#gottfried libalt

Vanitas Schädel (1600s / Öl auf Leinwand) - Gottfried Libalt

~Gottfried Libalt (1610/11-1673)~

ℌ𝔲𝔪𝔞𝔫 𝔖𝔨𝔲𝔩𝔩𝔰, 𝔠.յճճօ𝔰 𝔟𝔶 𝔊𝔬𝔱𝔱𝔣𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔡 𝔏𝔦𝔟𝔞𝔩𝔱

How are skulls and bones used in #magic and #witchcraft? There are many ways and every bones can be used to achieve magical goals. Hand bones, for example, can be cleverly worked human bone finger rings. Sixteen sections of human bone strung on to a string and used for casting divinations. The hand of a dead man (a long story there), a wooden bowl with human skull fragments used for grating as you do with a nutmeg so as to produce a sprinkling of skull powder, and a corpse candle set in a small bowl of grave dust with an unchurched dead man's tooth. Horrible - you say - fiddlesticks! The witches of gallows hill would soon demonstrate to you how you can from such things learn to acquire a moral strength - develop a state of fearlessness and thereby gain a great peace of mind. All of which can be won simply by accepting and learning to live with the living dead.

Gottfried Libalt, Skulls, 17th century

Human Skulls (c.1660) by Gottfried Libalt

Still life with a bust of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm - Gottfried Libalt (around 1610 - 1673 Vienna), 1660 Oil on canvas, 253 cm × 119 cm × 4 cm

Gottfried Libalt, Human Skulls, c.1660