Magic and Superstition
- Defining Magic
- No one really agrees.
Somewhere between religion and science.
- Types of Magic
- Demonic Magic
- Natural Magic
- "The Magic of the Catholic Church
- Who Used Magic?
- Everyone!
- Where popular culture meets learned culture
- John Dee
- Advisor to Queen Elizabeth I
- Studied alchemy, divination, astronomy, and philosophy
- His social life is a mess.
- Magic and Literature
- We do see places in literature where what was actually done is portrayed
- Circe and Odysseus
- Magical parodies for Roman suppression
- The Bible
- The Ancient World
- Earliest non religious magic known in Egypt
- Roman inscriptions with nails driven through them
- Emperor Augustus burns 2000 scrolls
- Methods lost, but descriptions continue
- Christian Magic
- Came from many places
- Missionaries inadvertently spread it
- Most magicians did not consider themselves magicians.
- 3 types of language in an incantation
- Difference between religion and magic
- Popular Magic Vs Divination
- Influence of universities
- Jewish Magic
- Simultaneous development of legalism and folk religion
- Antisemitism
- Avoided association with the Devil
- What is condemned by the Bible?
- ”Middle World”
- How must it have felt to be surrounded by demons?
- Critical moments
- Evil Eye, Vows, and Curses
- Angel accomanyment
- Names
- The name of God
- Golem
- Amulets
- Tzitzit
- How to ward off spirits
- Divination
- Trial by Ordeal
- Fake Magicians
- Many sources have the prejudice that magic was imagined by medieval people
- Did everyone believe in magic?
- People who practiced probably thoroughly believed in themselves
- Romance of Magic
- Court cases for assassinations and love magic
- Also people who just performed tricks
- Was pejorative term but later became the opposite
- Used as symbol in literature
- Prohibition
- Opposed for several reasons
- Early law codes to Charlemagne
- How to start a trial in the early middle ages
- Replaced by The Inquisition