Why people use latin language in occult and in “spells”?

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Why people use latin language in occult and in “spells”?

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4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

r/occult might know about this too, just to say.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The connection to the Catholic Church.

The term “Hoc est corpus meum” is part of the blessing in Latin for the Eucharist and in Catholic doctrine is what converts the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. Over time slight of hand artists and street magicians started to use variations on the phrase or things that sounded similar to the phrase during their shows to indicate changing one thing into another (remember that at this time few people outside the Church spoke Latin). This eventually became the phrase “Hocus Pocus”.

So the idea that that the language of the Church carried magical properties based on the religious doctrines and belief in prayer working, and the illusions performed on the street that somewhat mocked church Latin by sounding similar and you get the result of European Cultures viewing Latin or Pseudo Latin as being the language of magic.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Most likely it’s because it was the language predominantly used by the Catholic Church at the time of the witch trials and they want to “stay true” to roots. Other countries, presumably use other languages (like Patoise in Voodoo).

Anonymous 0 Comments

Latin, and to a lesser degree Greek, have been the language for learned secrets since the Dark Ages. Much of the knowledge from the Roman Empire that was preserved was preserved in Latin, and after a few centuries of language drift it was unintelligible even to though who could read, unless you were specifically educated in it. It became the language thinkers wrote their ideas in, and the sacred language of the Catholic church, to the extent they issued a death penalty against those who would translate it.

Both arcane mathematics and divine blessings were issued in Latin, it is not surprising occultists did the same. In fact, at times there was little difference between the two, Newton used Latin for both groundbreaking science and alchemical gibberish.