European Witchcraft
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European Witchcraft
Belief in witchcraft in Europe can be traced to classical antiquity and has continuous history during the Middle Ages, culminating in the Early Modern witch trials and giving rise to the fairy tale and popular culture "witch" stock character of modern times, as well as to the concept of the "modern witch" in Wicca and related movements of contemporary witchcraft. In medieval and early modern Europe, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have used magic to cause harm and misfortune to members of their own community. Witchcraft was seen as immoral and often thought to involve communion with evil beings, such as a "Deal with the Devil". It was believed witchcraft could be thwarted by protective magic or counter-magic, which could be provided by the cunning folk. Suspected witches were also intimidated, banished, attacked or lynched. Often they would be formally prosecuted and punished if found guilty. European witch-hunts and witch trials in the early modern peri ...
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Baldung Hexen Ca1514
Hans Baldung (1484 or 1485 – September 1545), called Hans Baldung Grien, (being an early nickname, because of his predilection for the colour green), was a painter, printmaking, printer, engraver, draftsman, and stained glass artist, who was considered the most gifted student of Albrecht Dürer and whose art belongs to both German Renaissance and Mannerism. Throughout his lifetime, he developed a distinctive style, full of colour, expression and imagination. His talents were varied, and he produced a great and extensive variety of work including portraits, woodcuts, drawings, Tapestry, tapestries, altarpieces, and stained glass, often relying on allegories and mythological motifs. Life Early life, c. 1484–1500 Hans was born in Schwäbisch Gmünd (formerly Gmünd in Germany), a Free imperial city, small free city of the Empire, part of the Ostwürttemberg, East Württemberg region in former Swabia, Germany, in the year 1484 or 1485. Baldung was the son of Johann Baldung, a ...
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Age Of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries with global influences and effects. The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on the value of human happiness, the pursuit of knowledge obtained by means of reason and the evidence of the senses, and ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, and constitutional government. The Enlightenment was preceded by the Scientific Revolution and the work of Francis Bacon, John Locke, and others. Some date the beginning of the Enlightenment to the publication of René Descartes' ''Discourse on the Method'' in 1637, featuring his famous dictum, ''Cogito, ergo sum'' ("I think, therefore I am"). Others cite the publication of Isaac Newto ...
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Black Magic
Black magic, also known as dark magic, has traditionally referred to the use of supernatural powers or magic for evil and selfish purposes, specifically the seven magical arts prohibited by canon law, as expounded by Johannes Hartlieb in 1456. During his period of scholarship, A. E. Waite provided a comprehensive account of black magic practices, rituals and traditions in ''The Book of Ceremonial Magic'' (1911). It is also sometimes referred to as the "left-hand path". In modern times, some find that the definition of black magic has been convoluted by people who define magic or ritualistic practices that they disapprove of as black magic. The seven ''Artes prohibitae'' of black magic The seven ''artes prohibitae'' or ''artes magicae'', arts prohibited by canon law, as expounded by Johannes Hartlieb in 1456, their sevenfold partition reflecting that of the artes liberales and artes mechanicae, were: #necromancy #geomancy #hydromancy #aeromancy #pyromancy #chiromancy #scap ...
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Ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), Roman Republic (509–27 BC) and Roman Empire (27 BC–476 AD) until the fall of the western empire. Ancient Rome began as an Italic settlement, traditionally dated to 753 BC, beside the River Tiber in the Italian Peninsula. The settlement grew into the city and polity of Rome, and came to control its neighbours through a combination of treaties and military strength. It eventually dominated the Italian Peninsula, assimilated the Greek culture of southern Italy ( Magna Grecia) and the Etruscan culture and acquired an Empire that took in much of Europe and the lands and peoples surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. It was among the largest empires in the ancient world, with an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants, roughly 20% of t ...
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Theoris Of Lemnos
Theoris of Lemnos ( grc, Θεωρίς) (died before 323 BC) was an ancient Greek woman from Lemnos who lived in Athens in the fourth century BC. She worked as a witch or folk-healer. At some point before 323, she was tried and executed along with her children, though the precise details of her offence are unclear. Three ancient accounts survive of her prosecution, which constituted the most detailed account of a witch trial to survive from Classical Greece. Accounts The trial of Theoris of Lemnos is the best-known of several classical Athenian trials of women who practiced magic; it is also the best-attested, appearing in three ancient sources. The earliest and most detailed source is Demosthenes' speech '' Against Aristogeiton'', which was addressed to jurors in the trial of Aristogeiton, an Athenian orator. The speech mentions Theoris because of her connection to Eunomus, the brother of Aristogeiton. The speaker attempts to persuade the jury that Eunomus' testimony should ...
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Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically related city-states and other territories. Most of these regions were officially unified only once, for 13 years, under Alexander the Great's empire from 336 to 323 BC (though this excludes a number of Greek city-states free from Alexander's jurisdiction in the western Mediterranean, around the Black Sea, Cyprus, and Cyrenaica). In Western history, the era of classical antiquity was immediately followed by the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine period. Roughly three centuries after the Late Bronze Age collapse of Mycenaean Greece, Greek urban poleis began to form in the 8th century BC, ushering in the Archaic period and the colonization of the Mediterranean Basin. This was followed by the age of Classical G ...
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Witchcraft And Divination In The Bible
Various forms of witchcraft and divination are mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh or Old Testament), generally (but not always) in a disapproving tone. Prohibitions Laws prohibiting various forms of witchcraft and divination can be found in the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. These include the following (as translated in the King James Version): *Exodus 22:18 – ''Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.'' *Leviticus 19:26 – ''Ye shall not ... use enchantment, nor observe times.'' *Leviticus 20:27 – ''A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them.'' *Deuteronomy 18:10-11 – ''There shall not be found among you any ... that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.'' The forms of divination mentioned in Deuteronomy 18 are portrayed ...
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Asian Witchcraft
Asian witchcraft refers to any or all types of witchcraft practiced in Asia. Middle East Ancient Near East The belief in magic and its practice seem to have been widespread in the past. Both in ancient Egypt and in Babylonia it played a conspicuous part, as existing records plainly show. It will be sufficient to quote a short section from the Code of Hammurabi (about 2000 BC). Torah In the Tanakh, references to witchcraft are frequent, and the strong condemnations of such practices which we read there do not seem to be based so much upon the supposition of fraud as upon the "abomination" of belief in the magic in itself. Verses such as Book of Deuteronomy 18:11-12 and Book of Exodus 22:18 "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" provided scriptural justification for Christian witch-hunters in the early modern period. The word "witch" is a translation of the Hebrew ''kashaf'', "sorcerer". The Hebrew Bible provides some evidence that these commandments were enforced un ...
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Witch-hunt
A witch-hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. The Witch trials in the early modern period, classical period of witch-hunts in Early Modern Europe and European Colonization of the Americas, Colonial America took place in the Early Modern period or about 1450 to 1750, spanning the upheavals of the Protestant Reformation, Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, resulting in an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 executions. The last executions of people convicted as witches in Europe took place in the 18th century. In other regions, like Africa and Asia, contemporary witch-hunts have been reported from sub-Saharan Africa and Papua New Guinea, and official legislation against witchcraft is still found in Saudi Arabia and Cameroon today. In current language, "witch-hunt" metaphorically means an investigation that is usually conducted with much publicity, supposedly to uncover subversive activity, disloyalty, a ...
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Ceremonial Magic
Ceremonial magic (ritual magic, high magic or learned magic) encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic. The works included are characterized by ceremony and numerous requisite accessories to aid the practitioner. It can be seen as an extension of ritual magic, and in most cases synonymous with it. Popularized by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, it draws on such schools of philosophical and occult thought as Hermetic Qabalah, Enochian magic, Thelema, and the magic of various grimoires. Ceremonial magic is part of Hermeticism and Western esotericism. The synonym magick is a archaic spelling of 'magic' used during the Renaissance, which was revived by Aleister Crowley to show and differentiate the occult from performance magic. He defined it as "the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will", including "mundane" acts of will as well as ritual magic. Crowley wrote that "it is theoretically possible to cause in any object any change of which ...
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Heresy
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religious Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ... teachings, but is also used of views strongly opposed to any generally accepted ideas. A heretic is a proponent of heresy. The term is used particularly in reference to Heresy in Christianity, Christianity, Heresy in Judaism, Judaism, and Bid‘ah, Islam. In certain historical Christian, Muslim, and Jewish cultures, among others, espousing ideas deemed heretical has been (and in some cases still is) met with censure ranging from excommunication to the death penalty. Heresy is distinct ...
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