Ars Notoria: Angelic Figures, Sacred Prayers, and the Medieval Dream of Instant Knowledge
The first figure of grammar in an Ars Notoria manuscript, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Latin 9336, fol. 18. The medieval work is public domain;…
Esoteric Study
Hittite Ritual Magic: Purification, Scapegoats, Incantations, and the Dangerous Art of Removing Evil
A Hittite cuneiform tablet from Hattusa, probably fourteenth century BCE, preserving a cultic festival text for the goddess Tetešḫapi. Photograph by Mx. Granger, CC0, via…
Reading the Gods in a Sheep: Mesopotamian Liver Divination, Bārûtu, and the Science of Signs
A late first-millennium BCE cuneiform fragment recording liver omens. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, object 86.11.378b, Public Domain. For much of the ancient Near East,…
The Oracle of Delphi Beyond the Vapors: Pythia, Possession, Politics, and the Ritual Technology of Prophecy
Few institutions in the ancient Mediterranean acquired the authority of Delphi. For centuries, rulers, cities, colonists, generals, lawmakers, private petitioners, and anxious families climbed the…
Roman Magical Gems: Abrasax, Chnoubis, Harpocrates, and the Ritual Power of Engraved Stone
A tiny engraved stone can carry an astonishing amount of religious history. Across the Roman Mediterranean, especially between the second and fourth centuries CE, craftsmen…
The Demotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden: Lamps, Vessels, Dreams, and the Technology of Divine Vision
The London portion of the Demotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden, British Museum EA10070. The roll preserves ritual recipes, divination procedures, healing texts, and…
Galdrastafir Beyond the Viking Myth: Icelandic Grimoires, Magical Staves, and the Manuscript History of Vegvísi r
Pages from AM 434 a 12mo, copied around 1500, preserve some of the earliest known Icelandic magical staves alongside medical material. Public-domain reproduction via Wikimedia…
Coptic Magical Papyri: Christian Ritual, Healing, Amulets, and Lived Religion in Medieval Egypt
A small sheet of papyrus can preserve a world that official histories barely mention. In late antique and early Islamic Egypt, people did not experience…
Maqlû: Burning, Witchcraft, and Ritual Justice in Ancient Mesopotamia
In the libraries of first-millennium Mesopotamia, magic was not a marginal curiosity kept apart from learned religion. It belonged to the technical knowledge of trained…
The Atharvaveda Beyond “Magic”: Healing Charms, Sacred Speech, Amulets, and Vedic Ritual Power
The Atharvaveda is often introduced with a deceptively simple label: the “Veda of spells.” That description captures something real, but it can also distort the…
The Brethren of Purity and the Architecture of Magic: Number, Music, Stars, Talismans, and the Ordered Cosmos
The Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity, are easy to describe badly. They are sometimes reduced to a medieval encyclopedia, sometimes…
Sefer ha-Razim: Seven Heavens, Angelic Hierarchies, and the Ritual World of Late Antique Jewish Magic
Among the surviving books of late antique Jewish magic, few are as revealing as Sefer ha-Razim, the “Book of Mysteries.” It is not a modern…