Curses

This  article  takes  a  semiotic  and  structuralist  approach  to  understanding  the  characteristic nightmare package of imagery, or image-constellation, which appears also in charms, curses and lullabies to do with disturbed sleep. Elements of the nightmare package – its mythos – is related to a spectrum of charms and related  belief-narratives.  Charms  against  the  nightmare  are  investigated,  as are sleep charms as representative of the nightmare narrative of threat coming close  to  fruition.  Detail  is  provided  on  spiritual  beings  believed  to  attack  the  sleeper, as well as on charms as methods to ward off such attacks. Psychological explanations are considered, such as the nightmare antagonist being a disguised avatar of the self.

La tesi di laurea triennale tratta l'argomento della magia antica, concentrandosi prevalentemente sul mondo greco - sebbene non manchino riferimenti al mondo latino -, a partire dalle attestazioni letterarie e archeologiche (statuette, lamine, tavolette etc.).
Uno spazio particolare è riservato al tipo specifico della magia erotica, mirata all'ottenimento dei favori e delle attenzioni della persona desiderata.
Si analizzano le caratteristiche specifiche di questa tipologia di incantesimi, ponendo in rilievo le somiglianze con le più tradizionali maledizioni greche.

Una lunga sezione è dedicata a un testo contenuto nei cosiddetti PGM, una raccolta di papiri e di codici papiracei risalenti dal II sec. a.C. al V sec. d.C. circa: si tratta della più completa raccolta di testi e rituali magici del mondo greco, veri e propri 'formulari' destinati a maghi di professione o amatoriali. Il corpus mostra evidenti segni di contatto tra le tradizioni greche, egizie, babilonesi e semitiche - solo per citarne alcune.
All'interno dei PGM è presente un incantesimo detto Φιλτροκατάδεσμος θαυμαςτός, uno 'straordinario incantesimo per un vincolo d'amore' suddiviso in tre distinte sezioni: rito preparatorio con realizzazione di due statuette; incantesimo da recitare e incidere su di una lamina metallica; preghiera conclusiva.
Il testo è analizzato e commentato evidenziandone i punti salienti e peculiari che mostrano un'applicazione 'concreta' di quanto teorizzato nei capitoli precedenti e che permettono utili riflessioni sul mondo della magia e sul mondo antico in generale.
Le Conclusioni, infine, ripercorrono sinteticamente il percorso esposto in precedenza, concentrandosi sul ruolo svolto dall'eros nei tempi antichi, sui possibili utilizzatori di questi incantesimi e sugli obiettivi di tale magia.

ABSTRACT
The Jacobean era's infamous witchcraft trials are recalled after reservoir repairs close to Pendle Hill reveal a buried cottage with bricked‐up cat. Interpretations of the building as the site of Malkin Tower, recorded in court records as the venue of a witches coven are critically evaluated in the light of archaeological and historical evidence.

KEYWORDS
WITCH, PENDLE WITCH TRIALS, PENDLE HILL, MALKIN TOWER, FOLK BELIEF, MAGIC, LANCASTER ASSIZES, WISE WOMEN, CUNNING FOLK, ARCHAEOLOGY, HISTORY, SEVENTEENTHCENTURY, ALIZON DEVICE, SALEM WITCHES, THOMAS POTTS, LOWER BLACK MOSS, ELIZABETH SOUTHERNS, DEMDIKE, ELIZABETH DEVICE, JAMES DEVICE, ANNE WHITTLE, CHATTOX, ANNE REDFERNE, JANE BULCOCK, JOHN BULCOCK, ALICE NUTTER, KATHERINE HEWITT, ALICE GRAY, JENNET PRESTON, GUNPOWDER PLOT, CAT

Joe Hill, one of King's three children, writes thrillers with a softly disquieting supernatural edge. In this case, it is not that soft because we are speaking of three boys becoming men who were and are, have been in one or two word(s) horny stiff lioke a triad or trinity of devils, and all of them three for the same girl. Fascinating, As You Like It, and yet Much Ado For Quite A Lot of Blood. But between th'ese three horny pricks a whole bunch or basket of snakes come up to disrupt the pleasure with hissing sizzling slithering.

The depiction of animals and their significance in Egyptian tomb art from the Old Kingdom is well documented; however, animals presented in literary texts such as tomb biographies or in this particular case, threat-formulae, is less so. Hippopotamus, snakes, scorpions, lions, crocodiles, and birds are just some of the animals that have been documented in Old Kingdom threat-formulae during this study; their importance, however, has been largely overlooked in favour of understanding the historical significance of tomb biographies. Threat-Formulae in Old Kingdom tombs are modes of thinking that follow a certain template or outline with little variation between examples
and appear in multiple tombs. They are used in mastabas and tombs with the intention of warding off evil and may be understood to be representative of the magical inclinations of the deceased.
Though threats and curses are apparent in all periods of Egyptian history, Old Kingdom tomb threats appear to have begun during the mid to late Fourth Dynasty (approximately 2600 BCE) and then exploded with popularity, becoming a common inclusion in tombs by the Sixth Dynasty
and dying out with the decline of the Old Kingdom and rise of the First Intermediate Period (approximately 2180 BCE). Despite their extensive usage, not every tomb features a threat formula and fewer still include animal motifs; thus, understanding their significance is important and documenting their prevalence, distribution and differences is key to understanding this curious aspect of Old Kingdom culture.

Puede parecer injusto que Dios castigue a los niños por los pecados que cometieron sus padres. Pero... ¿Que son realmente las maldiciones generacionales ? En la advertencia de Éxodo 20: 5 está implícito el hecho de que los niños volverán a repetir los pecados de sus padres. Por lo tanto, no es injusto que Dios castigue el pecado hasta la tercera o cuarta generación.

Primero exploremos el significado de algunos de estos términos, para poder comprender mejor de qué estamos hablando.

- Generacional: "el término de años, aproximadamente 30 entre los seres humanos, aceptado como el período promedio entre el nacimiento de los padres y el nacimiento de su descendencia".

- Ancestros: una persona de la que se desciende; antepasado progenitor.

- Maldición: a) la expresión de un deseo de que la desgracia, el mal, la fatalidad, etc., caigan sobre una persona, un grupo, etc. b) una fórmula o un hechizo destinado a causar tal desgracia a otra persona. c) El acto de recitar tal fórmula.

Entonces, como puedes ver, una generación es algo que proviene de parientes en los últimos 30 años, y ancestral proviene de parientes que abarcan cualquier cantidad de tiempo. Una maldición es básicamente la expresión de una mala intención para otra persona, liberada a través del pecado, la ignorancia o la rebelión. Así que una maldición generacional es la expresión de una maligna intención dirigida hacia uno o varios miembros específicos de una familia y a su generación familiar o ascendencia.

The scholarship about specific ritual phrases of Oath, Curse and Invocation, has focused on their general structure. The aim of this paper is to examine specifically – in Archaic Age, but even in later texts – the centrality and the functionality of both the invocation and the physical contact with Gaea, considered as a primary and omnipresent entity, a strong and necessary basis and support of the perceivable reality, and in the end custodian of the lower world and of the definition and fulfillment of Justice in all its forms.

Jamaican swear words are popular far beyond the borders of the Caribbean island. Swearing practices in Jamaican are interesting due to their linguistic set-up based on historical language contact and their socio-cultural contexts, their adaptations in music and material culture and their usage among various groups of people around the world. Moreover, the legal situation of swearing in Jamaica provides insights into controversies between law and practices that goes back to colonial times. Despite those various aspects, Jamaican swearing practices have not yet attracted attention in linguistic scholarship. Hence, this paper provides first insights into the linguistics of swearing in Jamaica and discusses not only etymological, semantic and syntactic aspects of swearing, but also reflects on the sociolinguistic background and the usage of swear words outside Jamaica as well as in music. A discussion of the legal background of using swear words sheds light on the colonial history of linguistic censoring and its effects on today’s society.  This paper starts with some theoretical preliminaries that place linguistic swearing practices in its sociocultural context before examining Jamaican swearing expressions, discussing some aspects of their historical background and etymology, analyzing linguistic constructions and sociolinguistic implications as well as reflecting on social and legal regulation and adaptations in and outside Jamaica. This chapter provides an original and innovative account of swearing in Jamaican and thus contributes to a better understanding of swearing in a cross-cultural perspective.

Jewish History (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10835-019-09322-6):
Special Issue on the Cairo Geniza.

The Cairo Geniza has proved to be a fascinating trove of information on all aspects of Jewish life in the medieval and early modern period, magic being one of them. Hundreds of manuscripts, in different states of conservation, testify to the interest of Jews in composing and copying magical manuals, as well as producing amulets, curses, or attempting to harness the supernatural in order to achieve earthly aims. This essay introduces the reader to Geniza magical texts and provides some guidelines for reading these documents.

Which biblical promises are for Christians? God's promises play a vital role in helping believers grow in sanctification and suffer with hope, but should we claim all OT promises as our own, seeing as God gave them to a different people and under a different covenant? This article considers why and how every promise is "Yes" in Christ and seeks to empower believers to faithfully appropriate OT promises without abusing them. In the process it supplies five foundational principles that clarify the Christian's relationship to OT promises, and then it gives three guidelines for hoping in OT promises through Christ.

After the author of Genesis postulates a universal flood that eliminates all evil people from the world, he has now to explain how come that the world in which all readers live is as full of evil and violence as it had been before the flood. While evil entered the world for the first time through Cain who killed his brother – and no one assumes Cain to have been a saint – this time evil entered the world through Noah who had managed to be a saint for no less than 600 years. And this time evil entered the world in a form that is quite benign: Noah gets drunk, exposes himself naked, one of his sons accidentally sees him naked and warns his other brothers about the condition of their father who covered him up, and after Noah regains consciousness, begins to throw with blessings and curses to the right and to the left by which he turns his grandson Canaan into a slave who was not even aware of what had happened. Since slavery has to be imposed by force and therefore through violence, Canaan and his descendants also resorted to force and violence to defend their freedom and became the great heroes of the ancient world that built the empires that dominated that part of the world, including Palestine. We are now back at square with the world full of Nephilim and violence, this time, not in order to revenge murders, but in order to create supposedly ideal societies based on power with a hierarchy in the shape of a pyramid with the right people at the top. This is what Noah established: a pyramid with his son Shem or “name” at the top and the other son as his subordinates, with Ham and Canaan as slaves. The purpose of the whole social structure was not to facilitate cooperation among all citizens, but rather to control or to “keep” all people together. Geometrical figures such as pyramids, obelisks, and triangles are universal symbols for power structures that convey stability, security, and permanence. Contrary to traditional interpretations, the story about the Tower of Babel is not about building skyscrapers but about building societies based on a pyramid of power that controls all the members of the society, indeed, eventually the whole world. Although this has been the dream of all great conquerors, such enterprises have always collapsed, just as the story about the Tower of Babel ends in failure. The reason all hierarchies that use power and not rationality eventually collapse is because they are based on secrecy and deception. Although democracy presupposes the ability of all individuals to evaluate the performance of their leaders whom they elect, secrecy and deception not only makes that impossible, but enables the most corrupt to get to the top. It is the reason all empires and civilizations have ended up in ruins, and the story about the Tower of Babel claims that God not only has never endorsed such enterprises, but that their collapse is actually God’s verdict.

Inside:

--Tomb Robbery and Coffin Reuse
Was a coffin really meant for eternity? Was all tomb robbery a lawless abhorrence? We look at Kara Cooney’s study into “legal” coffin reuse. (Spoiler alert: there’s a lot of it!)

--Kleopatra Selene
The melodrama of Cleopatra VII’s political and not-so-private life has been well explored. What is less well known is that Cleopatra and Mark Antony had three children, including a daughter, Kleopatra Selene.

--The Unlucky Mummy
So, you think you know the story of the Unlucky Mummy? Think again. We explore the myths and the surprising truth about THAT mummy board.

--Spirit Birds
Not only could Egypt’s birds represent a specific deity, but also a number of concepts that were crucial to the Egyptians enjoying a successful afterlife.

--The Royal Tombs
In this final abridged instalment of Aidan Dodson’s The Royal Tombs of Ancient Egypt, the New Kingdom pharaohs embrace Senwosret III’s innovation, separate their tombs and temples, and head underground.

--What's New?
Alexandria’s “Big Black Sarcophagus” surprises with some impressed gold sheets, and the world’s oldest cheese yet discovered turns out to be the real evil.

--Plus, The Nile Crossword (NEW!), Looking Back and lots more. Enjoy your Nile time!

This paper surveys nineteen lead curse tablets from the sanctuary of Magna Mater and Isis in Mainz, Germany. Written in Latin, these tablets seek the divine help of Magna Mater and other deities in rectifying perceived injustices. When theorizing about cursing practices at the site, I argue that we need to look to the in situ context of the curse tablets and consider the other ritual deposits made at the sanctuary. Accounting for the co-presence of votary items alongside curse tablets can significantly aid our understanding of how the curse authors at Mainz viewed their practice. I argue that votive cult provides a compelling framework for understanding cursing at Mainz and the role of place in these materials. The curses at Mainz suggest that those who utilized cursing at the site made a strong connection between the figures petitioned in the curses and the physical site of the temple. The connection between the temple locus and cursing is illustrated by the uniformity of cursing rituals, the thematic content of the petitioners’ requests, and the sites of tablet deposition. Because of the close connection between votive cult and cursing at the site, I argue from the evidence supplied by the curse tablets examined here that we need to reconsider our formulation of cursing as a deviant or marginal religious practice and instead recognize all the ways that it fell within normative religious habits in Roman antiquity.

This paper addresses an etymological study of the word "cunt",  the history of its usage, and the potential problems/obstacles it faces to ameliorate the word in post-modern society because of it's phoentic origins, relating to pre Indo-European languages and it's taboo in correspondence to Biblical ties of the fall of mankind

The article, which is grounded in cultural anthropology and linguistics, revolves around the topic of language and its performative (magical) function. The authoress analyzes the connection between the magic and the language – spells, curses, conjuration and ordering, magical formulas, taboo words – and shows the basic mechanisms of performative language. References include, among others, the works of
Bronisław Malinowski, George Frazer and Renata Grzegorczykowa.

Le defixiones nel mondo etrusco, in: Forme e strutture della religione nell’Italia mediana antica / Forms and Structures of Religion in Ancient Central Italy (Atti del III Convegno Internazionale sugli Antichi Umbri, Perugia-Gubbio, 21-25 settembre 2011), a cura di A. Ancillotti, A. Calderini, R. Massarelli (Studia Archaeologica, 215), Roma: «L'Erma» di Bretschneider, 2016, pp. 517-532.

Cet article porte sur une forme de jurement en usage chez les Mitsogo du Gabon. Ses contextes d’usage vont du serment à la promesse en passant par la menace et la malédiction. Ce jurement, qui associe la parole et le geste, ajoute une force illocutoire décisive aux propos tenus. N’importe qui n’est cependant pas apte à jurer, promettre ou maudire. Les conditions de félicité de ces actes de parole s’enracinent dans une compétence rituelle associée au statut d’homme initié. Cette compétence s’appuie sur un épisode crucial du rite initiatique : un serment secret qui fonde la prétention des hommes à exprimer une parole efficace. L’initiation constitue en ce sens une procédure d’assermentation de la parole masculine. Cet exemple ethnographique du jurement est l’occasion de revenir sur la théorie des actes de parole et la critique sociologique que lui a adressée Pierre Bourdieu.

This paper aims to analyse the inscription of Paul, found by Orsi in 1894 in the catacomb of San Giovanni. Broken on each side, this slab is very peculiar due to the formula of the curse against any possible violator of the sepulchre that it brings. This is alluded to in a fragmentary form in the final lines. The completions of the closing lines proposed by the editors subsequent to Orsi are not totally cogent, as they are not borne out by the autopsy on the slab (such as in Wessel’s reading) or create a philological hypothesis absolutely unnecessary (such as in father Ferrua’s reading). The very purpose of this essay is to present the data that allow me to identify these issues and ascertain the identity of the saint.

In this article I'm describing what exactly are swearwords and bad, abusive language, in which categories they can be put, if there are any, and what kind of differences are between bad, abusive language and swearwords. I will also represent the outcome of my research that shows, how people understand the word bad, abusive language and swearword, which swearwords are the most commonly used in which south slavonic language with parameters of age, sex and education. Which swearwords came from other languages in to south slavonic language, and if there are swearwords in one south slavonic language, that came from one of the other south slavonic languages. This researsch was done among the native Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian and Bulgarian speakers.

This essay searches for the theoretical underpinnings of oath-making between deities and human masters found in Daoist practice in today’s Hunan province. It shows that the practice of deities concluding oaths with masters was grounded in the cosmological and theological vision of Divine Empyrean (Shenxiao 神霄) theorists Wang Wenqing 王文卿 (1093–1153) and Bai Yuchan 白玉蟾 (fl. 1194–1229?). They developed an elegant view of the Divine Empyrean cosmos as founded on oaths made by high celestial gods to one another, which included humiliating maledictions for failure to comply with their sworn commitments. Based on this paradigm, human masters and thunder deities concluded oaths in which they entered into collaborative relationships that accounted for the ritual efficacy of thunder rites. The harsh curses masters and thunder deities voiced to one another in their mutual oaths became conspicuous in rites designed to summon and direct thunder deities to protect or heal. Wang and Bai theorized these curses in inner alchemical terms, developing a theory of ritual collaboration based on deep resonance between the ferocious (nu 怒) nature of thunder deities and the ferocious nature of the master’s primordial spirit cultivated via visualization. Running through these Divine Empyrean theories and practices was the idea that oaths and curses bound different kinds of subjects into collaborative partnerships within the Divine Empyrean cosmic hierarchy.

A close inspection of the anthropological literature on Iraqw (Cushitic, Tanzania) reveals that central properties in their culture include the relative importance of social relations and hence community over kinship relations, the relevance of relative rather than absolute time , the centrality of space in culture and the importance of ritual cleansiness. The paper investigates to what extend the Iraqw language reflects this. Language being a social construct is expected to reflect social structure over time, both in lexicon and in grammar. Indeed the Iraqw language reflects their social structure in a number of way. Their verbal art emphasizes the need for peace in the community and is strongly communal in performance. This is evident, for example, in the rituals for lifting a curse. The centrality of community is reflected in various part of the lexicon. expression for pride being one of them, or the factor of companionship in possession. It is also grammaticalised in an extension of the function of the impersonal subject pronoun to express actions done together. Iraqw mythology and tales never attempt to indicate a point on time and only report chronology of event. This conceptualisation of time is reflected in the absence of lexical elements for absolute time and the abstract notion time. Furthermore the language forces specification of gender in any direct address: the second person pronoun is gender specified, kinship terms used for address are all gender specified as is the interjection for attention. Iraqw shows signs for a disappearing in-law respect register.