Sex Magic: Past and Present, Imagined and Real

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Societas Magica

Organizer Name

Marla Segol

Organizer Affiliation

Univ. at Buffalo

Presider Name

Mildred Budny

Presider Affiliation

Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

Paper Title 1

Erectile Dys-monk-tion: Monastic Uses for the Old Irish Magical Anti-Viagra

Presenter 1 Name

Phillip Bernhardt-House

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Skagit Valley College-Whidbey Island

Paper Title 2

Roots and Shoots: Late Antique and Medieval Models for Contemporary Sex Magic

Presenter 2 Name

Marla Segol

Paper Title 3

Response

Presenter 3 Name

Liana Saif

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Oriental Institute, Univ. of Oxford

Start Date

11-5-2017 3:30 PM

Session Location

Bernhard 212

Description

Sex magic has a long and checkered history, from inside the traditions that practice it to the institutions that have condemned it. This panel will explore the discursive and ritual forms of sex magic practiced in the ancient world to the present. On one hand, in ancient and western sources, sex magic was mostly something you accused your enemy of doing. These accusations served rhetorical purposes of discrediting individuals and groups holding non-canonical views. On the other, people actually did perform rituals thought to activate power associated with sexuality. And they did so in specific contexts, exercising individual, institutional, and gendered power, acting on particular cosmologies and social hierarchies. This panel will explore both the practice and the rhetoric of sex magic in historical context.

David Porreca