Magical Charms Research Articles

Threefold Stories, Threefold Charm: Becquer's Poetic Ethnography of Witchcraft

Some striking examples of magic charms are to be found in three of the tales included by the Spanish writer G. A. Bécquer in his Cartas desde mi celda (Letters from my cell, 1864). Taking a supposed real-life contemporary event as his starting-point – the brutal death at the hands of the villagers of Trasmoz (Aragon) of an old woman accused of witchcraft – he weaves three separate but interconnected stories. Straddling the fields of literature and anthropology, history and fable, the poet is revealed as an astute ethnographer as he examines the basis of the powers attributed to witches in two medieval legends. The central character in the first, which unfolds in Islamic Spain, is a necromancer who obtains the power he longs for by studying books of magic. The second, set in the period after the Christian Reconquest, tells the story of a pretty young woman, a “Cinderella in reverse”, who gets the husband of her dreams thanks to the help not of a fairy godmother but of a cunning sorceress. The spells at the heart of these tales represent three classic reasons for invoking magic: to protect oneself from enemies, to gain power and wealth, and to win love, or at least to subjugate another’s will. The mutual influence of historical charms, which we know about primarily through judicial documents, and literary spells is further proof of the permeability between popular and learned culture. Bécquer, an ardent admirer of Shakespeare, was greatly influenced by Macbeth, and for both poets, despite the enormous power of words, witchcraft was first and foremost, “a deed without a name”.

Indigenous Medicinal Plants Used by the Maring Tribe of Manipur, Northeast India

The paper is an attempt to survey and understand the various ethnobotanical plants used by the Maring tribe of Manipur as medicines in the treatment of various ailments and diseases. The reason being no study have ever been made in this area on them. In the present study more than 39 indigenous medicinal plants are used by the Maring in the treatment of about 34 ailments and diseases. They uses both single plant and compound plants in the treatment. Besides, they used certain insects, animal’s part, thunderbolt stone and even magical charms in certain cases in healing and curing certain ailments. The significant of the study is that certain plants are believed to have multi-chemical properties in healing and curing as it differs from other neighbouring communities. Common diseases are like diarrhoea, malaria, piles, fever, snake bite, tiger bite, and mumps. Leaves and fruits are most widely used. Some of them still depends on such indigenous medicine rather than pharmaceutical medicines.

Rephaim, Whisperers, and the Dead in Isaiah 26:13–19: A Ugaritic Parallel

The main aim of this study is to reexamine the meaning of Isa 26:13–19 with particular attention to the identity of the Rephaim in v. 14, the sense of lḥs in v. 16, and the twofold understanding of the mētim (“the dead”) in vv. 14 and 19. In doing so, one must also consider the importance of the Ugaritic Rapaʾūma and their role in the textual materials of Ugarit as a possible background for Isa 26. I argue that the text of Isaiah pronounces judgment on those who clamor after the trappings of the Rephaim by denying their purported powers. The text, then, attempts to condemn a more popularized variety of Yahwism, one that is open to the powers of the dead and the resort to magical charms. This appeal culminates in the expressed hope of resurrection in v. 19.

Preliminary Phytochemical Tests and Antioxidant Potential of Catharanthus Roseus Extracts

Periwinkle (nayantara) is the common name for a pair of perennial flowering shrubs belonging to the Apocynaceae family. The herb has been used for centuries to treat a variety of ailments and was a favourite ingredient of magical charms it was in the middle ages. The latin name for this herb is Catharanthusroseus, but it was classified as Vincarosea, and is still called by that name in some of the herbal literature. The present study explores the various phytochemicals present in the plant so as to substantiate its antioxidant property and also shows the several phytoconstituents that contribute to its various medicinal properties. Preliminary phytochemical screening of the crude extracts revealed the presence of alkaloids,flavanoids, tannins, saponins and phenolics. During DPPH assay of methanol extract of aerial part of Catharanthusroseusshows highest antioxidant activity of 92.04% in 200(μg/ml). The results confirm that aerial part of Catharanthusroseuscan be used as source of drugs to fight infections caused by susceptible bacteria.

Escaping Sugamo Prison with a no. 2 pencil: the drawings of Japanese war criminal Tobita Tokio

Tobita Tokio spent 10 years as war crimes suspect and convicted war criminal in Sugamo Prison, a facility recommissioned by American occupiers in 1945 as one element of a larger programme designed to refashion Japan into a more peaceful and cooperative member of the community of nations. From 1945 to 1955, Tobita produced hundreds of drawings depicting life in Sugamo Prison and gave most of them to American jailors and fellow Japanese inmates. As ephemera and souvenirs, some of the drawings were short-lived. But many were carefully preserved. The drawings constitute a visual diary of prison life. But they were more than that. They played an important role in defusing post-war animosity between American and Japanese soldiers. At times, Tobita used them as a personal form of art therapy helping him deal with the psychological torments of prison life, especially when he was facing trial and sentencing. His drawings both highlighted and softened the caste and class tensions that challenged Japan during the war and post-war periods inside and outside the military and prison. As widely distributed original artworks within a relatively narrow social network, they constitute an excellent case study for agency-based theories of art production, distribution and consumption. They offer an opportunity to evaluate the overlap between art practices and wartime and post-war magical charm production in Japan. We argue there are structural similarities between Tobita’s drawings, the long tradition of ema votive offerings, and the wartime production and circulation of senninbari protective sashes, imon ningyo comfort dolls and signed Hinomaru flags.

Book as the point of the conflict of cultures: the mission of St. Adalbert in Prussia

The first Prussians’ encounter with Christianity ended in the martyrdom of the missionary St. Adalbert; it took place on the 23rd of April, 997. What provoked his martyrdom is far from clear to this day. According to some hypotheses, the Prussians were provoked by St. Adalbert’s unfamiliar pontifical vestments that he put on to celebrate Mass, or simply by his unacceptable appearance. The present paper draws attention to the beginning of the conflict with the Prussians. Its cause is St. Adalbert’s unusual behaviour – reading prayers from a book. This could have been perceived as a way of communicating with the supernatural world which threatened the community, as a magic charm. It is important to note the day when St. Adalbert was martyred. According to the Christian calendar this is St. George’s day. In many countries of Central and Eastern Europe this is the day when working the fields symbolically begins. Later sources attest that the pagan Prussian festival of the rebirth of nature, the celebration of spring which was supposed to guarantee future harvest, coincided with this day. Christian missionary with his rituals, externally based on the reading of liturgical books, may have created a perception that his activities would harm future fertility of the earth and animals.

The Shaving of the Prophet's Hair (Nabi Aparas): The Philology of Lombok Texts

The Islamic textual history from the islandof Lombokin Indonesiahas so far been little explored. This is a pity as this history may provide important information about the way Islam has been perceived by the Sasak people, and the possible role the textual tradition has played in local and supralocal perspectives on the two varieties of Islam, waktu telu and waktu lima, on the island. Other aspects of the manuscript-based textual tradition of the Sasak have also only received scant attention. The reason for this is that many manuscripts with an Islamic content (or any other content for that matter) wait to be edited and translated. Manuscript production in Lombok has been enormous and thousands and thousands of manuscripts have been produced. It is therefore a paradox that despite this wealth of manuscripts, philologists have virtually ignored this text tradition and only a few text editions have seen the light so far. The overwhelming textual variety encountered in manuscripts from Lombok and their sheer numbers make the application of many traditional philological methods and approaches hazardous, and methodological uncertainty is an undesired situation in scholarship. One of the problems in philology seems to be the absence of consensus on yardsticks and when and how to apply them. I think the variation in the manuscripts of the Nabi Aparas is significant, but for others it may be that the variation among the manuscripts is well within expected limits. Apparently, a difference in expectations is at work here, but precisely these individual and subjective expectations are difficult to standardize. Whatever the case, for me the textual tradition of the Sasak people is fluent, and I strongly doubt whether a tradition of painstakingly copying texts word for word ever existed or that ‘copying’ texts indeed meant to change them to the copyist own desires, or that, apparently, the variation that was the result of these copying efforts was acceptable. We should perhaps rethink the meaning of the words ‘copy’ and ‘copying’ in this context as no true ‘copies’ are really about. In my view, there is no tradition of copying manuscripts but a tradition of the transmission of texts without or with only a limited component of real copying. The present article aims to discuss some of the variety found in manuscripts from Sasak provenance fromLombok to prove this point.Below we are concerned with a comparison of three tiny palm leaf manuscripts (lontar) (dubbed A, B, and C) that all three of which contain the Javanese text Nabi Aparas, or the Shaving of the Prophet. The manuscripts are written in the so-called jejawen script, which is the local form of Javanese script as used in Lombok. The manuscripts are regarded as jimat or magical charms and are considered efficacious for the protection against the many dangers one encounters in life such as sickness, burglary, fire, flooding, devils and evil spirits, and the hazards of travel. The manuscripts are so small that they can be carried any place at all times (as indeed recommended in the texts), and extensive explanations of the protective qualities of the text are added before and after the story of the shaving proper. The question may be asked here whether these manuscripts were indeed intended to carry a text actually to be read or rather sung, or whether the text is there to fulfill the requirements of a written jimat. The manuscripts give no information whatsoever about the author, copyist, the date of writing, or from what part of Lombok they originate; as usual for manuscripts from the Lombok area, no detailed colophons are provided.DOI: 10.15408/sdi.v17i3.454

Metaphors and myths in pharmaceutical advertising

It should come as no surprise that the ancient Greek word for drug, pharmakon, meant remedy. But this same word also meant poison as well as magical charm. We speak of heart attacks and of a long road to recovery. These meanings and phrases are reflective of how society conceives of illness and medical therapies. Metaphors and myths of magic, sports and journey are prevalent in medical terminology and they permeate pharmaceutical advertising. This research investigates the conceptual metaphors that are present in advertisements for pharmaceuticals, both those directed to consumers as well as those directed to physicians, for a broad range of drugs and medical conditions. This research employed a content analysis of advertisements appearing in popular consumer magazines as well as in physician journals and an analysis of online consumer drug reviews. The research concludes with a discussion of the similarities and differences among the conceptual metaphors in consumer versus physician ads, across different medical conditions, and the impact of specific metaphors on consumers' understanding of illness and drug therapies.

The 2012 ISBER Annual Meeting & Exhibits.

The 2012 ISBER Annual Meeting & Exhibits.

Ivan the Terrible's Malady and Its Magical Cure

This paper discusses the testicular hydrocele which afflicted Tsar Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible), Ivan’s alleged belief in witchcraft and employment of witches, the history of the Russian word kila, from its Greek origin to its employment as a Russian folk term for ‘a swelling, hernia’, and magic charms to cure it. From the evidence of two independent English manuscript dictionaries of Russian in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the word kila in Old Russian texts of that period meant exclusively the swelling of the testicles caused by witchcraft. It is argued that Ivan would have known the word in that sense, believed that his condition was caused by witchcraft, and would have looked for a magical remedy. There are no recorded charms for this purpose dating from Ivan’s lifetime, but there are from the seventeenth century. In more modern occurrences of the word kila it seems mostly to have reverted to its previous non-specific sense of ‘swelling’ or ‘hernia’ – but Russian occult and medical websites show that the ‘hydrocele’ meaning survives as a folk term and that the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century association with witchcraft is also still well known.

Ethnic diversity or ethnic disintegration for the existence of a contemporary conflict

In many analysis of contemporary military conflicts, their ethnicity is emphasized. Ethnic dissimilarities are indicated as the main element which causes diversity leading to even very dramatic events. For some people dissimilarity is a possibility of marginalization, for others a possibility of arousing some values which nowadays are very often treated as secondary. Ethnicity has a changeable character resulting from the process of its settling. It cannot be seen according to the rights characteristic for former processes. To what extend does the category change in the contemporary world? Isn’t it used only in order to hide a lack of communication and reluctance to compromises? Isn’t ethnicity manipulated by polititians, very o! en temporarily understanding interest of people communities, who because of very low reasons oppose symbolism of ethnicity to arising processes of modernization? Or maybe ethnicity is another “magic charm” which we use so easily sitting in a “quiet” of a political stability. The process which can be easily placed in universalism and hardly in rationalism.

W. R. S. Ralston and the Russian Folktale

Without wishing to discourage my successor I have to say that one of my concerns as President of this Society at its Annual General Meeting has been to find, if at all possible, a topic for an addr...

Chinese Culture Examined through Linguistics and Research Based on Numerals

Language and culture are closely related to each other. One form of language and culture is symbolic codes. Culture is the language of the world. Within each household there is a history of mutual relationships between parent and child. Culture is not necessarily an expression of language and cannot easily be described. Other forms of cultural expression include dance, music, painting, sculpture and architecture. Language exists in the form of culture and is also a nation's accumulated wisdom. The language of people over long periods of time also contributes towards the aforementioned activities. In other words, culture is an important part of a nation. Language is the treasury of wisdom and the spiritual wealth of a nation. The ancient Chinese view numbers with great importance. Japanese baseball players place a lot of emphasis on their jersey numbers. For example, is the number worn by Nagashima, a baseball player. The No. 3 is considered a magic charm and supporters can feel the power of Nagashima by wearing this number on their clothes. Sadaharu Oh wears a jersey with the printed on the back and when baseball fans wear a similar jersey with No. 1 they say it reminds them of their hero. The numbers 1.3.5.7 are considered by the Japanese to be numbers used when offering condolences in the form of money, bags or even the packaging used to wrap money. The numbers 2.4.6.8 are the preferred numbers for the Chinese. These numbers represent the numbers used in gold ceremonial occasions. Every country has a different history and as a result different cultural traditions have developed.

<i>Vernacular Bodies: The Politics of Reproduction in Early Modern England</i> (review)

Reviewed by: Vernacular Bodies: The Politics of Reproduction in Early Modern England Sara H. Mendelson Vernacular Bodies: The Politics of Reproduction in Early Modern England. By Mary E. Fissell. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. 283. $45.00 (cloth). Professor Fissell’s fascinating new book is an enjoyable as well as instructive example of the advantages of applying a sophisticated interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of complex historical topics. Written with wit and panache, her study offers something for nearly everyone, including social and political historians, scholars of gender and women’s studies, and historians of science and medicine. While Fissell’s erudition and meticulous scholarship enable her to make contributions in a number of separate fields, her book is in the end far more than the sum of its parts. Vernacular Bodies explores three basic themes. First, the narrative outlines major trends in ordinary people’s understanding of the workings of women’s reproductive bodies as well as commonly accepted notions about the physical and psychological determinants of female health and disease. [End Page 522] Second, Fissell analyzes the politics of reproduction—including the creation and perpetuation of lay medical knowledge and of gendered social institutions and also the reproduction of human beings—on every level of the social and political hierarchy. Third, the book investigates the ways that these two seemingly independent variables interacted with each other to generate new models of the human reproductive process over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. With a continual focus on these general themes, Vernacular Bodies follows a chronological framework that allows Fissell to speculate on causal relations between medical theories about women’s bodies, the politics of the family, and the politics of the state. Four historical “moments” dominate the narrative: first, the sixteenth-century English Reformation, with its rejection of traditional female-centered rites of childbirth; second, the surge in negative images of the female sex, expressed in cheap popular print at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; third, the series of religio-political “gender troubles” that emerged throughout the English Civil War and Interregnum in the middle of the seventeenth century; and, finally, a “crisis in paternity” associated with the Restoration of monarchy after 1660. According to Fissell, each of these periods represents a different stage in the evolution of popular ideas about multiple connections between gender and sexuality, the reproductive process, and the social and political institutions that sustained the state as a stable entity. The first chapter, “Reforming the Body,” traces the effects on rituals of childbirth of Protestant theological reforms in sixteenth-century Britain. Catholic Europe had encouraged potential mothers to think of themselves as vital agents in the reproductive process, replicating in the pains and perils of labor the miracle of Christ’s birth from a mortal woman. In a venue defined as exclusively female, women in the throes of childbirth prayed to the Virgin Mary for an easy and successful labor while making use of magical charms, relics, and other cultic objects associated with the mother of Jesus. At least at the level of official church policy, all this changed radically with the English Reformation. Henrician reformers denounced “superstitions” linked to the rites of childbirth, commanding women to pray directly to Christ rather than resort to a female intermediary. The biblical Eve rather than the Virgin Mary was now the model for women in childbirth, and there was more emphasis on the Genesis doctrine that female labor pains were a well-deserved punishment for Eve’s active role in original sin. Yet theological mandates from above only gradually took hold among the female populace. Some contemporary religious works directed specifically at women, like Thomas Bentley’s Monument of Matrones (1582), show the extent to which beliefs and practices even among the educated elite were a mixture of the old and the new. Throughout the early modern period religious change was a process of “accommodation and appropriation,” as [End Page 523] Fissell points out (48). Instead of religious relics associated with the Virgin Mary, pregnant women made use of the “eagle-stone,” an object believed to have magical properties that was widely recommended for easing a difficult labor by sixteenth...

Latin Revived: Source‐Based Vocabulary Lessons Courtesy of Harry Potter

Teachers can build on students' familiarity with and respect for the Harry Potter books to create source‐based vocabulary lessons. The idea is to work with the Latin roots that J.K. Rowling uses to create original names for places, people, and magical charms and then to extend students' knowledge through exploration of additional English words based on the same roots.Besides being an efficient way to teach vocabulary words in a meaningful context, the approach helps students see that when new words are needed, they are often based on old, familiar words. It also trains students to look for metaphorical and other associations while developing confidence in their ability to make “intelligent guesses” about words they do not know. Various Latin roots are discussed, along with many words derived from them. Teachers can focus in a day's lesson on one root and several derivatives whose meanings will reinforce one another.

Sounds of healing: music in group work with survivors of sexual abuse

Throughout history music has been used as a tool to soothe the soul and boil the blood. Music is present at all of our rites of passage from baptism to wedding, through war and peace. The Bible tells the story of how David the shepherd calmed King Saul with the music of his harp. The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that music had a magical charm and power to aid the body and soul in healing (Watkins, 1992). Although music has been used therapeutically for thousands of years its use in therapeutic interventions, especially psychotherapy, is relatively new. Music therapists are specially trained to assist clients in their therapeutic goals through music yet their interventions have historically focused on populations such as the developmentally disabled or the elderly. The profession is beginning to expand its techniques to be applicable to wider populations including those experiencing psychological distress. However, those of us who work with our clients on issues of sexual trauma are aware that their financial resources are often limited and that trust issues are a significant deterrent to including more people in the treatment process. What follows here is an examination of the sequelae of sexual trauma, a discussion of the relevant findings in the psychological literature regarding the efficacy of musical interventions in psychotherapy with trauma survivors, an exploration of the research into the physiological effects of music, presentation of pertinent models of musical interventions in psychotherapy techniques which I have tailored for sexual abuse survivors, and examples from Music

Asia's maritime bead trade: 300 B.C. to the present

This fascinating study is the first detailed description of the ancient and enduring trade in beads that spans more than two millennia and once stretched from the Middle East to East Asia and affected areas as far apart as West Africa and the American Pacific coast. Beads are universal and among the earliest art forms. Made of glass, semiprecious stone, or precious organic materials such as amber and coral, they were ubiquitous in the ancient world, serving as decorations, magical charms, mnemonic and counting devices, symbols of wealth and status. Much of the ancient bead trade was incorporated in Asian maritime commerce, and many of the beads involved have Asian origins. Peter Francis, Jr., a pioneer in bead studies, incorporates firsthand knowledge of beads and beadmaking in the field with years of solid, scholarly research, effectively eliminating much of the hearsay and speculation that so often characterizes works on beads. In addition to the production, use, and provenance of beads, he examines the importance of the bead trade for the economies of the countries involved and provides insights into the lives of its many participants: artisans, mariners, and merchants. He covers the widely-dispersed Indo-Pacific beads (sometimes called Trade Wind beads or mutisalah), Chinese glass beads, Middle Eastern glass beads, Indian stone beads, heirloom beads in Southeast Asia and Micronesia, and other minor beads and bead industries involved in the trade.

BOOK REVIEW: The New Edition of Leland’s Aradia

Pazzaglini accurately observes that the Aradia material has very likely been 'de-Christianized' or 're-paganised' because actual Italian folk magical charms all have some Christian content.

On the Tradition and Mathematics of Counting-Out

Children were perhaps the first non-peasant group to be seriously studied by folklorists. In 1846, in a note in The Athenaeum, William J. Thoms proposed the good Saxon compound, Folklore to designate those manners, customs, observances, ballads, proverbs, etc., the olden time. Thoms urged the collection and study these disparate and seemingly trifling and insignificant materials because the light that they, in aggregate, might throw on the ancient past. To illustrate his point, Thoms cited a Yorkshire children's divinatory custom. Children gather around a cherry tree and sing, Cuckoo, Cherry Tree; Come down and tell me; How many years have to live. Each child then shakes the tree, and the number cherries that fall are held to indicate the lifeyears remaining. Thoms points to the relation between this Yorkshire custom and the prophetic qualities the cuckoo's song described in Jacob Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, and to the belief that the cuckoo will not sing its prophetic song until it has eaten its fill cherries thrice over (Thoms 1965 [1846]:4-6). That children's custom stemmed from ancient practice became something a rule thumb in the nineteenth century', and folklorists set out to establish the specific relations between a host contemporary children's expressions and the observances the past. Certainly, there are any number children's games and pastimes that are ancient. Thus games such as I Spy and Blind Man's Buff collected by W. W. Newell in New York at the close the nineteenth century, are depicted in ancient paintings and are described in second century documents (Newell 1963 [1883]:160,162-63). But many the attempts to establish connections between children's custom and ancient practice were decidedly more tenuous. In 1888, in The Counting-Out Rhymes Children, Henry Carrington Bolton attempted to trace the origins and demonstrate the the custom. Bolton regarded counting-out as having two dimensions. Counting out was a form divination by which the unknown was reckoned through casting lots. Yet counting-out also consisted rhymes and doggerels that established the pattern this procedure (1888:26). Bolton was determined to show connections to ancient belief for both the practice and the verse. Citing the Bible and the Iliad, Bolton had little difficulty in demonstrating the casting lots to identify criminals, sacrificial victims, and military champions (1888:2S34).2 The rhymes themselves Bolton believed to derive from magical incantations that accompanied the casting lots (although he acknowledged that the rhymes were probably of more recent date than the custom itself [1888:35]), and Bolton cites numerous examples incantations-many which seem to contain nonsense words as do children's rhymes. Bolton, however, is unable to cite any ancient example genuine counting-out, nor is he able to directly link a single magical incantation to a contemporary children's rhyme.3 Consequently, Bolton is forced to establish his linkages between children's game and ancient divinatory practice in a more roundabout fashion.4 Bolton approvingly cites T. W. Sandrey's attempt to link counting-out with the selection sacrificial victims by ancient Britons, and his interpretation the Cornish rhyme Ena, mena, bora mi; Kisca, lara, mora di; Eggs, butter, cheese, bread; Stick, stock, stone dead as a phrase great antiquity which first lays a ban on a victim's chief articles food, and foreshadows his death by beating (Bolton 1888:43). The difficulty in establishing connections between counting-out and ancient Celtic practices human sacrifice (also argued by Charles Taylor in The Magpie: or Chatter/is the Pica [Glasgow 1820] ) are most tellingly revealed when folklorists fell back on scenes from nineteenth-century romantic novels to illustrate their arguments. Thus Bolton cites R. D. Blackmore's Lorna Doone (1869) for a magical charm that seems reminiscent a counting-out rhyme (Bolton 1888:50), and the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould quotes extensively from his own novel Perpetua (1897) to illustrate how in Gaul a maiden was counted out to be sacrificed to the spirit the spring. …

The singer of tales in performance

Preface I. Common Ground: Oral-Formulaic Theory and the Ethnography of Speaking II. Ways of Speaking, Ways of Meaning III. The Rhetorical Persistence of Traditional Forms IV. Spellbound: The Serbian Tradition of Magical Charms V. Continuities of Reception: The Homeric Hymn to Demeter VI. Indexed Translation: The PoetOs Self-Interruption in the Old English Andreas Conclusion Bibliography Index