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How did men and magical objects interact in the early modern period, and with what consequences? This article seeks to answer these questions through a close reading of the trial for sorcery of an urban artisan named Michael Wirth, who was accused in 1663 of murdering his neighbour by magical means. The article foregrounds the role that Wirth's Kunstbüchlein (books of arts) played in his practice of magic (in his case, a type of weapons magic aimed at ensuring his accuracy in musket-shooting) and in his acquisition of a reputation for malevolent sorcery in the eyes of some of his neighbours. In so doing, it analyses the competing claims made by different trial protagonists about Wirth's relationship with, and use of, his books of arts, and explores how the books themselves participated in these meaning-making processes. The article furthers our understanding of the practice of weapons magic and the use of books of arts by urban artisans in the seventeenth century. It also contributes to ongoing debates about the gendering and material culture of magic in early modern Germany, and about the agency of human and non-human actors in networks of social practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The article focuses on the use of the term helrūne in book "Beowulf," examining its meaning and implications. Topics include the lexical evidence suggesting helrūne primarily refers to female sorcerers, the debate among scholars about its application to Grendel, and the argument that the term might be used here to make a generalized statement about entities defying human understanding rather than describing Grendel specifically. more...

The prominent Andalusian mystic, poet, and philosopher Ibn ʿ Arabī (d. 1240) argued that God's friends and sorcerers rely on the same knowledge and principles of Islamic lettrism (ʿilm al-ḥrūf) to bend the world to their will. This premise led him to the conclusion, in Chapter 73 of his book The Meccan Revelations (ar. al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya) , that the word "sorcery" (siḥr) can be used as a synonym for saintly miracles (karāmāt). The present study, however, argues that, in other places, Ibn ʿ Arabī made distinctions between the miracles performed by God's friends, sorcerers, and prophets. Whereas God's friends can sometimes be figuratively described as "sorcerers," sorcerers themselves were never referred to as either "friends" or "prophets" in Ibn ʿ Arabī's works. This article further examines the relationship between jinn magic and sorcery, to determine under which specific circumstances sorcery was deemed praiseworthy in Akbarian Sufism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

In the editorial history of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra's masterpiece, El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (1605, 1615), one of its signal events was the landmark edition published in London in 1738. The result of an unusual Anglo-Spanish collaboration commissioned by an English nobleman, the project may have been set in motion by his exchange with a Hanoverian princess newly arrived in Great Britain. This major editorial undertaking and two strong personalities -- one directly involved, the other only possibly pertinent -- occupy the following pages. The legendary Merlin the sorcerer plays a dual role and links the two, as a personality in the Quixote and as the name of a collection of books of fiction that later became the site of an amusement-park-style spectacle at a royal London residence. These intertwined stories reveal how canonical literature and popular legend can serve the twin pursuits of cultural prestige and historical standing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This paper looks at the case against Francisco Jeronymo, a resident of the Ilha de Mussulo (Mussulo Island), who was accused of being a feitiçeiro by his neighbours. Based on his Auto de Investigação (Case Investigation) located in the Arquivo Nacional de Angola, it highlights some of the labour abuses of the Portuguese colonial state and shows how Africans appealed to colonial laws and republican ideals. By focusing on the testimonies within the Auto de Investigação, this paper explains why his neighbours accused him of being a witch, and how different actors made sense of their world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Between 1987 and 2015, Terry Pratchett published eleven novels and one short story within his Discworld universe that came to be known as his “Witches” sub-series. In these texts he engaged with the narrative imperatives, preoccupations, and tropes which together make up the consensus fantasy universe, and those deeper mythologies and legendarium with which the author necessarily has an intertextual relationship. This paper focuses upon one aspect of that consensus universe, which is the difference between male and female magical practitioners—witches and wizards—in the fantasy canon, and how Pratchett sought to challenge and subvert the stereotypes of the genre in his own work. The primary means by which Pratchett achieved this, I have argued, is by exposing the fictionality of these stereotypes through parody and satire, whilst at the same time embedding these same tropes within his own universe as the building blocks of his secondary world. The period during which the “Witches” novels were produced is roughly commensurate with a timeframe in which the range of academic and activist positions which are broadly regarded as constituting secondwave feminism were giving rise to, being overtaken by (or in some cases were in direct conflict with) a multiplicity of newer scholarly approaches which have been described as comprising a third wave. Whilst it would be wrong-footed to attempt to position Pratchett’s ‘Witches” novels as a direct engagement with any of these theories, we can see in his writing an awareness of the shifting landscape of feminist thought, with themes in the earliest novels that take up ideas of equality of access similar to those that dominated first-wave discourse, as well as a growing cast of characters and range of thematic concerns that come to reflect the divergence of second and third-wave debates about biological sex and gender identity. Although Pratchett’s work does not itself constitute feminist scholarship, I have argued that through his engagement with some of the evolving ideas about women and their relative position in society, his “Witches” novels can be read as an attempt to change the way that women are portrayed in fantasy literature by intersecting with ideas that are external to it. In this respect, and by interpreting his work in terms of de Beauvoir’s archetypal stereotypes and her theory of Other, as well as Grosz’s work on feminine corporeality and Butler’s ideas of gender performativity, I have sought to illuminate how Pratchett’s fiction not only sits within a wider body of feminist discourse but can also bear the weight of such critical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Tow field experiments were conducted during 2019 and 2020 seasons to study the behavior of rice cultivars (Giza177, Sakha107 and Giza179) under three varying salinity wizards Viz, Salwax, Aquasal and Crop plus, whereas the first two materials were applied in soil before transplanting while, the third material was sprayed twice at rate 5 kg ha-1 for each one. The split plot design was used in this study whereas, salinity wizards were placed in the main plots but the sub plots were allocated to rice cultivars. The main obtained results in both seasons provided significant and positive effect was released by the used soil salinity chemicals treatments on behavior of rice cultivars as rice salinity tolerance, ion selectivity, growth parameters, yield attributes and grain yield. The most effective and beneficial treatment was SalWax followed by AquaSal and then crop plus regarding studied parameters. Applying these materials via soil was more efficient than those applied via foliage however, crop plus came in the last rank in this study. The studied three rice varieties significantly varied in their performance considering salinity tolerance, ion selectivity, rice growth, yield attributes and grain yield in both seasons. The results showed that Giza 179 cultivar gave apparent values of salinity tolerance were cleared in the lowest value of Na+/K+ ratio, high K+ concentration, high growth, yield attributes and grain yield. The obtained result confirmed the superiority and tolerance of Giza179 rice variety under salt stresses. Sakha 107 rice variety is considered as salt moderately sensitive variety, while Giza177 was continued to be salt sensitive variety. The interaction effect brought the superiorly of the combination of Giza179 and Salwax under salt stress. It could be concluded that Salwax salinity wizards should apply in soil for rice growing under saline soil before transplanting at the rate of 5 kg ha-1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The article focuses on buffoons and sorcerers such as witchcraft, entertainment, and evil professions in colonial sources on pre-Hispanic Nahuas. It mentions examines Nahua male performers as described in the Primeros memoriales, usually attributed to Fray Bernardino de Sahagún. It also mentions indigenous performative and theatrical abilities can also be discerned in the writings of Spanish religious authors and people to and apparently did not pose any threat to Christianization enterprise. more...

This article examines accusations of sorcery as a way to understand the perceptions of sorcery among the Mapuche of central-southern Chile during the colonial period. Local communities believed that illnesses and unfortunate events were caused by the actions of sorcerers, known as kalku, and therefore consulted ritual healers and diviners, the machi and dugul, to identify and punish the supposed evildoers. In accusing local members of being kalku, the ritual specialists expressed a precise perception of sorcery and developed clear strategies for counteracting the sorcerers. This article argues that the accusations of sorcery became political and social instruments in the hands of the local authorities and that they shaped the meaning of sorcery and its perception among the Mapuche. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Copyright of Journal of Surra Man Ra'a is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) more...

In nearly every documented society, people believe that some misfortunes are caused by malicious group mates using magic or supernatural powers. Here I report cross-cultural patterns in these beliefs and propose a theory to explain them. Using the newly created Mystical Harm Survey, I show that several conceptions of malicious mystical practitioners, including sorcerers (who use learned spells), possessors of the evil eye (who transmit injury through their stares and words), and witches (who possess superpowers, pose existential threats, and engage in morally abhorrent acts), recur around the world. I argue that these beliefs develop from three cultural selective processes: a selection for intuitive magic, a selection for plausible explanations of impactful misfortune, and a selection for demonizing myths that justify mistreatment. Separately, these selective schemes produce traditions as diverse as shamanism, conspiracy theories, and campaigns against heretics—but around the world, they jointly give rise to the odious and feared witch. I use the tripartite theory to explain the forms of beliefs in mystical harm and outline 10 predictions for how shifting conditions should affect those conceptions. Societally corrosive beliefs can persist when they are intuitively appealing or they serve some believers' agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This article studies representations of Indian magic and wizards in five popular nineteenth century Anglo-Indian novels. Such study allows us to understand how ordinary nineteenth century Britons envisioned Indian occult practices. Arguing that literary representations of Indian magic and wizards were essentially structured by the way Indian magic was conceptualized at both the metropolitan centre and the colonial periphery, this article considers the history of actual British encounter with Indian magicians in both Britain and India. It is found that in Anglo-Indian novels Indian wizards were generally stereotyped as malevolent beings, though favourable representations of wizards were not entirely absent. This article seeks to provide an explanation for this. It goes on to argue that, ultimately, representations of Indian magic and magicians in colonial literature reveal more about colonial ideology and public expectations in Britain, than about occult practices and their practitioners in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

A literary criticism of the book "Roverandom" by J. R. R. Tolkien is presented. It outlines the adventures of a young dog, Rover. In the story, an irritable wizard turns Rover into a toy, and Rover goes to the Moon and under the sea in order to find the wizard again to turn him back into a normal-sized dog. more...

This article presents an edition of a 4th century Coptic fragment of a hitherto unknown Old Testament apocryphon that gives a non-canonical version of the events of Exodus. It offers a specifically Egyptian literary history of the legendary magicians Jannes and Jambres, which highlights the so far unappreciated dependence of their own Apocryphon on pagan Egyptian tales about magicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The article presents a sample text that talks about bthan kabe, which when translated means sorcerers or magicians. Topics discussed include talk about sorcery being mostly speculative and general, and the story referring to Fenz, which means puss or the liquids inside a rotting corpse, which the sorcerers drink to gain strength. more...

Cunning-folk offering a wide range of mostly supernatural services were a common part of European popular culture until at least the early twentieth century. Still, insight into how they established themselves as people with extraordinary abilities is limited. In this article I approach two of the best-documented cases of nineteenth-century Norwegian cunning-folk. The preacher-prophet, healer, and clairvoyant Knut Rasmussen (‘Vis-Knut’, 1792–1876) and the diviner and sorcerer Eilev Olsen (‘Spå-Eilev’, 1814–91) were ‘living legends’ who attracted clients from all over the country for more than fifty years. A wealth of historical and folkloristic sources allows us a rare glimpse into their early career stages and the dynamics by which two uneducated day labourers managed to become central actors in a local power play. An analysis of the local ‘folk religious fields’ details strategies, practices, and narratives used to cater to different factions, to convey claims of supernatural efficacy, and to create a regional market. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER] more...

In the article, I try to bring out the revolutionary potential of the conceptual persona of the sorcerer, introduced by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus. After analyzing the nature of the sorcerer, focusing on two aspects of the anomalous, I show the sorcerer "in action", interpreting one of his or her incarnations: captain Ahab. In the final part of the text, I endeavor to present the conditions of possibility for imagining an incarnation of the sorcerer in the time of global capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The article offers information on Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea cycle as the Earthsea books are set in a world where dragons are real and so is magic. Topics include that Schools for young wizards and the magical import of a person's true and secret name are common tropes in fantasy now, but they have their origins in the Earthsea cycle; discussing that for Le Guin, the ansible did not only solve a storytelling problem created by the fiction of long-distance space travel. "In The Dispossessed," which tells of its genesis, the ansible's architect, Shevek, is a restless physicist who journeys from Anarres, his anarchist moon colony, to Urras, an oligarchic neighboring world. more...

An essay is presented on the author's ideas for liminal spaces, faces, and facing things to illuminate the motif co-created by C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien called the "Materialist Magician." He argues the essence of understanding the artistic agendas of Lewis and Tolkien that relate to their war experiences. The author defines the "Materialist Magician" as wizatds of the past and scientists whose theories and inventions shape the future. more...

In the early post-independence period in Burma, a large number of hierarchical, initiatory, and secretive esoteric congregations were founded by charismatic leaders in urban areas. These attracted many devotees, including representatives of the state. The relationship between the state and the esoteric congregations was tense, especially during the rule of the military governments (1962-2011), and the state sought to suppress the congregations in the early 1980s. In this article, one esoteric congregation--the ariyā-weizzā organization--is taken as an example of these congregations. First, the article demonstrates how the members of this congregation view themselves as performing the state, and shows what kind of power they perceive themselves to exercise. Second, in socio-political terms, the article seeks to explain why tensions emerged between the state and the esoteric congregations, and it demonstrates how these congregations have contributed to performing the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The Harry Potter series is rich in allusions to Celtic, Greek, Roman, Norse, and Hindu mythology, Arthurian legends, and Christianity. These religious and mythological elements are taken out of their original context and re-combined in a postmodern bricolage, reflecting the series' emphasis on cultural diversity and the forging of individual meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

ũ u ĩ i Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's Wizard of the Crow has been read as an examination of the relationship between oral and written literatures and as an exploration of the politics of the African postcolony. As I show, however, Wizard of the Crow should be understood as an ecological fiction as well. Indeed, the novel's representation of Aburĩria, Ngũgĩ's fictional African state, links economic inequality indelibly to the ruined environments in which its characters live. It also offers the Movement of the Voice of the People as the source of a popular environmental politics rooted in the grotesque aesthetics of the metropolis in which the novel is set. Thus while Aburĩria's dictator represents an ethos that seeks to separate economic accumulation from the ecology to which it is tied, the movement's grotesque environmentalism works to bring the country's economic life back in line with the ecology of the region its people call home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Human rights acquires different meanings in different contexts. In this article, I demonstrate how a local interpretation of human rights was linked to an outbreak of 'sorcerer' killings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The Reading of documents of ecclesiastical source produced during Middle Ages provides the very clear percept of the presence of various categories of mediators between the natural world and mystical forces, in the daily routine of the western men. On the one hand, there were the wizards, expert supposedly endowed with special knowledge, who used as a resource various forms of exercise of divinatory arts and techniques of manipulation of elements of nature. During Middle Ages the ecclesiastical discourse searched opposing to their actions the knowledge and the achievements of the 'true' agents of sacred one, those who were organized in an ordo apart of the rest of society, ordoclericorum, enjoyed the privilege of access to the reading and writing of Latin. The concept of the clergy with which the Christian Church intended to qualify their members brought implicitly a cultural value which unified and distinguished them from the first ones. However, in the eyes of the people, the magical agents, as much as the clergies were endowed with specialized knowledge which granted to them the exercise of strange powers to the common mortals and made it possible for them controlling impersonal forces capable of altering the course of events. It is our intention to discuss the relationship between language, knowledge, and mystical Mediation in the current representations of magical agents and clergies in Middle Ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

John Dee, ‘Queen Elizabeth's conjuror’, as a recent biography has called him, has attracted considerable attention during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries among intellectual historians of the English Renaissance, including historians of science. During the last two decades especially, there has been a steady flow of publications. Dee has also featured in a growing body of literary and popular fiction, films, plays, multimedia performances, graphic novels, and operas. The present article reviews a range of this material and demonstrates that, particularly since the 1960s, the figure of Dee has performed a number of different cultural functions, sometimes appearing more as vulnerable human being than magus, but appealing particularly to those artists who, like Derek Jarman, see him as epitomising a dream of transformative and visionary power with close analogies to the way the creative imagination itself works. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER] more...

An investigation into the folk belief focusing on the wizards' activities shows that in addition to Buddhism and Taoism, the worship of wizards and sorcery also played an important part in people's belief system in the Sui Dynasty. In that period, the wizards held official positions in the state administrative system and involved in the sacrificial and medical activities. In the folk society, however, acting as the earthly representatives of gods or ghosts, the wizards played active roles in taking charge of the folk belief in gods and ghosts and providing sorcery and medical services on their behalf, thus winning substantial trust from the general public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The paper presents magical procedures (prayers, songs, channs) and practices against natural calamity in mountain villages (in the south of Poland) in the context of a human shape called weather wizard. He was created on the base of the beliefs in air demons (planetnik, chmurnik, oblocznik), as a mediator between people and demons. The weather wizard had two types of roles. The first one comprised "cooperation" with air demons, whereas the second included independent practices related to protecting the village from storms. Magic procedures used by weather wizards included verbal formulas, certain types of behaviour, as well as religious and magical accessories and property. The formulas constituted a mixture of a magic spell and a prayer to God. Apart from weather wizards' practices, magic activities were popular among village inhabitants. For example they ploughed the village borders, placed "relics" along these borders, burnt flour or blessed herbs, ringed, danced, sang songs. Opposing the elements in the form of spells, entreaties, threats, noise making, sacrifices with the participation of a mediator (weather wizard) or without, is in general a legacy of the past related to traditional culture. Nowadays, people appeal to God but also simultaneously perform old magic and religious procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Headache disorders are common in children and adolescents. Even young male Wizards are disabled by them. In this article we review Harry Potter's headaches as described in the biographical series by JK Rowling. Moreover, we attempt to classify them. Regrettably we are not privy to the Wizard system of classifying headache disorders and are therefore limited to the Muggle method, the International Classification of Headache Disorders, 2nd edition (ICHD-II). Harry's headaches are recurrent. Although conforming to a basic stereotype, and constant in location, throughout the 6 years of his adolescence so far described they have shown a tendency to progression. Later descriptions include a range of accompanying symptoms. Despite some quite unusual features, they meet all but one of the ICHD-II criteria for migraine, so allowing the diagnosis of 1.6 Probable migraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Converting a biochemical reaction network to a set of kinetic rate equations is tedious and error prone. We describe known interface paradigms for inputing models of intracellular regulatory networks: graphical layout (diagrams), wizards, scripting languages, and direct entry of chemical equations. We present the JigCell Model Builder, which allows users to define models as a set of reaction equations using a spreadsheet (an example of direct entry of equations) and outputs model definitions in the Systems Biology Markup Language, Level 2. We present the results of two usability studies. The spreadsheet paradigm demonstrated its effectiveness in reducing the number of errors made by modelers when compared to hand conversion of a wiring diagram to differential equations. A comparison of representatives of the four interface paradigms for a simple model of the cell cycle was conducted which measured time, mouse clicks, and keystrokes to enter the model, and the number of screens needed to view the contents of the model. All four paradigms had similar data entry times. The spreadsheet and scripting language approaches require significantly fewer screens to view the models than do the wizard or graphical layout approaches [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER] more...

Analyzes a collection of Coptic papyri which appears to have been a hoard or library of ancient magical texts, produced by five copyists sometime in the fourth through seventh centuries and originating from an unknown location in Egypt. Nature and extent of the wizard's hoard; Codicological and textual relations; Magical book and its two texts. more...

Comments on the works of author Michelle Stephen with emphasis on her cultural construction of sorcery. Reference to her work on the Mekeo culture and society; Interpretation of the work; Perception of Stephen in regards to sorcerers. more...

Reprints the article "The Wizard Who Oversimplified: A Fable," by Harold Peterson, published in "The Quarterly Journal of Economics," which presents a story regarding curriculum planning in a school for the education of princes. Details about how a wizard developed the games curriculum; Similarity between the curriculum and the game of chess; Moral for businessmen and operations researchers from the story. more...