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Settled and spread throughout the archipelago, in a constant search for solutions that allow it to be a religious community in its own right, in a diverse and plural society such as the Canary Islands of the XXI century, the Regla Osha is a religion that has, what can be summarized as very bad press. The objective is to analyze the constant association between the Regla Osha, a religion of Afro-Cuban origin, and the different spiritual and esoteric manifestations not considered as a religion, but as magical-ritual practices in the context of the Canary Islands, as well as its link with criminal practices in the archipelago. The praxis of this religion faces moral, legal, environmental, material, aesthetic and symbolic conflicts to develop its rituals and manifest its beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the magical activity performed by Christian women in Late Antique Gaul. Beyond the invectives of preachers and hagiographers, magic continued to be a widespread activity in Barbarian Gaul, now in Christian hands. In fact, other hagiographical episodes attest that consulting Christian enchanters must have been a common phenomenon and the more frequent practices were potion manufacture, divination, and healing. The anecdotes portray Christian women as incantatores, famous wonder-workers, and their procedures involved traditional techniques, including application of salves and plasters, hanging protective amulets and ligaments about a patient's neck, and dispensing potions. Despite reservations, Gallic bishops allowed much latitude for practicing wonder-workers because they estimated their magical behaviors to be heavenly inspired, while they condemned those of opponents to be demonic and injurious to patients. Hagiographers were particularly interested in publicizing incidents in which Christian enchanters prevailed after their pagan opponents failed. Obviously the main goal was to discourage members of his congregation from relying on pagan healers and promote their own specialist in order to bolster their local churches and their spiritual authority in the immediate environs of their cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The belt has been considered a magical instrument with apotropaic and thaumaturgical value in many civilizations. In the present essay numerous testimonies are gathered to demonstrate that its magical power, very spread in Antiquity, was assumed by the Christians and has lasted until the present time in the garments of the catholic liturgy and in the clothes of monks. In hagiographic literature monks appear frequently competing with the «holy men» of paganism for appropriating the dynamis that emanates from the belt, in contexts that differ little or nothing from those attested in Jewish and pagan sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the charge of enchantment hymns (carmina) laid against Ambrose in the social and political context the basilicas crisis (385-386). A connection might, therefore, be drawn between the political and polemical value of Ambrose's hymns, the accusation of acting contrary to the emperor's wishes and the assimilation of the bishop with a usurper (tyrannus). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution offers a general overview of the topic of magic and slavery with special attention to domestic slavery. Different from the dialectic confrontation on ancient slavery during the second half of the XXth Century, the new interpretative models of the sociology of graeco-roman magic focus on the detailed analysis of the motivations expressed in the sources. These motivations do not reflect an stereotyped behaviour of the social status of the agents: they are rather fluctuating. In this regard, the kind of tensions perceived are not exclusively vertical but, more frequently, they show horizontal tensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the significance and use of the ruins as loca magica in the Roman World, focusing on literary, epigraphical and archaeological sources. As liminal topographies invested of material, aesthetic and metaphorical meanings linked to destruction and death, and dwellings of supernatural powers, it will be demonstrated that ruins appeared as an ideal location for magical activities, mainly oriented to ruin victims' lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns the elusive but compelling evidence for ritual behaviour associated with divination. This practice, as presented in ancient Britannia, appears to have embraced two approaches to the spirits. Reverence for the gods and desire to propitiate them was seemingly seasoned with a fair sprinkling of magic, where the balance of power shifted from spirits to human and where the latter use occult forces to manipulate the former. I begin with a short discourse on the nature of magic, followed by attempts to identify ritualists in the archaeological record. The section on art examines its positioning on cult-objects where it is confined to the parts regularly held by people, raising the question as to whether this contact might have involved transmission of a spiritual «charge» to the holder. There follow observations on particular divinatory practices that include lot-casting; the apparent significance of spoken and chanted words and music; and the evidence for the role played by transformatory experiences, such as visions and dreams. The final section deals with specific attributes, associated with bog-bodies, where there is possible relevance to the paper's central theme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]