Stealing the Sacred
Stealing the Sacred
Although the church thought of witchcraft as the opposite of Christianity, most people used church materials such as holy water, blessed herbs, or even the Eucharistic host for healing. The Lord’s Prayer, which asks that God ‘Give us this day our daily bread’, exemplifies the difficulty, for both clergy and laypeople, in distinguishing sacramental magic from licit Christian practice. Miraculous hosts were claimed to heal: why shouldn’t people use them? The Incarnation blessed this material world: why shouldn’t people use it to bless their cattle, or to help in love-magic? An examination of witch-trials involving the host is used to explore lay assumptions about the proper temporal uses of Christian sacred objects.
Keywords: sacramental magic, Lord’s Prayer, Incarnation, miraculous hosts, love-magic, holy water, blessed herbs
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