Necromancy

The overwhelming majority of those accused of witchcraft during the early modern European witch-hunt were women. 80-percent of the accused were female with some regions seeing figures as high as 96 percent. The stereotype of the witch as a woman therefore has statistical merit, but this was not the case in all regions. The most remarkable contrary example was in Iceland where between the years 1625 and 1685 only ten of the recorded 120 witch-trials targeted a woman while only two, with one in debate, of the 22 known executions were of women. 1 With the witch-hunt coming to Iceland via Denmark where 90-percent of the accused witches were women, why Iceland was immune to the European witch-hunt's misogyny is a lingering question. 2 I argue that masculinity held its prominence in Icelandic magic and refuted continental influence for two reasons. The first is the entrenchment of masculinity in the Icelandic magical world view dating to the Viking Age and evidenced in the language, literature, and mythology of Old Norse culture. The second reason is the absence of a relationship between magic, sexuality, and the demonic.

Unfortunately, there are very little works and researches on necromancy in our time, even though its practices are included in a big amount of religious and esoteric movements, systems and directions. The main goal of this article is not only to make familiar the reader with the view of the famous occultist and the author of the many works and articles on magical theme Eliphas Levi on this direction, but also to attract attention of the researchers to this direction. The main focus of this work, as it follows from the title, will be the description of necromancy within the system created by Eliphas Levi. We will look at justification by author of the possibility of contact with the dead, how it is done and with whom (what) it is done. This article will be mainly based on the following works of Eliphas Levi: “Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie”, “Transcendental Magic: Its doctrine and Ritual”, “The History of Magic”, “The key of the Mysteries”. Eliphas Levi is consistent and his attitude towards the issue in question in his other articles and essays is unchangeable.

The Bamiléké of Cameroon have long believed that after the corpses of their ancestors have rotted they can be exhumed and the skulls used to communicate with the spirits of the dead, as well as their godhead, to receive spiritual guidance. The religious rite, which has necromancy at its fulcrum, is of ancient origin and the Bamiléké have practiced it for thousands of years. Urbanisation has impinged upon the Skull Cult as it is forbidden to move ancestral skulls, which must at all times remain in the natal village of the deceased. Nevertheless, city-dwellers who are beset by misfortune may travel to the birth places of their ancestors to honour them and perform rites to propitiate them. However, although urbanisation has adversely affected the practice, it is the Catholic Church that has most infringed upon the Skull Cult. Due to pressure from the officiants of the local Catholic Church, which has labelled the skull cult 'barbaric' and even Satanic.

Miller and Barnes’s themes of desire and sexual infatuation are reflective of the struggle between the old world society and the modernist movement as a whole. Sex and desire are these author’s main modes of operation, implemented to bring about a new consciousness where such topics are more widely accepted.

This article deals with the new forms of communication with the dead which appeared in our modern world as a result of technical progress. These are the contact forms based on using a lot of different technical devices, such as photo, audio and, less often, video ones. Most of them are based both on socalled Electronic Voice Phenomenon, “discovered” in the 1960s by Friedrich Jurgenson and spiritualistic photography which was very popular in the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century. In the 1917s, all of these types of communications were named “instrumental transcommunication”. The article observes the main methods and process content of instrumental transcommunication, justification of this phenomenon by its researchers, relations between the roles of operator and devices’ functions in this process. The author also considers the researchers’ world view for justification of their experiences and results, relations of modern methods with the ones used by spiritualism follow...

The identification of deviant burials as those of ‘vampires’ is a feature of excavated skeletons from sites across Eastern, Central and Southern Europe as well as the Balkans. Based on a close reading of historic and folkloric sources researchers have sought to match features of excavated sites with narrative descriptions drawn from vampire legend and myth. This study critically reviews the recent claims based on sites in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Poland and Slovakia. Whilst it is found that there was a widespread belief in vampires across Europe, it is argued that it is difficult to make absolute claims for ‘vampire’ burials on archaeological grounds as in most cases there are alternate and equally compelling interpretations of the data.

KEYWORDS
ARCHAEOLOGY, HISTORY, SIXTEENTH CENTURY, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, VAMPIRE, DEVIANT BURIAL, PLAGUE, BLACK DEATH, FOLKLORE, PAGAN, BURIAL, WITCH, BALKANS, EASTERN EUROPE, CENTRAL EUROPE, SOUTHERN EUROPE, BULGARIA, CZECH REPUBLIC, POLAND, GREECE, ITALY, SLOVAKIA, LESBOS, VENICE, APOTROPAIC, VAMPIRIDZHIJA, PERPERIKON, SOZOPOL, PROSTEJOV, CELAKOVICE, DRAWSKO, GLIWICI, SOUTHWELL, KILTEASHEEN, LAZZARETTO NUOVO, NACHTZEHRER, KAMIEN POMORSKI

As far as human history goes, death and dying has always been an important, though in many occasions tragic, event that influences the everyday life of the community. With the development of more complex and elaborate ideas about the afterlife and the underworld, humans have started to think through methods for contacting the dead. The reasons may vary, ranging from the emotional to the purely pragmatic, but the effort remains the same. A multitude of rituals have been developed over time aimed at reaching the deceased and summoning them to the land of the living. And thus the function of the necromancer was born – and the person who is able, or knows of ways, to speak to the lifeless. But are we able to determine where this practice originated? When the moment that man was thought to himself that he might be able to overstep the thin line between life and death?

Before we delve deeper into the topic of necromancy, it is necessary to outline a definition of the term. As opposed to Ogden, who 'defines' necromancy linguistically by the use of the words nekuomanteion and nekuomanteia, 3 Josef Tropper very accurately and systematically delineates the term. He distinguishes between a narrow and a wide sense of necromancy. The latter does not depend on the form of communication with the dead, but on the practitioner's aim, which is communication with the dead to positively make them influence the sphere of the living. The form of communication can range from curse tablets thrown into pits to the descent into the underworld by the practitioner himself. Tropper defines necromancy in the narrow sense as follows:

"Thierry Murcia argues that the talmudic text which describes Jesus as punished in hell in “boiling hot excrement” aims at presenting Christianity as a resurgence of ancient idolatry, which was implicitly associated with excrement." Katell Berthelot, Journal for the Study of Judaism (2015), 46, p. 294.

Los estudios sobre filosofía antigua son pródigos en estudios sobre las concepciones en torno de la estructura antropológica. Las creencias desarrolladas en Grecia desde la época arcaica hasta el período helenístico ofrece un panorama amplio de variantes distintas de la oposición entre alma y cuerpo que devino tradicional en la época clásica. Algunos elementos relevantes, sin embargo, suelen quedar desdibujados y eso atenta contra la calidad de la reconstrucción del imaginario antiguo. En este trabajo consideraremos tres ámbitos asociados con las prácticas mágicas: el terreno de los conjuros, la figura de los fantasmas y la necromancia, con el propósito de inferir a partir de estos datos la estructura antropológica subyacente.

Antropología, Magia, Fantasmas, Conjuros, Necromancia


The studies on Ancient Philosophy have a long tradition of analysis about the greek views on anthropology. The beliefs developed in Greece from the archaic to the Hellenistic times offer a wide range of variants different from the opposition between soul and body that became traditional in the classical period.  with continuities and contrasts regarding later thought. However, some important elements go often unnoticed and this compromises the quality of the reconstruction of the ancient epoch. In this work, we will study three points related to magic: the spells, the ghosts and necromancy, in order to infer from these materials the underlying anthropological structure.

Anthropology, Magic, Ghosts, Spells, Necromancy
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De la nécromancie antique à la nécromancie byzantine, Les concepts de « survivance » et de « superstition » en question. Jean-Claude Schmitt avait mis en garde les historiens contre l'emploi du terme « superstition » utilisé à propos de pratiques religieuses jugées « dépassées » du Moyen âge occidental, en remarquant que le sens à la fois normatif et relatif donné à ce concept par l'Église médiévale en rendait l'utilisation actuelle trompeuse 1. Ses mises en garde faisaient écho à d'autres appels à définition formulés depuis les années 1950 et appliqués peu après à la catégorie de la « magie » paléochrétienne et byzantine 2. Qu'en est-il des pratiques décrites comme des « survivances », catégorie la plus en vogue aujourd'hui chez les historiens pour caractériser des pratiques souvent héritées du paganisme et qui semblent à première vue déplacées dans le contexte du christianisme byzantin ? Le cas des rituels de communication entre défunts et vivants, dont certaines formes semblent directement transposées des pratiques antiques, servira ici de base à la réflexion sur la nature de ces rites et sur les terminologies, anciennes et modernes, qui leur sont associées. Cette interrogation prend place dans le débat ancien, mais dont l'issue est toujours incertaine, sur la nature de la magie et de ses rapports avec la religion. Si le premier terme recevra ici des définitions circonstanciées, nous entendrons par « religion » l'ensemble des relations que les sociétés tissent avec les êtres invisibles tels que les forces naturelles divinisées, les divinités et les défunts, ainsi que les représentations cosmologiques et mythologiques qui sous-tendent ou recoupent ces relations. Parmi les opinions récentes, le plus souvent contrastées, qui tentent de déterminer les relations entre magie et religion, une tendance propose de gommer la dichotomie qui les opposerait l'une à l'autre pour faire de ces deux ensembles des phénomènes apparentés, unis dans un même continuum religieux 3. Depuis plusieurs décennies il est admis par les anthropologues que la dichotomie qui eut longtemps cours pour distinguer radicalement les deux phénomènes n'a plus lieu d'être. Demeure cependant le problème, dans les sociétés examinées (l'antiquité gréco-romaine et le monde byzantin) de l'existence de deux champs sémantiques distincts qui cohabitent pour différencier les pratiques « ordinaires » des rites magiques ; les voies pour communiquer avec les esprits des morts ne font pas exception. Quels sont les fondements, anciens comme actuels, de ces catégories ? Communiquer avec les esprits des morts pendant l'Antiquité Il a déjà été remarqué que la nécromancie (nekuomanteiv a~), le fait de recevoir des défunts des connaissances cachées, n'est pas systématiquement assimilée à une pratique magique dans l'antiquité 4. Une large part de la nécromancie se présentait en effet comme une méthode oraculaire traditionnelle, possédant ses sanctuaires, les nekuomanteia contrôlés parfois par les cités et les oracles héroïques, très proches des oracles des morts 5 .

"Representations", N. 129, Winter 2015.

The essay analyzes the project of maintaining the body of V. I. Lenin in the Mausoleum in Moscow for the past ninety years, focusing on the unique biological science that developed around this project, and the unexpected political role this body has performed.

The rise of the Second Apostolic Age brought about the emergence of numerous opportunities which enable the miracle-oriented individuals to connect to the spirit realm. The so-called power portals are believed to be highly influential, especially within the neo-Charismatic communities. The disciples of Peter C. Wagner, an American missionary who restored the apostolic model of leadership, appear to perceive graves as the wondrous channels between a human being and the supernatural. For the last few years, the students of Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry (BSSM) from Redding in California have been practicing necromancy in the form of magical contagion, also known as grave soaking, grave sucking or mantle grabbing, which consists in soaking up the spiritual power of the deceased. The principal objective is to analyze whether the above-mentioned ritual, performed by the convinced Christians, is somehow related to magical behavior. Moreover, this particular research focuses on the proper understanding of how the law of contagion has been implemented into the activities undertaken by Bethel's students. The first part of the article emphasizes the main characteristics of the New Apostolic Reformation. The second part concentrates on the concepts such as the divine anointing and impartation, whereas the third one applies to a specific case of necromancy.

MONTANER, Alberto, «La magia y sus formas en la literatura del Siglo de Oro», en Brujería, magia y otros prodigios en la Literatura española del Siglo de Oro, ed. María Luisa Lobato, Javier San José Lera y Germán Vega, Alicante, Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 2016 [ISBN 978-84-16594-97-9], pp. 405-474; accesible en línea en <http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/nd/ark:/59851/bmctj0k4>.

This paper discusses related etymology and the cultural context of the witch of Endor story in 1 Samuel of the Hebrew Bible, in which King Saul requests that the prophet Samuel be summoned from the grave.  The close evaluation of the original Hebrew reveals that this story may not be as straightforward as it appears in English.

Unlike classic war epics such as the Iliad or Virgil’s Aeneid, whose heroes fight against external enemies, Lucan’s Pharsalia tells the story of a civil conflict. This circumstance makes it virtually impossible to include any gods in the action of the poem, as doing so would require
them to take sides in the conflict, which would be highly inappropriate. Therefore, inspired perhaps by Aristophanes (or drawing on his own powers of invention), Lucan substituted the ‘traditional’ Graeco‑Roman
deities with the Thessalian necromancer Erichtho – who, though human, turns out to be more powerful than the gods themselves. Endowed with qualities that mirror those of the Civil War itself – as well as supernatural powers and a sinister kind of creativity (by means of which she destroys life in order to create death) – Erichtho proves to be the only appropriate ‘divine’ patron for an epic about civil conflict and – in effect – may be seen as an allegorical ‘goddess’ of the Civil War.

MONTANER,  Alberto, «Sobre el alcance del “ocultismo” renacentista», en Señales, Portentos y Demonios: La magia en la literatura y la cultura españolas del Renacimiento, Salamanca, Sociedad de Estudios Medievales y Renacentistas, 2014 [ISBN 978-84-941708-2-9], pp. 627-850.

This paper puts 1 Samuel 28 in its context and looks into the different suggestions that have been made concerning the role of the woman of Endor, the appearance of Samuel, the consultation, and the meal afterwards. They are reconsidered in an exegetical study, which also takes Southern African practices of necromancy into account.
Saul went to the woman of Endor to manipulate his fate. The woman, who acted as medium, conjured up from the ground a spirit, who on Saul's request appeared as Samuel. To describe him the woman uses the term א ל " י ם parallel to spirit, in the sense of ancestor. Samuel appeared, invisible to Saul, as an ancestor. The method of communication between Saul and Samuel shows similarities to African ancestor cults. Samuel's negative message to Saul is a warning against taking part in necromancy. The meal afterwards serves as sacrificial meal, probably as an offering to honour Samuel.

A pesquisa tem como objetivo analisar as práticas dos rituais necromânticos no século VIII a.C. da Grécia arcaica, em especial, um ritual de necromancia mencionado por Homero na Odisseia. A abordagem desta pesquisa insere-se no campo da História Antropológica. Do ritual de necromancia, compreendemos como uma pratica mágica que conjurava as almas dos mortos para fins de adivinhação e informações sobre acontecimentos do futuro. No campo da teoria, utilizaremos as concepções de Marcel Mauss para explicar as práticas de magia.

The Demonic Book Club: Demonology, Social Discourses, And The Creation Of Identity In German Demonic Ritual Magic, 1350-1580

This thesis will approach Christian-authored works of demonic ritual magic (c1350-c1580) as narratives that offer us a window into the individual and collective identity-formation of Christians in German-speaking premodern Europe. This project is meant to address what I view as a three-pronged problem: 1) we do not always view esoteric disciplines (particularly magic) as part of the lived experience of religion in premodernity; 2) the failure to acknowledge esotericism as part of the lived experience of religion in premodernity is rooted in academic apprehensiveness about accepting esoteric texts as valid sources of knowledge about premodern religion; 3) this apprehensiveness prevents us from seeing the full value of esoteric texts—from acknowledging that they have much to tell us about the premodern social milieu, and, moreover, much to tell us about the how process of Christian identity-formation unfolded in this social context.

Part I of the dissertation will seek to contextualize my analysis. I will begin by laying out important terms and concepts, as well as the socio-cultural and religious context of premodern Germanic Europe. I will conclude Part I by developing my theoretical and methodological framework, one based on cognitive narratology informed by theories of post-colonialism and alterity. Part II is where I will undertake my textual analysis. I will assert: 1) the portrayal of demonic ritual magic in these Christian-authored texts can be read as a reflection of Jewish-Christian relations during this period; 2) the way in which these texts seek to diminish the power of the Jewish magician (and, by extension, the “threat” represented by Jewish alterity in general) demonstrates how Christian discourse on magic became a space for grappling with social tensions, as well as a space for solidifying and validating the hegemony of the Christian identity by providing justification for the social, spiritual, and magical centrality of Christians in the premodern world. I will conclude by linking this analysis back to my overarching concern with the problematic articulated above: the academic valuation of esoteric texts.

The interaction between the dead and the living is one of the stock scenes and most popular topics in Graeco-Roman epic since Homer (Hom. Od. 11.13–640). Many important studies have been dedicated to the analysis of the great importance of this bauform from a metapoetic perspective with necromancies affording the epic poets the opportunity to incorporate popular myths and historical figures of the past or (retrospective) future into their narrative, and to go beyond the scope of the epic plot. The same applies for Homer’s, Vergil’s, and more recently also Seneca’s and Lucan’s great influence on the descriptions of the underworld and the necromantic rituals in the Flavian epics of Valerius Flaccus, Statius, and Silius Italicus. One of the core elements of this type scene, the communication between the living and the dead, which is the climax of and the main reason for necromancies, has, however, been widely neglected – and with good reason, as the nature of the dead is “notoriously complex, ambiguous, and even contradictory” (Heath, 2005, 398). While it is not possible to reconcile and explain all contradictions of the obscure verbal interactions in the necromantic episodes under discussion, this contribution delineates the most important narrative patterns and intra- and intertextual allusions in the depiction of the dead and their conversation with the living throughout the epic tradition from Homer to Silius Italicus. It argues that the obscurity and inconsistencies in the portrayal of the dead are a deliberate literary device used to compress the narrative and to highlight that life after death and the nature of the dead surpass human comprehension and that each epic poem gives its own unique voice to the dead in the underworld – either through striking innovations or interesting and unusual combinations of the already established narrative patterns.

En Necromancia de Luciano de Samosata, conviven cinismo filosófico y carnavalización, además de ser un receptáculo de influencias literarias, religiosas, éticas e ideológicas, por decir algunas. Con base en autores como Linda Hutcheon, Michel Onfray y Mijaíl Bajtín, este trabajo cubre vacíos en torno a la aportación de temas y recursos críticos y evaluativos del cinismo literario y la contribución de la carnavalización a la literatura en forma de una nueva actitud hacia la realidad, desapego de la tradición, libre invención, heterogeneidad de estilos y voces, bajo la mirada de la crítica y el filo evaluativo de la ironía literaria.

PRELUDIO

I. HISTORIA Y TEORÍA DE LA IRONÍA
1. Breve viaje en la historia del término
2. La red irónica: Irony’s Edge de Linda Hutcheon

II. CINISMO Y LITERATURA
1. Filosofía y Kynikòs bíos
2. Kynikòs trópos

III. CARNAVALIZACIÓN LITERARIA
1. ¿Qué es la carnavalización?
2. El carnaval antiguo…
3. …y la percepción carnavalesca del mundo
4. Elementos y espacios
5. La carnavalización y la literatura serioburlesca

Cierre: propuesta de análisis

IV. MENIPO O NECROMANCIA: UNA PRESENTACIÓN
1. Contexto histórico
2. Necromancia en la obra de Luciano de Samosata
3. Estructura y argumento
4. Del éthos satírico a la fantasía menipea

V. IRONÍA, CINISMO Y CARNAVALIZACIÓN
1. La estética de la risa
2. Indicios de la intencionalidad irónica
3. Inicia el viaje epistémico de Menipo al Inframundo
4. Inframundo
5. El filo evaluativo de Necromancia
6. Una procesión del destino anacrónica
7. Regresar al mundo: el viaje epistémico explicado

CONCLUSIONES
BIBLIOGRAFÍA
ÍNDICE DE FIGURAS
ÍNDICE DE CONTENIDO

Eva LARA y Alberto MONTANER (coords.), Señales, Portentos y Demonios: La magia en la literatura y la cultura españolas del Renacimiento, Salamanca, Sociedad de Estudios Medievales y Renacentistas, 2014, 950 pp., 232 ils.— ISBN 978-84-941708-2-9

The site of ancient Tainaron has long been associated with the entrance to the underworld and the consultation of souls at an “oracle of the dead.” While Tainaron’s role as a passageway to Hades is well represented in ancient literature, its function as an oracle of the dead is only ever alluded to by Plutarch (Moralia 560e). This article shows that a misreading of ancient sources has led to this erroneous attribution of Tainaron as a place where souls were consulted in antiquity. Through an examination of the literary and archaeological evidence, this article argues that there is no evidence for any structure or practice related to necromancy at the site of Tainaron.

Consideration is given to how elements of the occult: witchcraft, magic and sorcery may be identified in the archaeological record. Working definitions of occult terminology are established before proceeding to propose a new approach, which triangulates data from historic and folkloric sources with archaeological evidence, to establish contextual narratives that stand for the past. Excavation of an occult ritual site at Barway, Cambridgeshire is presented to demonstrate how the approach works in practice. Archaeological evidence, combined with local folklore and historic accounts of spells and sorcery, identify the site as the locus of occult activity performed by cunning folk, or ‘white’ witches, during the seventeenth-century.

KEYWORDS
OCCULT, CUNNING FOLK, WITCH, WITCHCRAFT, SPELL, MAGIC, SORCERY, FOLKLORE, EAST ANGLIA, ELY, SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY, GRIMOIRE, PENDLE WITCH TRIAL, MATTHEW HOPKINS, JOHN STEARNE.

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The matter of ancestry and honoring one’s ancestors looms large for many modern Heathens. However, despite this common interest (which also holds undeniable political and social dimensions), modern Heathen ideas and practices surrounding the Cult of the Dead and ancestor cultus remain largely undeveloped and unsophisticated. In this paper, I will compare and contrast Old Norse and Ancient Greek necromantic accounts, archaeological evidence, and relevant secondary sources in order to discern elements of ritual technology that can be brought into modern Ancestor cult and cult of the dead practices. My methods include tracking areas of direct cultural transmission between the Greek and Germanic peoples, examining Indo-European overlaps, and individual examination of relevant practices as they pertain to necromancy and interaction with the dead in all their various forms. Sources utilized for this process include Svipdagsmál, 'Road to Hell' by HR. Ellis Davidson, Magic, Witchcraft and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman World by Daniel Ogden, and more. The examination of these elements has led to the conclusion that it is indeed likely that the Norse had a conception of interacting with the disembodied dead, and that they utilized what might be referred to as "intermediary structures" to do so. Moreover, as not all of these intermediary structures were found in conjunction with burials, this ritual technology is potentially transferable and therefore useful for modern Heathen practices.

1 Sam. 28:3-25 has long been a controversial biblical narrative. This narrative-critical analysis suggests that readers may gain insight into its meaning by reading it within the context of the books of Samuel. I argue that 1 Sam. 25 and 28:3-25 share many common thematic and linguistic details which invite an intratextual comparison of the two narratives. In particular, the characters of Abigail and the medium of Endor, when read in light of each other and considering the characteristics of other adjacent chapters, as well as biblical representations of the practice of necromancy, predispose readers to be sceptical about the claims of the medium.

The media often use for commercial purposes demise of human existence as an additional mean of drawing attention and the acquisition of the variously deformed understanding of marketing communication. One of them is already more frequently exposed death and tragedy, which in this context, we mark as nekromarketing.

For Marcel Mauss (2001 [1902]), magic involves border-crossing, with powers founded upon the potentiality presented by the exotic and the unknown. In a similar vein, Webb Keane (2003) points to the movement of religious objects that, via their very materiality, acquire new meanings as they move between one ''representational economy'' and another. Here, I look at the consumption of Thai necromantic objects by Chinese Singaporean Buddhists. These are, in some cases, Thai body parts, ritually processed and sold via the international marketplace via Chinese Singaporean entrepreneurs and used for local business competition. I argue that, through this process, these objects become fused with Chinese religious notions of potency, Orientalist exoticization, and a fetishization of the entrepreneur. In doing so, these dreams about the neighbours complicate our understandings of cosmopolitanism, masculinity, and the vicissitudes of capitalism.

The purpose of this study is to discuss the interconnected relationships among the saint, reverent, rustic, heretic, and necromancer as presented in the writings of Gregory of Tours, and to provide historical background for the development of these characters in late antique culture. By dividing the miracle stories of Gregory of Tours into miracles of designation, restoration, and retribution respectively, I propose a method for analyzing the literary method of the miracle as employed by Gregory of Tours in distinguishing the above mentioned characters in his writings. Through a discussion of the late antique culture in which Gregory's miracle stories were heard and discussed, including both early Christian and Pagan foundations, I will analyze what elements in utilizing this literary device contributed to the success of the spread of Christianity in barbarian late antique Gaul through the resonance of these themes with already existent Pagan culture, as well as Christianity's reciprocal relationship with those characters with whom Christianity professed an aversion: namely the rustic, the heretic, and the necromancer, and how this relationship contributed to the formation of the Christian cosmology and metaphysics that formed the foundation for the later medieval period.

MONTANER, Alberto, «Erictho’s spell and its use as a paradigm of demoniac conjuration in Spanish Literature of the Golden Age», en Demonology and Demonolatry in the Age of Cervantes, eds. Frederick A. De Armas y Jorge Abril Sánchez, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, [preprint].

Aunque varios autores, entre ellos Álvarez Barrientos 1 , sitúan el auge de la comedia de magia en el siglo XVIII 2 , el teatro áureo no dejó de recurrir a representaciones de las ciencias ocultas, pactos diabólicos y a magos o brujas que dan pruebas de sus facultades 3 , además de personajes que se fingen nigromantes o hechiceros 4 . Uno de los autores que sabe aprovechar a la perfección los personajes mágicos en escena es el dramaturgo novohispano Juan Ruiz de Alarcón. En aproximada-1 Véanse Joaquín Álvarez Barrientos, La comedia de magia del siglo XVIII, Madrid, CSIC, 1986, y del mismo autor «Problemas de género en la comedia de magia», en El teatro español a fines del siglo XVII. Historia, cultura y teatro en la España de Carlos II, ed. Javier Huerta Calvo, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1989, t. I, pp. 301-310, p. 301: «La comedia de magia como género definido y con éxito se da solo en el siglo XVIII. Antes, durante el XVII, encontramos casos de comedias que implican a la magia en su argumento, o a personajes mágicos».

Among the places where magicians can be found in the Middle Ages, trials and prisons are certainly included. Imprisonment and execution were real dangers for those who got interested in magical practices. One of the most paradigmatic instances for the condemnation and execution of an intellectual involved in learned magic in Western Europe was the famous case of Cecco d'Ascoli. Cecco d'Ascoli was a university master and an astrologer burned at the stake by the Inquisition in 1327 in Florence. 1 As his commentary to the otherwise strictly cosmographical and astronomical Sphera by Sacrobosco shows, he was seriously interested in various fields of image magic and astral necromancy; his knowledge testifies a deep acquaintance with books of magic. 2 Although it sounds logical that Cecco's magical interest was the reason of his execution, the real reasons are still unknown. Executing a university professor, however much he had been interested in learned magic and judicial astrology, and even if he went as far as casting Christ's horoscope, was rather exceptional at the time. As secondary literature has pointed out, political reasons and struggles for courtly influence, or simply personal conflicts may have also been responsible for his somber end. Cecco's magical teachings might have been among the components indeed, but they were certainly not the only ones. 3 If magic or astrology alone had been enough, not many astrologers would have avoided capital punishment in the Middle Ages, and his example would not be so exceptional. The main moral of the case of Cecco d'Ascoli for our present investigations is that the relationship between the condemnation of someone and the magic that he practiced is far more complicated than a simple causal nexus.

The studies on ancient philosophy have a long tradition of analysis about the Greek views on anthropology. The beliefs developed in Greece from the archaic to the Hellenistic times offer a wide range of variants different from the opposition between soul and body that became traditional in the classical period, with continuities and contrasts regarding later thought. However, some important elements go often unnoticed and this compromises the quality of the reconstruction of the ancient epoch. In this work, we will study three points related to magic: the spells, the ghosts and necromancy, in order to infer from these materials the underlying anthropological structure.

Focus of this contribution is the verse 1 Sam 28,19b, «and tomorrow you and your sons (shall be) with me», a part of the prophecy that the prophet Samuel tells the king Saul after having been summoned by the necromancer of  Endor. Firstly, some Greek Bible translations are considered, starting with the Septuagint, which modifies the final part of the verse, probably to avoid a theological problem. In a second part, the interpretations of the Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum and of Flavius Josephus’  Antiquitates Iudaicae are analyzed as examples of Jewish Hellenistic attitude towards the necromancy scene of 1 Sam 28. The third and longer part is devoted to the rich debate which arose between Christian exegetes on how to interpret the Endor narrative in general and the v. 19b in particular. Special attention is dedicated to the different forms of the v. 19b as it appears in the biblical translations employed as well as in the various interpretations of the scene. The different forms of the verse are collected in an appendix, in order to show the variety  of them at a glance.

This paper deals with a special type of secondary characters in Greek plays: statues and simulacra. It starts by analysing a famous monologue in Alcestis in which Admetus proclaims his intention of having an image of his wife made after her death in order to place it in the bed they had shared. The main part of the paper is taken up with a discussion on the statue motif in another play by Euripides, the lost Protesilaus. It concludes with a discussion on several interpretative difficulties posed by the eumorphoi kolossoi in a much discussed passage in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon.
Keywords: Statue, simulacrum, double, eidōlon, necromancy, kolossós