‘A very basic human desire to want some control’: An American exhibition explores the power of magic | art

WWhether it’s an ancient amulet to protect a newborn, a love spell to seal a romantic relationship, a potion someone might pick up today at their neighborhood drugstore, or even a spray of Chanel perfume to make yourself irresistible, humans have used—and continue to use—magic to get what they want. These spells and their use in the ancient world are the focus of the Damned! A stunning exhibition at the Toledo Museum of Art offers a deep dive into the use of magic in the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome.

“Magic exists in all societies, and it is a very basic human desire, which is the desire to have some control over your world,” said exhibition curator Dr. Jeffrey Speer, who is chief curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum. “There was always a desire to use some hidden power to get what you needed.”

According to Speer, magic emerged in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt as those cultures became more literate, with scribes writing spells in various forms. “The way it is passed down and taught in Egypt and Mesopotamia is very literary,” Speer said. Talismans and magical objects were considered part of everyday life, and reached the masses through the spread of items such as statues and amulets. “This is practical magic, these are things people actually use,” Spier said.

Magic in these cultures can have very everyday uses – one of the most common spells is one meant to undermine your opponent in a lawsuit, and it’s not hard to imagine how such magic could help calm persistent anxiety while dealing with such a situation. “The pressure must have been terrible,” Speer said, “so you would go to a magician and say, ‘I need to survive this lawsuit.’” A piece of red jade in Damned! came from Paris, where it was used to protect against colic and other stomach ailments.

There were also charms to protect newborn babies from demons, which were very popular, given the infant mortality rates in early societies. “Lamashtu was this terrible demon who would harm children or women in childbirth, which was of course a major concern. So you would call upon this other demon, Pazuzu, for protection,” Spear said.

And of course there were love spells, which seemed uncomfortably close to sexual assault. “These spells were to force you,” Spear said. “They’re not Valentine’s Day. They’re very coercive. A man might find the spirit of the dead forcing a woman to come to him. They’re terrifying when you read them.”

Hiring a magician to perform a spell for you was as simple as going down to the local market, finding a practitioner, and paying a fee. In ancient Greece, there were door-to-door magicians who would come to you and perform different types of magic to improve your life. (Plato sarcastically refers to them as “mendicant priests” in the Republic.)

In Rome, magic became widespread as a fashion craze – one such example occurred with special gemstones bearing enchanted inscriptions on them. “They took off across the entire Roman Empire, going everywhere,” Speer said. “There has even been a recent discovery in Bulgaria, in a Roman army camp on the far frontier of the empire.” Young women in particular loved to wear such items around their necks, showing how magic intersected with fashion and even a form of female empowerment, as talismans were often used in Rome by more oppressed groups to strive for social status they could not otherwise reach.

Although outside groups often relied on magic, it was also sometimes used by leaders when practicing statecraft. In Mesopotamia and Egypt, where magic was widely celebrated and integrated into the mainstream culture, state priests might make small statues of foreign enemies, which would then be smashed to help governments overcome their enemies. Exorcists could also be used to rid the kingdom of terrible demons that were causing the spread of a dangerous disease.

But not all leaders were eager to embrace magic. In ancient Greece, where the practice of magic was stigmatized and likely considered the territory of disadvantaged groups, the great leader Pericles lamented that Athens had fallen on hard times and even turned to enchanted objects to help treat a devastating plague that spread during the Peloponnesian War. “It shows an old woman tying an amulet on his wrist,” Speer said. “It’s like, ‘Look, this is the state we’re in where I have to resort to this.’” (By some accounts, Pericles died in the plague, so perhaps he was right.)

Although magic first appeared in the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt, it made its way to the emerging lands of Greece and Rome via trade, as well as with the wars of conquest of Alexander the Great. Alexander’s conquests turned much of the known world into a great cultural melting pot, allowing culture to spread in a way that was previously unknown, Spiers explained. “Everything changed after Alexander the Great. He controlled this entire region up to Iran. We have a great mix of cultures – a mix of Egyptian, Babylonian and Greek traditions – Syrians and Jews, all interacting.”

Although ancient societies seem distant, Spear explained that magical knowledge continued to be passed down through the ages for most of recorded history. “What you see in the Roman era will continue into the Christian, medieval and modern eras. It is only in the last 100 years that we have moved away and forgotten a lot of this.”

But there are still ways to bring a little magic into your own life. cursed! It may make viewers look at some of their practices very differently, and see the long history of magical items that many of us use today. “We’re still very much committed to that tradition, so you still see it permeating the community, even these days,” Speer said. “It’s in things like crystals or metals — like copper bracelets or magnets, and it’s very ancient, too.”