The encounter of Odysseus with the Titan Circe November 4, 2008
Posted by egabriel in History of Magic.Tags: act, ancient, beautiful, books, companions, components, control, culture, dangerous, definition, description, distance, divine, fact, figure, form, greek, herb, history, island, literature, magical, operation, practice, secret, secretive, story, wand, woman
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As a web analyst, who completed many types of research on ancient history, I think that the earliest description of a magical operation in Greek literature was on The Odyssey. This is one of my favorite books. In the Odyssey we meet a definition of magic as a practice aimed at trying to locate and control the secret forces of the world. The Odyssey describes the encounter of Odysseus with the Titan Circe. In the story Circe’s magic consists in the use of a wand against Odysseus and his men while Odysseus’ magic consists of the use of a secret herb called moly to defend himself from her attack. All three necessary components are present: the magic wand, the use of a magical herb and Hermes, the divine figure that reveals the secret of the magical act.
In the story Circe is presented as being in the form of a beautiful woman when Odysseus meets her on an island. In this encounter Circe uses her wand to change Odysseus’ companions into swine. This suggests that magic is often associated with practices that go against the natural order, or against wise and good forces. Circe too is representative of a power that had been conquered by Zeus, Poseidon and Hades.
Furthermore she had been banished to the island after having murdered her husband. She is thus quite dangerous: secretive, opposed to the gods, a semi-divine power left over from the older god culture of the Titans. However the internal fact that Odysseus has first to visit her before she becomes a threat suggests that she has a relatively harmless power if one keeps to a distance.
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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.
European cultural traditions September 12, 2008
Posted by egabriel in Supernatural.Tags: celts, contact, cultural, culture, festival, halloween, holidays, immigrants, myth, physical world, spirits, story, traditions, versions
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No matter what you say, I think that Halloween is one of the greatest holidays ever. We are already missing it and wait for the next one. I heard more versions about the origin of a Halloween than fingers on both my hands and my toes. Some are no more than a myth. But this story that I found in archives of funeral home directory, seems to be closer to truth than others. So, here it is.
I read that Halloween originated from the Pagan festival Samhain, celebrated among the Celts of Ireland. And that Irish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Many European cultural traditions hold that Halloween is one of the times of the year when spirits can make contact with the physical world.
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