Cyrano4747 posted:

As late as Martin Luther you have people advocating training up as many decent priests as possible and sending them into the sticks to make the yokals stop being "christian" in the kitbash pagan sense and actually get them up to speed.

Just because everyone is nominally worshiping Jesus instead of Wodin or whoever doesn't mean that you don't have a lot of folk practices dragging around which involve poo poo like casting spells and seeking magical protection wherever you can find it.

poo poo, just look at all the astrological and mystical poo poo Hey Guns' people get into, and those guys were in the middle of fighting what was nominally a religious war between flavors of Christianity.

sullat posted:

Look, dipping your weapons in holy water before you kill a wizard isn't mysticism, it's science.

Epicurius posted:

In the Middle Ages, almost everybody agrees that witchcraft is a myth and that believing in witches is either superstition or mental illness. (Other sorts of magic, like astrology or herbalism or divination or alchemy or magic with dolls are all just branches of science/natural philosophy and only illegal if you use them to hurt somebody. Medieval courts didn't care whether you killed somebody by stabbing them or by making a doll of them, casting spells over it and then stabbing it. Using magic to murder was still murder. But using magic to heal or to find something or make someone fall in love with you or drive out rats or whatever was perfectly fine in medieval law.)

The laws against witchcraft and all the big witchcraft trials all happen after the Middle Ages end.

OwlFancier posted:

How do you go from witchcraft not being real to being super real and super worrying?

feedmegin posted:

I note with interest that witch hunting tended to be more of a Protestant thing.

OwlFancier posted:

How do you go from witchcraft not being real to being super real and super worrying?

feedmegin posted:

I note with interest that witch hunting tended to be more of a Protestant thing.

skasion posted:

To greatly oversimplify, heresy. The rise of grand-scale moral panic against witchcraft runs in parallel to the Protestant reformation and accompanying social turmoil and anxiety about Christianity in Europe. There are loads of other factors but this is the biggest one imo.

e: this is not to say that witch hunting was a Protestant phenomenon, it wasn’t. The first witch trials predated the reformation and there is no significant bias towards them in Protestant theory or practice. Rather the phenomenon stemmed from the same problems that also would lead to schisms arising in the Church.

Mad Hamish posted:

...I'm on my phone and my collection of books on the subject is buried somewhere in my storage unit, which is too bad because I could talk about the European witch hysteria for days.

Ithle01 posted:

Killing witches isn't a uniquely Christian thing, it's pretty much standard fare throughout all human history that if someone is invoking magic or the gods against you then you are allowed to defend yourself with violence.

Cyrano4747 posted:

You're right on the Sharia one.

Still, at the very least it shows a preoccupation with them. It could also be argued that the witchcraft/magic laws were part of an ongoing attempt to christianize medieval society, a process that was very much done a done deal, especially in the countryside.

skasion posted:

I’m no expert in Roman law but there was definitely a magic industry in the Roman world with like, form-letter spells to shrivel up some bitch’s uterus or whatever and I don’t think anyone got away with killing the witches who sold them.

cheetah7071 posted:

The phrase abracadbra comes from one of the more popular spells of that form I think. Dunno if that one goes all the way back to antiquity though

skasion posted:

I'm no expert in Roman law but there was definitely a magic industry in the Roman world with like, form-letter spells to shrivel up some bitch’s uterus or whatever and I don’t think anyone got away with killing the witches who sold them.

Table VII of the Twelve Tables of Rome posted:

Anyone who, by means of incantations and magic arts, prevents grain or crops of any kind belonging to another from growing, shall be sacrificed to Ceres...
Anyone who annoys another by means of magic incantations or diabolical arts, and renders him inactive, or ill; or who prepares or administers poison to him, is guilty of a capital crime,and shall be punished with death.

Mr.Morgenstern posted:

quote:

Sword of Dardanos: Rite which is called "sword," which has no equal because of its power, for it immediately bends and attracts the soul of whomever you wish. As you say the spell, also say:
"I am bending to my will the soul of him NN."

Take a magnetic stone which is breathing and engrave Aphrodite sitting astride Psyche and with her left hand holding on her hair bound in curls. And above her head: "ACHMAGE RARPEPSEI"; and below Aphrodite and Psyche engrave Eros standing on the vault of heaven, holding a blazing torch and burning Psyche. And below Eros these names: "ACHAPA ADONAIE BASMA CHARAKO lAKOB lAO E PHARPHAREI." On the other side of the stone
engrave Psyche and Eros embracing one another and beneath Eros's feet these letters: "SSSSSSSS," and beneath Psyche's feet: "EEEEEEEE." Use the stone, when it has been engraved and consecrated, like this: put it under your tongue and turn it to what you wish and say this spell:

"I call upon you, author of all creation, who spread your own wings over the whole world, you, the unapproachable and unmeasurable who breathe into every soul life-giving reasoning, who fitted all things together by your power, firstborn, founder of the universe, golden-winged, whose light is darkness, who shroud reasonable thoughts and breathe forth dark frenzy, clandestine one who secretly inhabit every soul. You engender an unseen fire as you carry off every living thing without growing weary of torturing it, rather having with pleasure delighted in pain from the time when the world came into being. You also come and bring pain, who are sometimes reasonable, sometimes irrational, because of whom men dare beyond what is fitting and take refuge in your light which is darkness. Most headstrong, lawless, implacable, inexorable, invisible, bodiless, generator of frenzy, archer, torch- carrier, master of all living sensation and of everything clandestine, dispenser of forgetfulness, creator of silence, through whom the light and to whom the light travels, infantile when you have been engendered within the heart, wisest when you have succeeded; I
call upon you, unmoved by prayer, by your great name:
AZARACHTHARAZA LATHA lATHAL Y Y Y LATHAI ATHALLALAPH lOIOIO AI AI AI OUERIEU OIAI LEGETA RAMAI AMA RATAGEL, first-shining, night-shining, night rejoicing, night-engendering, witness, EREKISITHPHE ARARACHARARA EPHTHISIKERE lABEZEBYTHIT, you in the depth, BERIAMBO BERIAMBEBO, you in the sea, MERMERGO U, clandestine and wisest, ACHAPA ADONAIE MASMA CHARAKO lAKOB lAO CHAROUER AROUER LAILAM SEMESILAM SOUMARTA MARBA KARBA MENABOTH EIIA. Turn the 'soul' of her NN to me NN, so that she may love me, so that she may feel passion for me, so that she may give me what is in her power. Let her say to me what is in her soul because I have called upon your great name."

And on a golden leaf inscribe this sword: "One THOURIEL MICHAEL GABRIEL OURIEL MISAEL IRRAEL ISTRAEL: May it be a propitious day for this name and for me who know it and am wearing it. I summon the immortal and infallible strength of God. Grant me the submission of every soul for which I have called upon you." Give the leaf to a partridge to gulp down and kill it. Then pick it up and wear it around your neck after inserting into the strip the
the herb called "boy love."

The burnt offering which endows Eros and the whole procedure with soul is this: manna, 4 drams; storax, 4 drams; opium, 4 drams; myrrh, 4 drams; frankincense, saffron bdella, one-half dram each.
Mix in rich dried fig and blend everything in equal parts with fragrant wine, and use it for the performance. In the performance first make a burnt offering and use it in this way.

And there is also a rite for acquiring an assistant, who is made out of wood from a mulberry tree. He is made as a winged Eros wearing a cloak, with his right foot lifted for a stride and with a hollow back. Into the hollow put a goId leaf after writing with a
cold-forged copper stylus so-and-so's name [and]: "MARSABOUTARTHE ~ be my assistant and supporter and sender of dreams."

Go late at night to the house [of the woman] you want, knock on her door with the Eros and say: "Lo, she NN resides here; wherefore stand beside her and, after assuming the likeness of the god or daimon whom she worships, say what I propose. And go to your home, set the table, spread a pure linen cloth, and seasonal flowers, and set the figure upon it. Then make a burnt offering to it and continuously say the spell of invocation. And send him, and he will act without fail. And whenever you bend her to
your will with the stone, on that night it sends dreams, for on a different night it is busy with different matters.”

skasion posted:

Yeah, but did this actually happen? Romans weren’t big on the religious practice of human sacrifice...just the political kind.

Unrelatedly, everyone should probably go read the Necronomicon Greek Magical Papyri:


And that’s just to give someone a wet dream! Think what you’d have to do to actually kill someone!

LingcodKilla posted:

Just killing them by hand?

quote:

You put its gall into a (measure of) wine and the man drinks it; then he dies at once; or (you) put it into any piece [of food].

quote:

xxix. To be Able to Eat Garlic and Not Stink
Bake Beetroots and eat them.

quote:

xxxiii. To Get an Erection When You Want
Grind up a Pepper with some Honey and coat your Thing.

quote:

iii. Love Spell
For Love say while kissing passionately: "I am THAZI NEPIBATHA CHEOUCH CHA I am I am CHARIEMOUTH LAILAM"

aphid_licker posted:

That story is utterly amazing

skasion posted:

Yeah, but did this actually happen? Romans weren’t big on the religious practice of human sacrifice...just the political kind.

Unrelatedly, everyone should probably go read the Necronomicon Greek Magical Papyri:


And that’s just to give someone a wet dream! Think what you’d have to do to actually kill someone!

skasion posted:

Stringent posted:

Stories like this and the one about the treatment of the Goths fleeing the Huns really kind of put a silver lining on the fall of the Empire for me.

LingcodKilla posted:

Just killing them by hand?

LingcodKilla posted:

Just killing them by hand?

Don Gato posted:

What if I want to kill someone but don't want to physically leave my house, what then smart guy?

That's right, we use magic to kill them.

skasion posted:

Yeah, but did this actually happen? Romans weren’t big on the religious practice of human sacrifice...just the political kind.

Unrelatedly, everyone should probably go read the Necronomicon Greek Magical Papyri:


And that’s just to give someone a wet dream! Think what you’d have to do to actually kill someone!

OwlFancier posted:

You can't fool me that's from spellsofmagick.com

I especially like invoking archmage rare pepe, and also that the final invocation doesn't have a closing speech mark so you are supposed to read the instructions out loud.