Magic acts or rituals October 24, 2008
Posted by egabriel in History of Magic.Tags: acts, amulets, aspect, battlefield, curse, daemons, efficacy, enemies, enemy, evil, execution, formulas, inhabitants, magical, materials, negativity, papyri, place, power, precious, presence, process, protection, protections, rituals, spells, spirits, stones, symbols, tablets, tomb, various, victim
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In other cases certain spells allow one to send out a daemon or daemons to harm one’s enemies or even to break up someone’s marriage. There seems to be a self-defining negativity to some of the magical rituals being expressed in the papyri. So, for example, love magic can turn into hate magic if the victim does not respond to the love magic.
The same negative aspect to magic is found in various “curse tablets”, left to us from the Greco-Roman world. It was also possible to curse an enemy through a spoken word, either in his presence or behind his back. But due to numbers of curse tablets that have been found it would seem that this type of magic was considered more effective. The process involved writing the victim’s name on a thin sheet of lead along with varying magical formulas or symbols, then burying the tablet in or near a tomb, a place of execution, or a battlefield, to give spirits of the dead power over the victim. Sometimes the curse tablets were even transfixed with various items – such as nails, which were believed to add magical potency.
For most magic acts or rituals there existed counter-magic. it. Amulets were one of the most common protections used in the Greco-Roman world as protection against such fearful things as curses and the evil eye; which were seen as very real by most of its inhabitants. Amulets were often made of cheap materials, but precious stones were believed to have special efficacy. Many discovered thousands of carved gems clearly had a magical rather than an ornamental function. Amulets were a very widespread type of magic, because of the fear of other types of magic such as curses being used against oneself.
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Magical papyri October 24, 2008
Posted by egabriel in History of Magic.Tags: antiquity, books, concepts, cults, effects, formulas, fraction, gestures, ingredients, interest, literature, magic, magical, manuscripts, mystery, papyri, poetry, points, practitioners, prose, recipes, ritual, rituals, talent, terms, texts
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It seems, that a huge interest in magic was on the rise in the Hellenistic period, especially around 3d century b.c. Piles of texts, both literary and some from actual practitioners, in Greek and in Latin came to us from this time. Truly speaking, a lot of existing magical papyri was written in the first centuries after Christ, but the manuscripts’ concepts, formulas and rituals reflect the earlier Hellenistic period. These magical papyri are no doubt only a fraction of the magical literature available in antiquity. The ascendancy of orthodox Christianity by the 5th century CE had much to do with this. This is reflected by the book of Acts where the Apostle Paul convinces many Ephesians to bring out their magical books and burn them.
The language of the magical texts reflects various levels of literary skill. Generally they are standard Greek, and may well be closer to the spoken language of the time than to poetry or artistic prose left to us in literary texts. Many terms are borrowed from the mystery cults. The texts are often written as we might write a recipe. In other words the magic requires certain ingredients. Of course it is not just as simple as knowing how to put a recipe together. Appropriate gestures, at certain points in the magical ritual, are required to accompany the ingredients, different gestures it would seem produce various effects. A magical ritual done in the right way can guarantee the revealing of dreams and of course the rather useful talent of interpreting them correctly.
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The use of spirit mediums October 24, 2008
Posted by egabriel in History of Magic.Tags: ancient, circle, class, components, cultural, curious, documents, expectations, influence, instances, magi, magic, magicians, mediums, mysterious, origin, papyri, power, practice, priests, religion, reputation, research, ritual, sources, spells, spirits, symbols, tools, wands, word
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I was always curious about the origin of the word magic. Through my research for local funeral home directory I learned, that the prototypical “magicians” were a class of priests. These priests were known as the Magi of the ancient religion Zoroastrianism. The reputation of Magi in ancient Persia together with that of Ancient Egypt influenced to a great degree Hellenistic religion. The ancient Greek mystery religions had strongly magical components, and in Egypt, a large number of magical papyri, in Greek, Coptic, and Demotic, have been recovered. These sources contain early instances of much of the magical lore that later became part of Western cultural expectations about the practice of magic, especially ceremonial magic. For example, among all, they contain early instances of the use of “magic words” said to have the power to command spirits. They also first describe the use of “magic” wands and other ritual tools. In these documents we also encounter the use of a magic circle to defend the magician against the spirits he is invoking or evoking and the use of mysterious symbols or sigils thought useful to invoke or evoke spirits.
These ancient documents also in details tell about the use of spirit mediums. For example, many of the spells call for a child to be brought to the magic circle to act as a conduit for messages from the spirits. In the time of the Roman emperor Julian, marked by a reaction against the influence of Christianity, there was a temporary a revival of magical practices. And, of course, all those practices mentioned, above, happily moved into our horror movies and became a great part of sci-fi thrillers and even action movies.
The timing for festival October 24, 2008
Posted by egabriel in History of Magic.Tags: ancient, attempts, books, calendar, changes, class, cleansing, conceptual, culture, cycles, divinities, druids, elements, festivals, fire, holidays, magic, moon, movies, nature, part, people, plants, polytheism, polytheists, practices, priests, records, reverence, seasons, signs, societies, stars, sun, symbol, system, wizards, works, writers, year
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Speaking of magic, the ancient wizards of the island of Britain also developed an interesting conceptual system of magic. We know these wizards from books and movies as druids. The earliest records of the name Druidae is found on the works of Greek writers such as Sotion of Alexandria, who was cited by Diogenes Laertius in the third century of our era. During my research for funeral home directory I learned that in old Celtic polytheism the word druid denotes the priestly class in ancient Celtic societies. These priests existed through much of Western Europe and in Britain and Ireland until they were suppressed and, practically destroyed by ancient Roman government and, later, Christianity. Druidic practices were a huge part of the culture of all Celtic tribal peoples not only in Britain but also in Continental Europe. These druids combined the duties of priest, arbitrator, healer, scholar, and magistrate. I read about many modern attempts at reconstructing or reinventing Druidism, that are called Neo-druidism. So, let me describe who were druids in the past.
The druids were polytheists, but they also revered elements of nature, such as the sun, the moon, and the stars, looking to them for signs and seasons. They also treated with reverence other natural elements, such as the oak, certain groves of trees, tops of hills, streams, lakes and certain other plants, especially mistletoe and holly. Fire was regarded as a symbol of several divinities and was associated with the sun and cleansing. Druid calendar year was governed by the lunar, solar, vegetative and herding cycles. The four main holidays include Imbolc to denote the first signs of spring, Beltane to recognize the fullness of life after spring, Lughnasadh to celebrate the ripening of first fruits and the many-skilled deity Lugh, and Samhain to recognize the end of harvest and the lowering of the barrier between the world of the living and that of the dead. The timing for these four festivals would have been determined by the presence of a full moon and the seasonal changes in the natural world. In modern times, Imbolc has been transformed into Groundhog Day, elements of Beltane have been absorbed into Easter, and Samhain has become Halloween.
Shamanic contacts with the spirit world October 24, 2008
Posted by egabriel in History of Magic.Tags: aboriginal, adepts, ancient, communities, contact, development, excitement, formulations, history, human, information, magic, magical, paintings, priests, religions, rites, rituals, sacrifice, shamanic, shamans, sources, spirit, traditions, tribes, world
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Ancient history provides us with a lot of information about magic. Appearing from aboriginal tribes in Australia and Maori tribes in New Zealand to rainforest tribes in South America, bush tribes in Africa and ancient Pagan tribal groups in Europe and the British Isles, some form of shamanic contact with the spirit world seems to be nearly universal in the early development of human communities. I was observing with excitement at the office of my local web analytics company photos of the ancient cave paintings in France and Germany, that were widely speculated to be early magical formulations, intended to produce successful hunts. While going through other sources I could not help noticing, that much of the Babylonian and Egyptian pictorial writing characters appear derived from the same sources.
Although indigenous magical traditions persist to this day, very early on some communities transitioned from nomadic to agricultural civilizations, and with this shift, the development of spiritual life mirrored that of civic life. Just as tribal elders were consolidated and transformed into kings and bureaucrats, so too were shamans and adepts devolved into priests and a priestly caste. This shift is by no means in nomenclature alone. While the shaman’s task was to negotiate between the tribe and the spirit world, on behalf of the tribe, as directed by the collective will of the tribe, the priest’s role was to transfer instructions from the deities to the city-state, on behalf of the deities, as directed by the will of those deities. This shift represents the first major usurpation of power by distancing magic from those participating in that magic. It is at this stage of development that highly elaborate rituals, setting the stage for formal religions, began to emerge, such as the funeral rites of the Egyptians and the sacrifice rituals of the Babylonians, Persians, Aztecs and Mayans.
Human ability to control the natural world October 15, 2008
Posted by egabriel in History of Magic.Tags: ability, ancient, ascetics, belief, competition, conceptual, control, cultures, curses, events, forms, history, human, influence, magic, magician, means, meditation, miracles, mystical, objects, paranormal, people, perspective, phenomenon, powers, practices, sorcery, spells, spirituality, Supernatural, system, terms, texts, wizards, world
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I was always interested in the ancient belief in magic from the perspective of history. It was always amazing to learn how different cultures tried to attach to natural phenomenon supernatural powers. After all, magic, sometimes also known as sorcery, was formed as the whole conceptual system that asserted human ability to control the natural world, including events, objects, people, and physical phenomena, through mystical, paranormal or supernatural means. The term can also refer to the practices employed by a person asserting this influence, and to beliefs that explain various events and phenomena in such terms. Even today, as well as in the past, in many cultures, magic is under pressure from, and in competition with, scientific and religious conceptual systems. As a web analyst I had to go through so many Internet documents to understand how ancients view magic. I learned many things about magic when I was doing a new salvo of researches for local funeral home directory too.
So, let’s start with the land of magic, India. All in all, it has been often stated that India is a land of magic, both supernatural and mundane. Hinduism is one of the few religions that has sacred texts like the Vedas that discuss both white and black magic. There are Vedas that deals with mantras that can be used for both good and bad. The word mantrik in India literally means “magician” since the mantrik usually knows mantras, spells, and curses which can be used for or against forms of magic. Many ascetics after long periods of penance and meditation are alleged to attain a state where they may utilize supernatural powers. However, many say that they choose not to use them and instead focus on transcending beyond physical power into the realm of spirituality. Many wizards, called siddhars are said to have performed miracles that would ordinarily be impossible to perform.
Divination through the planets and stars October 15, 2008
Posted by egabriel in History of Astrology.Tags: advancement, ancient, astrology, astronomy, basis, charlatanry, deception, developing, divination, equinoxes, expression, fate, function, influence, knowledge, manner, planets, precession, proof, science, signs, stars, subject, suspicion, synonym, teachings, theory, wisdom, work, zodiac
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Under the Greeks and Ptolemy in particular, the planets, Houses, and Signs of the zodiac were rationalized and their function set down in a way that has changed little to the present day. Ptolemy’s work on astronomy was also the basis of Western teachings on the subject for the next thirteen hundred years.
Around 130 B.C. another ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus created the theory of the precession of the equinoxes, for a knowledge of which among the Babylonians we find no definite proof; but such a single advancement in pure science did not prevent the Greeks from developing in a most elaborate manner the theory of the influence of the planets upon the fate of the individual. Ancient Greeks identified Babylonia or Chaldea with astrology. The expression Chaldean wisdom became among Greeks and Romans the synonym of divination through the planets and stars, and it is perhaps not surprising that in the course of time to be known as a Chaldean carried with it frequently the suspicion of charlatanry and of more or less willful deception.
Development of horoscope astrology October 15, 2008
Posted by egabriel in History of Astrology.Tags: additions, ancient, ascendant, astrologers, astrological, astrology, astronomer, basis, birth, character, contribution, development, essential, horoscope, influence, measure, nation, occupation, perfection, planets, position, rule, significant, stars, system, teachings, trace, tradition, works
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So the question arises – what nation introduced ancient Europeans to astrology? Guys from our local funeral home directory are sure that it was no other but ancient Greeks. They say that it happened right after the occupation of Egypt by Alexander the Great. As you may know, in 332 B.C., Egypt came under Greek rule and influence, and it was in Alexandrian Egypt where horoscope astrology first appeared. The endeavor to trace the horoscope of the individual from the position of the planets and stars at the time of birth represents the most significant contribution of the Greeks to astrology. This system can be labeled as horoscope astrology, because it employed the use of the ascendant, otherwise known as the horoskopos in Greek. Although developed under Hellenistic rule, it was in large measure derived from the teachings of the Babylonians and the Egyptians.
The system was carried to such a degree of perfection that later ages made but few additions of an essential character of drawing up of the individual horoscope by the Greek astrologers. Particularly important in the development of horoscope astrology was the astrologer and astronomer Ptolemy , whose works laid the basis of the Western astrological tradition.
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Position of heavenly bodies influenced the affairs of mankind October 15, 2008
Posted by egabriel in History of Astrology.Tags: affairs, astrologers, astrology, astronomers, astronomy, book, chiromancy, compliment, discoveries, false, famous, form, fortunes, history, horoscope, mankind, mathematicus, medieval, nature, position, predictions, reading, renaissance, sciences, sevices, stars, trouble, true, universe
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History of astrology. I just had to know what was going with astrology during Middle Ages. Well, Astrology became part of the Kabalistic lore of Jews and Christians, and came to be the substance of the astrology of the Middle Ages. Even church prelates and nobility were using astrologers’ services. And at that time everybody believed that the position of heavenly bodies influenced the affairs of mankind. In fact, astrology was placed on a similar footing of equality with astronomy and other sciences.
During the Middle Ages astrologer was proudly called “mathematicus”, which translated from Latin meant simply mathematician. During Middle Ages this term was used to denote a person proficient in astrology, astronomy, and mathematics. In those strange times astrologers were dominant by the terror they inspired, and by the martyrdom they endured when their predictions occasionally were either too true or too false. And the book “Liber Astronomicus” written by a couple of Italian astrologers who were famous in XIII century Europe was proclaimed to be the most important astrological work. To tell the truth, medieval and Renaissance astrologers did not give themselves the trouble of reading the stars, but contented themselves with telling fortunes by faces. They practiced chiromancy, and relied on afterwards drawing a horoscope to suit.
During the Renaissance, a new form of astrology evolved in which court astrologers would compliment their use of horoscopes with genuine discoveries about the nature of the universe as astronomers. How many of you know that Galileo Galilei, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, were themselves practicing astrologers? These guys overturned the old astrological order of the time.
The first examples of the zodiac October 15, 2008
Posted by egabriel in History of Astrology.Tags: ancient, archaeologists, astrology, burial, calculators, charts, combination, competition, desert, examples, historical, history, importance, interest, life, minds, origin, pharaohs, place, positions, pyramids, role, signs, sky, star, sun, zodiac
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History of ancient astrology. As far as I know, astrology of ancient Egyptians appeared slightly later in ancient Babylon. The outcome of this historical competition is still not clear, because the archaeologists still did not make up their minds. But we know, that astrology has a very ancient history in Egypt, with star charts found there going back to 4,200BC.
Egyptian astrology was dominated by the combination of the sun and the dog-star Sirius, as it foretold when in the year the Nile river would flood, bringing fertility and life to what was otherwise barren desert. The pyramids of Egypt also reflect the importance given to astrology, as they are oriented towards the North pole of the sky and had a dual role as burial place for the pharaohs and astrological calculators. Various pharaohs took an interest in astrology. Ramses II or Ozymandias as he was traditionally better known, was credited with fixing the positions of the cardinal signs Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn. Some zodiac signs are said to be Egyptian in origin, including Aries, Leo, and possibly Gemini. Anyways, the first examples of the zodiac as we know it today appeared in ancient Egypt.
