Magical Abilities Research Articles

Concept of Rejuvenation in Greek Mythology and Modern Plastic Surgery.

The aim of this study is to capture the enduring fascination with youth and transformation. These themes, epitomized by the myth of Medea, resonate in the context of modern plastic surgery and cosmetic enhancements. Book 7 of Metamorphosis was read and analyzed. Medea is a sorceress and daughter of King Aeëtes. Her magical abilities are highlighted in 2 notable stories: (1) her rejuvenation of Aeson and (2) her attempt to rejuvenate herself. Aeson, the father of Jason, had grown old and frail. Medea, eager to assist Jason's father, employed her magical abilities to restore Aeson's youth. Medea concocted a powerful potion that required a variety of rare ingredients and intricate rituals. This process involved herbs, incantations, and a cauldron for boiling the mixture. To prove her magical prowess to the onlookers, Medea performed a demonstration using an old ram. She dismembered the ram, boiled the pieces in her cauldron with her magical brew, and from the pot emerged a young lamb. Encouraged by this success, she then applied the same magical process to Aeson, rejuvenating him and restoring his vigor. Medea, having endured considerable personal loss and turmoil, resolved to use her magical abilities to restore her youth. She collected the required ingredients, conducted the rituals, and either drank the potion or bathed in it, which rejuvenated her. This act demonstrates her determination to transcend the constraints of mortality. These stories speak to the timeless human quest for youth and immortality while also exploring the themes of power, knowledge, and ethical boundaries.

An integrative, systemic day-clinic approach for the treatment of psychiatric disorders in young adults: a detailed study of two cases

IntroductionMore than 75% of the psychiatric disorders arise before the age of 30. Adolescence and young adulthood pose numerous developmental challenges like identity development, educational and occupational concerns, gaining autonomy and boundary-setting skills. The adolescent crises, which can involve a broad spectrum of psychiatric symptoms, demands a multidisciplinary approach to diagnosis and treatment.ObjectivesOur goal is to present a best practice example of an interdisciplinary day clinic through two case presentations, aiming improving innovative strategies for assessment/treatment of psychiatric disorders in young adulthood.MethodsVia two comprehensive case presentations, we will introduce a psychotherapeutic day-clinic concept from a psychiatric training hospital in Germany.ResultsThe day clinic’s interdisciplinary team uses therapeutic approaches like dynamic, cognitive-behavioral, and systemic therapy to understand young adults beyond just their symptoms. Milieu-therapeutic methods, family constellations, socio-therapeutic approaches and non-verbal therapies are incorporated into our concept. Case 1: A 20-year-old male patient, previously diagnosed with schizophrenia, was referred due to symptoms of living in an unreal world with perceived magical abilities and family conflicts. In the evaluation the features of high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were more prominent than the psychotic symptoms. Developmental history and diagnostic tools yielded the diagnosis of ASD. Magical abilities in an unreal world appears to align more closely with repetitive/restrictive patterns of behavior, hereby we excluded in the follow-up the diagnosis of schizophrenia. Psychoeducation, social-skills-training and family interventions helped him to comprehend his strengths and discover a clearer direction in his life.Case 2: Another 20-year-old male patient was referred with depressive symptoms, a sense of emptiness and self-mutilation. Following routine evaluation, we employed systemic methods (genogram constellations) to gain deeper insight into the patient’s psychopathology. His mother’s migration history from Thailand, coupled with unfulfilled aspirations, echoed in his recurring thought: “Where are my roots?” During follow-up, we recognized his passive stance toward therapeutic change, addressed through a systemic intervention known as ‘taking the side of non-change.’ This shifted his position from resistance to openness. Non-verbal approaches, family interventions, and corrective in-vivo experiences significantly contributed to his stabilization.ConclusionsSpecialized psychiatric centers tailored to the unique needs of young adults play a critical role in evaluating, diagnosing, and treating psychiatric crises during this developmental stage. Achieving this requires the implementation of interdisciplinary holistic therapeutic approaches.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared

Любовь, богатство, власть и греховность в «текстах желаний»: особенности бурятских заговоров

This article delves into the examination of “wish texts,” specifically Buryat conspiracies centered around the topics of love, wealth, and power. One of the earliest forms of oral poetry, conspiracies hold great significance within the traditional ritual folklore of the Buryats and were widely utilized in their magical practices. There are special Buryat conspiracies aiming to possess magical abilities, achieve material advantage, or possess a beloved person. These conspiracies are of particular interest since they reflect the ideas of the Buryats about sin, the traditional values of Buryat society. The sinful nature of conspiracies was not so much determined by their goals but rather by the methods employed to achieve them. The depiction of sinfulness is particularly evident in the text of the love plot origins, which explicitly portrays the fundamental spiritual values of the Buryats that the petitioner is willing to forsake in pursuit of their desires. The analysis indicates the existence of a unique category of social conspiracies within the Buryat, Yakut, and Tuvinian texts, primarily involving male individuals as perpetrators. The majority of these individuals were considered outsiders, who, for unclear reasons, were willing to defy societal norms and regulations, including both the impoverished and solitary individuals, as well as the wealthy and those who had fallen out of favor with authorities.

МІФОЛОГІЧНИЙ ПІДТЕКСТ РОМАНУ В. ШКЛЯРА «ХАРАКТЕРНИК» У РУСЛІ ІДЕЙ ІВАНА ОГІЄНКА

The article focuses on the close connection between the content of a literary work and the mythological worldview of the people. For many contemporary artistic exam-ples, traditional mythology plays a defi ning role in terms of their plot, thematic, and stylistic parameters.The current state of literary studies indicates a particular interest in the mytho-logical element of a literary work. Ukrainian culture, in general, and literature, in particular, are currently returning to the traditional foundations of the national world-view, which was largely built on the belief in the connection between humans and higher forces of nature.Analyzing a literary text in connection with national mythology is a path to discover-ing the deep roots of artistic creativity that exist in the consciousness or subconsciousness of the author as a carrier of the national tradition. The author acts as a mediator between the past, present, and future, capable of conveying important messages to contemporary individuals for harmonious living in harmony with themselves and the universe.In V. Shklyar’s novel «Kharkiv Character», the mystical, based on the principles of Ukrainian mythology, plays a signifi cant role. Relying on mythological legends and tales about Cossacks-charakterniks, the author off ers his own interpretation of the images of Ivan Sirko and his associates, who use magical abilities to fi ght the enemy.The Sich Cossacks in the work emerge as personalities closely linked to their native land, traditional culture, and the ethical norms of their ancestors. Their magi-cal abilities are intended to contribute to establishing laws of harmony and justice on Ukrainian soil.The presence of a female character in the novel about the Sich Cossacks not only brightens its lyrical narrative plane but also contributes to the affi rmation of the idea of the continuous transmission of magical knowledge to subsequent generations of Ukrainians

The Power of Chaos

The Power of Chaos

Сюжетосложение «Песни о женитьбе Узенг Алдар-хана» из эпического репертуара ойратского сказителя Джавин Джуны

Introduction. Despite quite a number of issues relating the Xinjiang Oirat version of the Jangar have been sufficiently dealt with in domestic and foreign folklore research papers, those of plot structure inherent to epic narratives within the Oirat tradition still remain somewhat understudied. Goals. The article attempts an insight into the plot structure of the Song of Khan Uzeng Aldar’s Marriage recorded from the Oirat jangarchi Javin Juna — a representative of the Hoboksar taletelling tradition. The work seeks to examine the plot and identify some key plot and compositional features of the narrative, compares the latter to the Kalmyk version of the Jangar for further analysis of traced similarities and differences. Materials. The study investigates corresponding publications in Oirat (Clear Script), Mongolian, and Kalmyk. Results. Being a consistent development of such important stages of Jangar’s epic biography as miraculous birth, earliest feat, marriage and heroic deeds, the genealogical cyclization prompted the epic’s creators to show interest in the main character’s destiny at large and present a complete picture of epic events to the audience. This may have resulted in that they finally created a narrative describing certain events prior to Jangar’s birth, his birth proper, and subsequent orphanhood. If compared to the Kalmyk version, the Xinjiang Oirat tradition is dominated by elements of fabulous mythological fiction: dwelling of a beautiful dakini, horse as a magic assistant, the bride’s magical abilities and wishing box. The plot of heroic matchmaking is structured as a sequential narrative where each episode, element and motif are inextricably linked and together serve to reveal the theme. Our insight into the theme of heroic matchmaking in the Xinjiang Oirat and Kalmyk versions of the Jangar epic reveals common elements in plot structures, namely: the hero’s departure on a long journey in search of bride, passage of obstacles en route, descriptions of the bride’s home, trials underwent by the groom, victory, wedding feast, and return to homeland. However, despite the plot structures are common enough and essentially sketchy, the theme of heroic matchmaking is distinguished by some specific characteristics inherent to the Oirat and Kalmyk ethnic versions and taletelling traditions, respectively.

Песенные вставки в сказочном фольклоре лесных юкагиров

This paper analyzes the song inclusions in the tales of Forest Yukaghirs, the content of such pieces, their purposes, and origin. Song segments are found in animal tales, including mythological ones, fairy tales about a Fabulous Old Man-eater, and everyday fairy tales. The song inclusions mostly convey the monological speech of the characters and include lexical repetitions. The song inclusions considered are mainly the magical appeal of one hero to another, a personal story, or a real personal situation. Some of them can be characterized as personal songs. Characters endowed with supernatural powers use the song as a magical ritual. These characters include heroes with shamanic powers and the ogre giant, the Fabulous Old Man. The magical potential of the song, aimed at summoning and embodying something, can also be evoked by ordinary people, even unintentionally. Songs-appeals of some characters to others are performed in magical situations, facilitating their manifestation. The fairy tales provide indirect indications of the shamanic power of the singing characters. Alternatively, the songs addressed to other persons can be performed by ordinary characters, usually represented by animals. Songs as personal narratives or real personal situations can be found mainly in the tales about animals. The song inclusions are based on the representations of shamanic activity, magical abilities, and the song type of storytelling, as evidenced by the existence of both non-fairy and fairy tale Yukaghir prose.

Goals, motives and collisions of women's running practices in the light of gender approach

According to the ideas dominating in scientific discourse, female stayers of the twentieth century had to overcome gender stereotypes for a long time and in a tense struggle, according to which long running deprives them of "femininity" and threatens reproductive function. The article shows that the reasons for the long negative attitude of society towards physical culture and sports women's running are much more diverse and historically deepened, they go far beyond the sphere of training and competitive activity and "pure" physiology, having a socio-culturally determined ideological basis. The objectives of the article: to determine the types of women's running practices; to analyze the goals and motives of the running activities of their participants; to identify the causes of social conflicts generated by these practices and ways to overcome them. The main types of women's running practices are ritual competitive and out-of-competition running, festive competitive running, wellness and sports running. Running was used by women to achieve the following goals: marriage, material reward, pleasing the gods, transition to a new social group, magical influence, emancipation, physical development and setting records. The motives of running practices were gaining patronage, ensuring the well-being of the community, confirming their gender and age fullness, acquiring magical abilities, overcoming the scarcity of life, health care, self-realization, achieving equality with men in competitive activities and opportunities provided by society to outstanding athletes. The collisions of women's running practices are mainly associated with the mythological, religious and philosophical misogyny of traditional societies and gender stereotypes of modern times, according to which prolonged running locomotion does not correspond to the gender expecta-tions of society, the norms of decency and causes irreparable harm to women's health. Largely due to the selfless struggle of runners for equality in realizing their athletic potential, women's identity today is associated not only with femininity, and at the last Olympics in Tokyo, gender parity of participants was achieved for the first time.

Clinging to a Jewish Saint in a Time of Growing Turmoil: Appropriating the Figure of Rabbi Judah the Pious in Late Fifteenth-Century Jewish Folktales from Regensburg

Abstract Among a unique collection of stories in Hebrew manuscript copied in the sixteenth century and found at the National Library of Israel (NLI) are twenty-seven hagiographic tales about the prominent Jewish pietist of Medieval Germany, Rabbi Judah the Pious (d. 1217) and his father Rabbi Shmuel ben Kalonymus. Scholars have suggested that the entire original collection dates back to ca. 1300 and echoes the lives, concerns, and ideals of thirteenth-century Ashkenazi Jews. However, some of the hagiographic tales found in the collection seem to have been written later, appropriating the figure of the mystical Rabbi Judah and using it in stories from the fifteenth century that were set in his city, Regensburg. Told by the Jews of this city, the tales of Rabbi Judah and his magical abilities seem to have fulfilled the needs and concerns of the community in the turbulent late fifteenth century. The paper analyzes three of these stories, demonstrating how they correspond with the realities of this time and suggesting the possible roles the tales of Rabbi Judah and his miracles played for Regensburg Jewry as they contended with the hardships of daily life and the shadow of expulsion that loomed large over the community in this period.

Power Relations Urang Pandai and Candidate on Regional Head Election in West Sumatra, Indonesia

The transformation in the election of regional heads from indirect to direct since 2005 brought many changes to the dynamics of local politics in Indonesia. One of these changes is the opening up of opportunities for community members as candidates for regional heads and the strengthening of power relations between candidates and urang pandai. A clearer understanding of the position of urang pandai in West Sumatra will help stakeholders in the election to map out the forces that will support a higher-quality election. This research uses the historical method. There are four stages in the historical method, namely; heuristics, source criticism, interpretation, and historiography. The results of this study reveal two typologies of urang pandai in Minangkabau culture involved in the election of regional heads, namely the sufi healer, and orang berakuan. Direct regional head election regulations lead to intense competition between candidates. The amount of material sacrifice and strong pressure to win encourages candidates to find someone who has magical abilities and is placed as a spiritual mentor and political advisor. Wirid, tahlilan (reading prayers), pilgrimage to the grave, giving prayers, terawangan (divination) and the use jimat (amulets) are the practice of power relations between people and candidates.

Learning, Neurogenesis and Effects of Flavonoids on Learning.

Learning and memory are two of our mind's most magical abilities. Different brain regions have roles to process and store different types of memories. The hippocampus is the part of the brain responsible for receiving information and storing it in the neocortex. One of the most impressive characteristics of the hippocampus is its capacity for neurogenesis which is a process, new neurons are produced and then transformed into mature neurons and integrated into neural circuits. The neurogenesis process in the hippocampus, an example of neuroplasticity in the adult brain, is believed to aid hippocampal-dependent learning and memory. New neurons are constantly produced in the hippocampus and integrated into the pre-existing neuronal network, this allows old memories already stored in the neocortex to be removed from the hippocampus and replaced with new ones. Factors affecting neurogenesis in the hippocampus may also affect hippocampal-dependent learning and memory. The flavonoids can exert particularly powerful actions in mammalian cognition and improve hippocampaldependent learning and memory by positively affecting hippocampal neurogenesis.

Сказочная фантастика в русской рукописной беллетристике конца XVII - первой трети XVIII века

The paper analyzes the changes in interpreting magic, fairytale fiction that occurred in translated and original stories of the late 17th - first third of the 18th centuries. A number of fiction works of this period show representations of magic closely linked to the Christian worldview, with some works appearing referring to magic and sorcery as a non-judgmental category. The first Russian translations of fairy tales by M.-C. d’Aulnoy’s made in the Petrine era contributed to the appearance of pure genre fiction free from judgment. These were “The Tale of Florine” (1700 - late 1710s, “L’oiseau bleu”) and “The History of Prince Adolf” (1720-1730s, L’Ile de la Félicité). A fairy was an entirely unfamiliar character to the Russian reader. In The Tale of Florine, the word “fée” was translated by “ega baba” (“yaga baba”) commonly used to refer to women with demonic forces. Magical abilities were designated by “vorozhenie” (divination) and “yagina mudrost’” (yaga’s wisdom). In the manuscripts of The History of Prince Adolf, fairies appear as “goddesses” and “gods”, and magical abilities - “l’esprit de féerie” - as “divine spirit”. When describing magical actions, Russian translators of French fairy tales use everyday vocabulary related to the sphere of folk magical beliefs or associated with the Russian folklore and book tradition. In the period under study, we observe the formation of the genre category of fairy-tale magic and a gradual replacement of the category of “miracle” by a genre-conditioned understanding of magic.

Фольклор белорусско-русского пограничья о магических специалистах (по материалам фольклорно-этнографических экспедиций 2010-х гг.)

The study is based on the material of folklore and ethnographic expeditions of 2013–2018 to the Smolensk and Bryansk regions of Russia and the Mogilev and Vitebsk regions of Belarus, in terms of the international project “Belarusian-Russian ethnocultural interaction in a transboundary perspective”. The author considered a complex of folklore texts (mythological stories, prohibitions, prescriptions) and practices associated with various characters, positioned as magic specialists — sorcerers, folk healers, fortune-tellers. The paper presents local nominations of magic specialists, the actions they perform, the principles of folk classification of such characters, highlights the key motifs of narratives about them and the social functions of spreading such stories. The author introduces similar materials from other regions — both geographically close (Polessye) and geographically more remote (Russian North, Siberia) — to identify the local (actually borderline) specifics. An analysis of the expeditionary data shows that the principles of separating harmful and helping magical specialists are situationally determined: one should not talk about the existence of two clearly defined classes of characters in the folklore tradition of the borderline, but rather about perceptions according to which there are people endowed with magical abilities, capable — depending, for example, from personal likes and dislikes — both harm and help. The data of modern expeditions to the Belarusian-Russian borderland demonstrate the stability of traditional folklore motifs in stories about magical specialists and their performance has significant functions of social regulation in small communities.

VASILY BUSLAEV’S BATTLE WITH THE ELDER: ATTEMPT AT INTERPRETATION OF THE EPIC MOTIF

The article analyzes the battle of Vasily Buslaev with the elder, presented in the epic “Vasily Buslaev and the Novgorodians,” which has already been discussed in domestic folklore studies. Contrary to the opinion of preceding researchers, who claimed that the elder personified Novgorod or the Christian church, while the battle reflected the struggle of the old system with the new, the author presents his vision of both the image of the elder and the essence of his battle with Vasily Buslaev. They are analyzed in the context of the mythology and practice of the fist-fighting organizations associated, in turn, with youth initiation rites. An analysis of the material, verbal and action codes showed that the elder appears in the epic as a “tainted” otherworldly character associated with the waters of the Volkhov and witchcraft. The attributes of the elder and the methods of his slaying also indicate the possibility of his correlation with the ancestor and the image of Perun. The methods of Vasily’s execution of the elder are clearly analogous to the ancient rituals of sending the ancestors’ souls off to the next world, widespread among the Eastern Slavs. They were associated with the idea of the ancestors’ souls coming to earth at certain points in the calendar year, and the need to send them back to the other world, by launching them on the water, among other ways. In full accordance with the structure and meaning of youth initiations, the battle and the death of the elder may be interpreted as a transfer of magical abilities, strength and a new share to Vasily, who was being initiated. This scheme is fully consistent with the mythology of ancient youth initiations, in which male ancestors (spirits) took an obligatory part.

Uncaptured

Enslavement and freedom are sometimes waves in the very same ocean. Titi, Ma, and NaNa are "swimmers" whose powers go beyond the conEnes of the world designed to control them. They create freedom for themselves by way of their magical abilities: ebbing and Gowing like the river stream.

Katilayu (Lepisanthes rubiginosa (Roxb.) Leenh.) Population In Mt. Baung Nature Tourism Park

Katilayu (Lepisanthes rubiginosa) is one of the native plants of Indonesia that has not been much studied for the information on its existence and its potential utilization. This species has the risk of decreasing its population in nature due to several things, including the assumption of some people that this plant produces “fossil latex” which has magical abilities that increase the potential for exploitation; the other potential benefits and uses are not well known, so their cultivation is neglected; and the decreasing extent of forests in Indonesia. Research at Mt. Baung Nature Tourism Park (NTP), Pasuruan, East Java was carried out to determine the population of katilayu in the conservation area, to be precise by analyzing the vegetation and data collection on the number of individuals in the conservation area of Mt. Baung NTP. Observation of the physical environment where it grew was also done to find out the picture of the condition of the environment in which it grows. From this study it was known that the condition of the population in Mt. Baung was still quite good with the composition of individual densities at each growth stratum still showing a normal graph, that was inverted J-shaped form. Its presence was relatively scattered throughout the study site.

Maria Rodríguez-Oroz: leading the research to prevent cognitive decline in Parkinson's disease

As a little girl, Maria Rodríguez-Oroz was captivated by the apparent magical abilities of the paediatrician she was taken to whenever she was ill. “He always knew how to make me feel better”, Rodríguez-Oroz tells The Lancet Neurology. “Ever since then, I wanted to be a doctor too.” Luckily, she fulfilled that aspiration, and is now head of neurology and neurosciences at the University Clinic of Navarra and professor of neurology at CIMA Universidad de Navarra, in Pamplona, Spain.

Psyholinguistic image of Elsa (in the film Frozen)

The article considers the peculiarities of creating a psycholinguistic image of a film character belonging to “the Mystic” psychological archetype. The work contributes to the study of a comprehensive system of psycholinguistic images of the mass culture English-language films in XXI century. The paper regards the fantasy film by C. Buck and J. Lee “Frozen” (2013). Dialogic speech of the characters is a universal means to reveal the psychological type of a character. According to the classification of psychological archetypes by V. Schmidt (2007), the queen Elsa belongs to “the Mystic” archetype, with the following distinguishing features. She feels a connection with something supernatural, with something greater than herself. The feature is revealed by metaphors and lexico-semantic groups POWER and STORM to depict Elsa’s magical abilities to create snow and ice. She finds solace in loneliness, which is demonstrated by the lexico-semantic group ISOLATION. She is able to resist when her opinion is manipulated, which we see in the confrontational style of communication with the antagonist Prince Hans. Neither the idea of marriage nor material possessions interest her. Elsa’s family is her sister Anna, which is depicted by frequent appellatives “Anna”, pronouns of the second person singular to define Anna and the lexico-semantic group CARE. She tries to keep the peace in the relationship at any cost, thus frequenting the token “please” and requesting speech acts in her speech and using the verbal tactics to avoid conflict. She tries to overcome her fears but sometimes she fails, which is disclosed by exclamatory sentences in combination with the tokens of the group ANXIETY to express fear, sorrow and anxiety. Frequent use of the first-person singular pronoun demonstrates her concentration on herself, her feelings and emotions. She needs a place to escape from reality, which is depicted by metaphors and tokens of the group ESCAPE. She is rarely in a hurry, thus her shorter than Anna’s sentences and lower speech rate. Others see her as either weird or dangerous, bringing Elsa to hide her abilities, which is displayed by the lexico-semantic group CONCEAL.

Функции змеи в обрядовом фольклоре монгольских народов

Introduction. In mythologies of the world, the image of the snake ranks among the most studied characters and has various interpretations. In folklore of Turko-Mongols, it has also been a subject of multiple analyses. Still, the article makes a first attempt at revealing the image of the snake as a taboo sacred character in ritual folklore of the Mongolic peoples. Goals. The paper primarily seeks to identify functions of the snake therein, delineate the symbolic framework, reveal positive and negative connotations. Materials and Methods. The main research method employed is that of comparative analysis instrumental in examining the image of the snake as a semiotic sign. Interdisciplinary analysis of ethnographic and folklore materials, as well as comparisons to Turkic ritual actions, expand the boundaries of identifying the semantics of the image. Results. The snake in shamanic mythology of the Mongolic peoples appears in the hypostasis of the otherworldly Spirit closely associated with the shaman. Images of snakes in cave drawings, petroglyphs, shamanic ongons (sanctuaries), and costumes emphasize their sacred function. In shamanic practice, a snake image can be used as a protective element in the form of a walking-stick or whip. Symbolically, a snake in the form of straps implies a connotation of the animal’s magical abilities. The role of a mediator between worlds allows the snake simultaneously performing the function of a protective force. Functions of the snake in rites are interchangeable and complement each other. Shamanic texts of the Mongolic peoples consistently mention the main function of the snake is that of a carrier between worlds, which is closely related to its transforming abilities. Conclusions. The study resumes the snake in shamanic ritual actions of the Mongolic peoples — with positive connotations — functions as an assistant, intermediary, carrier, and envoy from another world that provides communication between realms. It also reveals patterns of transcoding the snake image in different semiotic systems, interconnectedness and interchangeability of sacral reptile functions.

THE CONCEPT “NOSE AND KNEE” AS A SYMBOL OF MAGICAL ABILITIES OF MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN IN SALMAN RUSHDIE’S NOVEL “MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN”

The article is devoted to the research of the concept “Nose and Knee” on the basis of Salman Rushdie’s novel “Midnight’s children”from the perspective of cognitive linguistics and literary studies. In the article the concept “Nose and Knee” is described as a symbol of magical abilities of midnight’s children, it has a close relationship to the characters of the novel.“Nose and Knee” just like “Saleem and Shiva”represents the sign of creation and destruction, victim and victor, union and negation, faith and humility – are inextricably related in the novel.The huge conflict between Saleem and Shiva reflects the ancient, mythological battle between the creative and destructive forces in the world. The hostility and anxiety between the two begin at the moment of their simultaneous births.