Sophie Page, Marina Wallace, et al

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

ISBN: 9781910807248

Pages: 176

Illustrations: 80 color, 70 b&w
Size: 8.5 in x 11 in

Paperback

A unique look at how people have viewed magic and superstition, both historically and today.

• Objects include 'Witches in Bottles' spell books and other rare manuscripts

We touch wood to stop bad things happening, or take a lucky object to a job interview or exam in an irrational attempt to influence the outcome. Do you believe in magic? Even if you don't, you probably 'think magically' sometimes.

The Ashmolean Museum has taken the subject at face value and is the first scholarly institution to treat the subject in an exhibition which is the contents of this spectacular catalogue. Spellbound: Magic, Ritual & Witchcraft offers a rare opportunity to look at how magic has been practiced -- how it  has reached into our wildest imaginations and deepest emotions. 

Here are exquisitely engraved rings to bind a lover, enchanted animal hearts pierced with nails, mummified cats concealed in walls and other intriguing objects. These are objects of, magic -- depending upon your point of view.. The use of and belief in magic has been driven by our strongest emotions: the need to be loved, our fear of evil and the desire to protect our homes. The authors explore the practice of magic in the medieval universe, the early modern community as well as the modern home. While belief in magic and rituals can be comforting, it also led to the persecution of women as witches. The authors examine how the idea of the witch took root and how women were accused of witchcraft.

Even today, our tendency to think magically has not changed as much as we might think. Some of the chapters discuss contemporary ideas about "magical thinking" and the artworks produced especially for the exhibition make connections between the ideas and experience of magic in the past and in the present.

Contents:
Introduction - Sophie Page and Marina Wallace; Love in a Time of Demons: Magic and the Medieval Cosmos - Sophie Page; Musica Universalis - Harmonia Mundi and Hayden - Chisholm's Medieval Jukebox - Marina Wallace; Concealed and Revealed: Magic and Mystery in the Home - Owen Davies and Ceri Houlbrook; The Fear and Loathing of Witches - Malcolm Gaskill; Modern Rituals and Magical Thinking - Ceri Houlbrook; Installations by Contemporary Artists - Marina Wallace

Dr Sophie Page is a Senior Lecturer at UCL and recently worked on the three-year Leverhulme project, 'Inner Lives: Emotions, Identity and the Supernatural, 1300-1900'. Professor Marina Wallace is the Director of Artakt: http://www.artakt.co.uk and former Professor at Central Saint Martins, College of Art and Design and the University of the Arts, London.

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