Harry Potter Wand Wielding Jedi Jesus?

YES, AS SEEN WITH JESUS AND HIS MAGIC WAND IN EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. REF

“Jesus is sometimes shown performing miracles by means of a wand, as on the doors of Santa Sabina in Rome (430–32). He uses the wand to change water to wine, multiply the bread and fishes, and raise Lazarus. When pictured healing, he only lays on hands. The wand is thought to be a symbol of power. The bare-faced youth with the wand may indicate that Jesus was thought of as a user of magic or wonder worker by some of the early Christians. No art has been found picturing Jesus with a wand before the 2nd century. Some scholars suggest that the Gospel of Mark, the Secret Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John (the so-called Signs Gospel), portray such a wonder worker, user of magic, a magician, or a Divine man. Only the Apostle Peter is also depicted in ancient art with a wand.” ref

“Apostle Peter was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ and one of the first leaders of the early Christian Church. According to Christian tradition, Peter was crucified in Rome under Emperor Nero.” ref

Jesus Holding a Magic Wand?

Supernatural depictions of Jesus in Early Christian art

by Biblical Archaeology Review

“Did Jesus use a magic wand when performing his miracles? It seems so—if we are to judge by some of the earliest depictions of Jesus in Christian art. Early Christian iconography provides us with precious insights into the esthetics of early Christians. Inspired by biblical and apocryphal texts, the earliest Christian imagery is also a window into the theological thinking of the third- and fourth-century followers of Jesus. Coming primarily from funerary contexts, early Christian art is especially rich in mural paintings found in catacombs and in smaller sculptures, such as sarcophagi and tombstones. It is thus no surprise that the repertoire of motifs expressed in these media is mostly associated with the afterlife and healing (physical or spiritual).” ref

In his article “Jesus the Magician? Why Jesus Holds a Wand in Early Christian Art,” published in the Fall 2020 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Lee M. Jefferson of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, zooms on one particular subject from the plethora of artistic motifs—Jesus holding a wand or rod while performing a healing or miracle. “The implement that Jesus holds (sometimes called a virga or rabdos) is portrayed as either thick and ruddy, such as on the sarcophagi, or thin and reed-like, such as in catacomb paintings. He uses it in the performance of a miracle, leading several scholars to conclude that early Christians understood Jesus as a magician. The problem with this identification is that early Christians greatly maligned magic,” remarks Jefferson, before introducing the varied representations of Jesus and his miracle-working tool.” ref

“Utterly theatrical and visualizing the authority of the new religion (Christianity), the most popular scene of early Christian funerary art was the raising of Lazarus. Jesus usually stands in front of a small shrine that holds the swaddled cadaver and he uses a wand to summon forth Lazarus from his grave, where he had been dead for four days (John 11). Even though the Bible never mentions Jesus using a wand in performing his miracles, you may recall other prominent biblical figures who did use a similar tool to work miracles. Moses reportedly used a rod to separate the Red Sea to save his people from the Pharaoh’s army during their daring escape from Egypt (Exodus 14). And he later used a rod to strike the rock and provide drinking water for his fellow Israelites during their wanderings to the Promised Land (Exodus 17:2). Is this where the early Christians got the idea, or were they inspired by the pagan imagery of the larger Greco-Roman world?” ref

“The only other New Testament figure who can be seen using a wand to perform a miracle in early Christian art is the apostle Peter. Illustrating a legend attested in apocryphal literature, the scene usually shows Peter striking a rock with a stick, in the presence of two other figures, who wear Roman military cloaks and headgear. According to the legend, Peter during his detention in Rome miraculously opened a spring of water, which he then used to baptize his two jailers. Influenced by modern pop culture and literary characters, such as Harry Potter, we may be forgiven for interpreting the mysterious tool as a magic wand. The reality is even more complex and fascinating. “For early Christians, Jesus performing miracles with the staff was not magical. Rather, it was intrinsically biblical (recalling Moses) and innately ecclesial (touting the supremacy of the Church),” explains Jefferson. To dive into the various representations of Jesus with a wand and to discover their true meaning, read Lee M. Jefferson’s article “Jesus the Magician? Why Jesus Holds a Wand in Early Christian Art,” published in the Fall 2020 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.” ref

“Read the full article “Jesus the Magician? Why Jesus Holds a Wand in Early Christian Art,” by Lee M. Jefferson, in the Fall 2020 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.” ref

Was Jesus a magician?

by Live Science

“Ancient art throughout the catacombs of Rome, painted on the walls and carved into stone coffins, shows Jesus as he multiplies loaves of bread, heals the sick, and brings the dead back to life. These images are unified by one surprising element: In each of them, Jesus appears to brandish a wand. That led scholars to wonder: Did ancient Christians see Jesus as a magician? Despite these evocative images, most evidence suggests early Christians didn’t see Jesus as a magician. Magic was considered a purely human pursuit that could not raise the dead, whereas Jesus’ supernatural acts were always seen by believers as miracles performed through a powerful God. What’s more, the “wand” carried by Jesus was in fact not a wand —magicians of the day never carried wands anyway, experts told Live Science.” ref

Magic and early Christianity

“Still, magic was very much alive during the period of early Christianity. Between the third and eighth centuries, the years when images of what looks like a “wand-carrying” Jesus Christ adorned the burial sites of ancient Romans, Christianity was still in its infancy, existing alongside ancient Judaism as well as Roman gods and goddesses, said Lee Jefferson, the chair of the religion program at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. “Even at the time of some of these images, they don’t have an agreed upon Bible; they don’t have a canon; they don’t have an agreed upon understanding about who Jesus is,” Jefferson told Live Science. That said, it looked nothing like the magic we see in pop culture today. Magic centered around spells, which people would seek from magicians to deal with problems in their everyday lives, from sickness to love. Patrons of magicians took those spells home to recite, just like we would take medicine home from the doctor. Recite it wrong, and it wouldn’t work.” ref

“In a time of uncertainty, when people had little control over whether their crops survived and sickness was often a death sentence, magic provided a sense of control. That said, magic was looked down upon by Jews and polytheists alike, Jefferson said. Magic was seen as superstitious and it was banned in the Roman Empire. Although people continued to practice it in private, religious leaders saw it as shameful, Jefferson wrote in the book “The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art” (Routledge, 2018). In this context, some people did call Jesus a magician — but as a form of slander. At the time, polytheist religious leaders saw Christianity as a form of superstition, like magic. “I mean, here’s this group that gets together in the morning and drinks wine and says it’s blood and eats bread and says it’s flesh,” Jefferson said. “You can probably understand why people thought it was superstitious.” The philosopher Celsus, a vocal critic of Christianity, was among those who saw Jesus as a magician.” ref

“But followers of Jesus never saw it that way. Their savior performed miracles, not magic — powerful acts of God that often defied death, very different from the human pursuit of magic, that dealt with small matters. “You would not want your demigod to be called a magician because it makes them seem less powerful,” Jefferson said. Jesus’ ability to defeat death, heal people, and produce food and drink elevated him above Roman gods in the eyes of Christians and non-Christians alike, said Felicity Harley-McGowan, an art historian at Yale Divinity School. They believed Jesus had a particular power over death and would invoke his name as a way of harnessing that power, even as they invoked the names of other gods. Roman gods could heal and raise the dead, but none performed these acts directly or with the agency of Jesus. For example, Asclepius, the god of healing, healed people through dreams; Jesus healed directly with his hands. While Asclepius was killed for raising the dead, Jesus was praised for it. Early Christian art reflects that preoccupation with miracles, and less focus on his story of suffering and redemption. For instance, though dozens of paintings exist of Jesus carrying what looks like a wand and raising Lazarus from the dead, relatively few early paintings depict Jesus’ last supper or crucifixion, Jefferson wrote in a 2020 article published in the journal Biblical Archaeology Review.” ref

“So why is Jesus depicted carrying an object that looks so much like a magic wand? Scholars tend to agree that “wand” isn’t the best term to describe it. In fact, the tool probably wasn’t associated with magic at all — it just appears that way to us, because it’s filtered through the lens of modern conceptions of wizards, such as Harry Potter. In the earliest years of Christianity, magic didn’t involve wands. No known artwork from that time period depicts magicians carrying them, Jefferson added. Instead, many scholars prefer the term “staff” to describe the object. Regardless, the fact that Jesus carried a staff in these images does hold its own significance. In the earliest years of Christianity, people would have been familiar with Moses — a Jewish prophet and another miracle-worker — but not necessarily with Jesus. That staff connected Jesus to Moses, who also carried one and in fact, performed miracles with it. “He’s kind of like a new Moses,” Jefferson said. The staff was a symbol of power people could recognize — just as a beard or scroll would have demonstrated learnedness, Harley-McGowan told Live Science. “They see that person holding the object and they can understand,” Harley-McGowan said, “The staff is a sign of his authority.” ref

Christian Magic and Miracles

by Biblical Archaeology Review

“In the first centuries of Christianity, Church authorities already disapproved of magic and amulets. Yet amulets, oracles, and magic among Christians survived well into the second half of the first millennium. Modern scholarship now commonly accepts that the advent of Christianity did not put an end to these pagan practices; at least not immediately. Rather, it caused their transformation. Some would further argue that this pagan-Christian connection worked the other way around, too. Namely, that the early Christian emphasis on miracle working and supernatural powers of Jesus and his followers was helpful in recruiting converts from among polytheists.” ref

“CHRISTIAN AMULET. Dating from the sixth century, this piece of parchment (P. Oxy. 8.1077) was excavated at the site of ancient Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. It contains a redacted version of Matthew 4:23–24, which reads as follows: The gospel of healing according to Matthew. And Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every sickness among the people. And his fame spread into all of Syria, and they brought to him those who were ill, and Jesus cured them, with what looks like a magic wand. To boost its healing powers, the sacred text is inscribed in five columns arranged in the form of crosses.” ref

“LIKE A MAGICIAN, Jesus uses a wand to summon forth Lazarus from his grave, where he had been dead for four days. This mid-fourth-century mural painting from the Catacomb of the Giordani in Rome depicts Jesus in front of an aedicule (a small shrine) that holds the swaddled cadaver. Although not a magic wand à la Harry Potter, the staff that Jesus holds does insinuate a type of Christian “magic.” Utterly theatrical and visualizing the authority of the new religion, the raising of Lazarus ranked among the most popular scenes in early Christian art. Its message clearly resonated with late antique sensitivities and encouraged conversions to Christianity.” ref

“JESUS’S MIRACLES carved in this marble sarcophagus of Marcus Claudianus include the conversion of water into wine; the multiplication of loaves and fishes; healing a man born blind; and the resurrection of Lazarus, with what looks like a magic wand. Created c. 330–340, this early example of New Testament miracle episodes is now in the Museo Nazionale Romano.” ref

“SANTA SABINA CHURCH in Rome boasts one of the earliest Christian doors with carved images. Created in 432 C.E., the wood panel pictured here presents Jesus curing the blind man; the multiplication of loaves and fishes; and the miracle at Cana, with what looks like a magic wand.” ref

“Writing for the January/February 2020 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Robert Knapp of the University of California, Berkeley, explains that in antiquity the responses to the pressing questions of daily life “rested on the belief in supernatural powers of all sorts surrounding and penetrating every aspect of life. There was no meaning, no problem solving, no hope, no society, unless these powers were recognized, mollified, and persuaded to do good—or at least to do no harm.” To this end, continues Knapp, “ordinary polytheists’ religious experience was a complete and seamless integration of all-important aspects of daily life,” where multiple gods and powers provided a functional context vital for social integration and survival. So why would anyone risk abandoning the inherited way of life for a new, “untested” religion?” ref

“Knapp argues that the key element of early Christianity that quickly spread the new religion across the entire Roman Empire rested in the ability to meet polytheism on its own ground—by offering to help deal with life’s contingencies and proving the superiority of their God. The ability to direct supernatural power (through signs and miracles) appealed to many Jews, too. Miracles, after all, were a long-accepted proof of Yahweh’s power. Though it may have been an embarrassment to the philosophizing Christian elites, miracles, and everyday religiosity were able to win over ordinary Jews and polytheists alike. Magic and miracles proved to be central for convincing common people to accept the new religion.” ref

“To learn about the ways emerging Christianity appealed to ordinary polytheists and made them give up their ancestral relationships to supernatural powers, read the article “How Magic and Miracles Spread Christianity” by Robert Knapp in the January/February 2020 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. Read the full article “How Magic and Miracles Spread Christianity,” by Robert Knapp, in the January/February 2020 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.” ref

“Christian views on magic vary widely among Christian denominations and among individuals. Many Christians actively condemn magic as satanic, holding that it opens the way for demonic possession. Some Christians simply view it as entertainment. Conversely, some branches of esoteric Christianity actively engage in magical practices.” ref

“Esoteric Christianity is an approach to Christianity which features “secret traditions” that require an initiation to learn or understand. The term esoteric was coined in the 17th century and derives from the Greek ἐσωτερικός (esôterikos, “inner”). These spiritual currents share some common features, such as heterodox or heretical Christian theology; the canonical gospels, various apocalyptic literature, and some New Testament apocrypha as sacred texts; and disciplina arcani, a supposed oral tradition from the Twelve Apostles containing esoteric teachings of Jesus the Christ. Esoteric Christianity was closely related to gnosticism, and survives in a few modern churches. A denomination of esoteric Christianity is The Christian Community. It focuses on the experiential aspect of sacraments, with the Eucharist serving as “the Rite of the Consecration of Man”. Scholar Jan Shipps describes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as having esoteric elements.” ref

“Some modern scholars believe that in the early stages of proto-orthodox Christianity, a nucleus of oral teachings were inherited from Palestinian and Hellenistic Judaism. In the 4th century, it was believed to form the basis of a secret oral tradition which came to be called disciplina arcani. Mainstream theologians, however, believe that it contained only liturgical details and certain other traditions which remain a part of some branches of mainstream Christianity. Important influences on esoteric Christianity are the Christian theologians Clement of Alexandria and Origen, the leading figures of the Catechetical School of Alexandria.” ref

“Influenced by the Platonic doctrine of metempsychosis, reincarnation of the soul was accepted by most Gnostic Christian sects such as Valentinianism and the Basilidians, but denied by the proto-orthodox one. While hypothetically considering a complex multiple-world transmigration scheme in De Principiis, Origen denies reincarnation in his work Against Celsus and elsewhere. Despite this apparent contradiction, most modern esoteric Christian movements refer to Origen’s writings (along with other Church Fathers and biblical passages) to validate these ideas as part of the esoteric Christian tradition outside of the Gnostic schools, who were later considered heretical in the 3rd century.” ref

Gospel magic, the use of stage magic to promote a Christian message?

“Gospel magic is the use of otherwise standard stage magic tricks and illusions as object lessons to promote Christian messages. Gospel magic does not claim to invoke spirits or paranormal powers. Gospel magic is intended to present the Christian good news through “visual parables“; the trick or illusion is used to present theological points in an entertaining way with the intention that people will remember the message. Gospel magic is generally presented as stage magic or platform magic, but it can be adapted to close-up magic or micromagic situations.” ref

“The first modern use of Gospel magic is in the ministry of the Italian Catholic priest Giovanni Melchiorre Bosco (Don Bosco, 1815–1888). His autobiography lists many dozens of magic tricks used for the purpose of offering religious instruction to children and youth. Don Bosco has been seen as the Patron Saint of Catholic Magicians and, specifically, Catholic Gospel Magicians. In 1910, C. H. Woolston published Seeing Truth: Object Lessons with Magical and Mechanical Effects which aimed to help adults working with children in church. Other texts were soon written that incorporated Gospel messages with magic. In 1953, the International Fellowship of Christian Magicians began in the US. This rapidly spread the use of the creative arts to teach the Gospel. An international magazine, The Voice of the FCM, is published every two months. Annual conventions are held in US, UK, and Germany.” ref

“There are several references to witchcraft in the Bible that strongly condemn such practices. For example, Deuteronomy 18:11–12 condemns anyone who “casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord, and because of these detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you”, and Exodus 22:18 states “Do not allow a sorceress to live” (or in the King James Bible “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”). It has also been suggested that the word “witch” (Heb. מְכַשֵּׁפָ֖ה məḵaššêp̄āh) might be a mistranslation of “poisoner.” Others point to a primitive idealist belief in a relation between bewitching and coveting, reflected in the occasional translation of the Tenth Commandment as ‘Thou shalt not covet’. This may suggest that the prohibition related specifically to sorcery or the casting of spells to unnaturally possess something.” ref

“Some adherents of near-east religions acted as mediums, channeling messages from the dead or from a familiar spirit. The Bible sometimes is translated as referring to “necromancer” and “necromancy” (Deuteronomy 18:11). However, some lexicographers, including James Strong and Spiros Zodhiates, disagree. These scholars say that the Hebrew word kashaph (כשפ), used in Exodus 22:18 and 5 other places in the Tanakh comes from a root meaning “to whisper”. Strong, therefore, concludes that the word means “to whisper a spell, i.e. to incant or practice magic”. The Contemporary English Version translates Deuteronomy 18:11 as referring to “any kind of magic”. At the very least, older biblical prohibitions included those against ‘sorcery‘ to obtain something unnaturally; ‘necromancy‘ as the practice of magic or divination through demons or the dead, and any forms of malevolent ‘bewitchery‘.” ref

“The Apostle Paul‘s Epistle to the Galatians includes sorcery in a list of “works of the flesh”. This disapproval is echoed in the Didache, a very early book of church discipline which dates from the mid-late first century. During the Early Middle Ages, the Christian Churches did not conduct witch trials. The Germanic Council of Paderborn in 785 explicitly outlawed the very belief in witches, and the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne later confirmed the law. Among Eastern Orthodox Christians concentrated in the Byzantine Empire, belief in witchcraft was widely regarded as deisidaimonia—superstition—and by the 9th and 10th centuries in the Latin Christian West, belief in witchcraft had begun to be seen as heresy.” ref

“Christian perspectives began to change with the influential writings of the mystic poet Dante Alighieri and scholastic philosopher Thomas Aquinas, both of whom believed in astrology, whilst condemning sorcery as moral perversion. Dante also condemned then-current forms of alchemy and divination, whilst Aquinas had a more nuanced and sympathetic view. Towards the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern period (post-Reformation), belief in witchcraft became more popular and witches were seen as directly in league with the Devil. This marked the beginning of a period of witch hunts among early Protestants which lasted about 200 years, and in some countries, particularly in North-Western Europe, tens of thousands of people were accused of witchcraft and sentenced to death.” ref

“The Inquisition within the Roman Catholic Church had conducted trials against supposed witches in the 13th century, but these trials were to punish heresy, of which belief in witchcraft was merely one variety. Inquisitorial courts only became systematically involved in the witch-hunt during the 15th century: in the case of the Madonna Oriente, the Inquisition of Milan was not sure what to do with two women who in 1384 and in 1390 confessed to have participated in a type of white magic. Not all Inquisitorial courts acknowledged witchcraft. For example, in 1610 as the result of a witch-hunting craze the Suprema (the ruling council of the Spanish Inquisition) gave everybody an Edict of Grace (during which confessing witches were not to be punished) and put the only dissenting inquisitor, Alonso de Salazar Frías, in charge of the subsequent investigation. The results of Salazar’s investigation was that the Spanish Inquisition did not bother witches ever again though they still went after heretics and Crypto-Jews.” ref

“In the era of the Inquisition and anti-witchcraft sentiment, there was a more acceptable form of “purely natural” occult and pagan study, the study of “natural” phenomena in general with no evil or irreligious intent whatsoever. Renaissance humanism (15th and 16th century) saw a resurgence in hermeticism and Neo-Platonic varieties of ceremonial magic. Both bourgeoisie and nobility of that era showed great fascination with these arts, which exerted an exotic charm by their ascription to Arabic, Jewish, Romani, and Egyptian sources. There was great uncertainty in distinguishing practices of vain superstition, blasphemous occultism, and perfectly sound scholarly knowledge or pious ritual. The people during this time found that the existence of magic was something that could answer the questions that they could not explain through science. To them it was suggesting that while science may explain reason, magic could explain “unreason.” ref

“Marsilio Ficino advocated the existence of spiritual beings and spirits in general, though many such theories ran counter to the ideas of the later Age of Enlightenment, and were treated with hostility by the Roman Catholic Church. Ficino however theorised a “purely natural” magic that did not require the invocation of spirits, malevolent or malicious. Benedictine abbot Johannes Trithemius reportedly created incantations of his own related to beneficial communication with spirits. His works, including the Steganographia, were immediately placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. However, these works were later revealed to be concerned with cryptography and steganography, and the “magical” formulae were cover texts for cryptographic content. Behind their methods, however, is an underlying theological motive for their contrivance. The preface to the Polygraphia establishes the everyday practicability of Trithemian cryptography as a “secular consequent of the ability of a soul specially empowered by God to reach, by magical means, from earth to Heaven.” ref

“Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535), a German magician, occult writer, theologian, astrologer, and alchemist, wrote the influential Three Books of Occult Philosophy, incorporating Kabbalah in its theory and practice of Western magic. It contributed strongly to the Renaissance view of ritual magic’s relationship with Christianity. Giambattista della Porta expanded on many of these ideas in his Magia Naturalis. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola promoted a syncretic worldview combining Platonism, Neoplatonism, Aristotelianism, Hermeticism, and Kabbalah. Pico’s Hermetic syncretism was further developed by Athanasius Kircher, a Jesuit priest, hermeticist, and polymath, who wrote extensively on the subject in 1652, bringing further elements such as Orphism and Egyptian mythology to the mix. Lutheran Bishop James Heiser recently evaluated the writings of Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola as an attempted “Hermetic Reformation.” ref

“John Dee was an intense Christian, but his religiosity was influenced by Hermetic and Renaissance Neo-Platonism and pervasive Pythagorean doctrines. From Hermeticism he drew a belief that man had the potential for divine power that could be exercised through mathematics. He immersed himself in magic, astrology, and Hermetic philosophy. Much effort in his last 30 years went into trying to commune with angels, so as to learn the universal language of creation and achieve a pre-apocalyptic unity of mankind. His goal was to help bring forth a unified world religion through the healing of the breach of the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches and the recapture of the pure theology of the ancients.” ref

EARLY CHRISTIAN MAGIC

Magic Spells

“**[For protection against violent attack] And you, lord of lords [Jesus], you are the one from whom all healing comes, with your good father and your holy spirit. . . . If a battle arises against us and we are stricken by a sword, or a spear, or a knife, or any weapon under heaven, recite against it my name, and the name of my good father, and the holy spirit, and the name of the twelve apostles, and the name of the twenty-four elders, and the name of the seven archangels, those who are within the veil, who stand by me, my good father, and the holy spirit, so that neither bloodshed nor aching bones might happen at any place over which these names will be recited.” ref

**[A sexual curse to leave a man impotent and to protect a woman from sexual advances] It is on Shinte son of Tanheu that I shall work a spell of binding, Keuentios Patilos Kous Makous, the one who has fallen from his invisible chariot (?) and has been cast into the outer darkness: Bind, fasten the flesh of Shinte son of Tanheu, Bar Bare Apakentor Mehalai. Bind, fasten the flesh of Shinte son of Tanheu. It must not have an erection, it must not become hard, it must not ejaculate. May he — Shinte son of Tanheu — be like a corpse left in a tomb and like an old rag left on a manure pile. He must not be able to have intercourse and he must not be able to release the virginity of Seine daugher of Moune, yea, yea, at once, at once!” ref

**[For the return of a stolen object and a curse upon the thief] I adjure you today, O Ruphos, the angel who is appointed over the land of Egypt, that you spread your wings over any place where this bronzevessel is, until you return it to the place from which it came. East and west, north and the sea, if it lies buried underground, you must make it visible; if it is hidden in a place that is closed, you must return it to its place. Let not the earth be firm beneath the person who has taken it, let not the sky shelter him, and let no peace at all come to him, yea. Yea, at once, at once, at once!” ref

**[To drive evil forces from a pregnant woman] I adjure you by your name and your power and your figure and your amulet of salvation and the places where you dwell and your light-wand in your right hand and your light-shield in your left hand and your great powers standing before you. Do not hold back and do not ignore, until you find it worth your while to descend upon your figure and your amulet of salvation. Watch and protect the 4 sides of the body and the soul and the spirit and the entire house of N. daughter of N. and her child who is in her womb as well as every child born to her. Bring them to life yearly without any disease. Cast forth from her every evil force. Never allow them to approach her or any of her children until she bears them. Cast forth from her every doom and every devil and every Apalaf and every Aberselia and every power of darkness and every evil eye and every eye-shutter and every chill and every fever and every trembling. Restrain them all. Cast them away from her and away from all her children until she bears them, and away from all her dwellings, immediately and quickly! Do not permit them ever to visit her or the child with whom she is pregnant for approximately two hundred miles around. Yea, yea, now, now, at once, at once! Sura daughter of Pelca, she and the child with whom she is pregnant.” ref

**[Curse of a mother against her son’s female companion] I, the miserable, wretched sinner, call unto the lord god almighty, that you perform my judgment against Tnoute, who has separated my son from me so that he scorns me. You must not listen to her, O god if she calls up to you. You must make her without hope in this world. You must strike her womb and make her barren. You must make her consume the fruit of her womb. You must make a demon descend upon her, who will cast her into troublesome illness and great affliction. You must bring a fever upon her, and a chill and a numbness of heart and an itching. Bring upon her the twelve . . . a worm and blood flow out of her all the days of her life. . . take them. She must not live; she comes to death. You must cause her mouth to err. O you who sits upon the chariot of . . ., O cherubim and seraphim, perform my judgment against Tnoute, Michael, you must perform my judgment. Gabriel, . . .Tremuel, Abraxiel, Emmanuel, perform my judgment against Tnoute, quickly! O twenty-four elders and the four creatures who support the throne of the father, perform my judgment. O you who performs judgment for the mistreated, perform my judgment, quickly!” ref

‘WAND’ DISCOVERED IN CAVE IS FOUND TO BE 6,000 YEARS OLD!

“A nondescript cave in Israel was the location of a major discovery recently: a lead and wood artifact believed to be the earliest example of smelted lead in the Eastern Mediterranean region. The object, which looks like a wand or small dagger, was found attached to an intact wooden shaft during a field survey at Ashalim Cave led by Naama Yahalom-Mack, a postdoctoral student from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Findings were published in the scientific journal Plos One.” ref

“Lead is a soft, malleable metal with a bluish-white color and is rarely found on its own, meaning it has to be extracted from the ore that contains it through a process called smelting – or by heating and melting it. The researchers dated the wand to the late 5th millennium BCE – or the Late Copper Age. The smelted lead had never before been dated to this time period, according to Yahalom-Mack. Consisting of a 22.4 cm long wooden shaft and a perforated lead object still attached to it, the wand is the only pre-4th millennium lead artifact ever uncovered in the region, and sheds new light on the early metallurgy of lead, its sources, and its technological role at the formative stages of metal production, Yahalom-Mack said.” ref

“Lead doesn’t tend to occur naturally in the area in which the wand was found, so after discovering the artifact, the researchers studied its isotopes (variations on an element) to determine its origin. An analysis showed that the artifact “was … likely smelted from lead ores originating” in Anatolia, Turkey. Yahalom-Mack said the discovery is important “to the question of the development of silver extraction from lead ores: was regular lead smelting from lead-rich ores performed during the 5th millennium BCE, a process that might have resulted in the discovery of silver few hundreds of years later?” ref

Magic Wands?

“It is possible that wands were used by pre-historic peoples. It is mentioned that ‘rods’ (as well as rings) were found with Red Lady of Paviland in Britain, a male skeleton dyed in red ochre and buried in Wales 33,000 years ago. It is mentioned by the author in Gower – A Guide to Ancient and Historic Monuments on the Gower Peninsula that these might have been wands and are depicted as such in a reconstruction drawing of the burial of the ‘Red Lady’. In British formal government ceremony, special officials may carry a wand of office that represents their power. Compare in this context the function of the ceremonial mace, the scepter, and the staff of office. Its age may be even greater, as Stone Age cave paintings show figures holding sticks, which may be symbolic representations of their power.” ref

“During the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, apotropaic wands began to be used during birth ceremonies. These wands were made out of hippopotamus tusks which were split down the middle lengthwise, producing two wands, each with one flat side and one curved side. Due to the curved nature of a hippopotamus tusk, these wands were curved, with one pointed end (the point of the tusk) and one blunt end (where the tusk was removed from the hippopotamus). Hippopotamus tusks may have been used to invoke Taweret the hippopotamus goddess of childbirth. The earliest apotropaic wands used in Egypt were undecorated, but “from around 1850 BCE or around 3,850 years ago, they were usually provided with decorations of apotropaic figures directly related to the sun religion, or particular aspects of it, inscribed on the convex upper side… most of whom carry knives to ward off evil forces”. These apotropaic wands were also inscribed with protective text on the flat side, such as “Cut off the head of the enemy when he enters the chamber of the children whom the lady… has borne”. The latest apotropaic wand found belongs to the Second Intermediate Period king Senebkay. It seems that the use of these objects in Egypt declines after this point.” ref

“The Barsom used by Zoroastrian Magi is a bundle of twigs that was used during religious ceremonies. While the Barsom is not a wand itself, it was also used for divination purposes, and may be a form of prototypical wand from which later magical wands descend. The concept of magic wands was used by the ancient Greek writer Homer, in his epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey. In all cases, Homer used the word rhabdos (ῥᾰ́βδος), which means ‘rod’, and implies something that is thicker than the modern conception of wands. In those books, Homer wrote that magic wands were used by three different gods, namely Hermes, Athena, and Circe. In The Iliad, Homer wrote that Hermes generally used his magic wand Caduceus to make people sleep and wake up. In The Odyssey, Homer wrote that Athena used her magic wand to make Odysseus old, and then young again, and that Circe used her magic wand to turn Odysseus’s men into pigs.” ref

“By the 1st century CE, the wand was a common symbol of magic in Roman cults, especially Mithraism. In the 3rd and 4th centuries, there are frequent depictions on sarcophagi of Jesus Christ using a magic wand to perform miracles, such as the raising of Lazarus and feeding the multitude. Italian fairy tales put wands into the hands of the powerful fairies by the Late Middle Ages. Wands are used in the Enochian magic of John Dee, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Thelema, and Wicca, and by independent practitioners of magic. Based on their magical symbolism, stage magicians often use “magic wands” as part of their misdirection. These wands are traditionally short and black, with white tips. A magic wand may be transformed into other items, grow, vanish, move, display a will of its own, or behave magically in its own right. A classic magic trick makes a bouquet of flowers shoot out of the wand’s tip.” ref

“Wands were introduced into the occult via the 13th-century Latin grimoire The Oathbound Book of Honorius. The wand idea from the Book of Honorius, along with various other ideas from that grimoire, were later incorporated into the 16th-century grimoire The Key of Solomon. The Key of Solomon became popular among occultists for hundreds of years. In 1888, there was the publication of an English translation of the Key of Solomon by Samuel Mathers (one of the co-founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn), which made the text of the Key of Solomon available to the anglophone world. That 1888 English version inspired Gerald Gardner, the creator of Wicca, to incorporate the wand and various other ritual objects into Wicca.” ref

“The creators of the Golden Dawn got their idea to use a wand, as well as their other main ritual objects (dagger, sword, hexagrammic pentacle, and cup), from the writings of the mid-19th-century occult writer Eliphas Levi. Levi himself mentioned most of those objects (all except for the cup) in his writings because they are in the Key of Solomon, whereas he got the cup from the tarot suit of cups. In Levi’s 1862 book Philosophie Occulte, he wrote a fake excerpt of a Hebrew version of the Key of Solomon, and that fake excerpt was part of the inspiration for the Golden Dawn’s ritual objects, and especially their lotus wand.” ref

“The ceremonial magic of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn uses several different types of wands for different purposes, the most prominent of which are the fire wand and the lotus wand. In Wicca, wands are traditionally used to summon and control angels and genies, but have later come to also be used for general spell-casting. Wands serve a similar purpose to athames (ritual daggers), though the two objects have their distinct uses: an athame is used to command, whereas a wand is seen as more gentle, and is used to invite or encourage. Wands are traditionally made of wood— practitioners usually prune a branch from an oak, hazel, or other tree, or may even buy wood from a hardware store, and then carve it and add decorations to personalize it, though one can also purchase ready-made wands. In Wicca, the wand can represent the element air, or fire (following the wiccan author Raymond Buckland, who got his element associations from the Golden Dawn), although contemporary wand-makers also create wands for the elements of earth and water.” ref

Staff of Moses “Rod of God”

“The Staff of Moses, also known as the Staff of God is a staff mentioned in the Bible and Quran as a walking stick used by Moses. According to the Book of Exodus, the staff (Hebrew: מַטֶּה matteh, translated “rod” in the King James Bible) was used to produce water from a rock, was transformed into a snake and back, and was used at the parting of the Red Sea. Whether the staff of Moses was the same as the staff used by his brother Aaron has been debated by rabbinical scholars. The staff is first mentioned in the Book of Exodus (Ex 4:2), when God appears to Moses in the burning bush. God asks what Moses has in his hand, and Moses answers “a staff” (“a rod” in the KJV version).” ref

“The staff is miraculously transformed into a snake and then back into a staff. The staff is thereafter referred to as the “rod of God” or “staff of God” (depending on the translation):

“And thou shalt take this rod in thine hand, wherewith thou shalt do signs”. And Moses went and returned to Jethro his father in law, and said unto him, “Let me go, I pray thee, and return unto my brethren which are in Egypt, and see whether they be yet alive”. And Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace”. And the LORD said unto Moses in Midian, “Go, return into Egypt: for all the men are dead which sought thy life”. And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt: and Moses took the rod of God in his hand. (KJV. Exodus chapter 4)” ref

“Moses and Aaron appear before the pharaoh, and Aaron’s rod is transformed into a serpent. Pharaoh’s sorcerers are also able to transform their own rods into serpents, but Aaron’s rod swallows their rods (Exodus 7:10–12). Aaron’s rod is again used to turn the Nile blood-red. It is used several times on God’s command to initiate the plagues of Egypt. During the Exodus, Moses stretches out his hand with the staff to part the Red Sea. While in the “wilderness” after leaving Egypt Moses follows God’s command to strike a rock with the rod to create a spring for the Israelites to drink from (Exodus 17:5–7). Moses does so, and water springs forth from the rock in the presence of the Elders of Israel.” ref

“Moses also uses the staff in the battle at Rephidim between the Israelites and the Amalekites (Exodus 17:8–16). When he holds up his arms holding the “rod of God” the Israelites “prevail”, when he drops his arms, their enemies gain the upper hand. Aaron and Hur help him to keep the staff raised until victory is achieved. Finally, God tells Moses to get water for the Israelites from a rock by speaking to the rock (Numbers 20:8). But Moses, being vexed by the complaining of the Israelites, instead of speaking to the rock as God commanded, strikes the rock twice with the staff. Because Moses did not obey God’s command to speak to the rock, implying lack of faith, God punished Moses by not letting him enter into the Promised Land (Numbers 20:12). Musa‘s staff is referred to in the Quran (‘Asa, Arabic: عصا) with various applications and miraculous uses in ten different verses.” ref

“Because Aaron’s rod and Moses’ rod are both given similar, seemingly interchangeable, powers, Rabbinical scholars debated whether or not the two rods were one and the same. According to the Midrash Yelammedenu (Yalḳ. on Ps. ex. § 869):

the staff with which Jacob crossed the Jordan is identical with that which Judah gave to his daughter-in-law, Tamar (Gen. xxxii. 10, xxxviii. 18). It is likewise the holy rod with which Moses worked (Ex. iv. 20, 21), with which Aaron performed wonders before Pharaoh (Ex. vii. 10), and with which, finally, David slew the giant Goliath (I Sam. xvii. 40). David left it to his descendants, and the Davidic kings used it as a scepter until the destruction of the Temple, when it miraculously disappeared. When the Messiah comes it will be given to him for a scepter in token of his authority over the heathen.” ref

“In later Jewish legend the rod was said to have been created at the beginning of the world on the sixth day of creation and to have been passed down through the hands of the major patriarchs before being inherited by Moses. There are many speculations about what has happened to Moses’ staff. The Midrash (a homiletic method of biblical exegesis) states that the staff was passed down from generation to generation and was in the possession of the Judean kings until the First Temple was destroyed. It is unknown what became of the staff after the Temple was destroyed and the Jews were exiled from the land. There is a mention of the rod of Moses in a deposition of Nicolas, abbot of the Icelandic Benedictine monastery of Thingeyrar, who had seen it guarded in a chapel of a palace in Constantinople in c. 1150. According to this source, the archbishop of Novgorod, Anthony, stated that it was in the church of St Michael in the Boukoleon Palace, among other precious relics. After the sack of Constantinople in 1204 it was transported to France, where Bishop Nevelon placed it in Soissons cathedral and it then passed to the treasury of the Sainte-Chapelle.” ref

“According to an identifying document at the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Moses’ staff is on display today within the Sacred Relics collection at the Topkapı Palace, Istanbul, Turkey. The Topkapı Palace holds other reputedly holy relics, most notably those attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad (such as his bow, his sword, his footprint, and a tooth). Topkapı Palace was officially designated a museum in 1924, and the holy relics were placed on public view on 31 August 1962. It is said that Sultan Selim I (1512–1520) brought the holy relics to Topkapı Palace after conquering Egypt in 1517. It is narrated in Kitab al-Kafi that Ja’far al-Sadiq claims that the “Tablets of Moses and the Staff of Moses are with us. We are the heirs of the Prophets.” ref

If you are a religious believer, may I remind you that faith in the acquisition of knowledge is not a valid method worth believing in. Because, what proof is “faith”, of anything religion claims by faith, as many people have different faith, even in the same religion?

I see Jesus’ wand as a connection to the Asherah pole is a sacred tree or pole that stood near Canaanite religious locations to honor the Ugaritic mother-goddess Asherah,

“7,500-year-old Tree of Life Goddess (goddess Asherah?) figurine from Neve Yam is among the world’s earliest pieces of evidence for established religion, the origins of which date back to the agricultural revolution, around 10,000 years ago. A CARVED BONE Figurine of a goddess decorated with palm fronds or stalks of grain. It is similar to contemporaneous figurines, especially the one discovered at Hagosherim, some 100 km away. The striking resemblance between the two objects indicates that the cult of the goddess was widespread by this time. In later periods, the combination of a plant motif (the Tree of Life) with the image of a woman (the goddess) became a common image throughout the Ancient Near East, where it represented the goddess Asherah.” ref

“An Asherah pole is a sacred tree or pole that stood near Canaanite religious locations to honor the Ugaritic mother-goddess Asherah, consort of El. The relation of the literary references to an asherah and archaeological finds of Judaean pillar-figurines has engendered a literature of debate. The asherim were also cult objects related to the worship of the fertility goddess Asherah, the consort of either Ba’al or, as inscriptions from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom attest, Yahweh, and thus objects of contention among competing cults. The Hebrew Bible suggests that the poles were made of wood. In the sixth chapter of the Book of Judges, God is recorded as instructing the Israelite judge Gideon to cut down an Asherah pole that was next to an altar to Baal. The wood was to be used for a burnt offering.” ref

“In translations that render the Hebrew asherim into English as “Asherah poles,” the insertion of “pole” begs the question by setting up unwarranted expectations for such a wooden object: “we are never told exactly what it was”, observes John Day. Though there was certainly a movement against goddess-worship at the Jerusalem Temple in the time of King Josiah (2 Chronicles 34:3), it did not long survive his reign, as the following four kings “did what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh” (2 Kings 23:32, 37; 24:9, 19)[citation needed]. Further exhortations came from Jeremiah. The traditional interpretation of the Biblical text is that the Israelites imported pagan elements such as the Asherah poles from the surrounding Canaanites. In light of archeological finds, however, modern scholars now theorize that the Israelite folk religion was Canaanite in its inception and always polytheistic, and it was the prophets and priests who denounced the Asherah poles who were the innovators; such theories inspire ongoing debate.” ref

“Asherim are mentioned in the Hebrew Bible in the books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, Judges, the Books of Kings, the second Book of Chronicles, and the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah. The term often appears as merely אשרה, (Asherah) referred to as “groves” in the King James Version, which follows the Septuagint rendering as ἄλσος, pl. ἄλση, and the Vulgate lucus,[7] and “poles” in the New Revised Standard Version; no word that may be translated as “poles” appears in the text. Scholars have indicated, however, that the plural use of the term (English “Asherahs”, translating Hebrew Asherim or Asherot) provides ample evidence that reference is being made to objects of worship rather than a transcendent figure. Some biblical archaeologists have suggested that until the 6th century BC the Israelite peoples had household shrines, or at least figurines, of Asherah, which are strikingly common in the archaeological remains. Raphael Patai identified the pillar figurines with Asherah in The Hebrew Goddess.” ref

“Deuteronomy 16:21 states that YHWH (rendered as “the Lord”) hated Asherim whether rendered as poles: “Do not set up any [wooden] Asherah [pole] beside the altar you build to the Lord your God” or as living trees: “You shall not plant any tree as an Asherah beside the altar of the Lord your God which you shall make”. That Asherahs were not always living trees is shown in 1 Kings 14:23: “their asherim, beside every luxuriant tree”. However, the record indicates that the Jewish people often departed from this ideal. For example, King Manassehplaced an Asherah pole in the Holy Temple (2 Kings 21:7). King Josiah’s reforms in the late 7th century BC included the destruction of many Asherah poles (2 Kings 23:14). Exodus 34:13 states: “Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherim [Asherah poles].” ref

Harry Potter Wand Wielding Jedi Jesus?

Jesus Holding a Magic Wand?

Christian Magic and Miracles

Staff of Moses “Rod of God”

The Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries Shows in the prehistory series:

Damien Marie AtHope (Said as “At” “Hope”)/(Autodidact Polymath but not good at math):

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