Amulets: Sacred Charms of Power and Protection

". . . each photo brings the vibrancy and color of the culture of amulets: teeth, feathers, beads and mirrors."

". . . an in-depth focus which reveals the past, present, and future of amulets in all their symbolism and power." 
- The Midwest Book Review

". . . containing full-color photos of genuine amulets on nearly every page, this book is a survey of creaativity and bekief from around the world." 
- Barbara Ardinger, PanGaia, Nov 2006

"A beautiful book for the art afficionado or charm enthusiast."
- Vision Magazine, Jan 2005

“Amulets’ mystical appeal gives them a place among the world’s religions--and in our everyday lives.”
- Jennifer Derryberry Mann, Spirituality and Health, August 2005

"The amount of information collected in this book is nothing short of astounding, making this the ultimate ference book."
- Lauren L. Laflamme, The Beltane Papers, Issue 36, Oct 2005

As the worst epidemic of the plague since it first appeared in the sixth century swept across Europe and reached the canton of Basel in1329, the good burghers of Switzerland looked for a scapegoat and picked on the innocent Jews. They had deliberately poisoned the wells. The entire Jewish population of the city was rounded up on an island in the Rhine and burnt to death. Still the plague raged, unfavourable star configurations now being blamed, and the atmosphere of terror continued. Amulets were deemed the only protection. Pieces of paper printed with pictures of saints were folded into small packets around scraps of red ribbon and tiny cuttings of plants, then wrapped in a piece of fabric and worn. 'Plague cushions', they were called, and such amulets were used all over Europe. 

In the Great Plague that scythed through Europe and hit London in 1665, the disease was believed to be caused by the wrath of God and spread by the bad odours emanating from the sick. On still days, church bells were rung and shots fired to drive off the disease by moving the air. Birds were kept in rooms to sing and create draughts. But strong-smelling amulets, pomanders of cloves and spices, were the best protection, while in Catholic Europe the holy plague healer St Roch of Montpellier, who had helped victims of the Italian epidemic in the fourteenth century, was featured on amulets, together with St. Sebastian, whose torture by arrows was akin to the pain suffered by victims of the plague.

It is particularly in such a climate of deadly pestilence caused by forces unknown and not understood--as in the case of AIDS in Africa today--that the power of amulets thrives. Illness, until well into the nineteenth century, was believed to be the work of evil spirits, demons, witches, the evil eye, magic, angry gods or ancestors. In the face of such supernatural forces a magical defence acquired its own rationality, though the power of such defence and the dangers it confronted were--and in many cases still are--conceived differently in different parts of the world. 

There is, above all, a widespread belief that all things in the natural world have a spirit and a power that links them, including man, together. An amulet is part of such a system of natural and magical force The invisible aura of an unusual stone, the perfume of a pungent plant, the tortured shape of a root, the soaring power of an eagle, all such phenomena can be used to redress the imbalance of evil influences. 

The world is also conceived in many cultures as a three-layered abode: the upper inhabited by birds and spirits (and encroached by horns and hair), the lower the domain of water animals and creepycrawlies, the middle a complex animal habitat in which humans play merely a part. All must be kept in harmony.

1--Introduction: Mr Routledge and the lions
2--Plague & pestilence
3--Babies & brides
4--Travellers & hunters
5--Warriors & weaponry
6--Body & soul
7--House & home
8--Trade & profit
9--Made to measure
10--Witches and the taxman
11--The owl and the pussycat
12--An eye for an eye
13--Captured magic
14--Sex & money
15--Goddesses & dolls
16--Lightning & stones
17--Silver & sparkle
18--Buttons, beads & blue
19--Red, white & black
20--Teeth, claws & paws
21--Horns & bones
22--Birds, feathers & hair
23--Snakes & fearful creatures
24--Water & the moon
25--Salt, garlic, incense & plants
26--Trees, rags & stitches
27--Tangles & triangles
28--Needles, iron & bells
29--Numbers & letters
30--Hands & crosses
31--Saints and the Church
Postscript
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Picture credits
Index