Looking back on the semester

The last question that Dr. MB asked us in class was something like "Why do we still keep coming back to magic?" As in literature and movies and such.  And I think that it is because it gives us somewhere else to go.  These stories we have read that have had magic in them have been in completely different "worlds."  Somewhere hidden from us "muggles." Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings series are perfect examples because it is like they are in a world of their own.  They seem far off and hidden and we can only wish to be there.

People came up these places as a means of entertainment from everyday life. There is no "magic" in real life.  Nothing really miraculously changes on command, you can't talk to animals, you can't use spells.  So we created a place where we could.  And we use this place to get away to.  Theres nothing like being able to do something that takes your mind off of everything that stresses you out or is monotonous.

These magic realms are the perfect place to go where something heroic and mighty can happen.  Somewhere you wish you were at, right next to the main character helping them on their quest.  People always want to get away, go on vacation, and having these stories with magic in them is like a temporary vacation.  People keep coming back and writing about it and make shows or movies about it because they want to create their own magical world like others have done.  Hopefully others can use it to get away in.

Dumbledore and Gandalf

In my opinion, Dumbledore was a much better wizard than Gandalf.  I'm not saying Gandalf is a poor wizard though, he just isn't on the same level as Dumbledore.  Gandalf's main role in The Lord of the Rings was as a leader during role.  He pretty much directed troops on when and where to go.  He also fought along side with them.  But he never seemed to really use that much magic.  I mean shouldn't a wizard be use a good amount of magic? He did use his powers much more in the first movie than in the second and third movies.  In the second and third movies he played more of a war leader role.

But Dumbledore was always ready to use his magic.  He used his magic to defend Harry from the inferi, defeat Grindlewald, when he defended himself against the five ministry of magic workers in the fifth book, and he could defend himself from Voldemort unlike everyone else apart from Harry.  Dumbledore was also a great leader in battle and out of battle, just like Gandalf.

My decision is not made purely on use of magic though, leadership plays role but they are pretty much even in those categories.  I think that Dumbledore is more wise than Gandalf.  He was able to guide Harry to the right answer and give him the right piece of advice more often than Gandalf was able to give to Frodo.  Dumbledore did not blatantly tell Harry things though.  He would make riddles out of it or tell Harry stories or show him memories and Harry would have to find the answer from them.  Whereas Gandalf pretty much told Frodo he had to go to mt. doom in Mordor to destroy the ring and good luck doing it.  I do recognize that Gandalf could not escort Frodo all the way there and help him more but if he did that would ruin the story line.  So Dumbledore wins there.  And that is why I think Dumbledore is the better wizard.  What do you guys think?

Harry Potter is a cool guy

So my mom was the one who first told me about Harry Potter.  I think I was in third grade or so when it happened.  My mom convinced me to let her read me the first chapter.  Just the first chapter and if I did not like it then she would stop reading it to me.  Well when she was done reading it I told her that it was alright but I did not want to keep reading it.  Later that day though I saw the book on a table in our house, picked it up and kept reading it.  It was out of pure curiosity.  But a few chapters later I was hooked on it.  And the same goes with the subsequent books.  I liked all of them, and there was actually not one part of any book that I thought was bad and didn't need to be in there.

I'm not someone who is obsessed with the series but I haven't really forgotten anything from any of the books, the stuff has just stuck with me and I'm not mad about it at all.  One reason I found them so appealing when I was younger was because it just made you were at that gullible age and it made you believe that there was this other side to  the world where there was real magic and wizards and witches.  It was a place to get away.  I mean yeah all of that stuff is not real but for young kids who do not know any better then it was awesome for them.

I liked all of the movies as well. Some of them definitely left out important stuff that was in the books but I got over that eventually.  I never watched the movie until I finished the book that movie was from too.  And every time I see one of the movies or read a part of one of the books it just reminds me of the time where you really believed in it.  It was something to look forward to doing when you got home from school.  Some times I would get in trouble because I was up so let reading the books but they are that good and they can really hook you into them.  There wasn't one bad character in them.  The key to reading them I think is to start off with an open mind because if your first thought when you're reading it is that it is stupid then you will never be able to get that thought out.  If you can give the first book a chance then you will definitely want to read the second and so on.

Merlin from a different view

In my opinion, after reading the first story on Merlin, I feel that merlin was just misunderstood by the people around him.  He suffered a major loss in his opinion when one of his friends, Rhydderch.  After going through a period of grieving Merlin retreated to the woods.  And everyone viewed him as crazy because he did this.  Before he had moved to the woods Merlin lived in a town where he was fairly high up in the caste system there and very involved with the wars and protecting the people there and what not.  This could not be a stress free job.  Anyone in a position like Merlin was in would be under tremendous pressure.  So by retreating to the woods to live there, merlin was getting rid of this stress in his life.  he did not want to fight anymore but to just make peace.  As someone mentioned in class, it is very PTSD like.  If someone was to return from war today, and because of what that person had been through, retreated to live by themselves in a house in the mountains and live off the land (just an example), would we view them as crazy or do they have every right to do so?  Merlin wanted to live in peace, somewhere he does not have to worry about war.  Is that too much to ask for?  It is very different from how we live today but is it not easier?  For those of you who have read To Kill A Mockingbird, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”   So is it actually that weird that Merlin wanted to be alone?  Merlin just wanted to do Merlin but everyone else wanted Merlin to do what they were doing.  They wanted him to conform instead of being different.  As different as it was, he was happy.

Post 1 of 5

Hildegard von Bingen

I thought that Hildegard von Bingen should have definitely been accused of witchcraft.  If you take out that she comes from a wealthy family, is a nun, and attributes her visions to God then you can see that she clearly was a witch.  I feel like her family's connections and her position within the church allowed her to "draw outside the lines" without anyone asking questions.  She was also able to get the pope on her side which pretty much meant that whatever she said was right and the pope had her back on it.

The thing that was just really weird about her was the story about the worm/dragon.  This dragon was huge and divided into regions.  And she was able to relate these regions and the entire vision to God and the Devil and people following God and not following him.  And I think the main reason that she was not called a witch for because of this vision is because she was using it as a tool instead of a sort of summoning ritual or sacrifice as we had seen in the other books.  The main pitfall of the people committing witchcraft in the other two books is because they were summoning demons and involving the devil but Hildegard was using this vision to teach people and spread the word.  She wanted them to know that stopping to buy and sell was not the right thing to do, she did not encourage buying.  She related each piece of her vision to a lesson that could be learned such as the dislocated jawbone which symbolized that the dragon could not exert its true bitterness because the Son of God had overthrown the devil.  In my opinion Hildegard would have definitely been accused of witch craft if she has not been from her family and did not get the popes backing.

Martin Luther and John Calvin

Martin Luther and John Calvin are my two favorite figures from the Reformation.  Martin Luther was one of the first people to actually fight indulgences, which was buying the forgiveness of your sins.  People who didn't even work for the church would sell indulgences too.  I also like Martin Luther because he wrote from personal experiences.  In article 40 on page 261 it talks about how the devil actually assaulted him both physically and spiritually.  So he was not just writing to try to correct people, he was looking out for everyone and wanted them to know that they need to continue to trust in God even when it is hard.  I like how Luther addressed persons transforming into other forms, such as cats.  He knocked that down pretty quickly, and who would really believe that someone could change their form, it's ludicrous.  Luther believed that interior idolatry commanded everyone.  This was until they were "healed by grace in the faith of Jesus Christ" (264).  I don't really see why Luther believes this unless he is referring to original sin and baptism.

John Calvin pressed "the role and power of Satan is critical to the concept of witchcraft as it had evolved in Christian Europe, as is the concept of the pact between Devil and witch" (265).  In his article, article 41, he really makes a good connection between them.  He first states that the word of Satan can never be as strong as God's and that God has complete control over Satan.  I like how he puts that the devil is pretty much sent to punish people for them leaving God.  This goes along with the witchcraft and the devil because the devil is summoned in so many witchcraft rituals and gets people into even more trouble than they would be in anyways, for example, the sorcerers apprentice in article 36.  Calvin also points out how people who have turned away from God, or tempted him, have "become so brutish after they have once turned away from the right path" (268).  Such as the people who truly believed in their cults in the earlier chapters.  Some people would not speak a bad thing about their cult or beliefs even when faced with death.  They truly believed that these terrible views were the right ones and they were put to death because of it.

God and his magical powers

I thought article 36 in Witchcraft in Europe was very interesting and I like how it was presented in class today.  This article also goes along with articles 40 and 41 in chapter 8.  From articles 40 and 41 you see that God has complete command over the devil.  The devil and his demons cannot do anything without Gods permission.  God uses this to punish people who have strayed form the right path and show them how straying from the path only results in darkness.  So the sorcerers apprentice goes through his ritual with his daughter and summons the devil.  This was the first sign that the man was going to get in trouble.  The devil had promised him gifts of treasure and they were not given to him and the devil makes excuses as to why they are not there such as the apprentice was doing a part of the ritual wrong.  This beating around the bush is another symbol that nothing good can coming form trusting something other than God. The devil then begins to give the  apprentice the name of a monk who could help him but in the end the monk turns the apprentice and his entire family over to the church and has them imprisoned.  And this was all because the apprentice tried to use powers that do not belong to a human.  These are things of the gods and people who try to use them always end up getting caught and punished for it.  At the end of the article Erasmus states, "Are we ourselves surprised that new plagues come upon us every day, when each day, by fresh wickedness, we provoke the Lord our God..." (236).  He is basically asking, why are we surprised that history is repeating itself?  They are not learning from their past mistakes and the mistakes of others and therefore are making them again and getting into the same problems.  Society can not move forward and up if people do not see the problems they are creating and own up to it and fix it.  Everyone was failing to realize that they were offending God and leaving him and this lead to them being punished by the church.

I also liked the two questions asked at the end of the presentation today: Why didn't God strip the devil of all of his power when he withdrew his grace? And if God is the source of all magic then how can magic be considered blasphemous?  To the first question, I think that God did not strip the devil of all of his power because he was going to need the devil.  The devil is temptation, in a way.  He is there to test people.  To see if people have the strength to keep believing in God no matter what happens, and the devil is there for when they fail.  And to the second question, I think that the magic is blasphemous only when when humans use it.  It was not meant for us to use and that is why it often fails for people such as the sorcerers apprentice in article 36 and the many articles before it.  Magic is something for God and he makes it apparent by the fact that it does not work for anyone else.  Humans were not meant to use it and therefore when they try to use it it is as if they are disgracing God for even trying to be like him in that manner because they should not have that power.

Science vs magic

Writing about magic is not something that I'm used to doing so this is very different for me.

I never really realized how life was during the time period we are looking at.  When I think of the 1200-1400's I think of the plague and terrible conditions.  But in addition to this the Catholic church and kings were fighting a different enemy.  This enemy was people being interested in science, or as it was called back then, magic. Studying things such as astronomy and astrology were looked as magic but are actually valuable items.  The things they associated with the stars as well as positions of the stars in the sky though, that was the magic.  There is just no proof behind Mars being close to the Sun is a good or bad time to go to war with another country.  Alchemy was a legitimate science back then as well.  It was a complete dead end though if you look at it with what we know today.  You couldn't possibly turn one element into gold back then.  We can today though.  No one from this time period knew this though.  Everyone just knew that it was hard and if someone claimed they could do it then they were lying.  Alchemy was the work of the devil in the Catholic church's eyes.

People accused of witchcraft or devil worshipping really were tortured or burned to death.  I don't know how people could really want someone to die like this but I guess they really were scared of what these devil worshippers were capable of.  I found it pretty funny that the devil worshippers claimed they ate like 60 babies for example but they never mentioned anyone claiming they were missing their children.  Maybe the parents just cut their losses back then, who knows.  The cults these people claim to be apart of sound like they actually could have existed apart from them eating more little kids and seasoning the kids with venom from poisonous animals.

Some of the stories from K/P are interesting so hopefully there will be more in future chapters.