Introduction: Western Learned Magic as an Entangled Tradition

Summary

The introduction to a special issue proposes analyzing Western learned magic as an entangled tradition, calling for an interdisciplinary, transcultural, and transreligious perspective on its history. A working heuristic of seven types of entanglement is offered, with special emphasis on ritual hybridisation—processes where rituals reflect millennia-long textual-ritual transmission across cultural and religious boundaries. The introduction summarizes six contributions from a September 2019 workshop at the University of Bochum's Center for Religious Studies, which explore this entangled history.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The introduction to this special issue outlines the concept of Western learned magic and suggests to analyse it as an entangled tradition, thus calling for an interdisciplinary, transcultural and transreligious perspective on its history. A working heuristic of seven different types of entanglement in the history of Western learned magic is proposed, whereas special emphasis is placed on processes of ritual hybridisation. Entangled rituals are one of the most unique characteristics of Western learned magic and often mirror millenia-long processes of textual-ritual transmission across numerous cultural and religious boundaries. Inspired by this working heuristic of different types of entanglement in the history of Western learned magic, the introduction summarises the six contributions to this special issue. These contributions represent the fruits of a workshop on *Western learned magic as an entangled tradition* that was held at the Center for Religious Studies (CERES) at the University of Bochum on September 14–15, 2019.