Glossary - exWitch Australia (formerly 'Born Again Pagan')

FASCINATION

The alleged practice of medieval Witches whereby he or she met the eyes of the victim with a special look or gaze which was empowered with a potent but invisible emanation. The victim was said to have been 'fascinated' or 'overlooked'.

The term comes from Latin fascinare meaning to enchant.

The term dates back to ancient Greece and Rome. Examples of it are the wish of Theocritus when he desired an old witch to cause his illness to go away; or, the complaint of Menalcas (in Virgil) that some evil eye had fascinated his lambs.

The Romans who were always wishing to enhance the power of the host of heaven and to overcome the misfortune of their ills adopted the god Fascinus to worship. He was a numen (presiding spirit) whose ritual was entrusted to vestal virgins, and his phallic attributes were hung around necks of children and on victorious chariots.

Del Rio, the Jesuit authority on witchcraft in the 16th century, wrote a short on fascination in which he categorized it as such: "Poetica seu Vulgarus" (that resulting from obscure physical causes, which he treated as fabulous), "Philosophica," which he considered to be contagion, and "Magica" to which he heartily assented.

It was believed that domestic animals or crops could be damaged or destroyed simply by looking at them and that infants, particularly those not yet baptised, were particularly susceptible to fascination.

Some authorities regarded the attribute as being wholly involuntary. Belief in its existence was encouraged by the incidence of ophthalmia (cataract), an eye condition which was rife in earlier centuries. It was considered that people who possessed this affiiction infected others merely by looking at them and it forms the basis of the opaque stare beloved of modern horror movie makers.

The idea of maleficent glances goes back at least as far as Classical times. Keith Thomas describes the widely held notion that the glance of a menstruating woman would tarnish a mirror.

PLEASE NOTE:
One of the major problems with 'defining' Paganism and/or its beliefs and practices is that it is an 'organic' movement, in that it is undergoing constant change and re-evaluation from within, and as such any 'one-size-fits-all' approach to understanding Paganism will be found wanting.

Due to the very 'organic' nature of Paganism, and the many differing Paths and Traditions within it, in many cases no one definition may be universally accepted by all Pagans. Therefore, where such cases of possible conflicting and/or contradictory meanings of certain terms occur I have endevoured to give not only the generally accepted meaning, but also any major 'variations' in belief and/or practice.

Christians who believe this difference in meaning of certain key terms, beliefs and practices to be unique to Paganism need to remember that such conflicts also arise within the Body of Christ - the Church. Take for instance the differing practices amongst Christians concerning Baptism and the different attitudes towards women in the clergy.

- Jean-Luc