Spellbound: Magic, Ritual & Witchcraft - Softcover

Page, Sophie; Wallace, Marina; Davies, Owen; Gaskill, Malcolm; Houlbrook, Ceri

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1910807249 ISBN 13: 9781910807248

Verlag: Ashmolean Museum, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

• A unique look at how people have viewed magic and superstition, both historically and in the present day
• Images are drawn from many private collections and have not been published before
• Objects will include 'Witches in Bottles' spell books and other rare manuscripts

Do you believe in magic? Even if you don't, you probably 'think magically' sometimes. We touch wood to stop bad things happening, or take a lucky object to a job interview or exam in an irrational attempt to influence the outcome.

Spellbound: Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft was the first exhibition to examine how magical thinking has been practiced over the centuries. With exquisitely engraved rings to bind a lover, enchanted animal hearts pierced with nails, mummified cats concealed in walls and many other intriguing objects, the exhibition catalog shows that the use of magic is driven by our strongest emotions: the need to be loved, our fear of evil and the desire to protect our homes. Authors explore the practice of magic in the medieval universe, the early modern community and the modern home. While belief in magic and rituals can be comforting, it also led to the persecution of women as witches. This book examines both the idea of the witch and the reality of how women were accused of witchcraft.

Even today, our tendency to think magically has not changed as much as we might think. Some of the chapters discuss contemporary ideas about magical thinking and the artworks produced especially for the exhibition to make connections between the ideas and experience of magic in the past and in the present.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dr Sophie Page is a Senior Lecturer at UCL and recently worked on the three-year Leverhulme project 'Inner Lives: Emotions, Identity and the Supernatural, 1300-1900'. Professor Marina Wallace is the Director of Artakt: http://www.artakt.co.uk and former Professor at Central Saint Martins, College of Art and Design and University of the Arts, London.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Spellbound explores the concept of 'magical thinking', which describes how people in all ages and cultures have sought to connect with an unseen world of perceived power. This concept of magical thinking is used here to explore the history of medicine and the mind, focusing in particular on magic's secular expressions. Spells, magical objects and rituals are engines of hope, and hope is essential to physical and mental health, indeed to survival. These ideas are explored and conveyed through the ext

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Ashmolean Museum
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1910807249
• ISBN 13: 9781910807248
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 176
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Abrams & Chronicle Vertrieb; info@abramsandchronicle.co.uk; ; 22-24 Ely Place 1st Floor; London; EC1N 6TE; Vereinigtes Königreich