This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Virtually all cultures and eras fizz with magic. You might call it a secret ingredient of human life because magic takes so many forms and serves so many functions.
One relatively new area of research among historians and archaeologists focuses on the use of magic and mysticism to protect buildings, gardens and their inhabitants. It's one of the many forms of magic I explore in my new book, Magick: Decoding the Visual Culture of Spells, Illusions and Psychic Powers. Early modern Europe saw numerous reports of towns, such as Schiltach, Germany, in 1533, being burned by "incendiary witchcraft" and fire-starting demons.
These dramatic examples, from an era of terrifyingly combustible homes, help explain why so many people focused magical building protection on chimneys and hearths. Even today, people living comparatively safe and comfortable lives still use special objects and occult techniques to allay their anxieties and increase their sense of security. A few years ago, a lovely volunteer guiding me around an ancient church in North Yorkshire explained she had planted a rowan tree in her garden.
To repel her neighbor's "evil eye." Rowan trees have been used in this way for centuries across the British Isles. So, if you've got problem neighbors, or your house and garden seem to suffer from bad luck, perhaps it's time to try a magical solution. Trees, herbs and other plants were and are used to defend properties against dangers both natural and supernatural.
The 17th-century botanist Nicholas Culpeper's Complete Herbal (1653) claimed that a bay tree in the garden protects against witchcraft, the devil and lightning. Betony, meanwhile, was said to be good against liver disease, epidemics and witchcraft, while bittersweet nightshade was believed to be effective against harmful sorcery. Across Britain and Europe, a rosemary bush in the garden was supposed to protect against harmful night witches, who would be caught counting every leaf until the morning light dispelled their evil powers.
In the Americas, chili peppers have long been regarded as evil-averting and were sometimes fixed to doors to repel harmful powers. In early modern Europe and beyond, five- and six-pointed stars were inscribed into wood and mortar to repel evil. Magical instructional texts known today as "grimoires"—including the tiny Booke of Experiments (1622), now held in Oxford's Bodleian Library—explain that these star symbols helped overcome enemies.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
