Download e-book for iPad: The Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West: by David J. Collins S. J. SJ

Occult Paranormal

By David J. Collins S. J. SJ

This ebook provides twenty chapters through specialists of their fields, supplying an intensive and interdisciplinary review of the speculation and perform of magic within the West. Its chronological scope extends from the traditional close to East to twenty-first-century North the United States; its items of research diversity from Persian curse capsules to U.S. neo-paganism. For comparative reasons, the amount contains chapters on advancements within the Jewish and Muslim worlds, evaluated now not easily for what they contributed at a number of issues to ecu notions of magic, but in addition as types of different improvement in old Mediterranean legacy. equally, the amount highlights the transformative and demanding encounters of Europeans with non-Europeans, concerning the perform of magic in either early smooth colonization and newer decolonization.

includes twenty chapters via twenty eminent experts from various disciplines
bargains cautious attention of distinctively 'European' advancements in mild of other advancements within the Greek, Jewish, and Muslim societies of the Mediterranean
Examines how the dynamics of colonization and decolonization affected magical inspiration and practices between either colonizers and colonized

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33 Categories of Magic, Sources of Al iction Purity is the state of undisturbed, lawless perfection that is characteristic of the divine sphere but achieved by humans only temporarily and not without efort. org/core. org/core/terms. 003 The Ancient Near East as pure and possessing purifying powers. Misfortune, ill-health, and failure are experienced as conditions in which man’s aspiration to god-like perfection and equilibrium is poignantly frustrated, and, consequently, people or objects suffering from such conditions are considered to have been afected by impurity.

Ancient Near Eastern magic as a whole can be subdivided into four major categories: (a) liminal magic, by which the ritual client is transformed and taken to another status; (b) defensive magic, by which an evil that has beset (or threatened to beset) the ritual client is removed and repelled; (c) aggressive magic, by which the ritual client gains superiority, strength, and attractiveness; and (d) witchcraft, an illegal and aggressive form of magic by which the ritual client has been harmed. The last category may be called “black magic,” the two categories named irst “white magic,” and aggressive magic falls into a gray area in between.

And speaks thus: “Let the blood of the evil witch be poured out. May the earth not accept her blood, may the River undo [her . . ” ... ” The king rinses himself of over fourteen sickles of silver, seven on the right, seven on the left; then he speaks thus: “May the tablets inscribed with my sins be smashed, may my evil deeds be cleared, may my crimes and my wrongdoings be cut of, be chopped of, be scattered – the evil (about me) in the mouth of the many people. org/core. org/core/terms. 003 The Ancient Near East Analogical spells are not a feature unique to Mesopotamian magic rituals, but they are very common in all ancient Near Eastern rituals.

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The Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West: From Antiquity to the Present by David J. Collins S. J. SJ


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