Magical Incantations Research Articles

The Chinese Translation of Spells in the Harry Potter Series from a Cross-cultural Perspective

As a world-renowned fantasy series, Harry Potter has garnered widespread acclaim and a global readership. Within the novels, magic incantations, characterized by their enigmatic and supernatural properties, play a crucial role. However, the translation of these magic spells presents significant challenges at linguistic, artistic, and cultural levels. This necessitates that translators skillfully navigate the cultural contexts of diverse nationalities and cultures. From a cross-cultural studies perspective, this research focuses on the translation of Harry Potter spells, comparing and analyzing the strategies and outcomes involved in translating the symbolic meanings embedded in the text. Through an examination of these translations, this study explores how cultural information is processed in the translation of magical elements, demonstrating the applicability and guiding significance of selected translation strategies for spell translation in cross-cultural communication. This, in turn, facilitates dialogue and cultural enrichment across different societies.

Soul-foods as pharmaka: female bodies and poisons in the Upper Rio Negro

In this article, we explore the origins, properties, and ritual uses of a series of psychoactive substances among indigenous peoples of the Upper Rio Negro. Setting out from the mythical genesis of tobacco, coca, paricá, and caapi (ayahuasca), we examine the relationship between these substances and diverse aspects of female bodies and their reproductive powers, suggesting that these psychoactives can be conceived as pharmaka in the classic sense of the term, acting both to increase a person’s vital force and/or to harm and kill. As we show, these effects relate to the practice of blown magical incantations, used to both cure and provoke diseases, a connection that allows us to explore indigenous notions of life force, speech, and breath as ways through which bodies affect each other.

KVSA VERTAALPRYS / CASA TRANSLATION PRIZE

The primary source that will be used in this translation is The prayer of Jacob chapter 1. The selected text is from Henrichs and Preisendanz 1974:148–149. I will also make reference to the translation of the text in Charlesworth’s Old Testament Greek pseudepigrapha with morphology (1983).1 According to Penner and Heiser (2008), the term pseudepigrapha does not mean ‘false books’ or ‘false writings’, but rather refers to writings that were not written by those whose names appear in them (falsely attributed writings). The Old Testament pseudepigrapha builds on the narratives, themes, and worldview of the canonical books of the Old Testament. This explains why books may be attributed to significant Old Testament figures. This source was selected because it demonstrates dramatically the enduring influence of the Old Testament on Jewish thinking after the exile. The prayer of Jacob is included in collections of Old Testament pseudepi-grapha though it is preserved in only one Greek manuscript (papyrus XXIIb)2 and its original composition dates sometime before the fourth century CE (Charlesworth 1983). However, the meaningless mystical words (voces mystica)3 reflect earlier (first century) Jewish prayers (Van der Horst and Newman 2008:217). Although it is said to be a Jewish prayer from the patriarch Jacob, it is often categorized as a magical incantation belonging to the genre of magical texts. The prayer’s themes and language may reflect influences from the Hebrew Bible, Hellenistic Jewish literature, ancient Jewish prayers, and Greek magical papyri (Reif and Egger-Wenzel 2016:609). In this prayer, the patriarch Jacob summons God and requests wisdom and deification. Is it Jewish or pagan? The prayer mentions that the one who recites this prayer should be from the race of Israel but also refers to the serpent

A Horse Is a Horse

A Horse Is a Horse

John Chrysostom and Christian Love Magic: A Spellbinding Moment in the History of Interpretation of 1 Cor 7.2–4

AbstractThis article, originally presented as the presidential address at the 2021 SNTS meeting, held virtually via Leuven due to Covid-19 conditions, investigates the nature of Pauline interpretation, past and present. It brings into the scholarly conversation a neglected ancient source, John Chrysostom's occasional homily on 1 Cor 7.2–4 (Hom. 1 Cor. 7–4 (CPG 4377)), and provides an analysis of key passages showing how the late antique orator-bishop seeks to turn Paul's words from the fifties to Corinth into a magical incantation, and, as inscribed on various materials, a talisman against the evils associated with porneia. The article concludes with defence of the category ‘Christian love magic’ and an argument that New Testament studies constitutes a unified field which should unite (rather than separate out) the work of philology, historical contextualisation, literary criticism, humanistic commitments and hermeneutical sophistication as we trace and analyse the ways human agents construct meanings with New Testament texts, then and now.

Deleuze's Elaboration of Eternity: Ontogenesis and Multiplicity

I demonstrate that Deleuze's identification of Aion as an empty form (of time) offers a fascinating model of temporality that prioritises variation. First, I suggest that Deleuze's identification of time as an empty form is supported by ancient Greek and Gnostic concepts of the relation of Aion and Chronos. From Plato, through Aristotle, to Plotinus the concept of time undergoes substantive revision, in the sense that temporal measurement becomes removed from the measurement of existent entities (cosmic or sublunar bodies). This gradual untethering of time from movement gives rise to the development of the concept of eternity as an ontologically comprehensive mode of time that is devoid of content (i.e. a movement not indexed to the movement of cosmic or sublunar entities). It is here, with Deleuze's reading of the Platonic cosmology, that we see the first hints of the suggestion that Aion is involved with ontogenesis. Eternity is characterised as: (1) a temporal ‘all’ (i.e. generality) that is non-reducible to the determinacy implied by any particular temporally localised existent or temporal series (i.e. a succession relation of temporally discrete moments); (2) that which tends towards a diversity of possible states of affairs. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects in the long history of Aion is that – in the ancient world – it was used in magical incantations. For the Gnostics and Oracles, Aion was a deity, and a potent one at that. From the Gnostic papyri, we get a vision of Aion as a force which enjoys eternal realisation. I suggest that the papyri conjure an image of Aion as a deity that is liberated from time, in the sense that it enjoys a neutrality with respect to the movements of any particular entity or group of entities – a form, in the most general sense of the term. Then, to clarify this mercurial aspect of an empty form of time, I elaborate on a complex analogy between Aion and Deleuze's concept of an ‘ideal game’ – an analogy that Deleuze specifies through reference to Fitzgerald and Borges. The claim is that Aion is an analogue of an ideal game in the (limited) sense that both share essential properties. Both Aion and the ideal game involve the multiplication of chance. Finally, I suggest that the differential aspects of Aion imply that it is pure variability; something which can be illustrated through a differential equation. These yield the suggestion that Aion enjoys realisation as an ontogenetic force. I further claim that ontogenetic forces may enjoy expression as the content of literature and (Riemannian-inspired) mathematics. In concrete terms, temporality is involved in the creation of existent entities, which may be illustrated as various types of continuous multiplicity.

Magic as Technological Dominion: John Dee\u2019s Hydragogy and the Draining of the Fens in Ben Jonson\u2019s The Devil is an Ass

This paper explores the ambiguous role of magic in the controversy over the draining of the fens, the last bastion of wilderness in seventeenth-century England. In what now looks like an early form of environmentalist resistance to the destruction of these wetlands, opponents of the drainage accused the undertakers of invoking diabolical aid in their audacious efforts to tamper with God’s creation. Evidence of this mentality can be found in both William Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Ben Jonson’s The Devil is an Ass. Via a close reading of Jonson’s comedy, this paper navigates the confluence of magic, technology, and “projection” in the ideological debate surrounding the fens. Just as the traditional Vice figures (Iniquity and Pug) find themselves out-devilled by Jacobean Londoners, the play dramatizes the appropriation and displacement of a residual poetics of enchantment by the emergent discourses of economics and applied engineering. A tendency to equate magic with hydro-engineering technology may have been encouraged by John Dee’s involvement in the project. Drawing on an unpublished manuscript in the Ashmole collection at the Bodleian Library, this paper seeks to uncover the extent and impact of Dee’s role in the drainage. Advocates of the drainage, however, not only denied any supernatural involvement but also counterattacked by accusing their opponents of credulity and magical thinking. They characterized the native fen-dwellers as superstitious heathens and cast a scathing eye on local folklore depicting the fens as a demon-haunted wasteland. In pro-drainage documents, the proposed draining of the fenlands becomes tantamount to an exorcism, purging the rural backwaters of paganism and witchcraft. Wetlands management will now be conducted through applied engineering rather than magical incantations. A little known Jacobean ballad, “The Powte’s Complaint” (c. 1619) revives these animistic tropes to protest the fen’s destruction. Jonson’s play may explain why this tactic was doomed to fail and why this poem has been forgotten. As the credibility of magic eroded in the mid-seventeenth century, opponents of the drainage instead sought to stir up public resentment against the foreignness of the Dutch under-takers rather than their supposed collusion with supernatural forces. Jonson’s own projection that the drainage was an impossible con (like alchemy) would prove inaccurate. Nevertheless, The Devil is an Ass stands as the one of the most ecologically-engaged texts in the canon of early modern English drama.

“Fu” and “Zhou”—A preliminary study on “language worship” and its symbolization

The article aims to, based on the study of “Spells” (or “Fuzhou”, 符咒, including the magic figures and incantations), find out the relationship of “Fu” (符, talisman1), “Zhou” (咒, incantations)” and “language worship” (including written language and oral language). There is an in-depth probe into “language worship”, and the clarification of the term “Fu” and “Fushu” (the use of Fu), “Zhou” and “Zhoushu” (the use of Zhou), no matter in a narrow sense or a broad one. In addition, the differentiation of language, “language worship” and “Spells” has been achieved via symbols and their symbolization. The final conclusion of such study shows that language worship is the process of language symbolization, and spells, in essence, is the symbol of language.

МОЛИТВА: ОСОБИСТІСНІ ФОРМИ ПРЕЗЕНТАЦІЇ

The phenomenon of prayer is studied in the context of a dialogue, in which different levels of perception of "Self" are expressed. The article examines the regularities of the emergence and functioning of prayer as communication in which a dialogue unfolds - the existential orientation of personality. It is analyzed, on the one hand, the specificity and role of prayer in the historical genesis, and on the other, its personalization and thematization. Historical forms allow both the process of distinguishing prayer from other linguistic acts of a religious and non-religious nature and to identify the aspects of communication of the religious relationship between "Self" and "You", the personality and the personalized supernatural. The relationship between prayer and magical cult practice has been carried out. It is emphasized that in many primitive communities, prayer took the form of magical incantations and spells, in which the will component was dominant. Moreover, interpersonal communication unfolded as a horizontal connection, due to which there was a transfer of experience, it’s purely practical orientation. Christian prayer, on the other hand, is dominated by communicative ties, which, first, are "woven" in the context of the dominant vertical connection between "Self" and God, and, second, are determined by the interpersonal relationships of the religious community. Depending on the goal pursued by a person, prayers have a different personalistic orientation. However, in general, they all generate meanings aimed both at accumulating experience in overcoming difficult life situations and at personal growth.

Русские ритуальные специалисты Карелии

This study deals with archaic ideas associated with Russian ritual specialists (sorcerers) in Karelia, their initiation, and the sources of their sacred knowledge and power. The author identifies the following signs of different types of “the knowledgeable”: strength, knowledge, the ability to enter altered states of consciousness, as well as to find a source of strength. Particular attention is paid to the specific means that neophytes employed to obtain sacred knowledge — through the teacher’s saliva and urine. Features of the everyday life of Russian ritual specialists in Karelia are also analyzed. It is believed that the main function of sorcerers is to perform maleficium (porcha). The sorcerer causes harm through a mediator who takes possession of a victim and “steals” her vital force, after which the victim becomes weak and dies. In the Russian tradition in Karelia, notions about wedding maleficium persisted throughout the twentieth century, and the study shows that many of its elements go back to archaic rites of passage that were rethought in the 19th and 20th centuries. The wedding is perceived as the symbolic “temporary death” of a person in one status — as an unmarried young fellow or an unmarried girl — and the “birth” of a person in a different status — as a married man or a married woman. The author argues that actions performed by a sorcerer at a wedding, while perceived as harmful to the young couple, are aimed at “introducing” the bride and groom into the state of “temporary death”. Since the “secret knowledge” of the healer is primarily based on the knowledge of incantations (zagovor), the article analyzes the process of passage and circulation of magical incantations in Karelia. The author concludes that the Russian sorcerer of Karelia is a complex figure. On the one hand, the image of the sorcerer retains the archaic features of the demiurge, who, during the wedding ceremony, creates new members of society — a young couple, capable of procreation. The sorcerer also controls the behavior of members of society. On the other hand, his image contains the features of a trickster, who “overturns” the foundations of the world, thus ushering its renewal. The functioning of the “secret knowledge” of the healer is aimed at restoring order out of chaos, restoring the integrity of the body, which the sorcerer has violated by “sending” sickness to a person. The mythological features of the image of the healer who heals at the cost of his own health, often through adoption of sickness from the patient, can be compared with the features of heroes-demiurges who sacrifice themselves.

Philosophy as a Mockery of Truth: Humour in Plato’s Charmides

The article subsequently analyzes the examples of Socratic wit so as to illustrate selected functions of humour in Charmides, using the methodological framework based on the „taxonomy of wit” proposed by D.L. Long and A.C. Graesser (1988). Special attention has been paid to the prologue and to the myth about the Thracian magical incantation (epōidḗ) which Socrates learned from the physician and priest Zalmoxis. In the light of Socratic considerations of the human cognitive limits and the transmissibility of philosophy and knowledge, some forms of Socrates’ humour acquire an anti-dogmatic character; humour in Charmides is an expression of the philosophical inquiry and practice which involves the realization and acceptance of the human limits of knowledge.

Antidotes and Counter-Poisons in the Ancient World: Onions (hdw) (Allium cepa L.) in Egypt, the Preferred Antitoxic for Snake Bites

Modern toxicology focuses on studying adverse effects of poisons and chemical exposures but understanding the toxicity and risks developing antidotes and counter-poisons has taken science a long time. The lack of a proper theory in antiquity to treat poisoned patients didn’t allow for the improvement in diagnosis and treatment. However, in Papyrus Brooklyn 47.2180 dated to the fourth century bc, ancient Egyptians classified local snakes, poisonous symptoms, diagnosis, and simple treatments with drugs and magical incantations, ignoring the effectiveness of remedies and their potential side effects. To solve the problem and protect themselves, people first tried to observe animal behavior and the reactions to different substances ingested. Ancient medicine found certain alexipharmic therapy or antidotes to reverse lethal intoxication based on two axioms: similia similibus, studying the tolerance of a poison and the dose, as with the modern theory of immunity, and contraria contraris, using substances with contrary properties, as in the case of antibiotics. This allowed the development of pharmacology, because “For the Egyptians, poisons are substances that may be offset by antidotes or substances with opposite properties.” An extremely common food, the Egyptian species of onion Allium cepa L., seemed to be the preferred alexipharmic to repel snake venom. Its characteristic smell comes from a volatile and fragrant sulphide gas and, through recent chemical research, scientists have reported its antibiotic properties, since it contains allium, transformed in allicin, the key ingredient responsible for its broad-spectrum and anti-bacterial activity. Useful for all kinds of treatment in the Egyptian pharmacopoeia, its defensive power also became known abroad.

Reclaiming magical incantation in graduate medical education.

Critical thinking relies upon conceptualization (what is the possible pathophysiology?), analysis (how do I relate an aberration in physiology to the lived experience of illness?), and synthesizing (how do I best intervene?). These cognitive skills are subsumed in the category of reflective competencies and are necessary for developing a differential diagnosis or a plan of care. A vulnerability of teaching medicine through the filter of heuristics is that it may simply recapitulate the teacher's style of cognitive shortcuts. Poorly calibrated heuristics may culminate in systematic errors of judgment. If the aim is to teach critical reasoning in the arena of clinical education, then a new paradigm is called for. Teaching critical reasoning as it applies to medical decision-making begins with recognizing decision scripts.Key Points• Medical heuristics are high-stakes endeavors.• The process of examining the choice of heuristics employed in any given clinical scenario is a meta-reasoning strategy.• Debiasing reduces cognitive errors due to motivated reasoning.

Рациональное и сакральное у Галена

This paper examines mutual relations between the rational medical practice and the practice of temple healing connected with the ancient cult of Asclepius in the writings of Galen of Pergamon (129–210/217). It is shown that Galen considered logics as the main methodological basis of medical theory and practice, supposing that by virtue of logics it is possible “to prove in the best way everything that can be proved.” Although he sharply criticized medical Empiricists for denying the usefulness of logics, and did not accept magical incantations and irrational explanations of diseases, nevertheless Galen viewed himself as a disciple and servant of Asclepius, whom he used to call his “paternal god.” In complicated clinical cases Galen recurred to the divine counsels of Asclepius, from whom he received by the way of dreams therapeutic revelations with special prescriptions for treatment. He distinguished this kind of dreams from so-called “semiotic” or “diagnostic” dreams, related to the physical conditions of a patient. The study has shown that Asclepius’ dreams served as a sign of legitimacy in medical profession, since Galen considered rational medicine as a declined form of the perfect medical art of Hippocrates, who received medical training in the “Asclepeion” on Kos and was considered the descendant of Asclepius. However, unlike the Christian conception of the omnipotent God, according to Galen Asclepius is not omnipotent, he helps only in choosing the best way of healing from different possible things and is unable to transgress the laws of nature producing miracles. Thus, in his writings, Galen did not oppose the rational medical practice to the practice of temple healing, but tried to reconcile the rational and the sacred, medicine and religion.

Pan-astronomical Hermeneutics and the Arts of the Lamentation Priest

Abstract: The “Esoteric Babylonian Commentary” (abbr. EBC) represents an excerpt from a larger commentary tablet LBAT 1601, which was unusual in its wide scope encompassing teratology, medical diagnosis, physiognomy, cuneiform sign exercises, and magical incantations and rituals, and which reinterpreted these diverse fields of knowledge in terms of astronomical phenomena. The topics selectively excerpted into EBC by a lamentation priest suggest a compartmentalization of textual expertise, consistent with professional purviews in the late 1st millennium BCE.

DENTISTS AND DENTISTRY IN ANCIENT EGYPT

This article addresses the questions of whether a dental profession existed in ancient Egyptian times, and, if so, whether they were operative dental surgeons or mere dental pharmacists? This article will confirm the first theorem, although, as in modern times, the Egyptian dentist may well have been both a dispensing practitioner, as well as an operative surgeon. Evidence from archaeological research, principally from the medical papyri, hieroglyphic inscriptions found in tombs, stelae, and physical examination reports of dental conditions in mummies and from dry skeletons are taken into account. The medical papyri's dental entries will demonstrate that dentists were mainly focussed on diagnoses and that the science was mostly pharmacopoeial in nature, providing pharmacotherapy and magical incantations. Information on operative treatment is limited and limited to the Edwin Smith papyrus. Lastly, physical evidence of prosthetic and surgical dentistry is presented as further evidence.

The Relevance of Defixiones Iudiciariae for Early Greek Rhetoric (and Vice Versa)

More than a century after the publication of the two main corpora of curse tablets by Richard Wunsch and Auguste Audollent,1 defixiones are now a relatively well-established field of study. New collections, finding lists, and monographs have appeared over the last twenty-five years.2 Still, the relation to the Near Eastern sources, although noticed from the very beginning,3 has never been explored in full. Nor have there been many attempts to use the text on the tablets for investigations that go beyond archaeology, epigraphy, or magic. In this note I would like to emphasise the dependence of Greek and Latin defixiones on older, oriental models, but at the same time show that the curses share some interesting features with the comparatively ‘new’ τέχνη of rhetoric, thus arguing for an interpretation of the magical incantations in the light of rhetorical theory - just as the early history of rhetoric cannot be separated completely from irrational practices and beliefs.

Nomadic, ecstatic, magic: Arctic primitivism in Scandinavia around 1900

ABSTRACTThe aim of this article is to delineate the term “Arctic primitivism” in an aesthetic context and, by means of three examples from Scandinavian artists whose works were also the subject of ethnological discussions, to give an illuminating impression of Scandinavian Arctic primitivism around 1900. First some conceptual considerations about the combination of Arctic and primitivistic discourse will be presented. Then three examples for the “primal conditions” of an aesthetic conception of Arctic primitivism will be discussed: the nomadic, the ecstatic, and the magical. They serve as counter principles to modern categories such as spatial fixedness, linear chronology, and rational thought. Emilie Demant Hatt’s visual art stands for the nomadic principle; the Swedish cartoonist Ossian Elgström deals with ecstatic states; and the poems of Danish “eskimologist” William Thalbitzer show his fascination with indigenous magical incantations as an alternative to rational thought. All examples illustrate the artists’ interest in an authentic and uncorrupted culture, which they reflect on with awareness of inauthenticity and second-hand acquisition. The effects of duplication, simultaneity, and secundarity arising from the three principles drive a reflective discourse on media through which awareness of the crisis of modernity is sublimated, revealed, or made the subject of artistic exploration.

Скиф-неофит начала ХХ века

One of the hypostases of Sergei Prokofiev’s early music was connected with a special artistic phenomenon, which entered the history of early 20th century culture, labeled as “Scythianism.” Such images received the maximal amount of concentration in the ballet “Ada and Lolliy,” which was subsequently revised into an orchestral composition with the subsequent title of “Scythian Suite.” The initial idea is expressed in the manifestation of the primordial human being, who rejected the conventionalities of civilization and who lives in the closest relationship with virgin nature. In conjunction with the enigmatic forces of the earth, an ancient ritual is carried out, which is a semimystical magical incantation. The pagan imagery received an unexpected interpretation in connection with the revolutionary events in Russia in 1917. The meaning of what takes place in the cantata “There are Seven of Them” may be conjectured as a grandiose ritual of furious subversion – this is how the composer attempted to convey the influx of great turmoil, a perception of an immense demolition of the world, the eruption of unfathomed forces. In the characteristic features brought forward many things become interlocked with what can be justifiably defined with such a term as the complex of aggressiveness. The complex of aggressiveness was also supplemented by the conjunction of musical grotesquerie in some of its manifestations (for instance, in the piano cycle “Sacrasmes”). Keywords: Sergei Prokofiev, artistic “Scythianism,” musical grotesquerie, the piano cycle “Sarcasmes,” “Scythian Suite,” cantata “There are Seven of Them.”

SENI PANTUN GIRIWANGI KI AKIS

The results of the research showed that the art of Pantun Giriwangi Ki Akis is an art  form which is closed related to the ritual ceremonies held regularly by the community  of Baros village in the Arjasari district of Bandung.  In performance, the structure of this art form includes the preparation of offerings, the reading of a prayer, the recitation of a kind of magical spell or incantation, and other elements known as pangambatan,  bangbalikan, and mangkat lakon, or the presentation of the story.  The function of this kind of performance is as a rice ceremony (known as netepken Ibu), an expression of  thanks, or an exorcism ritual.  The symbolic meaning contained in the performance reflects the way of life, traditions, and cus- toms of the local community.  This research  aims to explain the form, function, and symbolic meaning of Pantun Giriwangi Ki  Akis,  contained in the story of Mundinglaya Dikusumah.  An analytical descriptive method was used for the study. This method is a procedure used to solve a problem by describing the object of the research based on the data collected, and then carrying out an accurate analysis of the data.The data for the research was collected using a  bibliographical study, including a study of various literature and audio-visual  recordings.  The main activity of the study was to watch a recording of a performance and then attempt to identify which were the important parts of the performance to be  studied and analysed in more depth.  Additional data was collected through interviews  and documentation.  The art of Pantun Giriwangi Ki Akis is closely related to the ritual ceremonies held regularly by the community of Baros village in the Arjasari dis- trict of Bandung.  This is of great importance since the community believes that by performing  Pantun as a part of these ritual ceremonies, their lives will become better.  The art of Pantun Giriwangi Ki Akis contains a number of symbolic mean- ings which set a good  example to follow and can be used as a foundation on which people can base their  lives. Keywords: Pantun Giriwangi Ki Akis, form, function, symbolic meaning