Bøger i Magic in History serien

An English translation, with accompanying introduction, commentary, and notes, of the medieval treatise on astrological magic known as Picatrix, a guide for constructing magical talismans, mixing magical compounds, summoning planetary spirits, and determining astrological conditions.

"A full translation of Camillo Leonardi's Speculum Lapidum, with an introduction and annotations. Examines the role that medical astrology and astral magic played in the life of an Italian court in the early modern period"--

Sorcery or Science? examines how two Sufi Muslim theologians who rose to prominence in the western Sahara Desert in the late eighteenth century, S¿di al-Mukht¿r al-Kunt¿ (d. 1811) and his son and successor, S¿di Müammad al-Kunt¿ (d. 1826), decisively influenced the development of Sufi Muslim thought in West Africa.Known as the Kunta scholars, Mukht¿r al-Kunt¿ and Müammad al-Kunt¿ were influential teachers who developed a pedagogical network of students across the Sahara. In exploring their understanding of "the realm of the unseen"-a vast, invisible world that is both surrounded and interpenetrated by the visible world-Ariela Marcus-Sells reveals how these theologians developed a set of practices that depended on knowledge of this unseen world and that allowed practitioners to manipulate the visible and invisible realms. They called these practices "the sciences of the unseen." While they acknowledged that some Muslims-particularly self-identified "white" Muslim elites-might consider these practices to be "sorcery," the Kunta scholars argued that these were legitimate Islamic practices. Marcus-Sells situates their ideas and beliefs within the historical and cultural context of the Sahara Desert, surveying the cosmology and metaphysics of the realm of the unseen and the history of magical discourses within the Hellenistic and Arabo-Islamic worlds. Erudite and innovative, this volume connects the Islamic sciences of the unseen with the reception of Hellenistic discourses of magic and proposes a new methodology for reading written devotional aids in historical context. It will be welcomed by scholars of magic and specialists in Africana religious studies, Islamic occultism, and Islamic manuscript culture.

Examines two anonymous manuscripts of magic produced in Elizabethan England: the Antiphoner Notebook and the Boxgrove Manual. Explores how scribes assembled these texts within wider cultural developments surrounding early modern forms of magic.

Examines a series of powerful artifacts traditionally associated with King Solomon, largely via extra-canonical textual sources--Solomon's ring, bottles to contain evil forces, the so-called Solomon's knot, a shamir, and a flying carpet--and traces their varying cultural resonances.

Explores the work of the astrologer-physician and Anglican rector Richard Napier (1559-1634). Examines Napier's medical and magical practices in their larger context and shows how the physician incorporated both astral and ritual magic into his medicine.

Examines the text and background of The Flowers of Heavenly Teaching, an autobiography by the fourteenth-century Benedictine monk John of Morigny. Explores how the author negotiated the categories of magic and heresy in relation to Christianity.

Utilizes the collection of magic texts from the late Middle Ages at St. Augustine's, Canterbury, to examine the orthodoxy of magical approaches to the medieval universe and to show how it was possible to combine magical studies with a monastic vocation.

It was during the late Middle Ages that the full stereotype of demonic witchcraft developed in Europe, and this is the subject of this volume which places the Dominican theologian Johannes Nider at the centre of an emerging set of beliefs about diabolical sorcery and witchcraft in the 15th century.

This volume aims to sift through the polemics to make sense of religious belief and practice in late antiquity. It aims to describe the mechanisms of ritual with semiotic terms, so that we can better see how they worked and how they affected the social identities of their followers.

In the Middle Ages, textual amulets were thought to protect the bearer against enemies, to heal afflictions caused by demonic invasions, and to bring the wearer good fortune. Offering an analysis of many surviving textual amulets, this book provides a study of this once-common means of harnessing the magical power of words.

The Affair of the Poisons was the greatest court scandal of the seventeenth century. From 1679 to 1682 the French crown investigated more than 400 people - including Louis XIV's official mistress and members of the highest-ranking circles at court - for sensational crimes. This book aims to bring this bizarre story to life.

Examines two anonymous manuscripts of magic produced in Elizabethan England: the Antiphoner Notebook and the Boxgrove Manual. Explores how scribes assembled these texts within wider cultural developments surrounding early modern forms of magic.

A collection of essays on various aspects of the position of magic in the modern world. Essays explore the ways in which modernity has been defined in explicit opposition to magic and superstition, and the ways in which modern proponents of magic have worked to legitimate their practices.

This title takes readers through the magical concerns of some of the greatest thinkers of the Renaissance, from Marsilio Ficino, Glovanni Pico della Mirandola, and Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples to Jean Bodin, Francis Bacon, and Tommaso Campanella.

Explores the practice of alchemy in the context of the religious and political tensions in late Elizabethan and early Stuart England, and the use of occult knowledge to demonstrate proof of theological doctrines.

A collection of essays examining medieval and early modern texts aimed at performing magic or receiving illumination via the mediation of angels. Includes discussion of Jewish, Christian and Muslim texts.

A collection of essays on various aspects of the position of magic in the modern world. Essays explore the ways in which modernity has been defined in explicit opposition to magic and superstition, and the ways in which modern proponents of magic have worked to legitimate their practices.

Presents and analyzes texts of learned magic written in medieval Central Europe (Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary), and attempts to identify their authors, readers, and collectors.

In "Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World", a distinguished array of scholars explores the many ways in which people in the ancient world sought to gain access to-or, in some cases, to bind or escape from-the divine powers of heaven and earth.

A collection of essays examining medieval and early modern texts aimed at performing magic or receiving illumination via the mediation of angels. Includes discussion of Jewish, Christian and Muslim texts.