Nigon wyrta galdor

Summary

The analysis of three incantations from widely differing sources — a Mesopotamian baby charm, an Old English herbal incantation and a Baroque charm against an infant disease — shows that ›magic‹, so called, at least in its early forms, is a thoroughly rational instrument for mastering the world and its vagaries, bringing together human happiness/suffering and the power to act. The logical consistency of the incantations, which are, in part, very subtle in their construction, is revealed through the decoding of complex variants of a mode of thought which can be traced back to the documented origins of magic in the ancient Orient and which can still be seen in the incantations of the New Age: that all things and all creatures constantly radiate a material ›aura‹ of varying quality, which can be tapped into through touch so that desired characteristics can be transferred onto deficient (›sick‹) subjects/objects in need of transformation: thus, according to this mode of thought, a new code (›health‹, ›order‹, etc) can be implanted.