The Long Life Of Magical Objects

This book explores a series of powerful artifacts associated with King Solomon via legendary or extracanonical textual sources. Tracing their cultural resonance throughout history, art historian Allegra Iafrate delivers exciting insights into these objects and interrogates the ways in which magic manifests itself at a material level. Each chapter focuses on a different Solomonic object: a ring used to control demons; a mysterious set of bottles that constrain evil forces; an endless knot or seal with similar properties; the shamir, known for its supernatural ability to cut through stone; and a flying carpet that can bring the sitter anywhere he desires. Taken together, these chapters constitute a study on the reception of the figure of Solomon, but they are also cultural biographies of these magical objects and their inherent aesthetic, morphological, and technical qualities. Thought-provoking and engaging, Iafrate’s study shows how ancient magic artifacts live on in our imagination, in items such as Sauron’s ring of power, Aladdin’s lamp, and the magic carpet. It will appeal to historians of art, religion, folklore, and literature.

This book explores a series of powerful artifacts associated with King Solomon via legendary or extracanonical textual sources. Tracing their cultural resonance throughout history, art historian Allegra Iafrate delivers exciting insights into these objects and interrogates the ways in which magic manifests itself at a material level. Each chapter focuses on a different Solomonic object: a ring used to control demons; a mysterious set of bottles that constrain evil forces; an endless knot or seal with similar properties; the shamir, known for its supernatural ability to cut through stone; and a flying carpet that can bring the sitter anywhere he desires. Taken together, these chapters constitute a study on the reception of the figure of Solomon, but they are also cultural biographies of these magical objects and their inherent aesthetic, morphological, and technical qualities. Thought-provoking and engaging, Iafrate’s study shows how ancient magic artifacts live on in our imagination, in items such as Sauron’s ring of power, Aladdin’s lamp, and the magic carpet. It will appeal to historians of art, religion, folklore, and literature.

Spell Crafts Take a look at your hands. See them as wondrous vehicles of power. Feel the energy that flows through everything you do. Tap into that power! Carve a symbol, dip a candle, mix fragrant herbs, sculpt clay, and make your life all that you want it to be. When crafts are used to create objects intended for ritual or to symbolize the divine, the connection between the craftsperson and divinity grows more intense. This second edition of "Spell Crafts, the much-loved and oft-read guide to magical handwork, features new illustrations and a new preface by David Harrington. Learn how to create and use all of the following: - magical simmering potpourris - a beaded psychic mandala - clay pentacles, plaques, and runic dice - a shaman''''s arrow - sand paintings - Corn Mother - a magical spell broom - protective hex sign - Witch bottles - flower garlands - spell banner - magic mirror - prosperity trivet - wheat weaving

A totally sweet urban fantasyland is ready to be explored and brought to life with your gel pens or colored pencils! Within these pages there are wondrous objects, fashionable collections, city streetscapes, and cool patterns that’ll help you unwind from the daily hustle. Splash some color on the neighborhood street art, spice up the veggies at the local farmer’s market, and beautify the display at a tattoo parlor. From gemstones to ice-cream cones, anything can be magical if you know how to look. So what are you waiting for? Grab some rosé or a latte and #ColorAndChill.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • From one of America’s iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion that explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage—and a life, in good times and bad—that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child. Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later—the night before New Year’s Eve—the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma. This powerful book is Didion’ s attempt to make sense of the “weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness ... about marriage and children and memory ... about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself.

A comprehensive study of the use of talismans and amulets in the Western Mystery Tradition • Provides an in-depth look at the medieval and Renaissance use of amulets and talismans, including the work of Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Athanasius Kircher • Provides a full summary of the magical knowledge required to make an amulet or talisman, including the invocations required to activate their powers • Reviews different kinds of amulets and talismans, from ancient jewelry and magical objects to the modern rabbit’s foot or lucky horseshoe The use of talismans and amulets stretches back nearly to the dawn of man, from everyday items magically prepared, such as horns or coins, to intricate and beautiful jewelry imbued with protective powers. Drawing on his private collection of medieval manuscripts as well as his privileged access to the rare book archives of major European universities, Claude Lecouteux provides a comprehensive history of the use of talismans and amulets for protection, healing, and divine influence. He explores their use in the Western Mystery Tradition as well as Eastern and Middle Eastern beliefs about these magical objects and their incorporation--despite Church anathema--into the Christian tradition of Medieval Europe. Reviewing many different kinds of amulets and talismans used throughout the ages, such as a rabbit’s foot, horseshoe, gris-gris bag, or an inscribed parchment charged through ritual, he details the principles and symbology behind each object and shows that their use is still as widespread today as any time in the past. Lecouteux explains the high magic behind the hermetic art of crafting amulets and talismans: the chains of sympathy, astrological geography, and the invocations required to activate their powers. He explores the work of adepts such as Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Athanasius Kircher, including an in-depth look at Kircher’s work on planetary seals in his Oedipus Aegyptiacus. Illustrated throughout with period art depicting magical symbols, seals, and a wide array of talismans and amulets, this comprehensive study provides a practical guide to the historical development and step-by-step creation of magical objects.

In this original, provocative, well-reasoned, and thoroughly documented book, Frank Klaassen proposes that two principal genres of illicit learned magic occur in late medieval manuscripts: image magic, which could be interpreted and justified in scholastic terms, and ritual magic (in its extreme form, overt necromancy), which could not. Image magic tended to be recopied faithfully; ritual magic tended to be adapted and reworked. These two forms of magic did not usually become intermingled in the manuscripts, but were presented separately. While image magic was often copied in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, The Transformations of Magic demonstrates that interest in it as an independent genre declined precipitously around 1500. Instead, what persisted was the other, more problematic form of magic: ritual magic. Klaassen shows that texts of medieval ritual magic were cherished in the sixteenth century, and writers of new magical treatises, such as Agrippa von Nettesheim and John Dee, were far more deeply indebted to medieval tradition—and specifically to the medieval tradition of ritual magic—than previous scholars have thought them to be.