Ziad Shihab

Showing all posts tagged "Witchcraft"

Most Famous Sorceresses of Greek Mythology

December 10th, 2023

Witchcraft and sorcery, sometimes also referred to as "pharmakeia," relates to magic, working with herbs, potions, and the ancient healing arts. Although the gods and goddesses of Ancient Greece all had unique powers and magical abilities of their own, there are a few figures that stand out as the most famous sorceresses in Greek mythology. Circe         The Greek sorceress Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses, by John William Waterhouse, 1891. Source: Gallery Oldham, Oldham, United Kingdom    ...

Review - John Wick - Chapter 4

March 23rd, 2023

From Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Westerns to Hong Kong action cinema, John Wick:Chapter 4 wears its influences on its bullet-proof sleeve. Yet one of the most instantly indelible moments in director Chad Stahelski’s fourth film doesn’t riff on classics full of shoot-outs and fights; instead, the Paris-set scene is most reminiscent of the slapstick antics of Laurel and Hardy’s "The Music Box." Even more impressively, it evokes almost as much utter glee as that essential comedy short. This franchi...

The Suspicious Smell of Witchcraft

December 8th, 2022

This post is part of the Monster Carnival 2022: Why Early Modern History Matters Now. Jordan Grahamgraduated from Cardiff University with a BA in History in the summer of 2022. Jordan Graham Over the last few years it is likely that you or someone you know has had Covid-19. One of the common side of effects has been loss of taste or smell, so much so that often when someone tells you they had Covid it may be one of the questions you ask. Could you smell anything? Could you taste anything? Whi...

The Eerie Rise of Witches at the Movies

October 27th, 2022

Although most synonymous with the Halloween season, witches have woven their way onto the silver screen at every time of the year since the earliest days of the motion picture. From the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz to the Sanderson Sisters in the Hocus Pocus films, witches have long been popular characters, as well as common archetypes in general, akin to the likes of superheroes, vampires, or even Santa Claus. The witch has kept her place as a very common figure in the storie...

Was Apuleius a Witch?

October 15th, 2022

Jaspreet Singh Boparai A Problem of Biography We don’t know very much about most Greek or Roman writers. Sometimes we have solid information, in the form of inscriptions (for example); also, there are ancient scholars and grammarians whose work sometimes seems generally trustworthy. Or rather, there are often plausible-seeming bits of data to be found in surviving biographies and commentaries. We can’t always demonstrate them to be authentic facts. Independently verifiable ...

1437: The Year the Women Became Witches | College of Liberal Arts

July 5th, 2022

1437: The Year the Women Became Witches Friday, April 15, 2022 - 4:30pm to 6:00pm Memorial Union Building Theater I The association of witchcraft with women is paradigmatic, both in modern usage and in many historical periods. During the period of the major European witch-hunts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, fully 75 percent of those executed as witches were wom...

Continue Reading

Montreal Nouveau 2020 Review: RED MOON TIDE, We Are Left to the Witches and Monsters

October 26th, 2020

In Galicia, where forests meat a rugged and dangerous coastline, Rubio has gone missing. The local village's resident diver, he would search for the bodies of those lost to the rough seas, or possible eaten by the monster that lurks under the waves. The village, already suffering from the various ills of the 21st century - capitalism, crashed economy, climate change - now seems to have come to a literal standstill with the loss of its most beloved son. Through this landscape of moving wa...

Wolf's Den

September 8th, 2020

...for beneath the great stones, deep in the womb of the Great Mother, in her singing waters, sighing winds, and fiery eruptions; and high above the far places of the sky, in every star and planet, in the swirling mists of the great nebulas, in the tails of the comets, in the silent Heart of God, you will find the answer to that which you seek, and discover, that from the beginning of time, you knew it inside you already. Wolf, 1998 ...