Before entering the medieval world, it is necessary to do a brief review of the vision of magic within Judaism. This is a complex issue, since many acts that for them had religious overtones, for us are directly and simply magical: see thaumaturgic (miraculous) acts developed by prestigious prophets or rabbis - from Moses to Ben Dosa or bar Yohai,...
In the last part of this series (Magicology IV: the magical mentality), we discussed, among other issues, how magic could be perceived from the believing side and from the mere spectator side, as well as the skeptical visions or the generalist visions where "intuits or understands" its effectiveness or characteristics. Up to this point we have...
(Since the initial article is written in Spanish, some of the plants did not match their names in English. In order for the article to make sense, we have kept only those plants that began with A also in English, and added those that , in the magical botanical article B, they changed to A when translated. All this with...
The Forer or Barnum effect is known as the effect produced on people by a sufficiently vague and general description of the personality and situation, with which it is inevitable to associate, together with continuous personal validation. They are vague and ambiguous writings, which end up fitting the issue of interest. It is mostly used in...
In Ancient Egypt there were a series of beliefs about evil beings that tormented both the living, taking away their sustenance, and the dead, on their way to meeting Osiris. The definition of demon is not, by any means, correct. Let us remember that the Greek demon, from which the word comes, is simply a spirit, and that it was...
When talking about crimes of witchcraft, the Western world always looks to the past or to foreign countries, in the hope of removing the worst images from them. Witchcraft in the West is normally associated with esotericism and magic, spirituality and personal help, the vindication of feminism and paganism. However, all this avoidance means that,...
After a review of alchemy in Egypt, Greece and Rome, the so-called Dark Age, the Middle Ages, arrives in Europe. However, although a lot of knowledge is lost on the continent, also the copying work and, above all, the contact with Islamic culture, also widespread as Arabic, will give way to a new era with an alchemy that,...
Without a doubt one of the most recognized objects in the world of divination, magic, and even the realm of fantasy, are crystal balls. Crystals and minerals, in and of themselves, have always had a strong esoteric relationship. Crystallomancy is the art of divination through crystals, which can be a ball, a mirror, a precious gem, or any mineral,...
Japan's Sessho-Seki Cursed Stone (殺生石, literally, Killer Stone) has received a lot of attention in recent days, despite its ancient legend. A Kyubi, nine-tailed fox, under the guise of a beautiful woman named Tamamo-no-Mae, made a place for herself at court. Everyone praised her multiple knowledge, her natural grace, and one of her characteristics...
As in so many other places, in Australia there was an Aboriginal shamanism halfway between medicine, magic and spiritual guidance. To this day it still exists in some of the small aboriginal communities, although they are more an attempt to disseminate and revalue their own culture and traditions than true shamanism, that is, believed and felt. The...
Korean talismans are varied and original, but without a doubt, due to the rise of Western viewing of Korean audiovisual productions, one of the most striking is the bujeok. The bujeok (부적, literally, "talisman") basically consists of a strip of yellow paper - a traditional Korean paper called hanji - on which one writes with red ink. Yellow in...
Yule (Júl) is the name given by the Germanic and Nordic peoples to the period that follows the winter solstice (December 21-22 in the northern hemisphere and June 21-22 in the southern hemisphere). Throughout the world it has always been a festival of great relevance due to the importance of the movement of the sun from these dates, in relation...
