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Traces of Necromantic Divinatory Practices in the Picatrix
Version 1
: Received: 20 March 2024 / Approved: 25 March 2024 / Online: 25 March 2024 (08:45:17 CET)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Hamvas, E.Á. Traces of Necromantic Divinatory Practices in the Picatrix. Religions 2024, 15, 512. Hamvas, E.Á. Traces of Necromantic Divinatory Practices in the Picatrix. Religions 2024, 15, 512.
Abstract
In the famous medieval magical manual called Picatrix, the unknown author describes the phenomenon of magic with the term nigromantia. As is well known, the original meaning of the Greek term necromantia has a more concise meaning. It is used for a special kind of divination, i.e., divination through the parts of a cadaver and the conjured spirit of the dead. Seemingly in the Picatrix, no necromantic ritual can be found; moreover, the author stresses that his main goal is pious, i.e., to find the path leading to the ultimate source of the universe, the one and only God. In my paper, I show that on some pages of the Picatrix, there are traces of divinatory practices that may be connected to the original meaning of the term nigromantia. In the third book of the manual, descriptions of some interesting rituals attributed to the pagan Sabeans of Harran and their teacher, the god Hermes can be found. During the practices, the magician involved conjured spirits of the heavenly bodies and powers as well. Because of this, by looking closely at and analyzing the given text, it is possible to piece together a complex web of necromantic and demonic divinatory rituals.
Keywords
Picatrix; necromancy; Medieval magic; Harran; Sabeans of Harran; Astral magic
Subject
Arts and Humanities, Classics
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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