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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Alternative belief systems > Occult studies > Magic, alchemy & hermetic thought
When Harry Potter first boards the Hogwarts Express, he journeys to
a world which Rowling says has alchemy as its "internal logic." The
Philosopher's Stone, known for its power to transform base metals
into gold and to give immortality to its maker, is the subject of
the conflict between Harry and Voldemort in the first book of the
series. But alchemy is not about money or eternal life, it is much
more about the transformations of desire, of power and of
people-through love. Harry's equally remarkable and ordinary power
to love leads to his desire to find but not use the Philosopher's
Stone at the start of the series and his wish to end the
destructive power of the Elder Wand at the end. This collection of
essays on alchemical symbolism and transformations in Rowling's
series demonstrates how Harry's work with magical objects, people,
and creatures transfigure desire, power, and identity. As Harry's
leaden existence on Privet Drive is transformed in the company of
his friends and teachers, the Harry Potter novels have transformed
millions of readers, inspiring us to find the gold in our ordinary
lives.
This collection of essays considers the place of magic in the
modern world, first by exploring the ways in which modernity has
been defined in explicit opposition to magic and superstition, and
then by illuminating how modern proponents of magic have worked to
legitimize their practices through an overt embrace of evolving
forms such as esotericism and supernaturalism. Taking a two-track
approach, this book explores the complex dynamics of the
construction of the modern self and its relation to the modern
preoccupation with magic. Essays examine how modern “rational”
consciousness is generated and maintained and how proponents of
both magical and scientific traditions rationalize evidence to fit
accepted orthodoxy. This book also describes how people unsatisfied
with the norms of modern subjectivity embrace various forms of
magic—and the methods these modern practitioners use to
legitimate magic in the modern world. A compelling assessment of
magic from the early modern period to today, Magic in the Modern
World shows how, despite the dominant culture’s emphatic denial
of their validity, older forms of magic persist and develop while
new forms of magic continue to emerge. In addition to the editors,
contributors include Egil Asprem, Erik Davis, Megan Goodwin, Dan
Harms, Adam Jortner, and Benedek Láng.
In Rewriting Magic, Claire Fanger explores a fourteenth-century
text called The Flowers of Heavenly Teaching. Written by a
Benedictine monk named John of Morigny, the work all but
disappeared from the historical record, and it is only now coming
to light again in multiple versions and copies. While John's book
largely comprises an extended set of prayers for gaining knowledge,
The Flowers of Heavenly Teaching is unusual among prayer books of
its time because it includes a visionary autobiography with
intimate information about the book's inspiration and composition.
Through the window of this record, we witness how John reconstructs
and reconsecrates a condemned liturgy for knowledge acquisition:
the ars notoria of Solomon. John's work was the subject of intense
criticism and public scandal, and his book was burned as heretical
in 1323. The trauma of these experiences left its imprint on the
book, but in unexpected and sometimes baffling ways. Fanger decodes
this imprint even as she relays the narrative of how she learned to
understand it. In engaging prose, she explores the twin processes
of knowledge acquisition in John's visionary autobiography and her
own work of discovery as she reconstructed the background to his
extraordinary book. Fanger's approach to her subject exemplifies
innovative historical inquiry, research, and methodology. Part
theology, part historical anthropology, part biblio-memoir,
Rewriting Magic relates a story that will have deep implications
for the study of medieval life, monasticism, prayer, magic, and
religion.
Treason and magic were first linked together during the reign of
Edward II. Theories of occult conspiracy then regularly led to
major political scandals, such as the trial of Eleanor Cobham
Duchess of Gloucester in 1441. While accusations of magical treason
against high-ranking figures were indeed a staple of late medieval
English power politics, they acquired new significance at the
Reformation when the 'superstition' embodied by magic came to be
associated with proscribed Catholic belief. Francis Young here
offers the first concerted historical analysis of allegations of
the use of magic either to harm or kill the monarch, or else
manipulate the course of political events in England, between the
fourteenth century and the dawn of the Enlightenment. His book
addresses a subject usually either passed over or elided with
witchcraft: a quite different historical phenomenon. He argues that
while charges of treasonable magic certainly were used to destroy
reputations or to ensure the convictions of undesirables, magic was
also perceived as a genuine threat by English governments into the
Civil War era and beyond.
What did it mean to believe in alchemy in early modern England?
In this book, Bruce Janacek considers alchemical beliefs in the
context of the writings of Thomas Tymme, Robert Fludd, Francis
Bacon, Sir Kenelm Digby, and Elias Ashmole. Rather than examine
alchemy from a scientific or medical perspective, Janacek presents
it as integrated into the broader political, philosophical, and
religious upheavals of the first half of the seventeenth century,
arguing that the interest of these elite figures in alchemy was
part of an understanding that supported their national--and in some
cases royalist--loyalty and theological orthodoxy. Janacek
investigates how and why individuals who supported or were actually
placed at the traditional center of power in England's church and
state believed in the relevance of alchemy at a time when their
society, their government, their careers, and, in some cases, their
very lives were at stake.
Daughters of Hecate unites for the first time research on the
problem of gender and magic in three ancient Mediterranean
societies: early Judaism, Christianity, and Graeco-Roman culture.
The book illuminates the gendering of ancient magic by approaching
the topic from three distinct disciplinary perspectives: literary
stereotyping, the social application of magic discourse, and
material culture.
The volume challenges presumed associations of women and magic by
probing the foundations of, processes, and motivations behind
gendered stereotypes, beginning with Western culture's earliest
associations of women and magic in the Bible and Homer's Odyssey.
Daughters of Hecate provides a nuanced exploration of the topic
while avoiding reductive approaches. In fact, the essays in this
volume uncover complexities and counter-discourses that challenge,
rather than reaffirm, many gendered stereotypes taken for granted
and reified by most modern scholarship.
By combining critical theoretical methods with research into
literary and material evidence, Daughters of Hecate interrogates
gendered stereotypes that are as relevant now as for understanding
antiquity or the early modern witch hunts.
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