A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult Quotes

“Sumerians, Assyrians, and Babylonians all sought help from exorcists and omen-interpreters to gain protection from malign supernatural entities and discover the future.”
― D.K. Publishing, A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult

“Coloro che accusavano gli altri di stregoneria cercavano a loro volta spiegazioni soprannaturali alle disgrazie.”
― Suzannah Lipscomb, A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult

“Kings guarded against these occurrences by consulting temple priests, in particular ashipu (exorcists), who performed magical rituals, and baru, who interpreted omens.”
― D.K. Publishing, A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult

“Beneath the official pantheon, including the likes of Enlil, the Assyrian sky god, and Ea, the god of wisdom, was a layer of demons, such as Lamashtu, who threatened pregnant women, and Namtaru, the plague-demon, who needed to be mollified. Natural phenomena such as floods and lightning, or epidemic diseases, were not scientifically understood despite Mesopotamian advances, and so people at all levels of society preferred supernatural explanations.”
― D.K. Publishing, A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult

“Perhaps more potent than hunting, fertility, or the earth’s mysteries was the fear of death. Formal burials have been found, dating from as early as 60,000 BCE, containing bones scattered with red ocher (suggestive of blood). Some burials also included flowers or necklaces to accompany the deceased into the next life. At Kebara Cave in Israel, Neanderthals buried several skeletons and skull bones, probably as a post-mortem rite. Early peoples, too, seem to have had a fear of dead spirits. At Gough’s Cave in Somerset, incisions on bones that are around 15,000 years old indicate that they engaged in ritual cannibalism. The aim of this may have been to acquire the powers of the dead or to prevent their spirits from inflicting damage on the living.”
― D.K. Publishing, A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult

“To understand such mysteries as the sun’s rising and setting, birth and death, and the daily struggle to hunt for food for survival, our earliest ancestors conceived of spirit forces that they could invoke to gain an advantage. A belief in supernatural forces and a human desire to use them to gain some sway over the physical world has been a feature of societies ever since.”
― D.K. Publishing, A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult

“In the ancient world, chaos and death were never very far away and the desire to stave these off, if only for a short period, meant that magic was ever-present.”
― D.K. Publishing, A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult

“Magic is as old as humankind. As soon as early people became aware of their environment, they believed it to be filled with spirits whose aid they invoked to control it, either directly through shamans—who they thought could travel into the spirit world—or through art. It is thought that early people modeled figurines and painted animals on cave walls in the belief that doing so would give them magical power over their world.”
― D.K. Publishing, A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult

“As well as being an abstract force, there was a god called Heka who personified magic. Heka helped ensure the harmony of the cosmos and acted as a conduit through whom worshippers could seek divine favors. He had a female counterpart, Weret-hekau (Great of Magic), who was depicted in the form of a cobra. It is thought that the snake-headed staffs often used by ancient Egyptian magicians may have represented her.”
― D.K. Publishing, A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult