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The Mirror, 1981

Will Barnet

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incredible work from writers, journalists and historians coming together to critique the new york times' (and essentially all mainstream american media) coverage of the genocide in gaza.

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Putting my anthropology degree to good use and compiling a bunch of credible sources documenting real life Balkan folk magic traditions in one easy, convenient article!

I know so many sources about witchcraft are inaccessible and or culturally appropriative, so I did a lot of research and wrote this easy to digest article covering some basics of South Eastern European folk belief. I’m thinking of writing more articles about various European folk traditions (when I have time!) so this will be an ongoing project. I hope you learn something new and meaningful to incorporate into your craft 💗

An Introduction to Balkan Folk Magic

Like many old world practices, traditional Balkan magic has historically been carried out by cunning folk, healers and seers who were gifted in communicating with the “other world”. These community healers practiced generational family knowledge, remedies and prayers passed down from elders. It is important to note that most cunning folk did not view themselves as witches, rather they were seen as conduits for god’s miracles. Within a historical context, these practitioners very much considered themselves Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. Elements of paganism lingered in many rural regions, though they were absorbed into the social-religious fabric of the day. Rituals performed by cunning folk were typically protective, either preventative or as a treatment for supernatural maladies. Spells shielded people from harm, physically or spiritually.

Many of these traditional healers and diviners were women. They passed down knowledge to their daughters, granddaughters, and nieces. Men weren’t barred from practicing, it was just rarer for them to perform these rituals. These traditions are often tied to the family, home, or the community. Many magical rituals shared common themes, but were often specific to a singular family. The women who performed these rituals and divined their neighbors’ futures are known as bajalica, bajanje, basmara, bajarica, or bajaluša — or “conjurers that heal with words.” Bajalica and those they helped held the belief that spirits have the power to afflict illness, charms, and hexes. Bajalica are the mediators between the spirit and human worlds.

In Serbian folk belief, each family has their own protective spirit or slava. Families would celebrate them with dedicated rituals in which they made offerings of bread, sacred water, wine, and oil, as well as lighting incense and sacred candles. These spirits or saints are associated with the hearth, the heart of the home, which is considered the most sacred ritual space. During healing rituals bajalica call upon the slava, drawing and channeling their power to strengthen spells. These spells typically involve a verbal component, whispered incantations that call upon saints and spirits for help in casting evil away. These verbal formulas are highly specific to each bajalica, often times mumbling well remembered words to rid patients of their misfortune.

Spiritual afflictions are found through various means of divination, digging for the root cause. Divination has long been used to predict the fates of those who seek out the conjurers. These methods include reading tarot, casting beans and interpreting patterns (also known as favomancy), molybdomancy (casting and reading molten lead), reading tea leaves and coffee grounds, and gazing into copper bowls filled with water beneath the moonlight and interpreting patterns in the reflection. Divination was and is, the main way to discover the root of “spiritual sickness”, who hexed whom, if one was afflicted with the evil eye, the urok. Much of Balkan folk belief centers around protection from the evil eye, with the majority of spells dedicated to banishing or warding.

Various regions and countries have their own means of protecting oneself from the evil eye. In Albania people use dordolec, house dolls, that are elaborately dressed and displayed in gardens or atop homes to protect against the malicious urok. In modern times most dordolec are stylized scarecrows or stuffed animals, but the intent is the same. It is believed that the doll reflects the covetous gaze back on the perpetrator and shields the home’s inhabitants. Other amulets in Albania, Serbia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, and various Balkan countries are dried snake heads between two holy medals made of silver, objects made of iron, cloves of garlic, the hand of Fatima or hamsa, and the nazar.

Again, most rituals heavily focus on protection magic — not just from the evil eye, but malevolent spirits as well. Bajalica will employ the ritual use of knives, broom whisks, sickles, and axes in healing and warding spells. Though these are physical implements, they are tokenistic, a form of sympathetic magic. Knives and other sharp implements are used symbolically, cutting away illness and curses from the spiritual self by slashing bowls of water or the air around the afflicted person in increments of 3 or 9. These are considered sacred numbers. After the symbolic cuts are made, the water is spilled at a crossroads away from the home. This leads the evil away from the community.

Healing rituals have many intricate components. Conjurers often employ various herbs in healing and blessing water such as basil, thyme, oregano, Saint John’s-wort, sage, and mugwort. Other healers might cleanse spaces and energies with a smoke bath made of similar herbal blends. Not only do healers use ritual tools, they often perform physical acts, such as performing knot magic and binding spells using colorful yarn. The yarn is typically red, black, or white. White yarn is used in healing rituals, red in binding magic and love spells, and black is used in binding as well — though it is sometimes used for darker, malicious purposes.

The folk practices of South Eastern Europe are heavily entrenched in doing acts of good. Healers serve their communities, curing ailments and casting protective spells. Many of these traditions still exist in some capacity and are practiced equally among Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Balkans. Though many of the rituals have a religious faith based element, they can be adapted to secular, agnostic, or polytheistic belief systems. These practices date back hundreds of years and by choosing to incorporate them into your craft, you are helping keep rich and beautiful traditions alive.

(sources available at the end of linked article)

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btw. one of my professors showed us this website that’s put together syllabi on a range of topics (e.g imperialism, the novel, pandemic/disease theory), in case anyone’s interested ! i think you have to source the texts in question yourselves, but it’s arranged pretty well imo

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my favorite poetry books (free PDF or epub)

the complete maya angelou

don't call us dead by danez smith

all the flowers kneeling by paul tran

time is a mother by ocean vuong

madness by sam sax

mayakovsky's revolver by matthew dickman

soft science by franny choi

thief in the interior by phillip b williams

ariel by sylvia plath

calling a wolf a wolf by kaveh akbar

together and by ourselves by alex dimitrov

not here by hieu minh nguyen

brute by emily skaja

post colonial love poem by natalie diaz

unaccompanied by javier zamora

prelude to bruise by saeed jones

howl & other poems by allen ginsberg

the big book of exit strategies by jamaal may

look by solmaz sharif

the crown ain't worth much by hanif abdurraqib

eyes bottle dark with a mouthful of flowers by jake skeets

finna by nate marshall

autopsy by donte collins

a place called no homeland by kai cheng thom

lunch poems by frank o'hara

lessons on expulsion by erika l sanchez

the new testament by jericho brown

said the manic to the muse by jeanann verlee

space struck by paige lewis

safe houses i have known by steve healey

the wound is a world by billy-ray belcourt

nature poem by tommy pico

owed by josua bennett

felon by reginald dwayne betts

come on all you ghosts by matthew zapruder

bluets by maggie nelson

life of the poetry by olivia gatwood

perennial by kelly forsythe

contradictions in the design by matthew olzmann

the big smoke by adrian matejka

peluda by melissa lozada-oliva

american sonnets for my past & future assassins by terrance hayes

king me by roger reeves

in a dream you saw a way to survive by clementine von radics

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decolonial art history starter guide

really tired of seeing AH on the internet/tumblr talked about w the same extreme reverence for the classics that has dominated the field since its conception and has led to the proliferation of white supremacist ideals in this course of study i love very much so decided to channel that by collecting some of my favorite readings on decolonizing art history, with a particular focus on the ancient/classical world. note: this is by no means an extensive list, but rather a selection of pieces i found helpful when starting to explore decolonial art history - with this list i'm focusing more on broad issues than highly specific case studies

reflections on the painting and sculptures of the greeks. jj winckelmann: giving this one a preface as it is quite literally the least decolonial art historical text you can find but also the one that kicked off classical art history studies as we know it (winckelmann is largely seen as the father of art history). as such it is worth a read to understand what these arguments are based around - in more recent years this text has been used extensively to support the white supremacist idea that aryan art came from the great green past and that anything not pertaining to the greeks was ‘degenerate’

decolonization is not a metaphor. tuck and yang.

empty the museum, decolonize the curriculum, open theory. nicholas mirzeoff.

decolonizing art history. grant and price.

decolonization: we aren't going to save you. puawai cairns.

why we need to start seeing the classical world in color. sarah bond.

beyond classical art. caroline vout.

classics and the alt-right: historicizing visual rhetorics of white supremacy. heidi morse.

decolonizing greek archaeology: indigenous archaeologies, modernist archaeology and the post-colonial critique. yannis hamilakis.

how academics, egyptologists, and even melania trump benefit from colonialist cosplay. blouin, hanna, and bond. (i'd like to flag this one in particular with a nod to tumblr's obsession with maintaining a certain aesthetic linked to what you study).

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"When I use the term “whiteness” I do not solely mean that white women are overrepresented as protagonists. I also include whiteness as a hegemonic force used to subjugate and oppress people of color. Although these white protagonists often act violently upon themselves, through various forms of self-harm, eating disorders or engaging in dangerous sexual acts, to regain control of their lives, they also externalize this violence onto those they can get away harming. Their primary targets are often people of color, mainly Black people."

"These fictional depictions of the white disaffected woman have real-world parallels. In an episode of the Red Scare Podcast titled “Shia Labuse,” hosts Dasha Nekrasova and Anna Khachiyan mock FKA twigs, who opened up about the abuse she endured from Shia LaBeouf. Dasha, who diagnosed herself with “girl, interrupted syndrome” and is heavily associated with the waif aesthetic, calls twigs “attention-seeking” and “aggressive” in reference to the New York Times article where she exposed Shia. One can only assume she felt comfortable making these cruel remarks because Black women are not afforded the same vulnerability that white women are able to capitalize on."

"Black women are not afforded the luxury of dissociation due to the continuous cycle of racial violence we are forced to confront."

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📚 Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism, Séances and Spirit Photography: Resources 📚

Hey, everyone! Here’s the Google Drive link to my beloved archive of +60 PDFs on Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism. Enjoy! :)

Last updated: June 15, 2022.

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reviving this blog now that I have time to read again :)