Recipes for Horror in Graeco-Roman Magic and Medicine
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F67985955%3A_____%2F25%3A00641572" target="_blank" >RIV/67985955:_____/25:00641572 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350380684.ch-012" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350380684.ch-012</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350380684.ch-012" target="_blank" >10.5040/9781350380684.ch-012</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Recipes for Horror in Graeco-Roman Magic and Medicine
Original language description
The chapter examines magical and medical recipes from ancient Greek and Egyptian sources that employ disturbing ingredients such as blood, feces, and body parts. It explores how these recipes relate to experiences of horror through two principal encounters. The first concerns a ritual attributed to Pachrates, high priest of Heliopolis, who performed an attraction spell before Emperor Hadrian by burning incense mixed with animal parts and excrement to invoke Selene, inflicting insomnia and psychic torment upon his victim. The second examines an ancient recipe for magical ink made with myrrh and blood, replicated experimentally to test its physical properties, the results show that blood had no practical effect, implying a purely symbolic or ritual function. By contrasting the magician’s acceptance of supernatural forces with Galen’s rationalist rejection of them, the study shows that ancient Mediterranean cultures conceived horror as both supernatural and corporeal, with the body serving as the site where unseen powers were manifested and verified.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
C - Chapter in a specialist book
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60301 - Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology
Result continuities
Project
<a href="/en/project/GM21-30494M" target="_blank" >GM21-30494M: Alchemies of Scent. Reconstructing the Practices of Ancient Greco-Egyptian Perfumery: An Experimental Approach to the History of Science</a><br>
Continuities
I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace
Others
Publication year
2025
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Book/collection name
Horror in Classical Antiquity and Beyond. Body, Affect, Concepts
ISBN
978-1-3503-8064-6
Number of pages of the result
31
Pages from-to
215-245
Number of pages of the book
303
Publisher name
Bloomsbury Academic
Place of publication
London
UT code for WoS chapter
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