Tag: Magic
Science and fantasy: βEtidorhpaβ, John Uri Lloyd's Hollow Earth
In John Uri Lloyd's "Etidorhpa" the passage from the materialistic nineteenth century to the quantum twentieth century is condensed, ambiguous and relativistic, under the banner of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle: a century in which the fantastic resurrects in the heart of that same science that had naively believed to exorcise him.
The Geist, the Mana and the "magic naturalis" in Clark Ashton Smith's sword & sorcery
Zothique is a non-place, albeit very concrete and real: Clark Ashton Smith imagines a world in which our current technology does not exist, and men live immersed in concrete elemental forces and invisible powers, but which act on what is earthly.
Odhinn and TΓ½r: war, law and magic in the Germanic tradition
Notes on mythical sovereignty in the Germanic tradition: a comparison between the two divinities (Odhinn and TΓ½r) assigned to the ambit, from the point of view of the "Indo-European functional tripartite division", of the so-called "First function" - in the light of the historical evidence emerging from Tacitus's βGermanyβ and of comparative studies (with the Vedic and Roman traditions) of the French historian of religions Georges DumΓ©zil.
Blood Metaphysics
Blood has always been considered, in the history of ideas, the vector of a powerful magical force and the vehicle of a complex and varied symbolism, starting with the rock paintings dating back to the Paleolithic to reach the three "book" religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism), passing through the cosmogonic myths of ancient traditions (Babylonian, Hindu, Norse, etc.), obviously without neglecting its use in traditional oriental medicine and its sacrificial value within ceremonial practices.
Mircea Eliade: "Science, idealism and paranormal phenomena"
Paranormal powers are not encountered exclusively with primitives, but also with yogis, fakiri, saints of all kinds, belonging to all sorts of civilizations. The necessities of the historicist argument forced de Martino to limit his comparisons to the paranormal powers of primitives and those of modern mediums. But the authenticity of the yogis' powers, for example, raises another problem: that of the lucid and rational conquest of these paranormal powers. It is therefore not necessary to consider only a "historical magical world" (the primitives) and a spontaneous but historically inauthentic regression in this world (the mediums): it is necessary to consider another world accessible, in principle, to everyone and at any historical moment.
South and Magic: the South between archaisms and historical precariousness
Italy and in particular the South still experience a strong presence of archaic practices of a magical-religious matrix: this is the field of investigation in which the studies of Ernesto de Martino, a Neapolitan anthropologist known for having documented in the first person and for having interpreted the customs and beliefs (such as the evil eye and the fascination, the workmanship and the jetting) of which southern society is still pregnant today.
Evans-Pritchard and the rationality of a "wild" people: the Azande
As the British anthropologist, studying the Central African tribe of the Azande (or Zande) in the field, he intuited the βrationalβ aspect of their βmagical-witchcraftβ cult system.
Reality, illusion, magic and witchcraft: the "uncanny" in ETA Hoffmann's "Nocturnes" (II)
After the analysis of "The Sandman", the treatment of the second part of our essay on ETA Hoffmann focuses on other "Nocturnes" in which the previously anticipated 'disturbing' themes are treated, and also other more specifically 'demonic-witches' themes.
βGame of Thronesβ: Bran, the crow, the weaving
Discovering the mythical archetypes that hide behind the figure of Bran in the successful television serial based on the saga of George RR Martin
