Magicians Should Know Better
Manuscriptboy recently wrote a post about magic, and for those who didn’t know, it is alive and well. The problem with some believers in, and practitioners of magic, is that they have a hard time understanding that some people just don’t believe in it. Take the following news item. In India, a practitioner of black magic is challenged on TV by someone to kill them with a death spell. And you thought that reality TV in America was entertaining! Well, as any good practitioner of magic should know, never accept the challenge of administering the all powerful killing curse on national TV. Who knows how you may feel that day, what the weather may be, and if it succeeds, I am not sure if you’ll be able to come up with a good alibi. Curses aren’t foreign to Judaism, e.g. see here, and in the recent past some have even attempted to use the Jewish equivalent, in their eyes, of the death curse, the dreaded Pulsa de-Nura. Zion Zohar has recently published an article about the Pulsa de-Nura and concluded the following,
In sum, in our analysis of classical texts, we found no correspondence between the original term pulsa de-nura and the ceremony known by that name. Furthermore, we found no evidence in these classical texts of the ritual called pulsa de-nura. Instead, I did notice a distinct correlation of said ceremony to that of the herem.
Therefore, I tend to believe that what we in modern times call the pulsa de-nura ritual is in actuality a very recent innovation, meant to serve a specific political purpose. Such rituals against Rabin and Sharon, asserts Menachem Friedman, a sociologist and an expert on ultra-Orthodoxy, are the mechanisms of the helpless to deal with their helplessness. ‘‘Magic isn’t used by the regime or the group in power. It’s used by the powerless. When they do abracadabra ceremonies it shows that they’re terrified. Magic gives them a sense of power.”
For more see here and here. Now, back to our black magician from India…
The Great Tantra Challenge
On 3 March 2008, in a popular TV show, Sanal Edamaruku, the president of Rationalist International, challenged India’s most “powerful” tantrik (black magician) to demonstrate his powers on him. That was the beginning of an unprecedented experiment. After all his chanting of mantra (magic words) and ceremonies of tantra failed, the tantrik decided to kill Sanal Edamaruku with the “ultimate destruction ceremony” on live TV. Sanal Edamaruku agreed and sat in the altar of the black magic ritual. India TV observed skyrocketing viewership rates.
Everything started, when Uma Bharati (former chief minister of the state of Madhya Pradesh) accused her political opponents in a public statement of using tantrik powers to inflict damage upon her. In fact, within a few days, the unlucky lady had lost her favorite uncle, hit the door of her car against her head and found her legs covered with wounds and blisters.
India TV, one of India’s major Hindi channels with national outreach, invited Sanal Edamaruku for a discussion on “Tantrik power versus Science”. Pandit Surinder Sharma, who claims to be the tantrik of top politicians and is well known from his TV shows, represented the other side. During the discussion, the tantrik showed a small human shape of wheat flour dough, laid a thread around it like a noose and tightened it. He claimed that he was able to kill any person he wanted within three minutes by using black magic. Sanal challenged him to try and kill him.