely to inspire a sense of mystery in his readers, and to keep them wondering about who the magi actually were. </p>
<p>If this is the case, then I would argue that he certainly accomplished that goal many times over.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195159/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eric Vanden Eykel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As Christmas approaches, Nativity scenes showing three wise men visiting the newborn Jesus are put up around the world. A scholar of Christian literature offers an explanation on their identity.Eric Vanden Eykel, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Ferrum CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1823922022-06-14T12:29:07Z2022-06-14T12:29:07ZWhere the witches were men: A historian explains what magic looked like in early modern Russia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468478/original/file-20220613-28309-z8kxki.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1022%2C628&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'A Sorcerer Comes to a Peasant Wedding,' a 19th-century painting by Russian artist Vassily Maximov.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maksimov_A_Sorcerer_comes_to_a_peasant_wedding_1875_gtg_ed.jpg">Tretyakov Gallery/Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The word “witches” makes many Americans think of <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-witches-are-women-because-witch-hunts-were-all-about-persecuting-the-powerless-125427">women working in league with the devil</a>. But that hasn’t always been the face of sorcery. </p>
<p>Most of Catholic and Protestant Europe embraced the idea of magic as a satanic craft <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-evolution-of-the-medieval-witch-and-why-shes-usually-a-woman-104861">practiced by women</a>, and strong, independent women were kept in line through such accusations. In Orthodox Russia, however, accusers overwhelmingly blamed men for bewitching them and held different ideas of where the power of “magic” came from. </p>
<p>Evidence about Russians’ belief in witchcraft <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Witchcraft_Casebook.html?id=bpWroAEACAAJ">survives in all kinds of documents</a> from the 12th to the 18th centuries: sermons; historical chronicles and tales; stories of saints’ lives; laws and decrees; manuals of herbal healing and spell books; and court records. These documents provide insights into the lives of ordinary people otherwise lost to history: in peasant homes and military regiments, on serf-owning estates and on barges on the Volga River. Verbatim testimonies in trial records show fraught, often abusive relationships between husbands and wives, masters and servants, patrons and clients. </p>
<p>This history – the focus of three of books I’ve written <a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/history/people/faculty/vkivelso.html">as a scholar of medieval and early modern Russia</a> – shakes up understandings of who “witches” were. Here, <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801469374/desperate-magic/">men were the usual suspects</a>, for reasons that highlight the frighteningly capricious ways power and hierarchy structured everyday life.</p>
<h2>A typical trial</h2>
<p>Three out of four Russians <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801469374/desperate-magic/">accused of witchcraft</a> were men. Most were accused of acting alone or with one or two associates, and almost all faced charges for everyday, practical kinds of magic.</p>
<p>Whereas trials in Western European involved lurid visions of <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781461639886/Magic-and-Superstition-in-Europe-A-Concise-History-from-Antiquity-to-the-Present">satanic witchcraft</a> – black sabbaths where naked witches flew on brooms to cannibalistic feasts and diabolical orgies – <a href="https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-01966-2.html">Russian witches</a> were thought to deploy magic toward more immediate, worldly ends, such as healing wounds or hurting a competitor’s business.</p>
<p>Witches employed spells and simple potions made mainly of herbs and roots, throwing in the occasional eagle’s wing, eye torn from a live chicken or dirt from a grave. Their magic called on the forces of nature and the beauty of poetic diction. <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/witchcraft-and-magic-in-russian-and-ukrainian-lands-before-1900/">They drew on the force of analogy</a> – “as this, so that” – to activate their spells and curses: For example, “as a log burns and withers in the fire, so may my master’s heart burn and wither.”</p>
<p>Some spells invoked supernatural beings, from Jesus Christ and Mary to nature spirits and mythic <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Russian-Folk-Belief/Ivanits/p/book/9780873328890">figures from Russian legends</a>, such as a golden fish or a wingless bird. Occasionally spells called on Satan and “his many little satans,” or invoked saints and satans at once.</p>
<h2>Everyday magic</h2>
<p>While some of the accusations were clearly false, lodged out of malice, surviving records make it equally clear that many of the accused did enact the kinds of rituals and spells that their accusers charged.</p>
<p>Practitioners <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Power_of_Words/PXPIAAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=a.+l.+toporkov&pg=PA71&printsec=frontcover">used their craft</a> in efforts to heal the sick, help the lovelorn, locate lost people and objects, protect people from guns or arrows and guard livestock. At the same time, records show some practitioners had darker motives: to curse, inflict illness, possess others, cause impotence, extinguish love or kill. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="In a painting, a sad-looking woman in a yellow shirt and blue skirt sits outside as an old man opens the door to exit a home." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468476/original/file-20220613-35158-4colz1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468476/original/file-20220613-35158-4colz1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468476/original/file-20220613-35158-4colz1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468476/original/file-20220613-35158-4colz1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468476/original/file-20220613-35158-4colz1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468476/original/file-20220613-35158-4colz1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468476/original/file-20220613-35158-4colz1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘For the Love Potion,’ a late-19th-century painting by Russian artist Mikhail Nesterov.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mikhail_Nesterov_-_For_the_love_potion.jpg">Radishchev Art Museum/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a society without trained medical providers, folk healing offered the only option for the sick other than prayer. Many people consulted both priests and healers who used magic, and saw no contradiction between the two. Fear that witches had a tendency to bewitch newlyweds made it common to invite sorcerers to protect the bride and groom during weddings and to pay them well in vodka for their service. Everyone from <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/ruhi/40/3-4/article-p297_3.xml">the czar’s wife</a> to the lowliest serf might turn to magic at some juncture in their lives.</p>
<p>Perhaps most revealing are what were usually called “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230583535_10">love spells</a>” – which by their very nature were coercive, intended to subordinate the will of their target to that of the spellcaster.</p>
<p>Love spells used by men were usually sex spells. <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501750656/witchcraft-in-russia-and-ukraine-10001900/">Surviving examples</a> are both beautiful and terrifying, with the spellcaster wishing agony on his beloved whenever she is away from him:</p>
<p>“As a fire burns for a year and half a year and a day and half a day and an hour and half an hour, so may that [woman] burn for me, with her white body, her ardent heart, her black liver, her stormy head and brains, her clear eyes, black brows, and sugary lips. May she suffer as much misery and bitterness as a fish without water. May that [woman] suffer as much bitterness for me for a day and half a day, for an hour and half an hour, for a year and half a year, for all the years, and thus let it be.”</p>
<p>In the minority of cases where <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801469374/desperate-magic/">women were accused of witchcraft</a>, their “love spells” usually aimed to calm their husbands’ anger, avert their fists and make them “be kind.”</p>
<p>When a woman attempted to turn the tables and dominate her husband or master, however, that threatened to <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801469374/desperate-magic/">invert the patriarchal social order</a> – and hence the punishment was especially harsh, including some executions.</p>
<h2>‘Spells to power’</h2>
<p>Beyond love spells, a broader category called “spells to power” <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/ruhi/40/3-4/article-p532_16.xml">challenged the social order</a>. I see these spells, which aimed to win the love of one’s social superiors, as an important reason that so many men were accused.</p>
<p>While women were often stuck at home or on estates, men of all ranks, even serfs, were relatively mobile. During their outings, they might run up against the arbitrary authority of a master, a judge, an official, a military officer, a nobleman or a bishop. In any of these situations, being armed with a protective written spell was simply good planning.</p>
<p>A spell book from 1763, for instance, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52903-9_7">includes the following</a>:</p>
<p>“… Like the sun rises, and the moon, by the will of the highest, and like tsars and princes, and kings, and generals, and governors, and all people, so may I, slave of God, appear with the beauty of the sun and the moon in their eyes. … As tsars and kings, and knights, and governors, and generals, and rulers love any precious stone, and may all people love me, slave of God.”</p>
<p>In a fiercely hierarchical society, where everyone except the czar was under the absolute and arbitrary authority of someone higher on the social ladder, belief in magic offered a sense of protection – a way to exercise a tiny bit of power in a world stacked against the subordinate. </p>
<p>And since belief in magic was universal, elites and common folk alike saw its possibilities and dangers. Magic threatened to arm the underling and to subvert the accepted social order. Although women participated in these practices, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3879463">it was men</a> who were more likely to bump up against authorities, to come under suspicion and to be discovered with a scrap of paper with a “spell to power” tucked into a hat or a shoe.</p>
<p>Ideas about witchcraft in Orthodox Russia may have been less sensational than those in Catholic and Protestant Europe, but it was seen as equally threatening to a social, religious and political order built on unquestioned hierarchies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182392/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Valerie Kivelson receives funding from NEH, ACLS</span></em></p>The idea of a ‘witch’ was usually female in Western Europe, but not so in Orthodox Russia – partly because of the period’s rigid social hierarchies.Valerie Kivelson, Professor of History, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1839302022-06-10T12:27:00Z2022-06-10T12:27:00ZHow Ivorian cyber-scammers help us to understand the magic of the internet<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468194/original/file-20220610-28923-texcho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1888%2C1413&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In Côte d'Ivoire, brouteurs are known for chasing a life of fame and fortune. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alexander Newell</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Societies that identify as “modern” tend to categorise people who believe in an invisible world of magic and spirits as irrational and superstitious, thereby excluding them from modernity. But have they ever considered the invisible forces of the digital world might not be that far away from those of witchcraft?</p>
<h2>Overlapping worlds</h2>
<p>African studies have long wrestled with how to represent the phenomena of witchcraft, magic and spirits in cultural life across Africa. Scholars fear that writing about these topics encourages stereotypes about African superstition, yet many recognise the occult is an unavoidable part of the lives of those about whom they are writing. </p>
<p>At the same time, in the global North and almost everywhere else in the world, over the last 20 years our lives have been invaded by invisible agents of which most of us have very little understanding, agents that follow us everywhere, record our every preference and purchase, our personal exchanges with others, our very footsteps. I’m talking about our smartphones.</p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/497690403" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An extract from <em>Vivre Riche</em> (“To live rich”), a documentary by Joël Akafou about <em>brouteurs</em>.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I was taught to see the Internet this way in <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/modernity-bluff-crime-consumption-and-citizenship-in-cote-divoire/oclc/1172630868">Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire</a>, where my research into <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/africa/article/abs/hackers-of-the-heart-digital-sorcery-and-virtual-intimacy-in-cote-divoire/6E33C4B9BB253B3BAC7930B46A18093B">cybercrime and sorcery</a> made me believe we can use the virtual worlds of sorcery to understand the virtual worlds of the Internet. Because we all share experiences of the Internet, this comparison may also help readers imagine what it feels like to live in a world where witchcraft and magic are part of everyday experience.</p>
<h2>The art of masquerade: life as a <em>brouteur</em> in Côte d’Ivoire</h2>
<p><em>Brouteurs</em>, or “cyber-scammers” in local slang, are seen as Robin Hood figures who take from the global rich to give to the people, eventually reaping the benefits of celebrity and a luxurious lifestyle. They operate by building social media avatars that surf the web in search of romantic relations with comparatively wealthy residents of the global North. When they find a <em>mougou</em> (victim), they build a relationship of intimacy and trust using their fake digital persona, deploying deft cultural performances and seductive craft to manipulate the mind of their target. Though most <em>brouteurs</em> are young African men, they present themselves most often as white women, crossing both racial and gender lines in their performances.</p>
<p>The goal is to eventually get the <em>mougou</em> to open his or her wallets, not once, but as many times as can plausibly be requested. Here, <em>brouteurs</em> will typically resort to stories involving gender and race stereotypes: abusive parents, misadventures while on business or tourist ventures in Africa, lost passports, cancelled flights, corrupt police officers, and life-threatening illness are common tales of the trade.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465680/original/file-20220527-13-bmp45d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465680/original/file-20220527-13-bmp45d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465680/original/file-20220527-13-bmp45d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465680/original/file-20220527-13-bmp45d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465680/original/file-20220527-13-bmp45d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465680/original/file-20220527-13-bmp45d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465680/original/file-20220527-13-bmp45d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ivorians gather at a <em>fête des brouteurs</em>.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alexander Newell</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lured by the lucrative prospects of the trade, most <em>brouteurs</em> will tap into a new form of sorcery called <a href="http://www.informationssansfrontieres.com/conflits/191.html"><em>zamou</em></a> that aims to influence people across the Internet. This might involve a number of spells, such as <a href="https://www-cairn-info.ezproxy.ulb.ac.be/revue-autrepart-2014-3-page-195.htm">attaching amulets to their computers or phones</a> in the hope of enhancing their power.</p>
<p>Witnessing the <em>brouteurs</em>’ lavish spending, fast cars and conspicuous drinking, Ivorians often question their morality. There are rumours that they will go to any lengths to get rich through the Internet, including engaging in human sacrifice, forming pacts with spirits to sacrifice their fertility, or even trading future years of their own life for a present filled with fame and fortune. For their critics, this explains the many deadly car crashes involving <em>brouteurs</em>, whose lives end abruptly when they must settle their dues to the genies whom they have dealt with.</p>
<h2>Second dimensions</h2>
<p>As in many parts of Africa, the invisible realm of witchcraft and magic is conceived as a <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/kinshasa-tales-of-the-invisible-city/oclc/1049716012">second world</a> that overlaps with visible reality. All creatures and things have a double in that world – a second version of themselves that is linked to their everyday material body.</p>
<p>When someone attacks another person through occult means, they pass into the second invisible world and target their double there. Not long afterwards, terrible things will happen to the victim’s real body: a car crash, a building collapse, or illness. Thus, inexplicable misfortune is understood to be the result of actions in this shared virtual space, actions visible only to those with “a second pair of eyes” to see in that world. In talking to Ivorians about Internet scammers and their digital sorcery, I realised there were strong similarities between the technological capacities of digital worlds and the occult possibilities in the second world. Indeed, for Ivorians, these spheres often overlap.</p>
<p>The anthropologists Neil Whitehead and Sverker Finnström have <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/virtual-war-and-magical-death-technologies-and-imaginaries-for-terror-and-killing/oclc/871675638&referer=brief_results">similarly argued</a> contemporary warfare that relies on virtual representations to kill one’s enemies (for example, piloted drones, cyber-warfare, night vision or satellite surveillance) perfectly resonates with the already existing imagination of witchcraft and magic as virtual spaces through which one can attack and kill others invisibly.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465690/original/file-20220527-25-wn11rc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465690/original/file-20220527-25-wn11rc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465690/original/file-20220527-25-wn11rc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465690/original/file-20220527-25-wn11rc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465690/original/file-20220527-25-wn11rc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465690/original/file-20220527-25-wn11rc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465690/original/file-20220527-25-wn11rc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Brouteurs</em> are perhaps cannier than most Westerners in their recognition of the magical forces that shape the Internet.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alexander Newell</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Internet is also riven with invisible forces through which capitalist entrepreneurs and criminals alike drain our income and gather our data, often without our awareness. Gossip and “fake news” that circulate through viral pathways of social networks play an important role in determining the moral and political shape of our world, helping to elect presidents, undermine election results and destroy reputations overnight. Just as a placebo can heal when presented as true medicine, it is possible to kill through symbols by convincing someone they will die.</p>
<h2>Recognising the magic of the Internet: from e-mails to data surveillance</h2>
<p>Last but not least, digital technologies can drastically shake our trust in social relations around us, be they shifting avatars, e-mails masquerading as official bank communications, or advertisements customised to respond to our movements in physical and digital space. Is it any wonder such a world – where rumour and news co-exist on the same media platforms – sees us believe that <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-flashing-warning-of-qanon">Satanic US politicians could be trafficking children</a>, or that in Côte d’Ivoire, close family members might secretly be witches selling their own kin’s bodies for profit?</p>
<p>Ivorians engage with both forms of the virtual at once, and it is no wonder that they see the Internet as full of nefarious and often inhuman agents with unseen powers to enrich, impoverish, create and destroy. <em>Brouteurs</em> employ digital sorcery, literally and figuratively, to enrich themselves and, as they put it, take back the “colonial debt” they are owed by “the West.”</p>
<p>Understanding these Ivorian digital performances as potent magic helps to see these tales of the occult as insightful theories rather than irrational superstition. Indeed, most of us engage the magic of Internet with very little technical understanding of the forces that make it possible, nor the dangerous enchantment it has wrought, entangling the very pathways of intimacy with <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/age-of-surveillance-capitalism-the-fight-for-the-future-at-the-new-frontier-of-power/oclc/1028528731">data surveillance</a>, private profit, and openings for the dark arts of digital sorcery.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Sasha Newell presented his work at the symposium « Modernités africaines. Conversations, circulations, décentrement » (« African modernities. Conversations, circulation, de-centring »), which took place from 9 to 11 June 2022 at the École normale supérieure (ENS). Please find the full program of the event here <a href="https://humanitesglobales.ens.psl.eu/pages/">here</a> .</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183930/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Newell a reçu des financements du F.R.S.-FNRS, Actions de Recherches Concertées ULB, Mellon Fellowship, et la Fondation Wenner Gren. </span></em></p>By casting spells and creating online persona to fool their victims, the Ivorian figure of the “brouteur” reveals the connections between the occult and virtual dimensions.Alexander (Sasha) Newell, Anthropologist, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1757852022-02-09T13:27:49Z2022-02-09T13:27:49Z‘I did not see them; I saw their soul’: retreats are more about magical encounters than self-exploration<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445411/original/file-20220209-25-o59egl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Being aware of the people you're meditating with is an integral part of the process.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sunset-yoga-335742965">Evgenia Kostiaeva | Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Going on a retreat seems like the very definition of a solitary experience. You leave behind your friends, family, and colleagues, giving up everyday life, responsibilities, cares and frustrations, for some quality time on your own. </p>
<p>The shape this takes <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-walking-meditation-175989">can vary</a>. You might spend your time reflecting, <a href="https://gaiahouse.co.uk/">practising</a> mediation, <a href="https://www.sharphamtrust.org/calendar/retreat/nature-connection-retreats#/events">walking</a> through a forest or simply staying silent for a week. You might stoically endure the heat of a sweat lodge. Whatever the method, research has generally <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2017.09.006">described</a> retreat-going as the ultimate in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2017.07.012">“me” time</a>, a perfect example of the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=paRrDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PT27&ots=lBgqdnzrLd&dq=Lasch%2C%20C.%20(1979).%20The%20culture%20of%20narcissism&lr&pg=PT27#v=onepage&q&f=false">contemporary obsession with self</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00380261211053482">My recent research</a>, however, suggests that retreat-going may be far more collaborative. Through in-depth interviews with 27 people, carried out in the UK over six months, I have been struck by how central encounters with other people are to the experience. People told me about the unexpected bonds they formed, which they described as “profound”, “inexplicable”, “mysterious”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People sit in a circle holding each other's shoulders, in a green setting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445413/original/file-20220209-1970-o5ipvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445413/original/file-20220209-1970-o5ipvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445413/original/file-20220209-1970-o5ipvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445413/original/file-20220209-1970-o5ipvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445413/original/file-20220209-1970-o5ipvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445413/original/file-20220209-1970-o5ipvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445413/original/file-20220209-1970-o5ipvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sharing circles are a common activity on retreats.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/akakul-lake-russia-june-22-2019-1654769899">Nika Raw | Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Unexplained connections</h2>
<p>One 54-year old man, Simon, started going on retreats after his wife left him and he lost his job. The effect they had on his life was intense. </p>
<p>His first experience was a silent retreat. One evening, having spent the day <a href="https://theconversation.com/meditation-mindfulness-and-mind-emptiness-21291">meditating</a> next to a young woman (a stranger), they walked together to a nearby lake and swam, then returned – all in silence</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Afterwards, we went back up to the retreat house in silence. And we went in, in silence, sort of dripping wet and panting. God knows what anybody else thought. And then we had a cup of coffee in silence and went to our separate rooms. And we didn’t talk about it the whole of the rest of the retreat.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When they could finally speak, at the very end, Simon found out that his companion was Latvian. They have kept in touch since and remain friends. “It was a common bond that nobody else would understand,” he said. “People probably would have thought it was incredibly weird.”</p>
<p><a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo40026541.html">Research points</a> to the importance of a group for retreat-going. Even during long sessions of group meditation, with the focus supposedly on the inner workings of the mind, an individual’s attention often rests on other people in the room. We watch our neighbours or listen for sighs, giggles and coughs. This actually helps the meditation process – it dials down our awareness of how we usually behave with others and synchronises participants’ attention to the present. </p>
<p>Anonymity is also important. <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/210495">Support groups</a> work in part because people don’t know each other. This gives participants a chance to experiment with their own identity – being kind to themselves, for example, or talking about difficult experiences – in a safe space, without much risk to their everyday sense of self. </p>
<p>A similar principle might apply to retreat-going, but in terms of relationships. Retreats offer people sustained contact with a group of complete strangers, usually around seven days. Without much information on who you will be on retreat with, you are free to connect with others in ways you might otherwise feel were impossible. You are provided with what could be thought of as a relational blank slate. </p>
<p>Simon, for example, wasn’t a “recently divorced man”, with all the baggage that might bring to a new encounter. He could connect with another person free from assumptions and expectation. He felt a sense of companionship, or even simply of connection, that had been otherwise very difficult for him to access in his everyday life.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People run into the sunlight in a desert setting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445129/original/file-20220208-12-1nefpk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445129/original/file-20220208-12-1nefpk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445129/original/file-20220208-12-1nefpk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445129/original/file-20220208-12-1nefpk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445129/original/file-20220208-12-1nefpk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445129/original/file-20220208-12-1nefpk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445129/original/file-20220208-12-1nefpk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Unfamiliar settings contribute to making relationships forged on a retreat that much more mysterious.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/bEcC0nyIp2g">Jed Villejo | Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en">FAL</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Mystical connectedness</h2>
<p>Another interviewee, Lorelei, who is a 37-year-old healthcare manager, described taking part in a “sharing circle”. This is a common activity wherein the whole group is given the chance to reflect on how the retreat is going and talk about their feelings with each other. She looked into the eyes of another participant by chance – a man she had never met before – and told me that, somehow, “I did not see them; I saw their soul. And it made me cry tears of joy.”</p>
<p>Lorelei could not explain the sense of connection and intimacy she felt with this stranger. It is true that empathy is a common feature of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/jip.2015.0008">support groups</a>, where participants share their own feelings and listen to the feelings of others. But the sense that they had been meant to connect lingered for months afterwards.</p>
<p>Anthropologists have described the mystical sense of <a href="http://faculty.trinity.edu/mbrown/whatisreligion/PDF%20readings/TurnerVictor-%20Liminality%20and%20Communitas.pdf">connectedness</a> that emerges during rituals and festivals, where people report a sense of commonality and shared humanity. This phenomenon also appears in everyday life too, for example in the context of <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203507964-14/connectedness-rave-experience-rave-new-religious-movement">raves and dance culture</a>. But in retreat-going there is a sense of unexpectedness and surprise, too, which seems to be an important piece of the puzzle. </p>
<p>British sociologist Jennifer Mason highlights that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0038038518820767">chance connections</a> with strangers can shock us out of staid relational habits and routines. They can shift our perspective on life, which is what can make them feel so potent – they might even hint at the sense we might be linked together in deeper, more mysterious ways, ways we can’t <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSdrwqLUpD0">easily grasp</a>. </p>
<p>Likewise, the actual setting of a retreat can also explain why participants feel excited and emotional. Retreats often take place in remote, beautiful countryside. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RilhWy7WBW4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>If the retreat takes place in a sacred space – a monastery, say, or a Buddhist retreat centre – the religious iconography might add to the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0272-4944(05)80175-6">mystical atmosphere</a>, compounding the sense you were destined to meet a mysterious stranger. It might lend an extra weight to the striking, surprising resemblances you discover with a meditation partner. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.01.034">Research</a> increasingly points <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2014.12.049">towards the importance</a> of <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11564849/">relationships</a> for wellbeing. Going on a retreat, for many, is a way to re-enchant their relational lives. To return a sense of mystery and surprise to life that may otherwise have been lost along the way.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175785/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James received a School of Social Sciences Small Grant Award (£2,000) from The University of Manchester to conduct this research. </span></em></p>People don’t just go on retreat to discover themselves. They also go hoping to find magical connections with others.James Hodgson, Research Associate in Sociology of Relationships and Personal Life, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1665052021-12-23T20:51:33Z2021-12-23T20:51:33ZMiracles and magic: the dual stories at the heart of Christmas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438153/original/file-20211216-13-uwr3ec.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=131%2C0%2C3754%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wes Mountain/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Christmas, at least in Western countries like Australia, brings together diverse myths and European traditions. Santa magically produces and delivers presents to the entire world in one night, hot Australians dream of a white Christmas, Jesus’s miraculous birth to a young virgin is re-enacted in nativity plays, and Christians gather to worship and celebrate the great mystery that this baby is God incarnate (God made flesh).</p>
<p>There is plenty of magic, mystery and miraculous activity to be found in these traditions. Is this what is meant by “the magic of Christmas Day” as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOBVWZflMdU">Celine Dion croons</a>? </p>
<p>Magic and miracles are treated as two very different things in the Christian tradition. Magic is bad, miracles are good. By magic, I do not mean the modern art of illusion that leaves us amazed by a brilliant sleight of hand or optical illusion. I mean magic in the ancient sense – something experienced as “real” but inexplicable; something that made the impossible possible, such as curing paralysis or leprosy.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-history-really-tells-us-about-the-birth-of-jesus-89444">What history really tells us about the birth of Jesus</a>
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<p>In the polemics of the Bible, miracles were legitimate religious activity but magic was not. According to the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy, people who practise magic – practices that included making children pass through fire, casting spells, consulting the dead, or divination (prophecy or fortune telling) – do not belong in God’s community. This suspicion about magic has plagued Christianity throughout the centuries, leading to everything from 16th and 17th-century witch trials to boycotts of Harry Potter books. Magic is suspicious and, in the minds of some, associated with demonic powers. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436551/original/file-20211209-140109-nxnstn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436551/original/file-20211209-140109-nxnstn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436551/original/file-20211209-140109-nxnstn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436551/original/file-20211209-140109-nxnstn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436551/original/file-20211209-140109-nxnstn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436551/original/file-20211209-140109-nxnstn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436551/original/file-20211209-140109-nxnstn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Christianity and magic have long had an uneasy relationship.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The problem is, many of Israel’s prophets and even Jesus did several of the things banned in Deuteronomy or labelled derogatively as “magic” in the Bible.</p>
<p>Jesus was considered a source of power in the Bible as he travelled around teaching and performing miraculous healings. He even <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2011&version=NRSV">raised a man from the dead</a>. Crowds flocked to him to be healed, bringing along their sick children or those unable to walk in the hope of a miracle. </p>
<p>Even Jesus’s clothes had magical properties. The Gospels record a story of a woman with a long-term bleeding disorder who touched the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%205%3A24-34&version=NRSV">fringe of his garment</a> and was healed by the power that went out from him. </p>
<p>At other times, Jesus seems to use more traditional magical methods to heal, such as when he <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+9&version=NRSV">mixed mud with his saliva</a> to cure a blind man. Was it magic, medicine, or miracle? It depends on your perspective. </p>
<p>Scientific minds might be sceptical of all such stories, but in their ancient context, this was how a magician behaved – and whether or not Jesus would have been considered a magician in his lifetime is a serious historical question. </p>
<p>In 1978, Morton Smith, then professor of ancient history at Columbia University, published Jesus the Magician. He argued that, from a historical point of view, many of Jesus’s healing activities would have looked similar to what other travelling magicians did in the first century CE. </p>
<p>For example, Jesus often utters a phrase over the person he is healing, much like rituals recorded in ancient magical papyri. Perhaps out of fear of this association, Jesus’s utterances are usually translated from the Aramaic into Greek in the Bible, precisely to make clear that they are not magical spells. </p>
<p>For Christians, it is the belief that Jesus is the Son of God that means his source of power is divine and therefore his deeds miraculous, not magic. But dissenting perspectives come through to us from history. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+10%3A20&version=NRSVA">John’s Gospel</a> records that some of the Jewish crowd accused Jesus of being possessed by demons – a logical explanation for his miraculous deeds if you did not think him from God. </p>
<p>Whether or not one believes the Jesus story, there is a historical context that makes sense of the kinds of things Jesus did in that period, whether one calls it magic or miracle. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436578/original/file-20211209-137612-fsk4qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436578/original/file-20211209-137612-fsk4qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436578/original/file-20211209-137612-fsk4qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436578/original/file-20211209-137612-fsk4qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436578/original/file-20211209-137612-fsk4qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436578/original/file-20211209-137612-fsk4qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436578/original/file-20211209-137612-fsk4qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Christian Christmas story is full of magic, but the idea of ‘Santa’ represents a different kind of magic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Santa, however, is another matter. The idea that a North Pole-dwelling bearded man delivers presents to all the world’s children in one night is sheer, modern, capitalist fantasy. Not all children actually receive presents, and adults know Santa is not real – after all we have to buy all those presents – but the joyful excitement of children at such a possibility can be contagious. </p>
<p>However, there is a danger that if we talk about Santa’s magical present-giving properties in the same way we talk about a baby’s birth in a room in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago, we are confusing categories in really unhelpful ways. </p>
<p>From a historical point of view, the “magic” evoked in each tradition is fundamentally different. Moreover, while both have historical kernels and both evoke a sense of the miraculous, one is tied to a religious tradition that points us beyond ourselves and the other is designed to make us buy more. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-christmas-story-the-arrival-of-a-sweet-baby-boy-or-a-political-power-to-change-the-world-108508">A Christmas story: the arrival of a sweet baby boy – or a political power to change the world</a>
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<p>At the heart of Jesus’s birth narratives in the Bible is a belief that this baby came to bring peace to the Earth, liberate the oppressed and bring abundant life to all. How this works precisely is part of the mystery. </p>
<p>To compare this religious tradition with Santa is not to have a dig at Santa <em>per se</em>. Perhaps the mystery of the Christmas season is that somehow in the conflation of these quite diverse traditions a touch of magic can found in the hopeful expectation of children and the joy of giving and receiving gifts. </p>
<p>But the truly miraculous Christmas would be one where all receive what they need, where all are fed, and where peace reigns.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166505/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robyn J. Whitaker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Two Christmas traditions – those around the birth of Jesus and Santa who brings gifts to all – contain strong elements of magic.Robyn J. Whitaker, Senior Lecturer in New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of DivinityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1672572021-10-28T15:39:12Z2021-10-28T15:39:12ZChocolate: From witchcraft to miracle worker in early modern Europe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425291/original/file-20211007-25-so558a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C6%2C4580%2C3442&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When Spain first imported chocolate, the medical community was concerned about the drink and its potential side effects.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We don’t generally think of chocolate as scary, despite its close ties to Halloween and all the miniature ghosts, skeletons and witches that will be out asking for a treat in lieu of a trick on Oct. 31. And even then, the threat of receiving a chocolate bar that has been tampered with is not enough to frighten most of us, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/halloween-candy-tampering-urban-legend-truth-1.5341734">and has been largely discredited as a hoax</a>. </p>
<p>So, was there ever a time when chocolate was frightening? Not exactly. But there was a time when it was unknown <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/topics/resource-library-mesoamerica/?q=&page=1&per_page=25">outside of Mesoamerica</a>. </p>
<p>As I relay in my book, <a href="https://utorontopress.com/9781487527204/chocolate/"><em>Chocolate: How a New World Commodity Conquered Spanish Literature</em></a>, its introduction into Europe generated concerns about the otherworldly nature of the drink, which was the only way it was consumed at the time.</p>
<h2>When chocolate made its way to Europe</h2>
<p>Spain <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-americas/history-of-chocolate">was the first European country to import chocolate</a> and there was growing alarm in the medical community about the drink and <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A19160.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext">its potential side effects</a>.</p>
<p>The origins of the drink in Latin America raised suspicion among both <a href="http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1669/2/cacao-cravings-europes-assimilation-and-europeanization-of-chocolate-drinking-from-mesoamerica-1492-1700-ce">religious and medical professionals</a>. From a European perspective, the lack of a recognizable religion on the continent meant that the inhabitants must have been under the <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315108995-3/devil-new-world-jorge-ca%C3%B1izares-esguerra">influence of Satan</a>. This misconception tainted anything coming out of the Americas. </p>
<p>Well-known satirist Francisco de Quevedo <a href="https://delanceyplace.com/view-archives.php?p=3737">labelled tobacco and chocolate as demons</a> sent to Spain to punish the colonial forces for the atrocities committed against Indigenous Peoples by making them weak and ill. </p>
<p>This was in line with medical practitioners of the period, who expressed concern that this new food from such a different climate could have a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/115/3/688/41267">severe effect on the Spanish constitution</a>. In the church, clergy complained that chocolate would break the fast, still an important part of Catholicism at the time. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Cacao bean sand raw chocolate sit piled in the centre of the frame" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425294/original/file-20211007-25-17wc9r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425294/original/file-20211007-25-17wc9r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425294/original/file-20211007-25-17wc9r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425294/original/file-20211007-25-17wc9r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425294/original/file-20211007-25-17wc9r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425294/original/file-20211007-25-17wc9r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425294/original/file-20211007-25-17wc9r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A satirist labelled chocolate as a demon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Anxieties around chocolate</h2>
<p>Many of the anxieties around the uses of chocolate can be attributed to the preparation of the drink. While we now concern ourselves with the percentage of cacao in a chocolate bar, there were concerns then about the purity of the chocolate being sold. </p>
<p>In one instance, the <a href="https://utorontopress.com/9781487527204/chocolate/">Order of Doctors of Madrid blamed a string of unexpected deaths</a> on the use of low-quality ingredients by chocolatiers who were facing supply-chain issues alongside increased demand. They then recommended that the court control the quality of imported chocolates, as well as restrict prices and regulate ingredients.</p>
<p>Seventeenth-century consumers not only had to concern themselves with quality issues, but also the threat of poisoning and witchcraft. It was common knowledge that the bitter taste and tendency to include spices and other ingredients made chocolate <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/Relaci%C3%B3n_Verdadera_del_Gran_Serm%C3%B3n.html?id=ejD6jgEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">the perfect vehicle for hiding some of the more repulsive additives required to make potions</a>. </p>
<p>Rumour had it that the last Hapsburg King, Carlos II (also known as “el hechizado” or “the cursed one”), was poisoned by his mother, by slipping some tissue from a dead man’s brain into his beloved cup of chocolate. Allegedly, <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/supersticiones-los-siglos-xvi-y-xvii-y-hechizos-carlos-ii/">this rendered him unable to lead or produce an heir, allowing her to continue to reign as his guardian</a>. We now know that his issues were much more likely the outcome of generations of intermarriage. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Chocolate and cacao beans" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425280/original/file-20211007-19107-nicdfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C0%2C3313%2C2375&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425280/original/file-20211007-19107-nicdfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425280/original/file-20211007-19107-nicdfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425280/original/file-20211007-19107-nicdfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425280/original/file-20211007-19107-nicdfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425280/original/file-20211007-19107-nicdfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425280/original/file-20211007-19107-nicdfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The bitter taste of chocolate made it the perfect vehicle for hiding some of the more repulsive additives required to make potions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Tetiana Bykovets/Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>From mask for poison to cure all</h2>
<p>Literary works that use chocolate as a theme also mention its magical powers; in one instance it is used as a sleeping potion, while elsewhere it is seen as a miracle cure. </p>
<p>In the play, <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=QjBeAAAAcAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=santa+rosa+del+per%C3%BA+agustin+moreto&source=gbs_navlinks_s"><em>Santa Rosa del Perú</em></a>, a servant convinces the future Saint Rosa that chocolate is a better cure-all than anything you would find in a pharmacy. When they drink it, she recovers from a stomach-ache and he fixes a rotten tooth. </p>
<p>In the anonymous book <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/Relaci%C3%B3n_Verdadera_del_Gran_Serm%C3%B3n.html?id=ejD6jgEACAAJ&redir_esc=y"><em>The Great Sermon</em></a>, chocolate is used in a variety of situations to cure foreign leaders in the hopes that they will be converted to Christianity. </p>
<p>In it, a Japanese king is cured of pain through chocolate, but instead of finding God, he becomes convinced of his sexual prowess and is sure that he will charm women of all ages, from virgins to widows. In another instance, a priest attempts to cure and baptise the leader of a region known as Tartary. The religious portion of the plan fails again, but the leader is miraculously cured through chocolate. <em>The Great Sermon</em> succeeds in demonstrating the ridiculous claims of the missionaries, thus criticizing Spain’s use of religion to justify the destruction and colonization of Latin America.</p>
<p>Chocolate’s trajectory from Mesoamerica to Spain was not direct or smooth, but ultimately chocolate has survived and thrived in European and American societies. Despite the early connections to witchcraft, chocolate quickly becomes tied to a different kind of magic, that of the miracle. </p>
<p>Ultimately, chocolate is incorporated into the daily diet of Spain and continues to be an important part of the cultural and culinary legacy on both sides of the Atlantic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167257/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erin Alice Cowling does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From devil to potion to miracle drug, chocolate’s arrival in Europe was a wild ride.Erin Alice Cowling, Associate Professor of Spanish, Department of Humanities, MacEwan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1683222021-10-28T10:28:49Z2021-10-28T10:28:49ZWitchTok: the rise of the occult on social media has eerie parallels with the 16th century<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427245/original/file-20211019-21-14im19l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/female-fortune-teller-reads-tarot-cards-1818760505">www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s 1.30am in the morning, and I’m about to watch a duel between magicians. One is a “demonolater”, a word I have never heard before, someone who claims they worship demons and can petition them in return for knowledge or power. The other describes themselves as a “Solomonic magician”, and claims to be able to command demons to do his bidding, as some Jewish and Islamic traditions have believed of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Solomon">King Solomon</a>, who ruled Israel in the 10th century BC.</p>
<p>I first discovered this debate because, in the course of studying 16th century books of magic attributed to Solomon, I had found, to my astonishment, that “Solomonic magic” is still alive and well today, and growing in popularity. Twitter had suggested to me that I might be interested in an account called “Solomonic magic”, and a few clicks later I had found myself immersed in a vast online community of young occultists, tweeting and retweeting the latest theories and controversies, and using TikTok to share their craft.</p>
<p>To my further bemusement, it seemed that the tradition of Solomonic magic had recently faced accusations that its strict and authoritative approach to the command of demons amounted to a form of abuse, akin to domestic violence. As I had made a note in my diary of a public debate that I wanted to attend out of sheer curiosity, it seemed astonishing to be asking myself whether Solomonic magic, the same found in books of necromancy dating back hundreds of years, was on the brink of cancellation in 2021.</p>
<p>At 28, I’m slightly too old to be familiar with the platform Twitch, mostly used for live video streaming, but tonight I’ve managed to get it working for this particular debate. As an atheist, I’m very likely in the minority, though I’m not the only Brit to have turned up in spite of it being such an ungodly hour this side of the pond. The chat box is buzzing as occultists of various stripes arrive to hear the arguments.</p>
<p>My mum would hate this, I can’t help thinking to myself. She didn’t even let me read Harry Potter.</p>
<p>When people ask me what I do, it’s always fun to tell them, “I study magic at Cambridge University.” It’s technically true. I’m researching the representation of magic on the early modern stage, and am interested in the ways in which dangerous, forbidden or “occult” knowledge was theorised by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. My <a href="https://www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/renaissance/?page_id=71">research</a> combines my fascination with the mechanisms of belief with my love of storytelling and the stage. When I’m not researching plays, I’m writing them: I’m an award-winning playwright, whose <a href="https://www.rebekahkingwriter.com/music">work</a> has been performed across the UK and abroad.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427015/original/file-20211018-21-8gqtef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427015/original/file-20211018-21-8gqtef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427015/original/file-20211018-21-8gqtef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427015/original/file-20211018-21-8gqtef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427015/original/file-20211018-21-8gqtef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427015/original/file-20211018-21-8gqtef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427015/original/file-20211018-21-8gqtef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">British painter George Romney was only one of many artists whose imagination was inspired by the three witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=shakespeare+witches&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Suspending disbelief is my forte, but actually believing is something I’ve never been very good at. The history of magic fascinates me because it is a history of people – of human faults and foibles, vanities, hopes and needs – rather than because of any genuine investment in the esoteric. This is why I’m here to listen to articulate and likeable young people across the globe discussing theories of knowledge and the supernatural – beliefs to which I myself cannot subscribe.</p>
<p>Even more astonishingly, these Generation Z occultists, with their substantial followings on Twitter and TikTok, are about to debate a form of magic that lies at the heart of my research into Shakespeare’s England.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong><em>This story is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> and is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects to tackle societal and scientific challenges.</em> </p>
<hr>
<h2>The rise of WitchTok</h2>
<p>While the <a href="https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/the-year-on-tiktok-top-100">most</a> <a href="https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/the-year-on-tiktok-top-100">watched</a> TikTok videos may appear asinine to anyone who doesn’t enjoy teenagers lip syncing to popular songs, some surprising subcultures have <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2018/09/tiktok-app-musically-guide.html">arisen</a> since the platform’s inception in 2017. One of these is the “WitchTok” community. Videos <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/witchtok?lang=en">labelled</a> #WitchTok have so far clocked up an impressive 18.7 billion views.</p>
<p>I accidentally found WitchTok because I had – to my shame, I’ll admit – found it calming to watch compilations of Cottagecore TikTok videos in my breaks during PhD research. <a href="https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/what-exactly-is-cottagecore">Cottagecore</a> is a popular fashion and lifestyle aesthetic that evokes the bucolic idyll of country living. Cottagecore videos are saccharine and safe: jam is preserved, mushrooms are picked, and flowing dresses stream across ripe fields while a girlfriend holds the camera and gentle music plays.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bZAEIAydA74?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Cottagecore TikToks are perfect means of escapism, featuring castles, fields, elf ears, and magic flutes, among other elements of wonder.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In short, it is pure escapism, and so is WitchTok; creators of WitchToks often also make Cottagecore videos. Yet, where Cottagecore offers hope for a good, green world that just might be baked and planted into existence, WitchTok audaciously skips past the bounds of possibility, and promises supernatural means of making life more bearable.</p>
<p>The abundance of magic on TikTok piqued my interest, representing as it does a new frontier in popular belief. It has also caught the attention of mainstream media. In April 2021, for example, the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/ed8dd8b7-77d2-4c9c-8da8-2fa06230daf4">Financial Times</a> consulted anthropologists and theologians who scrambled to interpret this strange turnout of events. Its author noted with astonishment that #WitchTok had surpassed #Biden by over 2 billion views and is now leading by around 6 billion and counting.</p>
<h2>Practical magic</h2>
<p>TikTok allows its users to make 15-second video clips, or a string of 15-second clips of no more than 60 seconds in total. This format lends itself to fast-paced, visually appealing content, and this has shaped the kind of magic found on WitchTok. Spells using <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@hellgirrl/video/6926387569697574149">candles</a>, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@caspercrafting/video/6908368436359957765">bottles</a>, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@crystal.and.craft/video/6975195104722177285">crystals</a> and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@witchofsouthernlight/video/6981061126108777733?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1">herbs</a> make for snappy and succinct tutorials which can be readily imitated by the viewer.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fH6GiNqBY4A?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Tarot reading has become a viral trend on WitchTok.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Interactive WitchToks are particularly popular, usually using <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@raysradiance/video/6919569187098660101">tarot cards</a> or <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@elementually/video/6859721092261514501">pendulum boards</a>,
where a crystal is dangled over a set of words, supposedly swinging over the truth when asked a simple question. By urging the viewer to participate, to “think of a question you want an answer for”, creators are conspicuously gaming TikTok’s algorithm, keeping people watching and encouraging engagement, while claiming that it was supernatural power that drew them to a video. </p>
<p>Brevity is the soul of WitchTok, where complex tarot spreads are abandoned for a one or three card message told to an audience of millions in 30 seconds. Carving a magical symbol into a candle upstages convoluted and expensive ritual magic from more formal, structured esoteric systems, where a single spell can take a day or more.</p>
<p>What, then, are TikTok users looking for in their magical clips of 60 seconds or less? The most common functions of a spell seem to be love, money, healing or revenge, particularly vengeance on behalf of a loved one, whether wronged by a <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@theemuses/video/6903298614047689989">school bully</a> or <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@lante_scary_lives/video/6965873773694258437">abusive husband</a>. Magic appeals because life is unfair, and power is a pleasant fantasy. In this regard, WitchTok is no different from any other magical tradition.</p>
<h2>Witchtok hunters</h2>
<p>The occult subculture is a controversial one, and the witches of TikTok are a particularly powerful magnet for outrage and mockery. They have come under fire from three main types of enemies who appear in turn as caricatures in WitchTok videos. </p>
<p>The first one of these is an interloper who I’ll call “the angry Christian”. When pantomimed in a WitchTok, the angry Christian <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@kawaiite/video/6858422392864247045">blazes</a> with furious indignation, railing against the evils of magic, till they are silenced with a sassy retort or threat of a hex. The angry Christian believes in magic, in Satan and in the occult. They simply think you’ll risk your soul if you engage with it. The Christians I grew up with are cut from precisely this cloth.</p>
<p>Less common than the angry Christian but occupying a similarly villainous role is “the smarmy sceptic”, the unbeliever who has no interest in any kind of faith. WitchTok videos often dramatise fantasy conversations with them, imagining ominous <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@gothictrashpanda/video/6836797381837606149">retorts</a>: “Don’t believe in curses? Sure! Just give me a lock of your hair then … no?” In some ways the smarmy sceptic is worse than the angry Christian, refusing point blank to be “spiritual” at all. I’m afraid this is probably the category into which I would be placed.</p>
<p>Intriguingly, however, a third opponent has arisen from within the occult community itself. This is what I am calling “the learned magician”, a practitioner who takes the occult seriously as a complex and scholarly pursuit, delighting in the theory, the complexity of rituals, and the broader philosophical implications of their beliefs. </p>
<p>Not quite so TikTok-friendly, they tend to make an occasional appearance when the trends of WitchTok deviate from the logic of a particular magical system, stepping in to correct the new “baby witches” and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@daatdarling/video/7006693454294142214?lang=en&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1">expressing</a> exasperation with controversies that will sound familiar even to those with no interest in the occult. (Is it cultural appropriation to wear an evil eye pendant? Does calling for discipline in magical ritual equate to a form of fascism?)</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z2Vi5ESTJ2I?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Learned magicians sometimes take to TikTok to set the record straight for ‘baby witches’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some learned magicians are attempting to bridge the gap. Gen-Z occultist Georgina Rose or “Da’at Darling” – who has convened the debate between the demonolater and Solomonic mage to which I am about to listen – puts out a prolific array of content ranging from introductory YouTube lectures to witty tweets and TikToks. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.patheos.com/blogs/panmankey/2021/07/why-we-need-to-defendoccultbooks/">Upset</a> by the “rise of anti-intellectualism in Generation-Z heavy online occult spaces”, she responded, appropriately, with a successful TikTok hashtag: <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/defendoccultbooks?lang=en">#DefendOccultBooks</a>. Perhaps not an outright “enemy” of Witchtok, after all – as “Da’at Darling” puts it, “it is important to reach this platform, so new practitioners can have good information on the occult” – the learned magician is still, at best, tolerant of the trends of TikTok spirituality.</p>
<p>Here, then, is a new theatre of ideas where innovative technology has not quelled ancient magical practices but has advanced them, giving rise to new forms of faith and schism. If the unbelieving reader is asking themselves how a new age of occultism has arisen in a supposedly enlightened modern age, when surely the tech-literate young know better than to return to ancient superstition, they need look no further than a parallel series of events in Shakespeare’s England. This was a time when innovations in technology and culture served to reinvent and energise ancient magical beliefs.</p>
<h2>The occult renaissance</h2>
<p>In medieval England, getting your hands on a book of magic was a tricky business. Prior to the invention of the printing press, handwritten texts were passed around in manuscript form between those lucky enough to have been taught how to read. Costly and time-consuming, the production of a book was simply not worth the effort unless the contents truly mattered.</p>
<p>In spite of this, from the mid-13th century onwards, a series of treatises that dealt with occult knowledge were translated into Latin and various European languages, slipping covertly between the personal libraries of wealthy men. If the Renaissance can be characterised more widely as a period of translation of classical wisdom, so too was it an era when occult “wisdom” began to circulate more widely than before.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427202/original/file-20211019-25-mfapou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427202/original/file-20211019-25-mfapou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427202/original/file-20211019-25-mfapou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427202/original/file-20211019-25-mfapou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427202/original/file-20211019-25-mfapou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427202/original/file-20211019-25-mfapou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427202/original/file-20211019-25-mfapou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Grimoires, or ‘spellbooks’, had a great influence on science and religion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=grimoire&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Books of magic, or “grimoires”, a word which derives from the French <em>grammaire</em>, promised, like ordinary school grammars, to teach the reader the rudiments of a new language, though this was the language of spell-making and devil-raising. Grimoires were frequently attributed to famous men of esoteric learning, and the wise king Solomon in particular appealed to Christian readers. If Solomon had authored such a text, could not the wise Christian reader likewise practice the occult without endangering his soul?</p>
<p>Rumour of the grimoires and their grim rituals would circulate widely throughout the medieval era while the actual, often comparatively bland contents, remained obscure.</p>
<h2>The occult reformation</h2>
<p>The introduction of printing press technology to Europe in the 15th century revolutionised the speed and scale by which all texts could be produced. It was the printing press which facilitated the Protestant Reformation, and it was also the printing press which was responsible for the introduction of the occult grimoires to a larger audience than ever before.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, this occult reformation was enacted not by magicians themselves, but by a series of sceptics who believed that, by revealing in print the content of infamous esoteric manuscripts, they could expose them to the ridicule that they deserved.</p>
<p>Dutch scholar Johann Weyer’s Latin treatise <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_praestigiis_daemonum"><em>De Praestigiis Daemonum</em></a> or “On the Tricks of Demons” was published in 1563. It was one of the first great sceptical works debunking magic, criticising notorious witch hunting manuals like the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Malleus-maleficarum"><em>Malleus Maleficarum</em></a> and, indeed, successfully curbing some of the continental witch trials. Weyer’s work had a huge influence on one Englishman in particular, Reginald Scot, who borrowed from it in his own book, <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/60766/60766-h/60766-h.htm">The Discovery of Witchcraft</a>, first published in 1584.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427206/original/file-20211019-18-uz3867.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427206/original/file-20211019-18-uz3867.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427206/original/file-20211019-18-uz3867.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427206/original/file-20211019-18-uz3867.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427206/original/file-20211019-18-uz3867.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427206/original/file-20211019-18-uz3867.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427206/original/file-20211019-18-uz3867.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Malleus Maleficarum is a manual for hunting witches that would serve as guidance for 15th century witch trials.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=malleus+maleficarum&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scot’s The Discovery is a thrilling exposé of both the folk magic practised by witches and the “learned” magic found in grimoires, particularly those attributed to Solomon. Weyer had included, as an appendix to <em>De Praestigiis Daemonum</em>, a direct translation of a Solomonic grimoire which listed the names and ranks of various demons, and how a magician might go about conjuring and commanding them as, supposedly, could Solomon.</p>
<p>Scot “Englished” much of this appendix for his book, concluding scathingly: “He that can be perswaded that these things are true … may soone be brought to beleeve that the moone is made of green cheese.”</p>
<p>Though by no means an atheist – nobody was, at least not openly, in the 1500s - Scot was certainly a smarmy sceptic, and The Discovery shares the exasperated horror of Richard Dawkin’s The God Delusion (2006) at the excesses of superstition and belief. Joined by George Gifford’s <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A01718.0001.001?view=toc">A discourse of the Subtill Practices of Deuilles by Vvitches and Sorcerers by which Men are and Haue Bin Greatly Deluded</a> (1587) and Henry Howard’s <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A03738.0001.001?view=toc">A Defensatiue Against the Poyson of Supposed Prophesies</a> (1583), Scot’s treatise seemed to ride the crest of a new wave of scepticism concerning the whole project of magic in general.</p>
<p>Surely the genie was out of the bottle (or demon out of the brazen bowl, as the Solomonic grimoires would describe it). Now that occult beliefs had been so thoroughly exposed and ridiculed, how could they possibly survive?</p>
<h2>King James and the witches</h2>
<p>In 1597, King James VI of Scotland, who would inherit the English throne in 1603, published an extraordinary treatise: <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/king-james-vi-and-is-demonology-1597"><em>Daemonologie</em></a>. The book was not, as the name might suggest, a grimoire-like guide to the conjuration of demons, but rather a serious study of demonic power and the harm it could inflict. King James did not accept the suggestion that any man, even if he was as wise as Solomon, could seriously practise magic without risk to his soul. Nor did he believe, as the smarmy sceptics did, that there was no real threat whatsoever.</p>
<p>James was an angry Christian, a man who believed, sincerely, in the power of the occult and felt duty-bound to protect his people from it in all its forms. He had nothing but contempt for the likes of Scot, whom he regarded, in much the same way as a modern Christian fundamentalist might regard an unbeliever, as a dangerous mocker who did the Devil’s work for him by dismissing the real threat that magic posed.</p>
<p>Even worse, Scot and his fellows had inadvertently introduced into printed English, for the first time, the detail of dangerous grimoire magic which had formerly reached only limited circulation. While it is a myth that James ordered copies of The Discovery to be burned, extracts from the text were indeed consigned to the fire during the witch trials of the 17th century, when sections were found, freed from their original sceptical context, in the documents of those accused of witchcraft.</p>
<h2>One devil too many</h2>
<p>My PhD looks specifically at the fallout of this fascinating cultural clash in the work of the early modern dramatists, and I am particularly interested in the overlooked presence of Solomon in these debates. Most famously, it was Marlowe’s <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/779/779-h/779-h.htm">Doctor Faustus</a> which sparked a vogue for plays that dealt with the question of the learned magician. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427210/original/file-20211019-20-pnszw0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427210/original/file-20211019-20-pnszw0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427210/original/file-20211019-20-pnszw0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427210/original/file-20211019-20-pnszw0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427210/original/file-20211019-20-pnszw0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=619&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427210/original/file-20211019-20-pnszw0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=619&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427210/original/file-20211019-20-pnszw0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=619&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Doctor Faustus raised many objections due to its interplay with the demonic realm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=marlowe+faustus&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Written in around 1588, Doctor Faustus drew on Scot’s The Discovery in its representation of magic, yet discarded its dismissive tone. Faustus succeeds in summoning the demon Mephistopheles, and signs away his soul in a contract written with his own blood in return for 24 years of power. After wasting his time on petty vengeances, greed and lust, Faustus is finally sent to hell. </p>
<p>Rumour circulated that an extra devil had been seen on stage during the play, a fact which the Puritan William Prynne would gleefully repeat as proof of the evils of theatre in his <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Histrio-Mastix-The-Players-Scourge-or-Actors-tragoedie"><em>Histriomastix</em></a>, 1632. Magicians who both did and did not achieve their hoped-for Solomonic command of occult forces would populate the English stage for decades.</p>
<p>Scot and the sceptics had indeed laid bare the detail of occult belief, and their work was highly influential, but it had precisely the opposite of their desired effect. Advances in technology, accessible English translations and an entertainment industry hungry for a good story had conspired to democratise magic. The process they unwittingly began continues today on TikTok and elsewhere.</p>
<h2>Solomon on trial</h2>
<p>It’s a strange truth that grimoire magic is more widely available in 2021 than ever before, and that it is the internet which has popularised exactly the same material that was hidden in a handful of libraries for the first few hundred years of its presence in Europe.</p>
<p>With the debate about the ethics of Solomonic magic underway on Twitch, I hardly dare imagine Scot’s horror, much less King James’s, to hear phrases like “pro-demon rights” from a young person describing themselves as a “demonolater” and “magic is the scientific study of conversations with spiritual beings” from a self-professed “Solomonic mage”.</p>
<p>The latter has done a good job of persuading the Twitch stream that commanding demons is not inherently disrespectful, though a poorly-judged comparison between the authority of the magician and that of the policeman sparks momentary indignation in the chat.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the debate is civil and ends with discussions of new online editions of the rare grimoires. It seems the magical incarnation of King Solomon will live to exorcise another day, and I can’t say I’m surprised. The historical inability of sceptical dismissals and technological advances to do anything other than encourage belief in magic has persuaded me that the fundamentalists are right in one respect: speak of the devil and he shall appear – and that goes for TikTok too.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebekah King does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What’s behind Gen Z’s appetite for tarot and spells? 16th century debates about witchcraft help explain why the occult has become viral on TikTok.Rebekah King, PhD Candidate, Faculty of English, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1690662021-10-20T12:40:54Z2021-10-20T12:40:54ZSmells like witch spirit: How the ancient world’s scented sorceresses influence ideas about magic today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427260/original/file-20211019-26-rdy0hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C390%2C227&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Perfumes, potions and witches have been entwined for centuries.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Circe-Frederick_Stuart_Church-1910.9.4_1a.jpg">Frederick Stuart Church/Smithsonian American Art Museum/Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most perfume ads suggest that the right scent can make you sexy, alluring and successful. A <a href="https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/shop/general-catalog-perfume-oils/excolo/hecate/">blend by Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs</a>, meanwhile, offers to make you smell like Hecate, the three-faced Greek goddess of witchcraft.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://hcommons.org/members/brittaager/">a classics scholar</a> who studies both magic and the senses in the ancient world, this idea of a witch-inspired perfume fascinates me – and “Hecate” is just one of many magic-inspired fragrances available today.</p>
<p>What does a witch smell like, and why would you deliberately perfume yourself like one? </p>
<p>Smells are impossible to see or touch, yet they affect us emotionally and even physically. That’s similar to how many people think of magic, and cultures around the world have connected the two. <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/10082698/scent_of_ancient_magic">My current research</a> is focused on how magic and scent were linked in ancient Rome and Greece, ideas that continue to shape views of witches in the West today.</p>
<p>Greeks and Romans of all walks of life believed in magic and used spells ranging from curses to healing magic and garden charms. <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo3684249.html">Magical handbooks</a> from the time show that Greco-Egyptian magicians used fragrance extensively in their rituals, even scented inks, and <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315736051-9/smell-sign-cure-ancient-medicine-laurence-totelin">doctors believed strong-smelling plant species</a> to be more medically effective than others. The gods themselves were thought to smell sweet, and places they touched retained a pleasant odor, making <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315736051-11/divine-scents-presence-ashley-clements">scent a sign of contact with the divine</a>. </p>
<h2>Witches wielding perfumes</h2>
<p>Professional magicians in the ancient world claimed they could curse enemies, summon gods, heal the sick, raise ghosts, tell the future and accomplish various other miraculous feats. Surviving descriptions suggest that a majority of them were men, although certainly not all.</p>
<p>When it comes to Greek and Roman fiction, however, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195342703.001.0001">most magicians are women</a>. </p>
<p>Witches in ancient literature use smells even more aggressively than their real-life counterparts did. Medea, for example – the most famous witch of antiquity – casts magic through scent repeatedly in Apollonius’ epic poem “<a href="https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/RhodiusArgonauticaHome.php">Argonautica</a>,” about the hero Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece. To help him, Medea <a href="https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/RhodiusArgonauticaIV.php">puts the dragon guarding the fleece to sleep</a> by chanting spells and drizzling herbal potions in its eyes. The odor of her herbal concoctions finally overcomes the monster.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman looking deep in thought prepares a potion as a ship sails by in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427268/original/file-20211019-15-8bqa65.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427268/original/file-20211019-15-8bqa65.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427268/original/file-20211019-15-8bqa65.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427268/original/file-20211019-15-8bqa65.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427268/original/file-20211019-15-8bqa65.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427268/original/file-20211019-15-8bqa65.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427268/original/file-20211019-15-8bqa65.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Medea’s perfumed magic helped her lover overcome a dragon – and kill her brother.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Medea-Sandys.jpg">Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys/Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Later in the poem, more ominously, <a href="https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/RhodiusArgonauticaIV.php">Medea scatters herbs into the wind</a>, and their scent lures her own brother into an ambush. Medea has run off with Jason by this point, and he kills her brother to prevent her from being forced to return home. </p>
<p>The Roman poet Horace wrote several poems <a href="https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/HoraceSatiresBkISatVIII.php">about a character named Canidia</a>, who is a more horrific witch than Medea: <a href="https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/HoraceSatiresBkISatVIII.php">Her teeth are black</a>, and she uses her long fingernails to dig up graves.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/HoraceEpodesAndCarmenSaeculare.php#anchor_Toc98670053">one poem</a>, Canidia and her friends murder a child so they can use his liver and bone marrow in a magical perfume to re-enchant her lover, who has left her. In <a href="https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/HoraceEpodesAndCarmenSaeculare.php#anchor_Toc98670065">another poem</a>, Horace even describes Canidia attacking him with scent. She made him ill with her odors, he writes, in return for his unflattering descriptions of her.</p>
<h2>Women’s wiles</h2>
<p>In the patriarchal societies of Rome and Greece, women were regarded with general suspicion, especially in matters of self-control like sex, money and drinking. Not only were women considered <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26927955">liable to weakness</a>, but they were likely to lead men into self-indulgence as well.</p>
<p>Stories about magical scents encode these ideas, especially fears about the dangers of sexually alluring women. It was said that women who used perfumes and cosmetics could seduce men into behaving in ways they would not choose to if they were in their right minds. Roman writer <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0137:book=13:chapter=4&highlight=perfume">Pliny the Elder commented</a> that the best perfume was one that made all the men in the area forget what they were doing when a women wearing it walked by. <a href="https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/CuresforLove.php#anchor_Toc523020778">The poet Ovid suggested</a> that if you want to get rid of love, you should pay your girlfriend a surprise visit to catch her without her makeup – her “blended potions.”</p>
<p>Medea’s odoriferous potions and Canidia’s fragrant spells <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/preternature.8.1.0001">resemble ordinary women’s perfumes</a>, but exaggerated to supernatural levels. The same misogynistic fear that women have the power to enchant men’s minds underlies both stories of witches and stories of ordinary seduction. In the “Iliad,” the goddess Hera distracts her husband, Zeus, from the Trojan War <a href="https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Iliad14.php#anchor_Toc239246023">by seducing him</a>. Her preparations include cleansing and perfuming herself with divinely fragrant ambrosia as well as borrowing a magical, lust-inducing belt from Aphrodite. Zeus falls asleep in Hera’s arms, unaware that a battle rages. </p>
<h2>Becoming the witch</h2>
<p>The association of fragrance and magic persisted long after the end of the Greek and Roman world. In C. S. Lewis’ 1953 novel “<a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-silver-chair-c-s-lewis?variant=32117136130082">The Silver Chair</a>,” for example, a witch appears who could be Medea’s cousin. She throws a green powder onto a fire to produce a “sweet and drowsy” scent, which makes the characters more and more confused.</p>
<p>These days, however, smelling like a witch has its attractions. Misogynistic stereotypes of seductive enchantresses and evil crones <a href="https://theconversation.com/sirens-hags-and-rebels-halloween-witches-draw-on-the-history-of-womens-power-149110">have been reclaimed as feminist symbols</a>, and the modern proliferation of perfume blends named for witches, spells and potions suggests that many people find their associations empowering. </p>
<p>Modern perfumes evoking magical imagery are often presented with a feminist twist, reclaiming ancient stereotypes. Another scent from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, “<a href="https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/shop/general-catalog-perfume-oils/diabolus/medea/">Medea</a>,” describes her as “the embodiment of ruthless power, indomitable will and furious vengeance.” Aether Arts Perfume’s “<a href="https://aetherartsperfume.patternbyetsy.com/listing/699597392/circe-goddess-witch-lover-woman-an">Circe</a>” is based on <a href="http://madelinemiller.com/circe/">Madeline Miller’s novel</a> about the great witch of “The Odyssey” and describes her as “a woman of power and strength.” “Harry Potter” fans can find all sorts of <a href="https://www.etsy.com/search?q=hermione%20candle">Hermione-themed</a> scented candles online.</p>
<p>Like costumes, perfumes offer a way to try on a persona for a little while. Maybe you want to feel like <a href="https://www.sagegoddess.com/product/hecate-perfume/">a powerful goddess</a>, <a href="https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/shop/collaborations/ars-inspiratio/the-witch-strega-perfume-oil/">someone with a library full of magical tomes</a>, or <a href="https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/shop/in-memoriam/halloween/halloween-2018/the-witch-bride/">a seductive monster</a>. But while costumes are obvious to other people, only the wearer knows what a perfume “means” – and perhaps that’s half the fun of smelling like Hecate. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Britta Ager does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Scent and magic have been entwined in our imaginations for centuries – right up to today’s witch-inspired perfumes.Britta Ager, Assistant Professor of Classics, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1657072021-10-14T08:06:18Z2021-10-14T08:06:18ZThe Prestige: the real-life warring Victorian magicians who inspired the film<p><em>Warning: containers spoilers for The Prestige</em></p>
<p>After years of a cat and mouse chase across Europe, two magicians are ready to declare war on one another. One, bitter over the loss of his son after a bullet-catch gone wrong at his own hand, steals the other’s programme of tricks. The subsequent change in his act begins to gain traction with audiences.</p>
<p>The enemies talk of a “battlefield” where they can settle all the imagined slights, and perhaps even obtain the revenge they have longed for over the course of their professional rivalry – at one point going so far as to involve the pope in their competitive European tours. One monologues to himself about how “exquisite” his vengeance will be, then announces publicly that his sole purpose in life is to “challenge” the other to “mortal combat”.</p>
<p>You could be forgiven for thinking these were scenes from Christopher Nolan’s classic film, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482571/">The Prestige</a>, released in 2006 and the recipient of two Academy Awards. But the dispute described isn’t between Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman’s onscreen characters; it is one that actually happened in France in the early 19th century. And as with any good tale of magic, all is not as it seems – although I don’t want to reveal the secret just yet. </p>
<p>This year is the 15th anniversary of The Prestige’s release, a film which continues to epitomise magic in the Victorian period for many fans. When people heard I was completing a PhD on Victorian magicians, it became very common for them to gasp: “Oh! Just like in The Prestige?”. Initially I resisted this comparison – even though watching The Prestige at an early age probably inspired my interest in this topic too. </p>
<p>My research explores the impact of conjuring upon <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08905495.2021.1960017?journalCode=gncc20">literature</a> and other <a href="https://victorianpopularfiction.org/publications/1200-2/victorian-popular-fictions-journal-volume-2-issue-1-spring-2020/victorian-popular-fictions-journal-volume-2-issue-1-article-5-ashton-lelliott/">media</a> during the Victorian period. There has been quite a lot of research into the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pxYVlgSzCg">psychology of magic</a> and its <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674013711">theoretical implications</a>, such as links to the history of advertising. And The Prestige itself has been the subject of <a href="https://nevt.org/les.pdf">academic interest</a>, due to the rise of neo-Victorianism as a field of study. But the experiences of the magicians themselves have not been as widely explored. </p>
<p>As my research continued I began to see that, in many ways, the real history of stage magic in the 19th century was as hectic and violent as Nolan portrays (albeit without the clones). The popularity and public recognition of the film also continues to interest me: what had Nolan captured which resonated in people’s imaginations? And why was this film the basis of most people’s knowledge of magic history – particularly when the reality of Victorian stage magic was in many ways even stranger than fiction?</p>
<p>Another slightly less popular magician film released in the same year as The Prestige was Neil Burger’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443543/">The Illusionist</a>, featuring Edward Norton and Jessica Biel. Both movies are adaptations of books, The Prestige (1995) by Christopher Priest and The Barnum Museum (1990) by Steven Millhauser. Priest’s book is much more ingrained in the real history of 19th century stage magic, name-checking well-known magicians such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Nevil-Maskelyne">John Nevil Maskelyne</a> and “The Wizard of the North”, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Henry-Anderson">John Henry Anderson</a>, who both engaged in dramatic rivalries of their own. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>This story is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> and is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects to tackle societal and scientific challenges.</em> </p>
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<p>The Prestige follows two stage magicians at the close of the Victorian era, Alfred Borden (Bale) and Robert Angier (Jackman), who engage in increasingly dangerous one-upmanship and competition, particularly over Borden’s trick “The Transported Man”, in which he vanishes behind one door while almost simultaneously emerging from another on the opposite side of the stage.</p>
<p>Borden achieves this by having an identical twin. But Angier is unable to accept this banal explanation and becomes obsessed with both the truth behind the trick and improving it further by employing the help of the inventor <a href="https://theconversation.com/nikola-tesla-the-extraordinary-life-of-a-modern-prometheus-89479">Nikola Tesla</a>. Tesla (best known for designing the alternating-current electric system) creates for Angier a machine that will generate a clone of him nearby, reproducing the effect of Borden’s trick. But the version of Angier left onstage as a result of the cloning must be drowned under the stage each night – a literal representation of the “cost of a good trick”, one of the film’s central motifs.</p>
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<p>Angier is also, initially in any case, haunted by his wife’s death by drowning after a water escape trick goes wrong, and he blames Borden’s poor knot-tying skills for her demise. There are other themes at play: Angier is American, and later becomes very wealthy, whereas Borden is presented as more explicitly working-class. Borden is passionate about the techniques of magic; Angier is more concerned with fame.</p>
<p>So rivalry is a central theme in The Prestige. In one scene, Tesla’s assistant asks Angier why he would want the same clone-making device as Borden. His response: “Call it a professional rivalry”. And as I carried out my own research, I couldn’t help but notice that rivalry is also an overriding motif of real-life Victorian magic. In fact, the magicians of this time used public rivalries as advertising tools to build a sense of drama around their already mysterious profession. </p>
<h2>Pinetti vs Torrini</h2>
<p>The most famous magician of the Victorian period was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Eugene-Robert-Houdin">Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin</a> – the man who inspired Houdini’s stage name. Robert-Houdin’s memoirs are one of the key magician autobiographies of this period. Robert-Houdin credits his initial interest in magic to a travelling performer who used the pseudonym of Torrini and whose dramatic life story was adopted by many other magic historians in this period.</p>
<p>Robert-Houdin (1805-1871) originally worked as a watchmaker and this knowledge of mechanics proved useful in his magic career when building his famous automata, or self-operating machines. The best known of these, <a href="https://illusionrepository.com/repository/the-marvelous-orange-tree/">The Marvelous Orange Tree</a>, features in the film The Illusionist. Apparently reacting to a loud noise, such as a gunshot, the <a href="https://youtu.be/OLtSEAttBYU">Orange Tree</a> produces orange blossoms and fruit from within its leaves. Robert-Houdin was also known for the <a href="https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1903&context=ocj">“second sight”</a> trick and “ethereal suspension”, often suspending his son onstage. The latter trick makes it appear as though the performer is floating without assistance or with just a thin pole.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SZb4nw7_hGY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>The story goes that Torrini, who was travelling around France, meets a young Robert-Houdin and the pair become friends and travel around the country for a while. Torrini teaches his young apprentice the ways of conjuring, all the while lamenting his many professional and personal misfortunes, such as the death of his son and having to flee from his previously aristocratic past.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A black and white portrait of a man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418621/original/file-20210831-27-1ah5hfn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418621/original/file-20210831-27-1ah5hfn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418621/original/file-20210831-27-1ah5hfn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418621/original/file-20210831-27-1ah5hfn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418621/original/file-20210831-27-1ah5hfn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418621/original/file-20210831-27-1ah5hfn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418621/original/file-20210831-27-1ah5hfn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Robert-Houdin in later life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.onthisday.com/people/jean-eugene-robert-houdin">Onthisday.com</a></span>
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<p>According to Robert-Houdin’s memoirs, Torrini was regularly at war with other magicians. The most violent incident he records was with Joseph Pinetti, who acted as Torrini’s foil throughout Robert-Houdin’s narrative and who had died by the time of the memoirs’ publication. Robert-Houdin’s descriptions of Torrini and his vicious rivalry with Pinetti are often riddled with references to weapons, revenge, war and duelling.</p>
<p>At one point, Torrini performs in front of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pius-VII">Pope Pius VII</a>. He notes that Pinetti is too scared to enter Rome for fears of being accused of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/necromancy">necromancy</a> (black magic). Robert-Houdin writes about the lead-up to their rivalry from Torrini’s perspective:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Then, when quite confident in myself – when I had added many new tricks to Pinetti’s repertoire – I would pursue my enemy, enter every town before him and continually crush him by my superiority… I, therefore, ordered apparatus of unknown brilliancy in those days, spending in this every farthing I possessed. With what delight did I regard these glittering instruments, each of which seemed to me a weapon capable of inflicting mortal wounds on my adversary’s vanity. How proudly my heart beat at the thought of the contest I would commence with him! Henceforth, it would be a duel of skill between Pinetti and myself, but a mortal duel; one of us must remain on the ground, and I had reason to hope that I should be the victor in the struggle.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This monologue would not be out of place in Nolan’s film, and indeed using war-like imagery when describing their professional rivalries – whether real or imagined – was very common in writings by magicians during this period. </p>
<p>Part of Torrini’s volatility is implied to be the result of his own tragic past, in which he accidentally shot and killed his own son as part of a gun trick. </p>
<p>The bullet-catch, a catch-all name for many variations of the trick, features heavily in The Prestige. Borden notes that “people still get killed doing this” and indeed people have been killed in misadventures involving the bullet-catch or wounded in its performance <a href="https://www.wnyc.org/story/bullet-catch-snap-525/">as recently as 2012</a>.</p>
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<img alt="A Victorian poster for a magic show." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415634/original/file-20210811-27-o35jiu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415634/original/file-20210811-27-o35jiu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415634/original/file-20210811-27-o35jiu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415634/original/file-20210811-27-o35jiu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415634/original/file-20210811-27-o35jiu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415634/original/file-20210811-27-o35jiu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415634/original/file-20210811-27-o35jiu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A poster for Robert-Houdin’s ‘incredible’ magic show from the late 1800s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://hrc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15878coll5/id/130/rec/68">Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Alas for my golden dreams!</h2>
<p>Torrini was such a vivid and colourful character that many began questioning the truth behind his story. Then, in the 1960s, it was discovered by a Robert-Houdin biographer, Jean Chavigny, that Torrini had never existed and had always been completely fictitious. Robert-Houdin had, in fact, invented Torrini to add some dramatic flair to his own origin story and create a dramatic legacy for his own magic tricks.</p>
<p>Falsehoods such as these led to Robert-Houdin acquiring his own rival from beyond the grave. Because, while he initially inspired a young Houdini, this relationship turned sour when Houdini realised his former idol was a charlatan. Houdini wrote an entire book in 1908 titled, <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42723/42723-h/42723-h.htm">The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin</a>, exposing what he saw as Robert-Houdin’s lies. In his introduction, Houdini writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Alas for my golden dreams! My investigations brought forth only bitterest disappointment and saddest of disillusionment. Stripped of his self-woven veil of romance, Robert-Houdin stood forth, in the uncompromising light of cold historical facts, a mere pretender, a man who waxed great on the brainwork of others, a mechanician who had boldly filched the inventions of the master craftsmen among his predecessors.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A book cover." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417606/original/file-20210824-23-891tgx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417606/original/file-20210824-23-891tgx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417606/original/file-20210824-23-891tgx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417606/original/file-20210824-23-891tgx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417606/original/file-20210824-23-891tgx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1101&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417606/original/file-20210824-23-891tgx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1101&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417606/original/file-20210824-23-891tgx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1101&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The book cover of The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin, by Harry Houdini.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.gutenberg.org">Project Gutenberg</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Houdini believed that Robert-Houdin had stolen all of his tricks from others and neglected to credit any of his predecessors. Whatever the truth, Robert-Houdin was himself very familiar with having his own tricks stolen in the cut-throat world of the Victorian magic circuit.</p>
<h2>Robert-Houdin vs Anderson</h2>
<p>Plagiarism led to the most disagreements in the magic trade. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424982/original/file-20211006-15-6kpbho.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Sepia photograph of a woman and her father." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424982/original/file-20211006-15-6kpbho.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424982/original/file-20211006-15-6kpbho.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424982/original/file-20211006-15-6kpbho.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424982/original/file-20211006-15-6kpbho.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424982/original/file-20211006-15-6kpbho.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424982/original/file-20211006-15-6kpbho.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424982/original/file-20211006-15-6kpbho.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Photograph of John Henry Anderson and his daughter Louie (1814-1874), possibly posing as if they were to perform a mind reading.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O234530/john-henry-anderson-the-wizard-photograph-london-stereoscopic-and/">V&A</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Henry-Anderson">John Henry Anderson</a>, a Scottish magician of global renown during this period, is often credited with first popularising guns as part of a magic act, pioneering several gun tricks which inspired many imitators. </p>
<p>He was in many ways the main competitor of Robert-Houdin, although the French magician often downplayed this relationship in his subtle dismissals of Anderson’s skills.</p>
<p>Anderson, for his part, would leave a city if he knew Robert-Houdin was coming. When both were on the listings of London theatres at the same time, Robert-Houdin appeared unconcerned, describing Anderson as a “puffer” in his memoirs. </p>
<p>Anderson swiftly fled from London after the first arrival of Robert-Houdin in 1848, but returned using a programme full of Robert-Houdin’s best known tricks by the Christmas of that year. </p>
<p>Robert-Houdin’s own interest in Anderson, however, mainly came from his dismay at the latter’s style of advertising. He noted that, as part of Anderson’s famously extreme publicity campaigns, he sent moulds bearing his name, title and the hour of his performance to “all the buttermen in the town…”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…begging them to imprint his stamp on their butter-pats… As every family in England eats butter at breakfast, it follows that each receives, at no expense to the conjurer, an invitation to pay a visit to the illustrious Wizard of the North.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is but one of Anderson’s audacious publicity stunts – all documented with disdain in Robert-Houdin’s memoirs where he sarcastically remarks that he believes Anderson must secretly be modest, as his conjuring skill is not at the same level as his advertising abilities. </p>
<p>Anderson was also, ironically, one of the most overt in publicly criticising his own imposters. George Barnardo Eagle, who also performed under a “Wizard” title, was often the subject of his disapproval, with Anderson once issuing large window posters with a cartoon illustrating Eagle’s plagiarism.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black and white cartoon." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415632/original/file-20210811-13-17yp4g3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415632/original/file-20210811-13-17yp4g3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415632/original/file-20210811-13-17yp4g3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415632/original/file-20210811-13-17yp4g3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415632/original/file-20210811-13-17yp4g3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415632/original/file-20210811-13-17yp4g3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415632/original/file-20210811-13-17yp4g3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anderson’s satirical cartoon of Eagle, belittling his imitator.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42723/42723-h/42723-h.htm">Harry Houdini Collection.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Prior to a performance in Birmingham, Anderson issued a playbill (an often illustrated advert outlining and promoting a performer’s upcoming shows) to Eagle with a direct threat, writing:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>BARNEY, when we last met, I merely ruffled your feathers, this time I’ll pluck you clean, not one shall be left thee to spread thy (Eagle) wings of imposition.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Although we don’t know if Eagle and Anderson ever came to blows, there was certainly an atmosphere of tension as they toured Britain, this time with Anderson in pursuit of his own imposter.</p>
<h2>Maskelyne vs… everyone?</h2>
<p>Another magician who made many enemies both inside and outside magic circles was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Nevil-Maskelyne">John Nevil Maskelyne</a>. He was famously guarded about his methods and was never afraid to sue rivals who he felt were stealing his tricks. His dispute with the American magician Harry Kellar, who openly copied one of his levitation tricks in the early 1900s, is cited as one of the key rivalries in The Prestige. The trick involved levitating a female assistant and passing a ring around her entire body to demonstrate a lack of wires.</p>
<p>Originally from Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, England, Maskelyne entered the magic profession in dramatic style by teaming up with his later long-time partner George Alfred Cooke to expose the tricks of the divisive spiritualist duo, <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/96519151/">The Davenport Brothers</a>, in 1865. Like Robert-Houdin, Maskelyne was a former watchmaker and master of automata, and his most famous creation, Psycho, can still be seen in the Museum of London today. Psycho is the archetypal card-playing automaton, who can carry on a game of whist with a human participant.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418630/original/file-20210831-15-k2cod0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418630/original/file-20210831-15-k2cod0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=911&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418630/original/file-20210831-15-k2cod0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=911&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418630/original/file-20210831-15-k2cod0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=911&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418630/original/file-20210831-15-k2cod0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1145&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418630/original/file-20210831-15-k2cod0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1145&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418630/original/file-20210831-15-k2cod0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1145&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Photograph of John Nevil Maskelyne.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some versions of the story hold that Kellar once stormed Maskelyne’s stage in order to get a better look at the technique of the levitation trick; others state that Kellar hired a spy to infiltrate Maskelyne’s inner circle (as Angier does when he sends his assistant to find out the truth behind The Transported Man). As with many such stories of professional magician rivalries, it is difficult to track down the truth of the incident – if a real truth, in fact, exists. Kellar’s estate went on to sell his version of <a href="https://www.bidsquare.com/online-auctions/potter-potter/blackstone-s-bill-of-sale-for-the-levitation-of-princess-karnack-906169">the trick</a>, having no such qualms about distributing secrets.</p>
<h2>The trick is everything</h2>
<p>The Prestige isn’t perfect and has its historical inaccuracies, made easier to overlook by its nebulous time setting (although, at one point, the film is firmly centred in 1899). But issues – such as the narrative reliance on water escapes, which were not especially in use until Harry Houdini made them famous in the <a href="https://youtu.be/mbBF_3WbrRk">20th century</a> and mentions of the “sawing-a-woman-in-half” trick (which was not debuted under this title until 1921 by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/jan/10/magic-circle-100-years-sawing-people-in-half">P.T. Selbit</a>) – are admittedly unlikely to bother the average viewer.</p>
<p>So the continuing popularity of The Prestige perhaps illustrates
how we still enjoy Victorian conjuring in modern society. But why do we have such a strong cultural memory of stage magic as a specifically Victorian concept? And why do we continue to create neo-Victorian films and books, such as The Prestige and The Illusionist, exploring this?</p>
<p>Magic and the wonders of illusion have been keeping humans entertained for thousands of years. I would argue that this perennial thirst for magic – especially when fiction and cinema allow a trick to appear so real – is part of the fantasy we project onto historical eras, such as the Victorian period: an era rife with popular entertainment, similar to our own. In the Victorian era, we see a recognisable yet different form of our current society, in the same way that magic tricks often take the familiar and twist it slightly to subvert the audience’s expectations. In this way, the past and conjuring seem inevitably linked.</p>
<p>This was the “golden age” of magic, before health and safety laws barred most performers from actually putting their lives on the line for a good trick. The mystery of magic is naturally suited to the foggy London streets we continue to be drawn to, and Nolan’s skill as a filmmaker portrays the social anxieties, such as concerns over individuality and urban expansion, of this era brilliantly. Such paranoia and desire for authenticity continue today, but are especially slippery in a profession still dominated by pretence.</p>
<p>As Borden tells his wife’s son in their first encounter: “The secret impresses no one – the trick you use it for is everything.” We continually search for wonder in the world, which some feel is increasingly rare, and today, as in the 19th century, a good magic trick is capable of suspending reality and providing an escape from the mundane and the predictable. Magicians of the Victorian period undoubtedly took their rivalries too far and risked their lives for their acts, but only because they knew the real secret of stage magic: that a good trick is worth any cost.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beatrice Ashton-Lelliott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction when it comes to the magicians of the Victorian era.Beatrice Ashton-Lelliott, Postdoctoral fellow, Victorian literature and magic, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1659392021-08-30T12:32:21Z2021-08-30T12:32:21ZWhat is Wicca? An expert on modern witchcraft explains.<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418288/original/file-20210827-33418-iyokh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Most Wiccans in the U.S. practice alone, though they congregate in large gatherings to conduct rituals and learn from one another.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sarah Swinford/EyeEm via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Wicca and witchcraft are popping up in pop culture these days, from <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/witchcraft-tiktok">teenage witches on TikTok</a> to a Marvel comic superhero <a href="https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/William_Kaplan_(Earth-616)">called Wiccan</a>. It has even led <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/books/peak-witch.html">The New York Times</a> to ask: “When did everyone become a witch?” </p>
<p>Wicca, an alternative minority religion whose adherents, regardless of gender, call themselves witches, began <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-triumph-of-the-moon-9780198827368?cc=us&lang=en&">in the U.K.</a> in the 1940s. Wicca and Witchcraft are part of the larger contemporary pagan movement, which includes druids and heathens among others. All these spiritual paths, as pagans refer to them, base their practices on pre-Christian religions and cultures.</p>
<p>Ever since Wicca arrived in the United States in the 1960s, it has been growing – sometimes by leaps and bounds, and <a href="https://web.b.ebscohost.com/abstract?direct=true&profile=ehost&scope=site&authtype=crawler&jrnl=15280268&AN=48881535&h=zOHNnd9jZrOZW5PLYDH23qBaeOIM2a33J%2fJFkOVJAPLbOJeltzwcVHKBRaTAqDF1HEuiCQUPbuQvIVn9EzQf1A%3d%3d&crl=c&resultNs=AdminWebAuth&resultLocal=ErrCrlNotAuth&crlhashurl=login.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26profile%3dehost%26scope%3dsite%26authtype%3dcrawler%26jrnl%3d15280268%26AN%3d48881535">other times more slowly</a>. It is estimated that there could be around <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/witchcraft-wiccans-mysticism-astrology-witches-millennials-pagans-religion-1221019">1.5 million</a> witches in the U.S. </p>
<p>As I am aware from <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=S1kXj-gAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">my own research</a> of more than 30 years, however, not all witches consider themselves Wiccans. Based on my most recent <a href="https://uscpress.com/Solitary-Pagans">survey data</a>, approximately 800,000 Americans are Wiccans. The increasing numbers that have been witnessed in surveys and the growth of groups, such as those on TikTok, suggest that the religion is continuing to grow.</p>
<h2>An independent practice</h2>
<p>The religion differentiates itself from more mainstream religions, such as Christianity, by celebrating a Goddess as well as a God. In addition, Wicca lacks a formal institutional structure such as a church and puts more emphasis on ritual and direct spiritual experience than belief. Adherents refer to themselves as <a href="https://www.hfsbooks.com/books/a-community-of-witches-berger/">practitioners</a>, not believers.</p>
<p>A yearly cycle of rituals, known as sabbats, celebrate the beginning and height of each of the four seasons of the Northern Hemisphere. Each ritual encourages participants to celebrate the changes the seasons bring to nature and to reflect on how those changes are mirrored in their own lives. For example, at <a href="https://wiccaliving.com/wiccan-calendar-beltane/">Beltane</a> – which takes place May 1, at the height of spring – Wiccans celebrate fertility in both the Earth and in people’s lives. The rituals are constructed to not only celebrate the season but to put the participant in <a href="https://uscpress.com/A-Community-of-Witches">direct contact with the divine</a>.</p>
<p>Wiccans have one overriding rule, “Harm none and do as you will,” and no single religious text that they draw beliefs from. Most Wiccans practice alone and are free to develop <a href="https://uscpress.com/Solitary-Pagans">their own unique practice</a>. They are nonetheless in regular contact, networking on the internet and congregating <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520220867/earthly-bodies-magical-selves">at large gatherings</a> to conduct rituals, learn about magical and spiritual practices from one another, and enter what they see as a magical space where they can more readily encounter and embrace divinity. </p>
<h2>A religion for the 21st century</h2>
<p>Although many Wiccans claim to draw inspiration from ancient cultures, such as pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon and Celtic traditions, it can be seen very much as a religion of our times. The Goddess provides a female face for the divine, appealing to feminists and those who seek “girl power.” Wiccans see divinity in nature, which resonates with growing environmental concerns, <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/do-younger-generations-care-more-about-global-warming/">particularly among the young</a>. </p>
<p>Most Wiccans <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Magic-Witchcraft-and-the-Otherworld-An-Anthropology/Greenwood/p/book/9781859734506">practice magic</a>, which they believe taps into a spirit world often referred to as the “otherworld.” Others think of magic as drawing on an energy field they view as surrounding all of us. They do magic to heal themselves and others or to find a new home or job, among other things, and emphasize that magic must not cause harm. Magic is viewed as changing the practitioners as much as their circumstances, encouraging adherents to pursue self-growth and self-empowerment. </p>
<p>There is currently an increase in the U.S. of those with no formal religious affiliation, with just over a quarter of all Americans considering themselves <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/06/more-americans-now-say-theyre-spiritual-but-not-religious/">spiritual but not religious</a>. As sociologist <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/N/bo8540263.html">Courtney Bender</a> has noted, many members of this group tend to avoid formal religious structures but instead participate in occult practices that enhance their self-development – in these ways, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/01/new-age-beliefs-common-among-both-religious-and-nonreligious-americans/">echoing spiritual practices</a> of Wiccans.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165939/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen A. Berger has previously received funding from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the Association for the Sociology of Religion, and West Chester University. </span></em></p>Interest in Wicca and witchcraft appears to be increasing, but what exactly is Wicca in the first place?Helen A. Berger, Resident Scholar, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1644402021-07-14T16:25:41Z2021-07-14T16:25:41ZHow to predict the summer weather – magic, miracle and meteorology<p>On July 15 971, the bones of St Swithin were removed from their resting place on the order of Aethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, and placed in a shrine inside the cathedral. The saint, it seemed, did not approve. A violent storm followed, and rain fell for 40 days. And from that story came the belief that the weather on July 15 predicted a summer of sun or rain.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>St Swithin’s day if thou dost rain’<br>
For forty days it will remain;<br>
St Swithin’s day if thou be fair,<br>
For forty days will rain na mair.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The weather in the UK this summer has been unpredictable – but largely overcast and wet and there was even a <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/barking-emergency-services-called-after-tornado-leaves-extensive-damage-in-east-london-12342007#:%7E:text=%22Tornadoes%20are%20rare%20in%20the,year%2C%20most%20typically%20during%20thunderstorms.&text=Another%20Met%20Office%20forecaster%2C%20Matthew,a%20brief%20tornado%20did%20occur%22.">freak tornado</a> in east London in late June. Technology might give us access to minute-by-minute forecasts, but how humans read the skies has long been shaped by a heady mix of meteorology, magic, and miracles. </p>
<p>The origins of the legend of St Swithin are questionable. Early sources suggest that St Swithin himself requested the removal of his bones to the <a href="http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=harley_ms_261_fs001r">cathedral</a>. Why then would the saint stir up a storm? The first written record tying St Swithin to weather forecasting is linked to a torrential downpour in <a href="https://premium.weatherweb.net/weather-in-history-1300-to-1399-ad/">1315</a>, some 500 years after his bones were moved, and the <a href="http://projectbritain.com/stswithun.html">rhyme</a> above dates from some three centuries after that. </p>
<p>Has it ever rained for 40 consecutive days after July 15? Not according to weather <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10644550">records.</a> The closest it might have got was in 1924 when (according to the <a href="http://guinnessworldrecords.com/">Guinness Book of World Records</a>) 30 of the 40 days after St Swithin’s day were wet, but 13.5 hours of sunshine were recorded on July 15.</p>
<p>There might, however, be a glimmer of truth in the legend. Summer weather in the UK is shaped by the position of the <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/types-of-weather/wind/what-is-the-jet-stream">jet stream</a>. A northerly position in early July will make a drier, sunnier summer more likely, but a southerly position will often usher in a period of unsettled weather. St Swithin’s day could well be a useful barometer. </p>
<p>If St Swithin is responsible, he’s not alone. Other saints whose feast days fall in June and July are also associated with weather forecasting. Rain on St Gervase’s day on June 19 predicts 40 days of wet weather, while a damp feast of the Seven Sleepers (in Germany, <em><a href="https://www.ndr.de/ratgeber/Siebenschlaefer-Stimmt-die-Bauernregel-ueber-das-Wetter,siebenschlaefer126.html">Siebenschläfertag</a></em>) on June 27 will usher in seven weeks of rain.</p>
<p>St Swithin’s legend is just one part of a complex picture of human interaction with the weather. Snow and sun, hot and cold, are written into our society, culture and language. And the skies are as a blank canvas on which humans paint their own beliefs and fears.</p>
<h2>Punishing sin</h2>
<p>Current concerns about climate change differ from those of our ancestors. Smaller local changes in weather were often of more immediate importance because of the threat that they posed, but also because of the message that they carried. </p>
<p>That message was often from God, an interventionist deity who used nature – storms, floods, drought – to communicate with humanity. The Bible contains ample precedents: when his people would not repent, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+6&version=KJV">God warned Noah</a> that he would “bring a flood of waters upon the earth”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woodcut of Noah's Ark in the water." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411255/original/file-20210714-15-1o47pib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411255/original/file-20210714-15-1o47pib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411255/original/file-20210714-15-1o47pib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411255/original/file-20210714-15-1o47pib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411255/original/file-20210714-15-1o47pib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411255/original/file-20210714-15-1o47pib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411255/original/file-20210714-15-1o47pib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Woodcut of Noah’s Ark from Anton Koberger’s German Bible.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah%27s_Ark#/media/File:Woodcut_of_Noah's_Ark_from_Anton_Koberger's_%22German_Bible%22.jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Churches responded to both successful harvests and natural calamities with prayer and fasting. The English <a href="http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1549/BCP_1549.htm">Book of Common Prayer</a> (1549) attributed a “plague of rain and waters” to human sin. And in 1598, a preacher from Sussex, in the south of England, declared that famine, floods and unseasonable weather were “a sermon of repentance”. </p>
<p>Weather was where the natural and the supernatural met. But it was not just God and his saints who could manipulate the weather.</p>
<h2>Raising tempests</h2>
<p>A “<a href="https://www.historicalclimatology.com/features/the-good-bad-undefined-little-ice-age">mini ice age</a>” in Europe (c.1300-1850) led to severe winters and cold, wet summers in which harvests failed. In these conditions, plague, famine and fear combined to fuel the belief that unnatural weather was the work of witches. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Illustration of witches with a cauldron and rain." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411202/original/file-20210714-15-1ntnl49.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411202/original/file-20210714-15-1ntnl49.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411202/original/file-20210714-15-1ntnl49.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411202/original/file-20210714-15-1ntnl49.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411202/original/file-20210714-15-1ntnl49.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411202/original/file-20210714-15-1ntnl49.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411202/original/file-20210714-15-1ntnl49.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Witches influencing the weather.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Theologians and <a href="http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/">demonologists</a> described how witches stir up storms, raise tempests, “solidify springs of water and melt mountains”. The link between witchcraft and weather was cemented in the famous book, the <a href="http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/part-ii-question-i-chapter-xv/">Hammer of Witches</a> (<em>Malleus Maleficarum</em>).</p>
<p>The idea was repeated in printed pamphlets and news, in sermons, and in the accusations that neighbour made against neighbour. In 1562, storms swept across Europe leaving panic in their wake. In the German town of <a href="https://historycollection.com/10-little-known-witch-trials-from-history/3/">Wiesensteig</a> more than 60 witches were burned at the stake. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/witchcraft-pamphlet-news-from-scotland-1591">well-documented and high profile case</a> of weather magic in 1589, the Scottish king James VI was caught in a storm in the North Sea, and more than 100 suspected witches were arrested in the area surrounding <a href="https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/North-Berwick-Witch-Trials/">North Berwick</a>. Many were tortured, found guilty and executed for witchcraft and for treason. </p>
<p>So blame witches, your sins or even saints for the weather July 15 brings and the summer that predicts. But, for the record, meteorologists <a href="https://www.westweather.co.uk/jetstream">tracking the position</a> of the jet stream <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4p23d9-0M0">predict</a> a spell of warm, dry weather beginning in mid-July. Unless it rains on July 15 but fingers crossed it doesn’t.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164440/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Parish does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If it rains on St Swithin’s day it is believed that it will rain for the rest of summer.Helen Parish, Professor of History, University of ReadingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1623072021-06-11T07:59:50Z2021-06-11T07:59:50ZAlbinism in Tanzania: what can be done to break the stigma<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404877/original/file-20210607-52826-sv14g2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mr Albinism Kenya Jairus Ongetta (L) and Miss Albinism Kenya Loise Lihanda pose at the Mr and Miss Albinism East Africa pageant.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The light physical appearance of people with albinism is caused by an inherited condition <a href="https://ojrd.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1750-1172-2-43">which results</a> in a lack of melanin. This means people with albinism will have very pale skin, hair, and eyes.</p>
<p>Because of their appearance, all over the world, people with albinism are often socially excluded and frequently (and sometimes violently) discriminated against. They’re <a href="https://bmcinthealthhumrights.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12914-018-0144-8">prevented</a> from having the same opportunities, for instance at school or when looking for employment, which can result in poverty. </p>
<p>In Tanzania, a variety of local myths surround albinism. For example, people with albinism are believed to be ghosts and their body parts are said to bring good fortune. This myth caused the killing of many people with albinism for their body parts. Between <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09687599.2021.1874299">2000 and 2019</a> in Tanzania, 76 people with albinism were killed and 182 people survived physical attacks.</p>
<p>In recent years, various stigma reduction interventions have been implemented in Tanzania by human rights groups, such as <a href="https://www.underthesamesun.com/">Under The Same Sun</a> and <a href="https://www.standingvoice.org/">Standing Voice</a>. However, no academic research has yet been done on what would be an effective way of reducing albinism-related stigma.</p>
<p>I’ve conducted extensive <a href="https://www.vliruos.be/en/projects/project/22?pid=3532">research</a> into stigma <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09687599.2021.1874299">reduction interventions</a> in local communities and the formal education system in Tanzania. </p>
<p>I found that reducing stigma related to albinism in Tanzania is not a straightforward practice. People with albinism are often not perceived as being human and this worldview is deeply rooted. Changing attitudes and improving knowledge requires a variety of strategies that need to be properly adapted to the context and target audience.</p>
<h2>Educate, inform, entertain</h2>
<p>To demonstrate this, I’ll take you through <a href="https://www.vliruos.be/en/projects/project/22?pid=3532">my studies</a> in which I examined three types of stigma reduction interventions: theatre, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09687599.2021.1874299">radio</a> and <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10699-021-09788-z">movies</a>.</p>
<p>I wanted to know whether these interventions helped to reduce stigma through providing education, contact with a person with albinism and by including entertainment. </p>
<p>Past <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17130071/">research</a> in relation to other conditions – such as HIV and AIDS and Leprosy – has shown that, to reduce stigma it’s important that people are informed, have positive interactions with someone with a stigmatising condition to create feelings of empathy, and a lot of interventions aim to entertain to grasp people’s attention.</p>
<p>The study was carried out in seven different areas of Tanzania and involved primary school students, secondary school students and adults with and without albinism. </p>
<h2>Theatre</h2>
<p>Through a theatre play, primary school students were introduced to Bahati, a boy with albinism, who was facing discrimination in his village and in school. The audience was asked to change the theatre scenes, to improve the situation for Bahati. </p>
<p>The audience responded enthusiastically to the play. They paid attention most of the time and were engaged. </p>
<p>I found that the children’s attitudes towards people with albinism improved. There was also a significant increase in albinism-related knowledge among the respondents who attended the theatre intervention.</p>
<p>The theatre intervention provided education and increased contact between participants and people with albinism. Because of this it’s an effective tool in reducing stigma. </p>
<p>However, practitioners should be careful the entertainment value does not overshadow the final outcome of the intervention. When an intervention is ‘too much fun’ the audience might not get the main message of the intervention. The audience should remember the message of the intervention, and not just that there was a lot of nice singing and dancing. In this theatre play, someone moderated the play and emphasised the correct information and main message of the play. </p>
<h2>Radio</h2>
<p>Two types of radio interventions were tested. A radio drama about albinism and a radio interview with someone with albinism. These were played once to a small groups of adult participants, after which they were asked what they thought of the shows. </p>
<p>Both radio shows proved to be effective in reducing stigmatising feelings towards people. The radio drama significantly reduced community stigma, and both radio shows reduced social distance. Hearing that people with albinism can live a normal life, positively influenced people’s attitudes. A combination of the different types of radio interventions is recommended, because they each have their own strengths. People like to hear radio dramas, but are also interested to hear peoples’ life stories in ‘real life’ through a radio interview. </p>
<p>The advantages of using radio as a stigma reduction intervention include that it’s relatively cheap to produce a radio show. It can also easily reach a large audience because of <a href="https://internews.org/tanzania-small-community-radio-stations-flourish-boost-ratings-after-training-and/">the large</a> number of people who own and listen to radio in Tanzania. </p>
<h2>Movies</h2>
<p>When it came to testing movies, I compared two types of movies among secondary school students. </p>
<p>One movie had different people with albinism who all introduced themselves. This meant the students had contact with people with albinism. </p>
<p>The other movie was educational. It featured two traditional healers and a medical doctor that provided insights into albinism. </p>
<p>Both strategies positively influenced correct knowledge related to albinism directly after the intervention. The findings showed many positive outcomes for both interventions, and the respondents were very enthusiastic about the contact intervention in particular. </p>
<h2>Way forward</h2>
<p>Following this research, I recommend a combination of the contact and education strategy. As they both seemed to be of value in reducing stigma. Both strategies complement each other as was proven in the tested interventions.</p>
<p>My findings showed that it could be rewarding to add entertaining components, however one should pay attention that ‘fun’ does not diminish the message of the intervention. </p>
<p>My research also shows the importance of evaluating and researching stigma reduction interventions. Reducing stigma is not a straightforward process and interventions benefit from proper development and evaluation. </p>
<p>The research also showed us that people with albinism can play an important part in stigma reduction interventions, which can not only improve the intervention but can also positively influence the spokesperson. By showing agency, stigmatised people can counteract expectations in society by breaking the vicious circle in which they are being seen as being worth less and being forced to act on this.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162307/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tjitske de Groot received funding from VLIR-UOS. </span></em></p>Because of their appearance, people with albinism in Tanzania are often socially excluded and frequently (and sometimes violently) discriminated against.Tjitske de Groot, Researcher and Lecturer, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Vrije Universiteit BrusselLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1573872021-04-14T12:37:58Z2021-04-14T12:37:58ZIs magic immoral? It played a role in the development of early Christianity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392916/original/file-20210331-15-f0ppgh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C11%2C3788%2C2109&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Magic fascinated and troubled early Christians as much as it does some people today.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://dmedmedia.disney.com/disney-plus/wandavision/images">Marvel Studios</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Americans are <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-social-thinker/201107/the-harry-potter-effect-the-science-behind-why-we-magical-things">fascinated by magic</a>. TV shows like “WandaVision” and “The Witcher,” books like the Harry Potter series, plus comics, movies and games about people with powers that can’t be explained by God, science or technology, have all been wildly popular for years. Modern pop culture is a testament to how enchanted people are by the thought of <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/witches-pop-culture-sabrina-ahs-charmed-real-world">gaining special control over an uncertain world</a>. </p>
<p>“Magic” is often defined in the West as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405168748.ch16">evil or separate from “civilized” religions like Christianity</a> and <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/making-magic-9780195169416">also from the scientific observation and study of the world</a>. But the irony is that magic was integral to the development of Christianity and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/religion/judaism/ancient-jewish-magic-history?format=HB&isbn=9780521874571">other religions</a> – and it informed the evolution of the sciences, too. </p>
<p>As an expert in <a href="https://liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-and-schools/department-of-religion-and-culture/faculty/shaily-patel.html">ancient magic and early Christianity</a>, I study how magic helped early adherents develop a Christian identity. One part of this identity was morality: the inner sense of right and wrong that guides life decisions. Of course, the darker side of this development is the slide into supremacy: seeing one’s own tradition as <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/bucknell/abusing-religion/9781978807785">morally superior and rightfully dominant</a>.</p>
<p>My work tries to return magic to its proper place as a part of the Christian tradition. I show how false distinctions between magic and Christianity were created to elevate ancient Christianity and how they continue to advance Christian supremacy today.</p>
<h2>The origins of magic</h2>
<p>In Western culture, magic is often defined in opposition to religion and science. This is problematic because <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/making-magic-9780195169416">all three concepts are rooted in colonialism</a>. For centuries, many European scholars based their definitions of religion on Christianity, while at the same time describing the practices and beliefs of non-Christians as “primitive,” “superstitious” or “magical.” </p>
<p>This sense of superiority helped Europe’s Christian monarchies justify conquering and exploiting Indigenous peoples around the world in a bid to <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/E/bo17436706.html">“civilize” them</a>, often through <a href="https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/king-leopolds-ghost/9780358212508">extreme brutality</a>. Imperialist legacies still color how some people think about non-Christians as “others,” and how they label others’ rituals and religions as “magic.” </p>
<p>But this modern understanding of magic doesn’t map neatly onto the world of the first Christians. “Magic” has always had <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.8278">many meanings</a>. From what scholars can gather, the word itself <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20190410?seq=1">was imported from the Persian word “maguš</a>,” which may have described a class of priests with royal connections. Sometimes, these “magi” were depicted as performing divination, ritual activities or educating young boys who would take the throne. </p>
<p>Greek texts retained this earlier meaning and also added <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20190410?seq=1">new ones</a>. The famous ancient Greek historian <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Herodotus-Greek-historian">Herodotus</a> writes that the Persian magi interpreted dreams, read the skies and performed sacrifices. Herodotus uses the Greek word “<a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D*ma%2Fgos">magos</a>.” <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sophocles">Sophocles</a>, a Greek playwright, uses the same term in his tragedy “Oedipus the King,” when Oedipus berates the seer Tiresias for scheming to overthrow him. </p>
<p>Although these two Greek texts both date from roughly the early 400s B.C., “magician” has <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20190410?seq=1">different connotations in each</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393642/original/file-20210406-13-cxk7lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two teenage girls walking past a Harry Potter book display at a book fair in China." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393642/original/file-20210406-13-cxk7lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393642/original/file-20210406-13-cxk7lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393642/original/file-20210406-13-cxk7lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393642/original/file-20210406-13-cxk7lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393642/original/file-20210406-13-cxk7lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393642/original/file-20210406-13-cxk7lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393642/original/file-20210406-13-cxk7lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The seven Harry Potter fantasies are the world’s best-selling book series, with more than 500 million novels sold since the first story was published in 1997.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mike Clarke/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/ca.2003.22.2.313?seq=1">Starting in the first century B.C.</a>, Latin authors also adapted the Persian term into “magus.” </p>
<p>While defending himself at <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/apuleius-apologia/2017/pb_LCL534.3.xml">trial for performing “evil deeds of magic,”</a> the second-century philosopher Apuleius claimed he both was and was not a “magician.” He insisted he was like a high priest or a natural philosopher rather than someone who uses unsavory means to get what they want. What’s interesting here is that Apuleius uses one idea of high philosophical magic to combat another idea of crude, self-interested magic. </p>
<h2>Christianity and magic</h2>
<p>The first Christians inherited these varied ideas of magic alongside their Roman neighbors. In their world, people who did “magical” deeds like exorcisms and healings were common. Such people sometimes <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/at-the-temple-gates-9780190267148">explained religious or philosophical texts and ideas</a>, as well. </p>
<p>This presented a problem for early Christian authors: If wondrous deeds were fairly commonplace, how could a group looking to attract followers compete with “magicians”? After all, Jesus and the Apostles did extraordinary deeds, too. So Christian writers made distinctions in order to elevate their heroes. </p>
<p>Take the biblical story of Simon the magician. In <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%208&version=NRSV">Acts 8</a>, Simon’s magical deeds entice the Samaritans and convince them to follow him until the evangelist Philip performs even more amazing miracles, converting all the Samaritans and Simon, too. But Simon relapses when he tries to buy the power of the Holy Spirit, prompting the Apostle Peter to rebuke him. This story is where we get the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/simony">sin of simony</a>: the purchase of religious office. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://keepingit101.com/e307">I’ve discussed elsewhere</a>, texts like this do not depict real events. They are teaching tools aimed at showing new adherents the differences between good Christian miracle workers and evil magicians. The earliest converts needed such stories because <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/at-the-temple-gates-9780190267148">wonder workers looked a lot alike</a>. </p>
<h2>Christianity and morality</h2>
<p>To some ancient people, stories of Jesus’ miracles probably didn’t seem far removed from the deeds magicians performed for money in the marketplace. In fact, the church fathers <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/3273846">had to shield Jesus and the Apostles against accusations of practicing magic</a>. They include Origen of Alexandria, who in the middle of the third century A.D. defended Christianity <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/origen-contra-celsum/763A0C668E490E8D550F7D2A6CCCD0F7">against Celsus</a>, a pagan philosopher who <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/divine-man-or-magician-celsus-and-origen-on-jesus/oclc/7837478&referer=brief_results">charged Jesus with being a magician</a>. </p>
<p>Celsus argued that the miracles of Jesus were no different from the magic performed by marketplace sorcerers. Origen agreed the two shared superficial similarities, but claimed they were fundamentally different because magicians cavorted with demons while Jesus’ wonders led to moral reformation. Like the story of Simon the magician, Origen’s disagreement with Celsus was a means of teaching his audience how to tell the difference between morally suspect magicians who sought personal gain and miracle workers who acted for the benefit of others.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393628/original/file-20210406-17-8dbsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A pastel 15th century painting showing Simon the magician held aloft by demons" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393628/original/file-20210406-17-8dbsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393628/original/file-20210406-17-8dbsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393628/original/file-20210406-17-8dbsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393628/original/file-20210406-17-8dbsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393628/original/file-20210406-17-8dbsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393628/original/file-20210406-17-8dbsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393628/original/file-20210406-17-8dbsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In early Christian stories, the magician Simon uses magic immorally to try and gain power and influence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436563">The Metropolitan Museum of Art</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ancient authors invented the idea that the miracles of Christians possessed inherent moral superiority over non-Christian magic because ancient audiences were as enticed by magic as modern ones. But in elevating Christianity above magic, these writers created false distinctions that linger even today. </p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify Jesus’s role in early Christianity.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157387/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shaily Shashikant Patel receives funding from Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech is a state institution, and therefore research awards are technically "government-funded." </span></em></p>Although many modern people tend to see ‘magic’ and ‘religion’ as separate, magic was actually integral to the development of Christianity.Shaily Shashikant Patel, Assistant Professor of Early Christianity, Virginia TechLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1482132020-10-29T16:50:39Z2020-10-29T16:50:39ZThis Halloween, witches are casting spells to defeat Trump and #WitchTheVote in the U.S. election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366296/original/file-20201028-13-1ckudj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C5%2C3671%2C2442&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Witch-identified folks are sharing spells online in an act of magical resistance in advance of the U.S. election.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This Halloween, the witches are coming — to the ballot box.</p>
<p>Using the hashtag #WitchTheVote, witch-identified folks are encouraging others who have an interest in the occult to get informed about political candidates and cast their vote in the U.S. presidential election Nov. 3. </p>
<p>Originally launched by a group of witches from Salem, Mass., during the lead-up to the 2018 midterm elections, <a href="https://www.witchthevote.com">#WitchTheVote</a> is a cross-media initiative that identifies and promotes — as one witch tells us — “witch-worthy” political candidates: those who are progressive and social justice oriented. It’s fitting political activism in a <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/10/30/16560092/salem-witch-trials-magic-halloween-witchcraft-arthur-miller-crucible-past">town known for the Salem witch trials and contemporary witch tourism</a>.</p>
<h2>Witching movements</h2>
<p>More than a hashtag, #WitchTheVote is also, according to the group, a “collective intersectional effort to direct our magic towards electing candidates who will push our country and our planet forward into the witch utopia we all envision.” </p>
<p>Here, intersectional feminist politics work alongside magic and creative media production to engage in political activism that includes advocacy around issues like affordable housing, reproductive rights and #BlackLivesMatter. #WitchTheVote runs a regular <a href="https://www.witchthevote.com/podcast">podcast</a> and has also made and distributed zines with information for prospective voters, including how to register to vote and how to check to ensure your mail-in ballot was received. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CGYJjuzA7FA","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>This collective effort illustrates the ways in which “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2017/6/20/15830312/magicresistance-restance-witches-magic-spell-to-bind-donald-trump-mememagic">magical resistance</a>” has become a popular, women-led form of mediated, political activism since the election of Donald Trump in 2016.</p>
<h2>The resurgence of the witch</h2>
<p>#WitchTheVote is situated within a resurgence of witches in popular culture over the past four years. Between Netflix’s teen drama <em>The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina</em>, beauty retailer Sephora’s Starter Witch Kit (which was eventually removed due to backlash), the revival of the cult classics teen witch movie <em>The Craft</em> and <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/witchcraft-tiktok">TikTok spell trends</a>, the witch is having a cultural moment. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dressed-to-kill-6-ways-horror-folklore-is-fashioned-in-the-movies-147835">Dressed to kill: 6 ways horror folklore is fashioned in the movies</a>
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<p>Books such as Pam Grossman’s <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Waking-the-Witch/Pam-Grossman/9781982100704"><em>Waking the Witch</em></a> (2019) have attracted widespread media attention, while <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/astrology-tarot-cards-mental-health_l_5df7b210e4b03aed50f25c30">public interest in astrology and tarot readings has also grown</a>. </p>
<p>Esthetically, witchcraft and mysticism circulate easily on visual social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, where colourful crystals and elaborate altars make for beautiful photos and videos. From a branding perspective, the witch’s popularity makes sense within a larger cultural interest in spirituality, wellness and mysticism.</p>
<p>But there is also a case to be made for the very political nature of the witch. The archetype of the witch has a historical relationship with feminist activism. As an unruly figure and threat to the patriarchy, the witch is resistant, and has been used in <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/43gd8p/wicked-witch-60s-feminist-protestors-hexed-patriarchy">feminist protest since the 1960s</a>. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sirens-hags-and-rebels-halloween-witches-draw-on-the-history-of-womens-power-149110">Sirens, hags and rebels: Halloween witches draw on the history of women’s power</a>
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<p>At a moment of regressive politics marked by a resurgence of white supremacy, xenophobia and anti-feminist sentiments, coupled with the uncertainty of a global pandemic and the looming climate crisis, it is unsurprising that women and other marginalized folks are turning to witchcraft as a way to make sense of — and act upon — our current political, social and economic milieu. </p>
<h2>The digital coven</h2>
<p>It is perhaps the collectivist sentiment of contemporary witchcraft — belonging to something bigger, together — that is appealing. Indeed, #WitchTheVote’s mandate as a “collective intersectional effort” suggests the force of doing something together, yet attuned to the different experiences, including those related to race, class, sexuality, age and ability, that participants may face. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1315716864551653376"}"></div></p>
<p>And while not the only tool for mobilizing a collective, technology has become a significant connector for covens in recent years. Social media platforms, in particular, provide what some witches refer to as “<a href="https://hauswitchstore.com/blogs/community/tech-spells">globally accessible magic</a>.” </p>
<p>By embracing technology while recognizing its limitations and inherent oppressions, witches are engaging in new rituals with the intent of keeping their channels clear for maximum revolutionary power on an individual and collective level. </p>
<p>For example, upon Donald Trump’s election in 2016, witches began a monthly ritual of <a href="https://medium.com/defiant/use-this-spell-to-bind-trump-and-his-cronies-a5b6298f5c69">casting a spell to “bind” Trump</a>, preventing him from pursuing his agenda that many witches believe to be harmful. Some witches used platforms such as Facebook Messenger and Twitter to connect with other spell-casting witches at a designated time each month, ensuring that the “mass energy of the participants” is harnessed. </p>
<h2>Spells and rites</h2>
<p>Historically, spells often required very little in terms of commercial goods. Instead, witches relied on basic household items like candles and feminized rituals such as sweeping to engage in witchcraft. #WitchTheVote’s “<a href="https://www.witchthevote.com/spells/2020/3/31/a-multi-tasking-spell-for-mutual-aid-during-covid-19">A Multi-tasking Spell for Mutual Aid During COVID-19</a>” lists a pen, paper and “anything else that makes you feel like a witch” as necessary materials. Other spells recommend candles of any size and colour and dirt from your backyard. </p>
<p>The emphasis is not on the materials themselves, but instead engaging with rituals that help witches feel empowered through practices that provide a sense of routine, stability and purpose in unpredictable times.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CGZ2wgdh23S","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>In the digital age, using the Internet as another avenue to practice witchcraft seems like a natural extension to the tradition of making do with the resources available to you. We may even think of emojis, shares, likes and retweets as possible technologies of magic when used with energetic intention to manifest social change. </p>
<p>And these practices are extensions of activist use of technologies such as feminist listservs, e-zines, chatrooms, homepages, feminist blogs and now, social media.</p>
<h2>Casting spells and votes</h2>
<p>In a political, cultural and economic moment in which many people feel a sense of hopelessness about the future, #WitchTheVote encourages activists to ground themselves through ritual and magical resistance. </p>
<p>They remind us of girls’ and women’s lengthy history in subverting repressive politics through focused collective action. In casting their votes along with their digital coven on Nov. 3, Salem’s activist witches hope to #WitchTheVote, one ballot at a time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148213/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessalynn Keller receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alora Paulsen Mulvey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As the U.S. election approaches, various groups have mobilized to vote. But witches have taken it a little further, organizing online spellcasting meet-ups to engage in magical resistance.Jessalynn Keller, Associate Professor in Critical Media Studies, University of CalgaryAlora Paulsen Mulvey, PhD Student, Department of Communication, Media and Film, University of CalgaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1442412020-08-20T08:59:22Z2020-08-20T08:59:22ZMagic was once seen as equal to science and religion – a bit of magical thinking could help the world now<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353673/original/file-20200819-42861-1jbkr1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C34%2C3296%2C2189&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Isaac Newton was a man of many talents, including alchemy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wellcome Images</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On April 16 1872, a group of men sat drinking in the Barley Mow pub near Wellington in Somerset in the UK’s south-west. A gust of wind in the chimney dislodged four onions with paper attached to them with pins. On each piece of paper, a name was written. This turned out to be an instance of 19th-century magic. The onions were placed there by a “wizard”, who hoped that as the vegetables shrivelled in the smoke, the people whose names were attached to them would also diminish and suffer harm.</p>
<p>One onion has ended up in the <a href="https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/">Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford</a>. The person named on it is Joseph Hoyland Fox, a local temperance campaigner who had been trying to close the Barley Mow in 1871 to combat the evils of alcohol. The landlord, Samuel Porter, had a local reputation as a “wizard” and none doubted he was engaged in a magical campaign against those trying to damage his business. </p>
<p>E.B. Tylor, who wrote <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Primitive-Culture-by-Tylor">Primitive Culture</a>, a foundational work of 19th-century anthropology, lived in Wellington. The onion came to him and thence to the Pitt Rivers Museum of which he was curator from 1883. Tylor was <a href="http://england.prm.ox.ac.uk/englishness-tylors-onion.html">shocked by the onions</a>, which he himself saw as magical. Tylor’s intellectual history regarded human development as moving from magic to religion to science, each more rational and institutionally based than its predecessor. To find evidence of magic on his doorstep in the supposedly rational, scientific Britain of the late 19th century ran totally counter to such an idea.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353589/original/file-20200819-25336-f4ppv2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Onion wrapped in paper used as part of a spell by an 18th-century 'wizard'." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353589/original/file-20200819-25336-f4ppv2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353589/original/file-20200819-25336-f4ppv2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353589/original/file-20200819-25336-f4ppv2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353589/original/file-20200819-25336-f4ppv2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353589/original/file-20200819-25336-f4ppv2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353589/original/file-20200819-25336-f4ppv2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353589/original/file-20200819-25336-f4ppv2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Onion from the Barley Mow with Joseph Hoyland Fox’s name on the paper pinned to it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pitt Rivers Museum, PRM 1917.53.776</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rumours of the death of magic have frequently been exaggerated. For tens of thousands of years – in all parts of the inhabited world – magic has been practised and has coexisted with religion and science, sometimes happily, at other times uneasily. Magic, religion and science form a triple helix running through human culture. While the histories of science and religion have been consistently explored, that of magic has not. Any element of human life so pervasive and long-lasting must have an important role to play, requiring more thought and research than it has often received.</p>
<h2>What is magic?</h2>
<p>A crucial question is, “What is magic?” My definition emphasises human participation in the universe. To be human is to be connected, and the universe is also open to influence from human actions and will. Science encourages us to stand back from the universe, understanding it in a detached, objective and abstract manner, while religion sees human connections to the cosmos through a single god or many gods who direct the universe. </p>
<p>Magic, religion and science have their own strengths and weaknesses. It is not a question of choosing between them – science allows us to understand the world in order to influence and change it. Religion, meanwhile, derives from a sense of transcendence and wonder. Magic sees us as immersed in forces and flows of energy influencing our psychological states and well-being, just as we can influence these flows and forces.</p>
<p>Magic is embedded in local cultures and modes of being – there is no one magic, but a vast variety, as can be seen in the briefest survey (for more detail see <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/303/303993/the-history-of-magic/9780241294819.html">my recent book</a>). Tales of shamanism on the Eurasian steppe, for example, involve people transforming into animals or travelling to the spirit world to counteract disease, death and dispossession.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man dressed as a shaman with a stag antler headdress playing a drum." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353590/original/file-20200819-24671-12c28o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353590/original/file-20200819-24671-12c28o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353590/original/file-20200819-24671-12c28o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353590/original/file-20200819-24671-12c28o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353590/original/file-20200819-24671-12c28o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353590/original/file-20200819-24671-12c28o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353590/original/file-20200819-24671-12c28o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The earliest European depiction of a shamanistic rite.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Library. Nicolaes Witsen 1705, Amsterdam</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In many places, ancestors influence the living – including in many African and Chinese cultures. A Bronze Age tomb in China reveals complex forms of divination with the dead answering the living. Fu Hao, <a href="https://www.medievalists.net/2018/12/queen-priestess-general-the-legendary-life-of-fu-hao/">buried in the tomb shown below</a>, asked her ancestors about success in war and the outcomes of pregnancies, but then was questioned by her descendants about their future after death.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Tomb of a Chinese queen containing pots and other possessions including tools for divination." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353595/original/file-20200819-42976-173a00s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353595/original/file-20200819-42976-173a00s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353595/original/file-20200819-42976-173a00s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353595/original/file-20200819-42976-173a00s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353595/original/file-20200819-42976-173a00s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353595/original/file-20200819-42976-173a00s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353595/original/file-20200819-42976-173a00s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fu Hao’s tomb: this Bronze Age Chinese queen sought to find out about the future using divination.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jessica Rawson</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Influential mages</h2>
<p>British royalty employed magicians: Queen Elizabeth I asked <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2078295-the-maddeningly-magical-maths-of-john-dee/">Dr John Dee</a>, a well-known “conjuror” – and probable model for Prospero in Shakespeare’s Tempest – to find the most propitious date for her coronation and supported his attempts at alchemy. </p>
<p>In the following century, Isaac Newton spent considerable effort on alchemy and Biblical prophecy. He was <a href="https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2011/januaryfebruary/feature/newton-the-last-magician">described by the economist John Maynard Keynes</a> as not the first of the Age of Reason, but the last of the magicians. In the mind of Newton – and in his work – magic, science and religion were entangled, each being a tool for examining the deepest secrets of the universe.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="16th-century gathering including Elizabeth I and her court, watching Dr John Dee, an alchemist, perform magic." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353596/original/file-20200819-42893-m2oj33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353596/original/file-20200819-42893-m2oj33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353596/original/file-20200819-42893-m2oj33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353596/original/file-20200819-42893-m2oj33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353596/original/file-20200819-42893-m2oj33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353596/original/file-20200819-42893-m2oj33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353596/original/file-20200819-42893-m2oj33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ‘conjuror’, John Dee, performing a magical ‘action’ for Elizabeth I at Mortlake in London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wellcome Collection</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many across the world still believe in magic, which does not make it “true” in some scientific sense, but indicates its continuing power. We are entering an age of change and crisis, brought about by the depredations of the ecology of the planet, human inequality and suffering. We need all the intellectual and cultural tools at our disposal. </p>
<p>Magic encourages a sense of kinship with the universe. With kinship comes care and responsibility, raising the possibility that understanding magic, one of the oldest of human practices, can give us new and urgent insights today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144241/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Gosden receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust and has previously received funding from the ERC, AHRC and ESRC, as well as a previous grant from Leverhulme. He is affiliated with the Green Party. </span></em></p>Is magic all about spells and hocus pocus, or is it simply another way of looking at how the universe works?Chris Gosden, Professor of European Archaeology, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1408092020-07-02T12:26:45Z2020-07-02T12:26:45ZThe invention of satanic witchcraft by medieval authorities was initially met with skepticism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344310/original/file-20200626-104484-1dbzjs6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C10%2C3344%2C2773&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Woodcut, circa 1400. A witch, a demon and a warlock fly toward a peasant woman.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/circa-1400-a-witch-a-demon-and-a-warlock-fly-towards-a-news-photo/51240919">Hulton Archive /Handout via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On a midsummer day in 1438, a young man from the north shore of Lake Geneva presented himself to the local church inquisitor. He had a confession to make. Five years earlier, his father had forced him to join a satanic cult of witches. They had flown at night on a small black horse to join more than a hundred people gathered in a meadow. The devil was there too, in the form of a black cat. The witches knelt before him, worshiped him and kissed his posterior.</p>
<p>The young man’s father had already been executed as a witch. It’s likely he was trying to secure a lighter punishment by voluntarily telling inquisitors what they wanted to hear.</p>
<p>The Middle Ages, A.D. 500-1500, have a reputation for both heartless cruelty and hopeless credulity. People commonly believed in all kinds of magic, monsters and <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15568.html">fairies</a>. But it wasn’t until the 15th century that the idea of organized satanic witchcraft took hold. As a historian who <a href="https://history.iastate.edu/directory/michael-bailey/">studies medieval magic</a>, I’m fascinated by how a coterie of church and state authorities conspired to develop and promote this new concept of witchcraft for their own purposes.</p>
<h2>Early medieval attitudes about witchcraft</h2>
<p>Belief in witches, in the sense of wicked people performing harmful magic, had existed in Europe since before the Greeks and Romans. In the early part of the Middle Ages, authorities were largely unconcerned about it. </p>
<p><a href="https://pages.uoregon.edu/dluebke/Witches442/PaganTraces.html">A church document</a> from the early 10th century proclaimed that “sorcery and witchcraft” might be real, but the idea that groups of witches flew together with demons through the night was a delusion. </p>
<p>Things began to change in the 12th and 13th centuries, ironically because educated elites in Europe were becoming more sophisticated.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344356/original/file-20200626-104489-1x8hg5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344356/original/file-20200626-104489-1x8hg5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344356/original/file-20200626-104489-1x8hg5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344356/original/file-20200626-104489-1x8hg5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344356/original/file-20200626-104489-1x8hg5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344356/original/file-20200626-104489-1x8hg5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344356/original/file-20200626-104489-1x8hg5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344356/original/file-20200626-104489-1x8hg5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Henricus de Alemannia lecturing students at the University of Bologna in the second half of the 14th century – one of the earliest illustrations of a medieval university classroom.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Laurentius_de_Voltolina_001.jpg">Laurentius de Voltolina/Kupferstichkabinett Berlin</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Universities were being founded, and scholars in Western Europe began to pore over ancient texts as well as learned writings from the Muslim world. Some of these presented complex <a href="https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-08213-4.html">systems of magic</a> that claimed to draw on astral forces or conjure powerful spirits. Gradually, these ideas began to gain intellectual clout.</p>
<p>Ordinary people – the kind who eventually got accused of being witches – didn’t perform elaborate rites from books. They gathered herbs, brewed potions, maybe said a short spell, as they had for generations. And they did so for all sorts of reasons – perhaps to harm someone they disliked, but more often to <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/popular-magic-cunning-folk-in-english-history-9780826442796/">heal or protect</a> others. Such practices were important in a world with only rudimentary forms of medical care.</p>
<p>Christian authorities had previously dismissed this kind of magic as empty superstition. Now they took all magic much more seriously. They began to believe simple spells worked by summoning demons, which meant anyone who performed them secretly worshiped demons. </p>
<h2>Inventing satanic witchcraft</h2>
<p>In the 1430s, a small group of writers in Central Europe – church inquisitors, theologians, lay magistrates and even one historian – began to describe horrific assemblies where witches gathered and worshiped demons, had orgies, ate murdered babies and performed other abominable acts. Whether any of these authors ever met each other is unclear, but they all described groups of witches supposedly active in a zone around the western Alps. </p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklysmart">You can get our highlights each weekend</a>.]</p>
<p>The reason for this development may have been purely practical. Church inquisitors, active against religious heretics since the 13th century, and some secular courts were looking to expand their jurisdictions. Having a new and particularly horrible crime to prosecute might have struck them as useful.</p>
<p>I just translated a number of these early texts for a <a href="https://www.academia.edu/43358448/Origins_of_the_Witches_Sabbath">forthcoming book</a> and was struck by how worried the authors were about readers not believing them. One fretted that his accounts would be “disparaged” by those who “think themselves learned.” Another feared that “simple folk” would refuse to believe the “fragile sex” would engage in such terrible practices.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520320574/european-witch-trials">Trial records</a> show it was a hard sell. Most people remained concerned with harmful magic – witches causing illness or withering crops. They didn’t much care about secret satanic gatherings.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344298/original/file-20200626-104499-4etmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344298/original/file-20200626-104499-4etmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344298/original/file-20200626-104499-4etmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344298/original/file-20200626-104499-4etmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344298/original/file-20200626-104499-4etmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344298/original/file-20200626-104499-4etmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1068&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344298/original/file-20200626-104499-4etmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1068&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344298/original/file-20200626-104499-4etmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1068&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The handbook for detecting and persecuting witches in the Middle Ages, ‘Malleus Maleficarum’ or ‘Hammer of Witches.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:J._Sprenger_and_H._Institutoris,_Malleus_maleficarum._Wellcome_L0000980.jpg">Wellcome Images/Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1486, clergyman Heinrich Kramer published the most widely circulated medieval text about organized witchcraft, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/literature/european-literature/hammer-witches-complete-translation-malleus-maleficarum?format=PB&isbn=9780521747875">Malleus Maleficarum</a> (Hammer of Witches). But many people didn’t believe him. When he tried to start a witch hunt in Innsbruck, Austria, he was kicked out by the local bishop, who accused him of <a href="https://www.dtv.de/buch/heinrich-kramer-guenter-jerouschek-wolfgang-behringer-der-hexenhammer-30780/">being senile</a>. </p>
<h2>Witch hunts</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, the fear of satanic witchcraft grew. The 15th century seems to have provided ideal soil for this new idea to take root. </p>
<p>Europe was recovering from <a href="https://cornellup.degruyter.com/view/title/568227">several crises</a>: plague, wars and a split in the church between two, and then three, competing popes. Beginning in the 1450s, the printing press made it easier for new ideas to spread. Even prior to the Protestant Reformation, religious reform was in the air. As I explored in an <a href="http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-02225-3.html">earlier book</a>, reformers used the idea of a diabolical conspiracy bent on corrupting Christianity as a boogeyman in their call for spiritual renewal.</p>
<p>Over time, more people came to accept this new idea. Church and state authorities kept telling them it was real. Still, many also kept relying on local “witches” for magical healing and protection.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344300/original/file-20200626-104484-6oipp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344300/original/file-20200626-104484-6oipp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344300/original/file-20200626-104484-6oipp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344300/original/file-20200626-104484-6oipp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344300/original/file-20200626-104484-6oipp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344300/original/file-20200626-104484-6oipp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344300/original/file-20200626-104484-6oipp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344300/original/file-20200626-104484-6oipp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The execution of alleged witches in Central Europe, 1587.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Wickiana3.jpg">Zurich Central Library/Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The history of witchcraft can be quite grim. From the 1400s through the 1700s, authorities in Western Europe <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Witch-Hunt-in-Early-Modern-Europe-4th-Edition/Levack/p/book/9781138808102?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9s_H7OuV6gIVi8DACh3paAtCEAAYASAAEgLcLvD_BwE">executed around 50,000 people, mostly women,</a> for witchcraft. The worst witch hunts could claim hundreds of victims at a time. With 20 dead, colonial America’s largest hunt at Salem was moderate by comparison. </p>
<p>Salem, in 1692, marked the end of witch hunts in New England. In Europe, too, skepticism would eventually prevail. It’s worth remembering, though, that at the beginning, authorities had to work hard to convince others such malevolence was real.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140809/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael D. Bailey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The idea of organized satanic witchcraft was invented in 15th-century Europe by church and state authorities, who at first had a hard time convincing regular folks it was real.Michael D. Bailey, Professor of History, Iowa State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1305672020-02-14T13:55:24Z2020-02-14T13:55:24ZAncient spells and charms for the hapless in love<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315490/original/file-20200214-10980-1bzsjqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C187%2C1295%2C756&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Magic was an every day part of life in the Graeco-Roman empire.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_in_the_Graeco-Roman_world#/media/File:Circe_Offering_the_Cup_to_Odysseus.jpg">John William Waterhouse</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Valentine’s Days is not all love hearts and roses for everyone. For the hapless in love, the day can be a yearly reminder of failed romances, unrequited love and the seemingly unending search for the illusive “one”.</p>
<p>Such problems of the heart span cultures and history. The inhabitants of the Graeco-Roman world suffered the same heartaches and the same emotional highs and lows as we do today. While we are left with apps to swipe on, a greater belief in magic in this period provided interesting opportunities to find love. </p>
<p>Hope was placed on spells, mysterious words and magical objects to grant the gift of love on their users or to take it away from rivals.</p>
<h2>Ticks and fish blood</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://archive.org/details/TheGreekMagicalPapyriInTranslation/page/n2/mode/2up%3C">Greek Magical Papyri</a> are a series of ancient spell books from Egypt from between the 2nd century BC and the 5th century AD. They are a sort of do-it-yourself guide to magical rituals that offers solutions to problems like finding a thief, keeping calm, curing fevers and demonic possession. Unsurprisingly, love charms feature prominently.</p>
<p>Depending on the lengths a hopeful lover was willing to go (and their level of lust/obsession/desperation) there was something for all levels of effort. Some spells are “simple”: “To get a certain [her] at the baths: rub a tick from a dead dog on the loins.”</p>
<p>Others require a bit more preparatory work. One advertised as the “irresistible love spell of attraction” asks the unlucky lover to use fish blood to write a spell invoking demons on the skin of an ass. They must then wrap it in <a href="https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/wildflowers/common-vetch">vetch</a> (a plant with pink flowers) and hide it in the mouth of a recently deceased dog. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315487/original/file-20200214-10980-1i1dv52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315487/original/file-20200214-10980-1i1dv52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315487/original/file-20200214-10980-1i1dv52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315487/original/file-20200214-10980-1i1dv52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315487/original/file-20200214-10980-1i1dv52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=664&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315487/original/file-20200214-10980-1i1dv52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=664&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315487/original/file-20200214-10980-1i1dv52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=664&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harpocrates seated on a lotus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/253781">The Met Museum</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most spells required a special ingredient to be used in a specific way in combination with arcane words. These spells don’t leave archaeological traces for us to find. One love spell asked the user to have an iron ring inscribed with <a href="https://exhibitions.kelsey.lsa.umich.edu/art-science-healing/harpocrates.php">Harpocrates</a> (the Hellenistic god of silence) seated on a lotus in their hands while they shouted magical words at the moon from a rooftop. Several such <a href="http://www2.szepmuveszeti.hu/talismans/object/search?lang1=default&mdesc=false&lang2=default&element=482&multiple_cond=and">gemstones matching this description</a> have been found. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/spells-charms-erotic-dolls-love-magic-in-the-ancient-mediterranean-98459">Love potions</a> themselves have a long history and are discussed in several ancient texts. A Demotic (written in ancient Egyptian) spell proposed the following method: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Take the fragment of the tip of your fingernail and apple seed together with blood from your finger… Pound the apple, add blood to it and put it in the cup of wine. Recite [the given spell] seven times over it and you should make the woman drink it at a special time.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This visceral recipe is a variant of a spell that also added semen, and the hair of a dead man to the mixture.</p>
<h2>Rings, curses and more blood</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315489/original/file-20200214-11005-54s2m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315489/original/file-20200214-11005-54s2m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315489/original/file-20200214-11005-54s2m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315489/original/file-20200214-11005-54s2m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315489/original/file-20200214-11005-54s2m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315489/original/file-20200214-11005-54s2m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315489/original/file-20200214-11005-54s2m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Polemious’s gold ring.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://research.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?assetId=96038001&objectId=1364758&partId=1">The Trustees of the British Museum</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A <a href="https://research.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1364758&partId=1&searchText=polemios&page=1">gold ring found in Corbridge</a>, Northumberland, in 1935 is inscribed in Greek with <em>ΠOΛEMIOYΦIΛTPON</em>, “<a href="https://romanmagic.wordpress.com/2018/07/13/object-in-focus-the-love-charm-of-polemius/">The love charm of Polemius</a>”. Polemius was a man who either wore this ring to enhance his allure and sexual qualities or gave it to the object of his affections. If it was the latter, it may have been given conspicuously as a gift or hidden on or around them as a clandestine token. It is a uniquely personal object from the edge of the Roman Empire that speaks of the unfulfilled desires of a Greek-speaking man over 1,700 years ago.</p>
<p>Curses were used in the ancient world to condemn thieves, protect businesses, ruin rival chariot teams and to create better opportunities for lovers. Sometimes a desired partner was already in a relationship, and cursing their partner (to discredit, harm or kill them) offered a chance to change this. A lead curse tablet from Boetia, Greece, was written by someone jealously in love with a man called Kabeira and tries to damn his wife Zois:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I assign Zois the Eretrian, wife of Kabeira, to Earth and to Hermes — her food, her drink, her sleep, her laughter, her intercourse, her playing of the kithara, and her entrance, her pleasure, her little buttocks, her thinking, her eyes… </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Curses were personal, private contracts between a person and a deity. The leaden tablets were often folded over and sometimes pierced with a nail, which often went through the written name of the curse’s target. They were thrown into rivers, sacred springs, hidden in secret places and <a href="https://mckies.wordpress.com/2014/11/03/curse-tablet-of-the-month-9-november-2014/">even dug into the graves of the recently dead</a>. </p>
<p>Magical and medicinal means were also suggested for resolving relatable problems in ancient relationships. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aelius_Promotus">Aelius Promotus</a>, an Alexandrian physician, recommended that barley soaked in menstrual blood and wrapped in mule skin could be tied onto a woman as a contraceptive.</p>
<p>Opposingly, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcellus_Empiricus">Marcellus of Bordeaux</a> (4th-5th century AD) suggested that a waning sex drive could be cured by finding the right aphrodisiac. He suggested wearing the right testicle of a rooster in a pouch around the neck.</p>
<p>Roman magic may have been a cathartic experience for the heartbroken or an exhilarating one for the lovestruck. The idea that people will do whatever is within their power to find love belongs to a long and ever-evolving tradition. These spells, rituals, tokens and curses highlight the essential nature of love and heartbreak in the ancient world and implicitly connects our cultures across time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130567/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Parker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Across the Graeco-Roman Empire, the romantically challenged turned to magic to improve their chancesAdam Parker, PhD Candidate in Classical Studies, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1224022019-09-23T20:04:57Z2019-09-23T20:04:57ZHidden women of history: Leila Waddell, Australian violinist, philosopher of magic and fearless rebel<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293513/original/file-20190923-23784-x2l2ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C2%2C1845%2C2781&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Leila Waddell performing during the Rites of Eleusis.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Leila Waddell (1880-1932) was a country girl from Bathurst, NSW, who entered the world stage as an acclaimed violinist - and left it having influenced magical practice into the 21st century.</p>
<p>Her early life focused on music. She studied violin and joined the Sydney music scene, teaching genteel girls at some of Sydney’s most prestigious schools. Her concert performances earned her a devoted following. She favoured composers such as <a href="https://www.wieniawski.com/life_and_creation.html">Wieniawski</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Vieuxtemps">Vieuxtemps</a>, and soon gained a reputation as one of Australia’s leading violinists.</p>
<p>Waddell left Australia as part of a touring orchestra in 1908, and found herself in London. Here she was introduced to New Zealand author (and cellist) <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/katherine-mansfield">Katherine Mansfield</a> at a concert. They became firm friends, and regulars in a Bohemian society centred around the Cafe Royal. </p>
<p>As well as musicians, poets and artists, the cafe attracted members of London’s magical orders. It was likely here that Wadell first met the magician Aleister Crowley, who liked to distribute samples of the hallucinogenic drug <a href="http://www.cesar.umd.edu/cesar/drugs/peyote.asp">peyote</a> at parties. The meeting opened the door into another world.</p>
<h2>Sex, drugs and violins</h2>
<p>Within a short time Waddell and Crowley became lovers. Waddell began studying magic as part of Crowley’s order, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%E2%88%B4A%E2%88%B4">A .‘.A .’.</a> (Astrum Argentum), in which she was known as Sister Agatha. Crowley, however, called her Laylah, his Scarlet Woman. In his magical universe, the role of the Scarlet Woman was a sort of anti-Virgin Mary who transgressed the boundaries of feminine virtue by wallowing in excess. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290457/original/file-20190902-175673-3n1nyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290457/original/file-20190902-175673-3n1nyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290457/original/file-20190902-175673-3n1nyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290457/original/file-20190902-175673-3n1nyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290457/original/file-20190902-175673-3n1nyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290457/original/file-20190902-175673-3n1nyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290457/original/file-20190902-175673-3n1nyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290457/original/file-20190902-175673-3n1nyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A photo of Leila Waddell on the cover of Crowley’s The Book of Lies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Waddell is often relegated to a character in Crowley’s life. But if we assess her life on its own terms, we see a brilliant musician, a philosopher of magic, and a rebel who was unafraid to take risks and be true to herself.</p>
<p>Crowley was experimenting with using sex in rituals. He was interested in how heightened emotions could be harnessed for magical outcomes, such as achieving transcendental states or summoning otherworldly beings.</p>
<p>The moment of orgasm, he believed, focused the magician’s will and increased their power. As a poet and playwright, Crowley was also exploring rituals as theatrical performances, where the audience were co-practitioners. </p>
<p>Crowley was entranced by Waddell’s musical prowess. Together, they began devising magical rituals which combined music, poetry and dance. The idea came about during a weekend at the house of Crowley’s disciple Guy Marston (who believed that married English women could be induced to masturbate by the sound of tom-tom drums).</p>
<p>Waddell’s extensive experience as a performer was a key part of bringing this idea to fruition. The result was the Rites of Eleusis: musical theatre redefining magic for the new era of <a href="https://www.mdc.edu/wolfson/academic/artsletters/art_philosophy/humanities/history_of_modernism.htm">modernism</a></p>
<h2>Democratising ecstasy</h2>
<p>The Rites had seven parts, each associated with a planet or celestial body. Waddell composed original music for them, as well as drawing on her favourite composers. The purpose was to enable the audience to attain spiritual ecstasy.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/72865152&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true"></iframe>
<figcaption>Digital version of Waddell’s composition Thelema - a Tone Testament, by Phil Legard.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The first performances were tested before small groups, enhanced by drug-laced “libations”. A journalist, describing Waddell’s playing, wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Once again the figure took the violin, and played […] so beautifully, so gracefully, and with such intense feeling, that in very deed most of us experienced that Ecstasy which Crowley so earnestly seeks.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In October 1910, the Rites were ready for the public. The venue was Caxton Hall in London. The audience was encouraged to dress in the appropriate colour for each Rite, such as violet for Jupiter, russet for Mars. </p>
<p>Waddell played her violin, Crowley’s disciple Victor Neuburg danced, and Crowley intoned his turgid paeans to the god Pan. The hall was in semi-darkness. The performances were filled with sexual symbolism, but no sex magic took place on stage.</p>
<p>The critics were not very kind to the public Rites of Eleusis, but most agreed Waddell’s virtuosity was a highlight. </p>
<h2>‘Consciousness exalted into music’</h2>
<p>The Great Beast and the Scarlet Woman had a prolific creative life. Both contributed to The Equinox, a publication devoted to Crowley’s circle. Other contributors included Katherine Mansfield, <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/prichard-katharine-susannah-8112">Katherine Susannah Pritchard</a> and the Irish writer Frank Harris.</p>
<p>After the Rites of Eleusis, Crowley embarked on writing a book which many consider his most significant work. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123659.Magick">Magick: Liber ABA, Book 4</a> was a collaborative effort between Crowley, A.‘.A.’. member Mary Desti, and Waddell. In <a href="https://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/aba/chap19.htm">Part III</a>, they reflected on the lessons learnt from the Rites of Eleusis. </p>
<p>They concluded that an audience of initiates would more effectively channel magical power than the general public. As for the music, it should be composed specifically for the ritual - indicating that Waddell’s own compositions had hit the mark. The book was published in The Equinox in 1912.</p>
<p>Waddell booked a concert tour to the US. She had planned to buy her passage on the ill-fated Titanic, but just missed out on a ticket. Her narrow escape was widely reported in Australian newspapers. After completing this engagement, she returned to Europe to tour with the Ragged Ragtime Girls, a violin group managed by Crowley. She continued her magical studies in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordo_Templi_Orientis">Ordo Templi Orientis</a>, an order with a strong focus on sex magic.</p>
<h2>Revolution</h2>
<p>The First World War interrupted the idyll of sex, magic and music. Ireland was under British rule, and many Irish nationalists saw the war as an opportunity to fight for independence. As the daughter of <a href="https://www.dochara.com/the-irish/food-history/the-irish-potato-famine-1846-1850/">Irish famine</a> refugees, Waddell was sympathetic. In New York she joined a secret revolutionary group under the name of “L. Bathurst”. </p>
<p>Crowley arrived in New York in 1914, purportedly on a mission to discredit Germany by spreading absurd propaganda. This was the impetus for an extraordinary stunt.</p>
<p>At dawn on the morning of 3 July 1915, Waddell, Crowley and a party of Irish revolutionaries sailed down the Hudson River to the Statue of Liberty, with the intention of declaring Irish independence and war on England.</p>
<p>But the guards wouldn’t let them land. Crowley made an impassioned speech, which no-one could hear from the prow of the boat, then tore up his passport and threw it in the river. Waddell played the rebel anthem <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wearing_of_the_Green">The Wearing of the Green</a> to accompany the Declaration of Independence.</p>
<p>The following year the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Rising">Easter Rising</a>, an armed rebellion which aimed to overthrow English rule in Ireland, was brutally suppressed in Dublin. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290460/original/file-20190902-175663-1bpalyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290460/original/file-20190902-175663-1bpalyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290460/original/file-20190902-175663-1bpalyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290460/original/file-20190902-175663-1bpalyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290460/original/file-20190902-175663-1bpalyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290460/original/file-20190902-175663-1bpalyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1205&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290460/original/file-20190902-175663-1bpalyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1205&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290460/original/file-20190902-175663-1bpalyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1205&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aleister Crowley in the garments of the Ordo Templi Orientis in 1916.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Crowley left New York for the West Coast, while Waddell continued to tour, write and socialise. She was friends with writers like Rebecca West and Theodore Dreiser, and regularly attended salons held by Frank Harris, who had not yet attained notoriety as the author of the sexually explicit <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Life_and_Loves">My Life and Loves</a>.</p>
<p>While touring US cities, she played lunch time concerts in factories, organised by the YMCA. The venues were barns, sheds, and gardens, and the audiences were mostly male migrant workers. The men sang along with the arias and would give her wildflower posies. She loved this experience and considered it the greatest work of her career.</p>
<p>Already a seasoned writer, Waddell came to wider notice with her memoir of Katherine Mansfield, who died in 1923. Details are murky, but it seems this led to contracts for a novel and a book of short stories with a London publisher. Crowley, meanwhile, had set up a magical Abbey in Sicily with his new Scarlet Woman. It was time to move on.</p>
<h2>Return to the Antipodes</h2>
<p>In 1924 Waddell returned to Australia as her father was very ill. The prodigal violinist was greeted enthusiastically, and quickly became immersed in concerts, touring, and radio appearances. She resumed her earlier career teaching violin to affluent schoolgirls. If Sydney society remembered her association with Crowley, dubbed “the wickedest man in the world” by the press, it did not dim their eagerness for her music.</p>
<p>However, soon she became ill herself from uterine cancer. Her books were never finished. She died in 1932 and was buried next to her parents in Sydney.</p>
<p>The Rites of Eleusis are still performed today by Crowleyites across the world, including the <a href="http://www.otoaustralia.org.au/">Ordo Templi Orientis</a> in Australia. In 2015, Wadell was celebrated as one of Bathurst’s favourite daughters at the town’s 200th anniversary. From country to city to world and other-world, her life was truly a magical journey.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122402/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alice Gorman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Leila Waddell entered the world stage as an acclaimed violinist - and left it having influenced magical practice into the 21st century.Alice Gorman, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and Space Studies, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1196212019-08-21T12:25:41Z2019-08-21T12:25:41ZWhat is Haitian Voodoo?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288006/original/file-20190814-136186-15k9t16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Voodoo believers walk during the annual Voodoo festival Fete Gede at Cite Soleil Cemetery in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Haiti-Festival-of-the-Dead-Photo-Gallery/ebed675549344c61a67d280613fa4c91/4/0">AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For many in the West, Voodoo invokes images of animal sacrifices, magical dolls and chanted spells. </p>
<p>But Voodoo – as practiced in Haiti and by the black diaspora in the United States, South America and Africa – is a religion based on ancestral spirits and patron saints.</p>
<p>Known as “Vodou” in Haiti, the religion has also served as a form of resistance against the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0033.2011.01741.x">French colonial empire.</a> </p>
<p>And unlike many mainstream representations around magic and rituals, scholars have shown how Voodoo <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22314676">serves as a form of health care system</a> by providing religious healing.</p>
<h2>A religion born out of struggle</h2>
<p>Haitian Vodou was born from the blending of <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9780807843932/the-faces-of-the-gods/">Catholicism, Western</a> and <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/jsa/2889">Central African</a> spirituality. </p>
<p>In addition, scholars assert that the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-0033.2011.01741.x">religion</a> was influenced by <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-19920-4_4">escaped slaves</a> who wanted to inspire rebellions under a common spiritual identity. </p>
<p>Historian <a href="https://www.bl.uk/people/c-l-r-james">C.L.R. James</a> described Voodoo as a <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/86417/the-black-jacobins-by-c-l-r-james/9780679724674/">“medium of the conspiracy,”</a> meaning Voodoo was at the center of inciting the 1791 revolution in Haiti against slavery and colonialism. </p>
<p>In later years – from 1835 to 1987 – the Haitian government <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo10454972.html">banned Voodoo under laws</a> that prohibited ritualistic practices. However, as historian <a href="https://people.miami.edu/profile/kramsey@miami.edu">Kate Ramsey</a> points out, the laws were almost impossible for the Haitian government to implement. As early as the 19th century, Voodoo had already become a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/43234856.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A41c67513dc3cef3414810147d82374b2">dominant belief system</a> even influencing elite culture – even if secretly.</p>
<p>Haitian elites could not openly support the religion. The Catholic Church based in Rome forced Haiti to adopt Roman Catholicism as its <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/43234856.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A41c67513dc3cef3414810147d82374b2">official religion</a>. </p>
<p>Over the years, several anti-Voodoo campaigns were launched by the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23050212?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Catholic</a> and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/41151338.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A665a395ded41dc5abc6adf9c73210f3e">Protestant</a> churches. <a href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/content/hating-root-attacks-vodou-haiti">Systematic attacks</a> on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/15/world/voodoo-under-attack-in-post-duvalier-haiti.html">Voodoo temples</a> and Voodoo objects over decades paved the way for this religion to become predominately associated with sorcery.</p>
<h2>The contemporary status of Voodoo</h2>
<p>In contemporary Haitian society, Voodoo serves in multiple ways. An important contribution is its role in healing. Anthropologist <a href="https://www.pulaval.com/auteurs/nicolas-vonarx">Nicholas Vonarx</a>, who has studied Voodoo’s role as a health care system, explains how religious spaces can become “therapeutic sites where the sick goes to seek help in managing illness and other misfortune.” </p>
<p><a href="http://centerforethnography.org/content/visualizing-haitis-health-regime-voodoo-toxic-subject">My research</a> looks at how Voodoo is blamed for health disparities in Haiti by the country’s elites and international aid groups who ignore its role in Haiti’s health landscape. </p>
<p>For many, Voodoo remains associated with sorcery and satanic worship.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119621/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Guilberly Louissaint does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Voodoo is often seen as a practice involving magic. In Haiti, Voodoo is a religion born out of the struggle of slaves. And today, it is used as a form of healing and protection.Guilberly Louissaint, Anthropology Ph.D. Student, University of California, IrvineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1133022019-05-02T10:44:29Z2019-05-02T10:44:29ZModern shamans: Financial managers, political pundits and others who help tame life’s uncertainty<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272016/original/file-20190501-113839-q26aha.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=589%2C262%2C4489%2C3374&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Examining chicken intestines, reading the tea leaves, watching the markets – people turn to experts for insight into the mysteries that surround them.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Manvir Singh</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Aka Manai explains that there are two kinds of people in the world: simata and sikerei.</p>
<p>I am a simata. He is a sikerei. Sikerei have undergone transformative experiences and emerged with new abilities: They alone can see spirits. </p>
<p>I’ve experienced a lot since that night in Indonesia when Aka Manai told me this. I was there when an initiate first saw spirits, when he and the other sikerei wept as they saw their dead fathers swirling around them. I’ve attended seven healing ceremonies, witnessing the slaughter of dozens of pigs to accompany nights of dancing. But that chat with kind-faced Aka Manai, more than any other experience, grounded my understanding of sikerei in particular and shamanism more generally.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272014/original/file-20190501-113864-1eehcf8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272014/original/file-20190501-113864-1eehcf8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272014/original/file-20190501-113864-1eehcf8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272014/original/file-20190501-113864-1eehcf8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272014/original/file-20190501-113864-1eehcf8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272014/original/file-20190501-113864-1eehcf8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272014/original/file-20190501-113864-1eehcf8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272014/original/file-20190501-113864-1eehcf8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sikerei treats an initiate’s eyes so he, too, can see spirits.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Manvir Singh</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.manvir.org/research">I’m a cognitive anthropologist</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZHpmcFYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">who studies</a> why societies everywhere develop complex yet strikingly similar traditions, ranging from dance songs to justice to shamanism. And though trancing witch doctors may sound exotic to a Western reader, I argue that the same social and psychological pressures that give rise to healers like Aka Manai produce shaman-analogues in the contemporary, industrialized West.</p>
<h2>What is a shaman?</h2>
<p>Shamans, including the sikerei I’ve known in Indonesia, <a href="https://journal.fi/temenos/article/view/6345">are service providers</a>. They specialize in healing and divination, and their services can range from ending a drought to growing a business. Like all magical specialists, they rely on spells and occult gizmos, but what makes shamans special is that they use trance.</p>
<p>Trance is any foreign psychological state in which <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1980.7.3.02a00010">a practitioner is said to engage with the supernatural</a>. <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Catalpa-Bow-A-Study-of-Shamanistic-Practices-in-Japan/Blacker/p/book/9781873410851">Some trances involve</a> complete immobilization; others appear as tongue-lolling convulsions. In some South American groups, shamans enter trance <a href="https://store.der.org/magical-death-p601.aspx">by snorting a hallucinogenic powder</a>, transforming themselves into crawling, unintelligible spirit-beings.</p>
<p>Being a shaman often carries benefits, both because they get paid and because their special position grants them prestige and influence.</p>
<p>But these advantages are offset by the ordeals involved. In many societies, a wannabe initiate lacks credibility until he (and it’s usually a he) <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1556-3537.2008.00002.x">undergoes a near-death experience</a> or a long bout of asceticism.</p>
<p>One aboriginal Australian shaman told ethnographers that, as a novice, he was killed by an older shaman who then replaced his organs with a new, magical set. When he woke up from the surgery and asked the old shaman if he was lost, <a href="https://archive.org/details/northerntribesc00gillgoog/page/n528">the old man replied</a>, “No, you are not lost; I killed you a long time ago.”</p>
<p>A long time ago, a short time ago, here, there – wherever you look, there are shamans. Manifesting as mediums, channelers, witch doctors and the prophets of religious movements, shamans have appeared in most human societies, including nearly all documented hunter-gatherers. They characterized the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0806030105">religious lives of ancestral humans</a> and are often said to be the “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/ghost-dance-origins-of-religion/oclc/833142981">first profession</a>.”</p>
<h2>Why are there shamans?</h2>
<p>Why is it that when we lanky primates get together for long enough, our societies reliably give rise to trance-dancing healers?</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://michaelwinkelman.com/about/">anthropologist Michael Winkelman</a>, the answer is wisdom. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774302000045">Drugs and drumming, he’s argued</a>, link up brain regions that don’t normally communicate. This connection yields new insights, allowing shamans to do things like heal sickness and locate animals. By specializing in trance, shamans uncover solutions inaccessible to normal brains.</p>
<p>Based on my fieldwork, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X17001893">I’ve argued against Winkelman’s account</a>. Rather than all integrating people’s psychologies, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.131.1.98">trance states are wildly diverse</a>. Chanting, sipping psychoactive brews such as ayahuasca, dancing to the point of exhaustion, even smoking extreme quantities of tobacco – these methods produce profoundly different states. Some are arousing, others calming; some expand awareness, others induce repetitive thinking. In fact, the only element shared among these states is their exoticness – that once altered, the shaman’s experience stands apart from those of his onlookers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272018/original/file-20190501-113861-5i401k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272018/original/file-20190501-113861-5i401k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272018/original/file-20190501-113861-5i401k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272018/original/file-20190501-113861-5i401k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272018/original/file-20190501-113861-5i401k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272018/original/file-20190501-113861-5i401k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272018/original/file-20190501-113861-5i401k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272018/original/file-20190501-113861-5i401k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As part of his anthropological fieldwork, author Manvir Singh speaks with an Indonesian shaman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Luke Glowacki</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Not only are shamans’ experiences exotic, their very beings are, too. As Aka Manai emphasized to me, people understand shamans to be different kinds of entities, made “other” by their ordeals. The Mentawai word for a non-shaman, simata, also describes uncooked food or unripe fruit; it implies immaturity. The word for shaman, in contrast, means a person who has undergone a process: one who has been kerei’d and come out the other side a sikerei.</p>
<p>This otherness is crucial. Convinced that shamans diverge from normal people, communities accept that they have superhuman abilities. Like Superman’s alien origins and the X-Men’s genetic mutations, shamans’ transformations assure people that they deviate from normal humanness, making their claims of supernatural engagement more believable.</p>
<p>And once people trust that a specialist engages with gods and spirits, they go to them when they need to influence uncertainty. A sick child’s parent or a farmer desperate for rain prefers to nudge the forces responsible for their hardship – and a shaman provides a compelling conduit for doing so.</p>
<p>This, I suggest, is why shamans recur around the world and across time. As specialists compete in markets for magic, they fuel the evolution of practices that hack people’s intuitions about magic and special abilities, convincing the rest of us that they can control uncertainty. Shamans are the culmination of this evolution. They use trance and initiations to transcend humanness, assuring their clients that they can commune with the invisible beings who oversee uncertain events. </p>
<h2>Who are the shamans of the industrialized West?</h2>
<p>Most people assume that shamanism has disappeared in the industrialized West – that it’s an ancient tradition of long-lost tribes, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_shaman">at most resurrected and corrupted</a> by New Age xenophiles and overeager mystics.</p>
<p>To some extent, these people are right. Far fewer Westerners visit trance-practitioners to heal illness or call rain than people have elsewhere in the world or throughout history. But they’re also wrong. Like people everywhere, contemporary Westerners look to experts to achieve the impossible – to heal incurable illnesses, to forecast unknowable futures – and the experts, in turn, compete among themselves, performing to convince people of their special abilities.</p>
<p>So who are these modern shamans?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272113/original/file-20190501-117570-1t96u2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272113/original/file-20190501-117570-1t96u2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272113/original/file-20190501-117570-1t96u2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272113/original/file-20190501-117570-1t96u2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272113/original/file-20190501-117570-1t96u2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272113/original/file-20190501-117570-1t96u2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272113/original/file-20190501-117570-1t96u2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272113/original/file-20190501-117570-1t96u2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A specialist you can turn to for help divining the mysterious forces at work in financial markets.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/over-shoulder-view-stock-broker-trading-649146019">Matej Kastelic/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>According to the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=A6G-jpwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">cognitive scientist Samuel Johnson</a>, financial money managers are likely candidates. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.1968.tb00815.x">Money managers fail</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.1995.tb04795.x">to outperform the market</a> – in fact, they even fail to systematically outperform each other – yet customers continue to pay them to divine future stock prices.</p>
<p>This faith might come from a belief of their fundamental otherness. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X17002096">Johnson points out that money managers</a> emphasize their differences from clients, exhibiting extreme charisma and enduring superhuman work schedules. Managers also adorn themselves with advanced mathematical degrees and use complicated statistical models to predict the market. Although money managers don’t enter trance, their degrees and models assure clients that the specialists can peer into otherwise opaque forces.</p>
<p>Of course, money managers aren’t the only experts to specialize in the impossible. Psychics, sports analysts, political pundits, economic forecasters, esoteric healers and even <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Octopus">an octopus</a> similarly sate people’s desires to tame the uncertain. Like shamans and money managers, they decorate themselves with badges of credibility – an association with the White House, for example, or a familiarity with ancient Tibetan medicine – that persuade customers of their special abilities.</p>
<p>As long as hidden forces shape our fates, people will try to control them. And as long as it’s profitable, pseudo-experts will compete for desperate clients, dressing in the most credible and compelling costumes. Shamanism is not some arcane tradition restricted to an ancient past or New Age circles. It’s a near-inevitable consequence of our human intuitions about special abilities and our desire to control the uncertain, and elements of it appear everywhere.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113302/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Manvir Singh receives funding from Harvard University and the National Science Foundation.</span></em></p>Hidden forces are always at work in the world, and people always want to control them, a cognitive anthropologist explains. Enter the human universal of shamanism.Manvir Singh, PhD Candidate in Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1073102019-01-03T10:23:54Z2019-01-03T10:23:54ZDealing with devil has long been a part of medicine<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251258/original/file-20181218-27773-1uc7owk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=32%2C7%2C1621%2C1118&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nuremberg_chronicles_-_Devil_and_Woman_on_Horseback_(CLXXXIXv).jpg">Illustrations from the Nuremberg Chronicle, by Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Thirty children in Amsterdam began to show signs of a disturbing affliction in the winter of 1566. The symptoms would strike without warning: the children would at first be seized by a violent frenzy, then fall to the ground, their bodies wracked with painful convulsions. Once the fits had passed, the children reported no memory of them.</p>
<p>This already looked like the work of the devil, but any lingering doubts were put to rest when the children began vomiting strange objects, like pins and shards of glass. They were experiencing, it seemed, a mass demonic possession. Multiple exorcisms would be attempted, but not before first exhausting the expertise of physicians, who often worked alongside ecclesiastical healers to mitigate the effects of such demonic assaults. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251734/original/file-20181220-45403-1dnz01w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251734/original/file-20181220-45403-1dnz01w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251734/original/file-20181220-45403-1dnz01w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251734/original/file-20181220-45403-1dnz01w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251734/original/file-20181220-45403-1dnz01w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1165&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251734/original/file-20181220-45403-1dnz01w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1165&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251734/original/file-20181220-45403-1dnz01w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1165&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of Johann Weyer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/e39fm96j">Wellcome Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Shortly afterwards, in the nearby Duchy of Cleve, the learned physician Johann Weyer read about this mass possession, reaching him through the account of the chancellor in Gelderland. His interest was professional. Weyer himself did not believe that strange objects had actually been vomited, but he did not question that reliable authorities had witnessed this happen. Neither did he deny diabolical agency. </p>
<p>Instead, he reinterpreted the scope of demonic power to emphasise the devil’s longstanding status as a master trickster. The extraordinary regurgitation, he argued, was a mere illusion, a common embellishment in fact of natural illnesses often caused by the devil.</p>
<p>Faced with Weyer’s evaluation, modern sensibilities are left reeling. The physician’s scepticism soon appears to be countered by near incomprehensible credulity in the devil’s agency. We are compelled to ask: But what really happened? Many <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-dispossessed-brian-levacks-the-devil-within/#!">explanations</a> have been offered for similar reports of demonic possession, often invoking categories from modern medicine or pointing to the possibility of fraud (which was considered seriously by early moderns as well). </p>
<p>But this gives us only a limited view of a much larger and much more complex landscape of healing in the early modern period. This was a time in which growing belief in demonic activity in the natural world genuinely shaped the understanding and experience of illness.</p>
<h2>Recognising possession</h2>
<p>Weyer’s account of the mass possession in Amsterdam was first published as a small part of his broader evaluation of demonic power in the 1568 edition of his book <a href="https://books.google.de/books?id=TgQ6AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false">On the Illusions of Demons</a>. There, we find many such cases that indicate the characteristic signs looked for by professionals who suspected the activity of the devil. </p>
<p>In addition to the physiological – such as physical pain and convulsions – more indicative psychological signs were sought, such as the demonstration of hidden knowledge, prognostication, and xenoglossy, which involved speaking in unlearned languages (especially with strange vocal alterations). Often reports of demonic possession did indeed include the expulsion of strange objects, such as, in more extreme cases, knives or live eels. Despite these extraordinary symptoms, the diagnosis of demonic afflictions was not always straightforward.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251261/original/file-20181218-27764-wf91gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251261/original/file-20181218-27764-wf91gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251261/original/file-20181218-27764-wf91gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251261/original/file-20181218-27764-wf91gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251261/original/file-20181218-27764-wf91gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251261/original/file-20181218-27764-wf91gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251261/original/file-20181218-27764-wf91gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A bishop exorcising men possessed of evil spirits. France, 15th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/np95rkjn?query=Exorcism">Wellcome Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Weyer’s work tells us much about the diverse ways in which the devil was thought to operate, both in illusion and in reality – and the ways in which this complicated medicine in his time. The devil, who was often called “prince of this world”, was understood to be precisely that. Rather than wielding truly supernatural power, the devil and his demons were understood to be restricted to working in nature, which they often did in ways that escaped human understanding. These natural powers included the ability to manipulate the four humours that were believed to govern health. This meant that any natural illness, in theory, could be hiding the hand of the devil as its primary cause.</p>
<p>The possibility of demonic agency would not usually be considered unless natural medicines first proved ineffective, but ineffective medicine was not taken uncritically to indicate a demonic cause. Physical convulsions, for instance, were also associated with natural diseases such as epilepsy, which was already understood to be unpredictable, chronic, and potentially incurable. For physicians, demonic agency was not simply an explanation for inexplicable illnesses: it was one of many possible explanations for illnesses that might in other cases be diagnosed as purely natural. </p>
<p>While the activity of the devil might be a speciality of the priest, the psychosomatic symptoms associated with demonic possession also required the physician’s expertise to investigate the potential for purely natural causation.</p>
<h2>Healing the possessed</h2>
<p>Like today, medical diagnosis in the early modern period was fraught with difficulties. Learned physicians were rare and expensive, and in fact most healing took place in the home and among neighbours, as had long been the norm. In severe cases, rather than face the uncertainty of a learned physician – or worse, the determination that the illness was in fact incurable – most would naturally prefer the succour of the priest, who was far more accessible and often better equipped to help the unwell come to terms with their illness. </p>
<p>And indeed in practice, the boundaries between ecclesiastical healing and medicine were far more fluid than the terms “priest” and “physician” might suggest. These boundaries were regularly traversed in exorcism by lay healers who prescribed both natural medicines and prayer in answer to demonic afflictions.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251262/original/file-20181218-27755-dho0o6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251262/original/file-20181218-27755-dho0o6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251262/original/file-20181218-27755-dho0o6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251262/original/file-20181218-27755-dho0o6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251262/original/file-20181218-27755-dho0o6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251262/original/file-20181218-27755-dho0o6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251262/original/file-20181218-27755-dho0o6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A bewitched woman vomiting. Woodcut, 1720.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/ax6dnfv3?query=devil%20vomiting">Wellcome Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Weyer concluded that the most extraordinary signs of the mass possession at Amsterdam were illusory, leaving the remaining symptoms – and therefore demonic afflictions in general – much more accessible to medical intervention. For him, diabolical agency was a real factor in the subtle negotiation of diagnosis and treatment. What he understood to be the natural mechanisms of demonic activity meant that medical practitioners always had a role in addressing the symptoms of demonic afflictions.</p>
<p>Today, more than 400 years on, Catholic priests in America <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/catholic-exorcisms-on-the-rise/573943/">reportedly</a> field requests for exorcisms numbering in the thousands every year. Their first recourse is to mental health professionals, belying a continuity with exorcism as it was practised in Weyer’s time. In this respect, the professionals who confront reports of demonic possession today are in agreement with their early modern predecessors: call the physician first.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107310/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Sumrall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Reports of demonic possession are once again on the rise. But during the devil’s last apogee in early modern Europe, demonic afflictions were taken seriously by both priests and physicians.Laura Sumrall, Visiting Predoctoral Fellow, Max Planck Institute for the History of ScienceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.