The Guadalupe’s “Witch”

Hello, everyone! Today’s blog post is going to be about an old story that was seen on January 16, 2004. This story started to be announced in several tv news like in “Primer Impacto” or in “Las Noticias” and it was about a police officer, called Leonardo Samaniego, who said that he saw a “witch” while he was making his vigilance routine on a street in Guadalupe, Nuevo León.  He said that he saw a woman who was floating in the air and that she was trying to cover her face with the lights of the patrol car. Then, several minutes ago, he said that the “witch” tried to grab him but he skipped her by taking in reverse his car and he ran away.

He also stated that, when he finally ran away from the “witch”, he fainted and he also said that, minutes ago, two officers and an ambulance came to help him. In the article where I saw this story, which is called “Mexican Policeman Attacked by A Flying Humanoid Entity”, mentioned that this officer went to the hospital and doctors said that he was healthy in a physical and psychological way, something that worried authorities and to the community but then they started to think that the officer saw this because of stress and an excess of work. Several years later, other people started to say that they also saw that “strange” object in the sky.

Well, with this story we can see how our society still thinks and talks about this topics. Magic and strange phenomena are part of our culture but, in my opinion, I don’t believe in them. What about you? Do you believe in “witches”?

Works Cited

Yturria, Santiago. "Rense." 2004. Mexican Policeman Attacked By A Flying Humanoid Entity. 15 November 2011 <http://www.rense.com/general48/entity.htm>.

Magicians in our Society

Hi, everybody! Today I’m going to talk about magicians. Remember that the term “wizard” is not the same as “magician”. If we remember several posts ago, I talked about the term “wizard”, who is a person who practices magic and this term is also related to people who have a natural gift to do extraordinary things. Now, a “magician” is a person who makes extraordinary things that can be considered as magic but they are just tricks or sometimes they are just playing with our minds in order to make us believe that what we have seen is something created with magic. Why is it important to make this difference? Because a magician is the one who searches to attract the attention of an audience, meanwhile a wizard is a person with extraordinary magical powers. An example of a very recognized magician is David Copperfield.

           According to his official website, David Copperfield started to be a magician since he was 12 years old when he was invited to join to the Society of American Magicians and he became the youngest member of this association, he also loves Broadway so he created a "Dreams and Nightmares" which still has the record for most tickets sold in a week. One of his most important works is vanishing the statue of liberty, if you want to see the video… here it is:

I need to admit that magicians are very clever and they are able to perform amazing acts, like the one that is shown above. So, if you have an opportunity to watch a magician in action probably you will get amazed of all their abilities. Well, that is everything for today (: I hope you enjoyed this post and see you next week!

Works Cited

Copperfield, David. "Biography." 2001. David Copperfield. 3 November 2011 <http://www.davidcopperfield.com/html/biography.html>.

Wizardry and Magic in the Film World

Hi, everybody! Today I am going to talk about the influence of wizardry in the film world. In this case, I am not going to use a website or any reference in order to talk about this topic because I want to give my opinion based on what I have seen about this topic. First of all and as we already know, movies are now considered as a form of art and it is also a way to entertain communities from all over the world and there is a huge list about topics that can be used to make a movie: from humoristic topics to topics that can be related to horror, but now is just going to be focused on the fantasy genre.

Several post ago, I talked about the influence of wizardry in literature and it can be said that this is also can be seen in the film world. There are a lot of movies that are related to witches and wizards, the kind of movies that use mythical or fantastic creatures, but even there are movies that are not entirely related to wizardry and they only have fantastic events and objects. Taking in consideration all said above, it can be said that wizardry is huge topic in which any person can make very innovative and interesting stories by using elements about magic. Harry Potter film series is an excellent example of it because, since the first movie was released, it became pretty famous and we can see this because this first movie gained $974.8million dollars (according to Daily Mail) but also we need to admit that the fame that this phenomenon obtained was also and mainly due to the books who had amazing sales and, according to Forbes, placed J.K. Rowling as the second richest woman in the world.

Wizardry, fantasy, magic… they are very important topics nowadays inside the film world. What makes them so interesting is the use of fantastic or non-real events and now technology allows the directors to create spectacular special effects to reproduce or give live to these non-real aspects, catching the attention of the society. Now, if you are interested in watching fantastic movies, you can try watching the next ones:

• Harry Potter Films (wizardry).
• The Illusionist (contains the use of magic).
• Bewitched (uses a combination of wizardry, magic and comedy).
• The Lord of the Rings (has fantastic creatures).
• The Wizard of Oz (magic and adventure).

                And there are more! Well, that is everything for today. I hope you to enjoy this topic (: See you next week!

Works Cited

IGN FilmForce. "Top 25 Fantasy Movies of All-Time." n.d. IGN Movies. 26 October 2011 <http://movies.ign.com/articles/667/667848p5.html>.

Daily Mail. "Final Harry Potter film conjures a record-breaking $170m at U.S. box office on debut weekend." 17 July 2011. Mail Online. 26 October 2011 <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2015596/Harry-Potter-Deathly-Hallows-Part-2-hits-92-1m-US-box-offices-1st-DAY.html>.

Goldman, Lea and Kiri Blakeley. "The 20 Richest Women In Entertainment." 18 January 2007. Forbes. 26 October 2011 <http://www.forbes.com/2007/01/17/richest-women-entertainment-tech-media-cz_lg_richwomen07_0118womenstars_lander.html>.

Skokie. "Movies and Television Shows about Magic and Magicians ." 2011. Skokie Public Library. 26 October 2011 <http://www.skokie.lib.il.us/s_audiovisual/av_lists/av_ls_Movies/magic.asp>.

Wizardry, Magic,and Fantasy in the Medieval Age

Hi, readers! Today I’m going to talk about wizardry and magic in the Medieval Age but first of all, I’m going to talk about “Merlin, the magician”. Maybe some of you know about this character from the King Arthur’s story or from the Disney movie “The Sword in the Stone” but, the real fact is that there is no evidence that this character existed. It is said that Geoffrey of Monmouth, who was a Welsh cleric, was the man who created Merlin when he wrote “Historia Regum Britanniae” and it is also said that Merlin’s character came from Myrddin, a bard that was mentioned in several welsh poems (castles.me.uk). Merlin is known as the magician or wizard that protects to the king Arthur and the Holy Grail, which is the cup that can cure illness and saved Arthur from death. It is said that there was a time when Great Britain started to fall in anarchy when there the collapse of the Roman Empire was taking place so, Anglo-Saxons from Denmark and Germany tried to invade the UK but Merlin was the one who stopped this (grahamphillips.net).

With the information that I showed above, we can see that the topics related to wizardry and magic during the Medieval Ages was very important. The presence of possible wizards is not just the evidence of this relevance, also during this period the society started to create legends about extraordinary creatures, for example: dragons. All this mixture of castles, wizards, dragons, kings, and knights or this combination between real facts and fiction make this period unique and different from others, that’s why I invite you to find more about this period (: If you have doubts or if you want an special topic for the next post, leave a comment and I will investigate about it. See you next week!

*For more information, watch works cited (:

Works Cited

Alchin, L.K. "Merlin the Wizard." 20 July 2005. Castles. 20 October 2011 <http://www.castles.me.uk/merlin-the-wizard.htm>.

Philips, Graham. "Merlin - The Man behind the Myth." n.d. The Official Graham Phillips Website. 20 October 2011 <http://www.grahamphillips.net/Merlin/merlin2.htm>.

 

 *Image from grahamphillips.net

Halloween’s History: The Origins (Part 2)

           Hi! Today I’m going to talk about “Halloween” in our days and the role that accomplished this celebration in the creation of the “Feast of all Saints” (November 1st ) and the “All Souls” day (November 2nd ), so this post is considered as the second part of this topic and it starts like this…

          At the last post, it was mentioned that the Christian Church wanted to substitute the Samhain with another holiday so that’s why they decided to create the “Feast of all Saints” or “All Hallows Day”, assigned to November 1st. This holiday was formed to celebrate and honor all Christian saints but especially for all that saints that don’t have a special day to be celebrated; however, finally, this holiday didn’t achieved to replaced Samhain but something started to happen: the Celts deities started to be substituted for fairies and leprechauns. Later, the church tried again to suppress the Samhain by creating a new holiday that is the “All Souls Day”, assigned to November 2nd. This holiday was meant to pray for the souls of all those people who have already died, however this didn’t worked again.

          Time passed by and the “All Saints Day” became the “All Hallows Eve Day” but with ancient Celtic traditions. People continued to celebrate this day but as a time for wandering dead and evil supernatural beings. Later, it began to be celebrated the “All Hallows Evening Day” which is considered as the “Halloween” that we already know today. This day started to be used to transmit the message that death is part of life, it started to be said that the souls and fantastic creatures such as fairies, witches, and demons were roaming that day and that’s why it began the use of costumes in order to ask for treats.
          Well, that’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed this post and I wish you to return next week!

Note: All the information shown above was taken from the work that is at the bibliography....

Works Cited

Santino, Jack. Halloween: The Fantasy and Folklore of All Hallows. September 1982. 22 September 2011 <http://www.loc.gov/folklife/halloween.html>.

Halloween’s History: The Origins (Part 1)

                Hi, dear readers. Last week I talked about “Harry Potter Series” and how its huge impact in literature and our society. As stated in the last post, I was thinking to talk about Halloween, a holiday that is celebrated on October 31st. We already know that during this day people decide to get dressed with unusual costumes such as: devils, witches, angels and vampires among others; little kids knock doors to ask for candies, TV channels transmit scary movies, and houses are decorated with pumpkins or scary objects but, how this celebration started? What was the purpose of creating this holiday? Well, these are just few of the answers that are going to be solved today. I have found a very interesting article that is called “Halloween: The Fantasy and Folklore of All Hallows” written by Jack Santino, he shows very interesting facts about this holiday, so all the information that I’m going to display here is from this source.

                First of all, it is very important to know that “Halloween” was created by the Celts, the same tribe that started to use wizardry. This pagan celebration had also the name of Samhain, it was considered as the “festival of the death”, and it was the most important holiday for the Celts. This tribe believed that, during the day of Samhain, the ghosts or souls of people who had already died were allowed to travel to our world. It was a tradition to sacrifice animals, collect fruits and vegetables, and even to turn on bonfires to honor dead people in order to keep them away from the people who are still alive. But how does this celebration became the Halloween? Well, it started to be Halloween when missionaries of the Christian churches tried to change the religious practices of the Celts.

                The missionaries considered this festival as a pagan practice and that it was related to the devil, so that’s why they decided to place Christian holidays at the same time as the Celtic holidays. Pagan Celts, which later started to be called as “Druids”, began to be considered as evil people that were part of the “Christian hell” and this is the part where it gets involved the wizardry topic because Christians started to tell them that they were “witches” for the fact that they believed in supernatural creatures and practiced sorcery.

                Well, that’s everything for today. Next week I’m going to continue with this topic and I will talk about Halloween in our days and the role that accomplished this celebration in the creation of the Feast of all Saints (November 1st ) and the All Souls day (November 2nd ).

Works Cited

Santino, Jack. Halloween: The Fantasy and Folklore of All Hallows. September 1982. 22 September 2011 <http://www.loc.gov/folklife/halloween.html>.

Magic in Harry Potter

Hi, everybody! Well… I was thinking last week about a topic that it would be interesting to talk about here in my blog. I thought that it would be nice to talk about Halloween, a celebration that is very common in the United States, but then I decided to change that topic for the next week ;) Today I’m going to talk about… Harry Potter! One of the most famous book series in our times and even it is a great example of fantastic literature in which wizardry and magic is involved but first of all I’m going to talk a little bit about Joanne Rowling (known as “J.K. Rowling”), the author of this magical story.

            J.K. Rowling is a British author who was born in 1965, she started to be interested in literature when she wrote “Rabbit”, her first short story that was about a rabbit that got the measles and some of his friends went to visit him. The shocking thing of this is that she wrote this story when she was five or six years old so she showed her interest of writing since she was very little. Rowling came up with the idea for Harry Potter when she was twenty-five years old while delayed on a train that was going from Manchester to London, she didn’t had anything to write but she tried to remember the idea and finally, five years ago, she started to write all the ideas that she wanted to show in each of her books (Bloomsbury Publishing, harrypotter.bloomsbury.com).

            Probably everyone perfectly knows what Harry Potter series are about but I’m going to give a quickly review about it: Harry is a boy who lived with his terrible uncles and his cousin Dudley, aunt Petunia and uncle Vernon told him that his parents died on a car accident but, when Harry turns eleven, he receives a letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Since that moment, Harry met Hagrid who tells him that he is a wizard, that his parents were wizards too but that they were killed by a dark wizard called “Lord Voldemort”. Harry goes to Hogwarts, meets Dumbledore and his best friends (Ron and Hermione), learns how to be a wizard, and he gets in charge of defeating Voldemort (Barnes & Noble, barnesandnoble.com) through all the seven books.

            In my opinion, the most amazing thing of all this story is that J.K. Rowling created a whole new world based on that myths and knowledge that she knew about wizards, witches, and magic. She created new characters with magical abilities and even adopted some characters that were already known on history (for example: Nicolas Flamel); she created a huge list of spells and fantastic creatures; Rowling also created a new sport for her story and it’s called “Quiddich”. All that facts can be considered as important because they give value to Rowling’s work, that’s why I think she has a huge amount of followers: her creativity involved several human minds. I really recommend you to read them if you are a lover of fantastic literature. In my opinion and with my personal experiences, I can say that this kind of books are really good to develop our imagination (:

            Thank you for reading my blog! Next week I’m going to talk about how wizardry and magic had had an influence in cultural aspects…

Works Cited

Barnes & Noble. "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone ." 2011. Barnes & Noble.com. 14 september 2011 <http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/harry-potter-and-the-sorcerers-stone-j-k-rowling/1100036321>.

Bloomsbury Publishing. "Biography." 2011. Harry Potter: J.K. Rowling. 14 september 2011 <http://harrypotter.bloomsbury.com/author>.

“Witchcraft” and “Magic” in Literature and Fantasy Genre's role in Education

As already mentioned before, witchcraft is a topic that has been a great influence in literature, history, and even in our culture; but today I’m just going to focus in literature…

I consider literature as a form of art in which the human expresses ideas that are product of his mind and creativity. Literature can also be seen as a huge world that is divided by genres, for example: romance, fantasy, science fiction, horror, crime, mystery, etc. I was reading a web page from the University of Florida called “Genre Fiction as Literature”, where it said that the fantasy literature was the one where elements such as witches, wizards, and magic can be seen. Matt Sanchez also says that fantasy is the richest type of literature in which characters are introduced into world or places where unexplainable and unexpected situations occur, and that it is the only one that can erase the boundaries between children’s fiction and adult fiction (iml.jou.ufl.edu).

There are a lot of examples of fantasy works in which the main topic is “wizardry” or “magic” but some of the titles that I know are the “Harry Potter” series by J.K. Rowling (one of my favorite series), “One Thousand and One Nights”, “The Lord of the Rings” books by J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Eyes of the Dragon” by Stephen King, and “The Chronicles of Narnia” by C.S. Lewis.

Witchcraft and magic in fantasy literature also plays a role in education. According to an article called “Children's Literature Across the Curriculum: An Ontario Survey”, it is said that the genre of fantasy is used by a 45.6% by teachers and librarians in Canada to give classes to children that belong to primary grades because it has a strong influence on student’s attitudes, values, and beliefs; also the use of this genre helps to see the emotions and themes that come from other human’s mind and how all this had an influence in the author’s work (Pantaleo). In conclusion, according to all the ideas that were explained before, it can be said that magic and witchcraft have a great influence in literature and even in education. Maybe this topic about magic does not exist but, in my opinion, it helps to develop creativity and critical thinking skills. That kind of literature is the one that kids prefer because it results interesting for them.

Well, that’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed it… Check this blog next week because I’ll write about “Harry Potter” series and its impact in our society.

Works Cited:

Pantaleon, Sylvia. “Children’s Literature Across the Curriculum: An Ontario Survey” Education (2002): 211-30. ProQuest. Web. 30 August 2011.

Sanchez, Matt. “Fantasy”. Genre Fiction as Literature. Web University of Florida Interactive Media Lab, 2005. Web. 30 Aug. 2011 < http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring05/Sanchez/fantasy3.htm>

*Doubts of how I cited the article? Check http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/02/ at the electronic source section.