Recent years witnessed an increasing interest in Christin amulets with Biblical texts. Several catalogues and monographic contributions have been published, facilitating the research on historical and religious aspects of these artefacts. The paper offers a methodological framework, founded mainly on the concept of semiophore formulated by Krzysztof Pomian, as well as six case studies, which show how the analysis of material and textual aspects of a scriptural amulet might reveal theological ideas, more or less consciously shared by its producers and users.
The article is dedicated to the issue of magic and religion in the social reality of capitalism. The goal of the article is to present examples proving that capitalism in various places (post-communist Central Europe, San Cristobal in the Mexican state of Chiapas, Colombian department Valle del Cauca, New York) and at various times (from the 1970s to the second decade of the 21st century) was associated with elements of religion and magic through social thinking and practice, and therefore elements of social reality. On the other hand, in the discourse, capitalism is often presented as a part of nature: the existence that acts objectively, like the laws of physics. In the article, this apparent contradiction is presented as a dialectical aspect of the present day, in which the discourse and social reality are complementary.
The main aim of this article is to discuss ways of presenting source of magical power in world of Middle-earth, created by J.R.R. Tolkien. Author hopes to present the most important artifacts, important events and exceptional beings settled in the worlds of Tolkien, which will allow to describe the main source of magic in universe created by J.R.R. Tolkien.
The subject of the article is Lucien Lévy-Bruhl’s concept of mystical participation, which was used by him to explain “strange” non-European cultural phenomena from the perspective of the European scientific rationality. This approach, modified by Stanley Tambiah, was used in the article to explain a natural disaster, here – floods, which took place in southern Poland in 2010. The empirical material are the discussions on the Internet, which perceive the cause of flooding in the interference of various external forces, which are ascribed the extraordinary characteristics (the government of one of the neighboring countries, the divine punishment, etc.). This mode of thought is similar to the structures of magical thinking present in non-European societies described by Levy-Bruhl. The above leads to the conclusion that the idea of mystical participation is not characteristic only for primitive pre-logic, but is present in the minds and practice of contemporary Westerners.
This article will present two media incidents that occurred in April 2019 in two dioceses of the Catholic Church in Poland. These events share several features, one of which – the burning of objects (which I described as modern autodafe) – is an important connecting factor. The purpose of the article will be cultural, media and religious studies analysis of these events.
In Japan, the beginning of the seventeenth century gave birth to a new type of literature – anti-Catholic fiction, which aimed at fostering hostility towards foreign missionaries among the mass reader. Late examples of such literature attributed to the apostles of the new faith several supernatural powers (i.e. the ability to fly, disappear, tell fortunes), that separated them from their human dimension. One of the common themes featured in eighteenth and nineteenth century works was a magical experiment which involved conjuring a ghost. Designed to attract the “Catholic sect”, it brought about a campaign of persecution from the authorities instead. Despite adopting a chronicle-like convention in the anti-Catholic fiction, as the paper indicates, it relied heavily on pre-existing legends about the Japanese sorcerer Kashin Koji. Finally, the experiment was most likely imitated in the real word and reused as a method of recruitment by the nineteenth century quasi-Catholic sect established by Mizuno Gunki.
For medieval audiences women occupied a specific, designated cultural area which, while they could freely form it according to their will and nature, was in fact imaginary and immaterial. Women in social, legal, and religious contexts were mostly counted among the receptive, inactive, and non-ruling groups. On both levels, there was a group of features universally defining all women: the strong, virtuous and independent model Aquinas lamented was replaced in real life by the sinful, carnal and weak stereotype, and the erotic, emotional, mysterious, and often wild type present predominantly in literature. Indeed, women were a source of scientific, theological, and cultural fascination because of their uncanny and complex nature, producing both fear and desire of the source and nature of the unattainable and inaccessible femininity. In social contexts, however, the enchantress seems to lose that veil of allure and, instead, is forced to re-define her identity by suppressing, denying, or losing her supernatural features. With the example of Saint Agnes from the South English Legendary Life of Saint Agnes, and Melior from Partonope of Blois (ca. 1450), the article will explore how medieval texts dealt with the complex and unruly female supernatural, and how its neutralization and subduing fitted into the moral, scientific, and cultural norms of medieval society.
The article introduces the ideas that are delivered at Kirna manor, which operates as an esoteric healing centre. The teachings of healer Helle Anniko include various mystical visions that are reasoned as a result of original location due to the energies of the earth and cosmos. Her teachings follow the overall pattern of esoteric ideas as described by Antoine Faivre. She is accompanied by visionary agents, such as medieval monks and extraterrestrials, who help and support her in the work of healing and teaching. The second part of the article introduces the narratives of her patients who associate their recovery with the spiritual transformation and mystical experiences, which they have undergone under Helle’s supervision. In these reflections, which touch the borders of both rational and mystical thinking, the magical consciousness could be recognised, which, according to Susan Greenwood and Graham Harvey, forms the conversion and transformation into a new spiritual understanding of the self and the environment. The process of healing involves sitting and meditating on special benches, which are located at the channels of cosmic and terrestrial energies. Bodily impulses and gained experiences form an access to the interpretation lore, which is framed by the dynamical viewpoints of medical doctors and Helle. The article is based on the fieldwork material and interviews conducted by the author.
This article analyses a construction of figure of žrec in the introductory canto of historical epic Ljutovid written by Croatian romantic writer Ivan Dežman. Žrec is a religious-magical figure which comprises functions of priest, prophet and magician. By applying reviewed readings of Austin’s speech acts theory, the article focuses on the performative dimension of žrec’s prophetic utterances, different types of prophetic speech and their effects of national integration.
The article outlines the main directions of the evangelization of the Church Fathers in the 5th and 6th centuries and the numerous obstacles which they encountered in their pastoral ministry. The spreading of pagan practices, magic and all kinds of superstitions were still visible even among the baptized people. Another problem they had to face, no less difficult to overcome, was a moral dissolution, as well as rampant alcoholism. Hence their sermons so often featured merciful God, ready to forgive every person. They also pointed some ways to deepen one’s faith. Thus they tried to form a Christian society, guided by the spirit of the Gospel in every sphere of life.
In considering the Yamanote Jijosha’s The Tempest, this paper explores the significance of performing Shakespeare in contemporary Japan. The company’s The Tempest reveals to contemporary Japanese audiences the ambiguity of Shakespeare’s text by experimenting with the postdramatic and a new acting style. While critically pursuing the meaning and possibility of theatre and performing arts today, this version of The Tempest powerfully presents a critical view of the blindness and dumbness of contemporary Japan, as well as the world represented in the play.
This article offers an ethnographic exploration of the Vlachs in the Branicevo region of Serbia. The Vlachs rarely exist anywhere as a distinct ethnic group due to their permanent assimilation with other ethnic groups. The thing that has always been linked to the folklore of the Vlachs and still attracts a large number of people to come and visit some remote parts of Eastern Serbia is definitely a certain mystery which represents the essential part of the culture of this nation. Instances of Vlach magic can be seen in the Timok area, all over Eastern Serbia and across its borders. Vlach magic is a miracle or is miraculous, when looking at how long it has been present, its unique rituals, beliefs, shamans and spells. Vlach culture intertwined with pagan customs and interesting rituals, makes the municipalities in Eastern Serbia mysterious places in modern 21st century Europe, because the Vlachs are a mostly closed (endogamous) population which do not blend with people of other nationalities.
One of the important topics of Origen’s treatise Against Celsus is a defence of Christians from accusations of magical practices, seen primarily in their incantation of Christ’s name. In his appraisal, Celsus draws on the Platonic principles of the “care for the soul”, according to which every contact with the world of divine is carried out on the basis of philosophical knowledge, accomplished by the assimilation of the soul to the image of god. For Celsus, there is no other way of getting in connection with the divine, and thus the Christian faith in Jesus’ miracles is only a product of religious charlatans who implant false notions of divine powers into the human soul. The ignorance of the soul is thereby only reinforced, and it cannot reach any connection with divinity whatsoever. The similarity principle brings the Platonic “incantation of the soul” closer to the model of imitative magic that achieves its effect merely by virtue of an idea. Origen, on the contrary, defends the real impact of uttering of Jesus’ name, which, according to him, has its power regardless of a degree of our theological knowledge. In this regard, Origen draws attention to the Egyptian magicians who include biblical names into their magical formulas even though they do not realise whom they address. In his account, then, it is rather the principles of contact magic that come into play, operating with corporeal parts of things or bodies or with their traces and fragments of events that are somehow connected to certain names.
Expansion of capitalism to former communist countries was presented, especially by many intellectuals, as a scientific endeavor based on rational choice theory, management techniques and precisely measured market forces. For many practitioners of ‘transformation’ the neo-liberal project became also similar to proselytizing religion that has to be spread among infidels, i.e. communism-ridden populations. In the process of applying supposedly scientific principles for missionary purposes, many mechanisms identified by anthropologists as magic were used. The same modes of thinking apply to the explanations of reform failures. In magical thinking symbols are treated as signs; in a supposedly cause-and-effect chain of events a symbolic element is instantiated and the status of this symbol is perceived as equivalent to the empirical constituents. Symbolic factors, distinguished as such in an analytical process, have the same power of affecting reality as the physically perceptible factors. Communism was often blamed for using magical tricks, particularly in the domain of magical power of words. Words, through their symbolic power, were supposed to excuse for failures in practical domains. In the notions describing advantages and shortcomings of the neoliberal system such unspecified elements can also be identified. In conclusion one can say that neo-liberalism is a science, but only for its believers who in their reasoning apply magical modes of thinking.
The article’s main subject refers to some magical aspects of the literary communication which might be observed in the selected examples of Polish fairy tale, composed in the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth one. The crucial issue of the article concerns a certain relationship between the magic words’ and the silence’s forms and the folk world outlook which reveals itself as a realm, constituted on a structure of opposition. Moreover, in the paper one may also encounter with a characteristics of the functions of spells, whispers and scenes of silence that appear in the folk tales.
Beliefs and perceptions of word are based on existing mythological layer of culture that has specific mechanisms and functions. This mythological context of word determines its acceptance as a magical tool that has a certain force of impact. The power of speech is invisible, but exactly by the word, the individual and the community identify themselves and provide a link between past, present and future. One of the most significant events of word (or speech) is connected with its use in ritual. The reason of this is that the importance is attached to the ritual and to the consequences of its performing. Ritual word has an impact on society, and nature and the individual by verbal formulas that contribute to its realization. Depending on the ritual, word can both perform different functions and act as a specific magical tool.
The article contrasts two chronologically distinct groups of artifacts: painted ceramics from the Hallstatt period and the so-called white ceramics, produced until the end of modernity. They are related by means of the technique of covering a bright surface with colorful patterns and the stylistic similarity of certain geometric motifs. However, the ideas behind creating these pictorial representations were completely different. In the article, painted vessels from the Hallstatt period and modernity will be the starting point for detailed studies on magical and rational thinking about the world. It was in the Renaissance that, according to the concept of the sociologist and philosopher Max Weber (1864‒1920), a “disenchantment of the world”, took place ‒ e.g. the departure from the magical understanding of reality. Early Iron Age and Modernity ceramics will illustrate this process.
With the examples of green peas and cabbage, two vegetables commonly grown and consumed in the Polish village in former times, the article discusses folk means of augmenting the fecundity of plants. The analysis is based on the rich 19th- and 20th-c. material (diverse text of folklore, as well as accounts of beliefs and practices) from the database of Dictionary of Folk Stereotypes and Symbols, the volume devoted to plants being now in preparation. The actions designed to render cabbage heads big and hard, and pea pods full, were above all religious and/or magical in nature and were predominantly based on the creative power of language. The “vegetative force” derived from several spheres, among others the sphere of the sacred (God, Jesus, the Holy Mother, the saints cultivating the farmer’s land and thus ensuring good harvest), the “cosmos” (e.g. stars and phases of the Moon, marking the (un)favourable sewing time), wildlife (e.g. other plants grown to turn away spells), humans and the human body (e.g. fertility dances that triggered and transmitted vital forces).
PL
Autorka na przykładzie grochu i kapusty – dwóch warzyw powszechnie uprawianych i spożywanych dawniej na wsi polskiej – omawia ludowe sposoby wpływania na plenność roślin. Za podstawę analizy przyjmuje bogaty materiał XIX- i XX-wieczny (różnogatunkowe teksty folkloru oraz zapisy wierzeń i opisy praktyk), pochodzący z kartoteki Słownika stereotypów i symboli ludowych, którego tom Rośliny jest obecnie opracowywany.Zabiegi mające sprawić, że głowy kapusty będą duże i twarde, a strączki grochu pełne, miały przede wszystkim charakter religijny i/lub magiczny i w dużej mierze oparte były na wierze w sprawczą moc słowa. Źródłem „mocy wegetacyjnej” mogło być kilka sfer, m.in.: sacrum (np. Bóg, Pan Jezus, Matka Boska i święci uprawiający w kolędach ziemię gospodarza i tym samym zapewniający obfitość plonów), „kosmos” (np. gwiazdy i fazy księżyca wyznaczające korzystny/niekorzystny czas siewu), przyroda (np. inne rośliny sadzone na zagonach dla odwrócenia uroków) oraz człowiek i jego ciało (np. tańce na urodzaj wyzwalające i przekazujące siły witalne).
The chief aim of reflection in this paper is to outline the image of rational cities and their products, including the consumerist superstructure. By way of conclusion, the author uses the example of the Warsaw borough of Służewiec-Przemysłowy (colloquially known as Mordor) to illustrate the transformation of the concept of rational reality.
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