Out of the Box, Out of the Bottle: Ambiguous Supernatural Entities in Medieval Magic

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Societas Magica

Organizer Name

Samuel P. Gillis Hogan

Organizer Affiliation

Independent Scholar

Presider Name

Matthew Melvin-Koushki

Presider Affiliation

Univ. of South Carolina

Paper Title 1

"Half Etayn" and the "Goddes Morgne": The Ambiguity of the Preternatural in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Presenter 1 Name

Kersti Francis

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Univ. of California-Los Angeles

Paper Title 2

Talking Heads and Bestial Spirits: Invoking Planetary Spirits in Medieval Latin Manuals of Image Magic

Presenter 2 Name

Lauri Ockenström

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Univ. of Jyväskylä/European Univ. Institute

Paper Title 3

Familiar with Fairies: The Significance of Late Medieval and Early Modern Fairy Conjuring Texts

Presenter 3 Name

Samuel P. Gillis Hogan

Start Date

12-5-2018 10:00 AM

Session Location

Bernhard 211

Description

Recent years have witnessed growing scholarship on historical angel and demon conjuring texts. Less attention has been paid to ambiguous spiritual entities, such as “fairies,” “jinn,” and the morally neutral Greco-Roman “daemons,” which do not fit into the Judeo-Christian tradition. Others are ambiguous because the text’s author depicts angels or demons acting in unorthodox ways. This panel will offer a subtler understanding of pre-modern belief by exploring liminal spirits in conjuring texts. This will provide insight into how the elite intellectual culture of ritual magic in the West and East, popular beliefs, and inherited concepts from the Classical tradition intersected.

David Porreca