‘When discussing magic and spirituality, it is common to use the terms magician and shaman interchangeably. However, this is a mistake that can lead to misunderstandings and misrepresentations of both practices.’
The Magician as hunter of souls (animarum venator):
…the magician of De vinculis is the prototype of the impersonal systems of mass media, indirect censorship, global manipulation, and the brain trusts that exercise their occult control over the Western masses. He is not, doubtless, the type followed by Soviet propaganda, for he by no means lacks subtlety. On the contrary, [Giordano] Bruno’s magician is altogether aware that, to gain the following of the masses, like the loyalty of an individual, it is necessary to take account of all the complexity of the subjects’ expectations, to create the total illusion of giving unicuique suum.
Couliano, Ioan P. Eros and Magic in the Renaissance. Translated by Margaret Cook. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987: 90
‘Priest Who Rears Ghosts: Your sister has been cast the most venomous spell in S.E. Asia: the Centipede Spell. Do you have enemies here?’
Li, Keith. (Dir.) Centipede Horror (Wu gong zhou), Hong Kong, 1982
This website, Shift/Work: Crafting Magic https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/craftingmagic/ is written and maintained by Prof Neil Mulholland and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Featured image Earth by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, ca. 1570
