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Final Blog

This is officially the last assignment I will ever complete at TCU, which is a peculiar feeling. I just took my last test today for my advanced financial management course, and there is a chance that I may never take a formal / written / multiple choice test ever again (depending on whether or not I earn a graduate degree later). I am impressed overall by the unique course that are offered by the honors college at TCU. I assumed that the honors college was exaggerating the truth during their recruiting efforts, but at this point in time I can tell that the honors experience in the classroom is different than a standard one. Right away, I took “College Life and Identity” and “Roman Tradition” as a freshman, which was so cool. Even now, when I tell my friends I have to study for “The Beauty of Black Music” or “Witches, Witchcraft, and Witch Hunts,” they are always astounded and typically wish they had the opportunity to take similar courses. Reflecting on my time at TCU, I have learned s...
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Norse Magic: History and Modern Applications

I find it interesting how some religions persist and have much influence of members of society to this day, while others were historically practiced and relevant but eventually faded away. The religion of the Nordic region was powerful and lasted until the area’s eventual conversion to Christianity in the 8 th century. I was also surprised that Valhalla was not mentioned once in A History of Magic, Witchcraft, & the Occult, since this is a significant part of Nordic mythology; Valhalla is the Nordic form of heaven for bravehearted soldiers who died valiantly in battle, and Odin oversees the spirits’ eternal peace. I am always fascinated by polytheism, since the most dominant religions to this day are monotheistic. I also did not know that in Nordic mythology, there were two sets of gods who opposed one another constantly. It is so weird how this religion that was once so significant is now labeled as mythology, I suppose when enough people stop believing the religion loses all val...
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Books of the Dead

Oxford languages defines necromancy as “the supposed practice of communicating with the dead, especially in order to predict the future; sorcery or black magic in general.” On page 35 of A History of Magic, Witchcraft, & the Occult, necromancy (in the context of Greece) is similarly defined as “the art of speaking with, or even raising, the dead, which took place at sites such as the Necromanteion in Epirus.” There has always been a fascination with the concept of death throughout the existence of humanity, most commonly in the context of fear, and the unknown. Therefore, it is no surprise that over the course of history, humans have attempted to theorize what exactly happens post-mortem. Due to many commonly held beliefs of some form of afterlife, people have oftentimes attempted to reach people who have come and gone from this planet. Whether due to an inability to let a loved one go, or out of pure fascination and curiosity, there have been many attempts to contact or even raise...
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Sacrificing Life: Belief and Resort

It is fascinating just how ubiquitous the practice of sacrifice has been throughout all of human history, dating back as far as 4000 BCE and still alluded to or even practiced to this day. In fact, I do not even necessarily question the premise of sacrifice when I see it referenced or practiced in popular culture or forms of entertainment. After our readings and some research, I would say that there are various tiers of sacrifice, where sacrificing items / jewelry is of the lowest significance, topped by animal sacrifices (where larger / rarer / more expensive animals are more significant). It is believed that the first animal sacrifice took place in Upper Egypt, around 4400-4000 BCE. Following animals, the ultimate form of sacrifice to the gods or higher powers is almost certainly humans. After some research, I was not able to find a citation for the total number of humans that have been sacrificed in all of history, which is interesting because I figured there would at least be one e...
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Anachronism

Anachronism: an act of attributing a custom, event, or object to a period to which it does not belong (Oxford Languages). I had to look up that word online after reading it in Witchcraft: A Short Introduction . This word does a great job of encapsulating our efforts as a class in terms of our analysis of witchcraft from a 21st century perspective. Our goal is to study some of the seemingly crazy events from the past without reducing its validity from a given time period. I find it remarkably easy to apply our modern research and ideologies to the texts we have read; therefore, I have been making significant mental efforts to refrain from this practice of anachronism. Overall, it is difficult to not accidentally engage in anachronism. After all, how thoroughly can one constantly monitor their thoughts as they happen, while also digesting the text itself. However, it would be foolish to pretend like these types of relatively nonsensical stories / legends do not occur in society to this d...
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The Spectrum of Good and Evil

I found several concepts interesting in the first 44 pages of Witchcraft, A Short Introduction. The author demonstrates a solid understanding of the human mind throughout history, which is expected after 20 plus years of study. One thing mentioned in the first few pages is how humans prefer clear-cut concepts instead of ambiguous ones. This made me think about how children’s books and movies usually only provide binary situations; good and evil, night and day, etc. There is always an obvious good character (protagonist) and bad character (antagonist), which makes sense because children wield developing minds and need to understand the basics before tackling the infinite space in between such opposite forces (depending on a given situation / story). However, my next thought was in regard to the vast development of the human species over thousands of years. If people from the past were much more willing to accept / limit themselves to binary concepts to navigate their lifestyles, wouldn’...
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Magic and Music

As a musician myself, I was intrigued by the brief chapter titled “Magic and music” in A History of Magic, Witchcraft, & the Occult. Even today we are far from fully understanding the effects of music on the brain, but interest in the field has grown dramatically in the past decade according to The Power of Music by Elena Mannes. For example, you might not be able to remember anything from a test you took in 11 th grade of high school, or even sophomore year of college (as a senior year student at TCU). Yet if a nostalgic song comes on the radio from when you were only 6 years old, you would be easily able to recite every single lyric and every single note as if you had studied the content yesterday. Therefore, for this reason and others, it is not surprising that over hundreds of years humans have associated music with magic. Even further, just as magic and witchcraft have been associated with the devil / demonic practices, so have different forms of music that have developed ...
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