Fictional Practice: Magic, Narration, and the Power of Imagination

To what extent were practitioners of magic inspired by fictional accounts of their art? In how far did the daunting narratives surrounding legendary magicians such as Theophilus of Adana, Cyprianus of Antioch, Johann Georg Faust or Agrippa of Nettesheim rely on real-world events or practices? Fourteen original case studies present material from late antiquity to the twenty-first century and explore these questions in a systematic manner. By coining the notion of ’fictional practice’, the editors discuss the emergence of novel, imaginative types of magic from the nineteenth century onwards when fiction and practice came to be more and more intertwined or even fully amalgamated. This is the first comparative study that systematically relates fiction and practice in the history of magic.

Bernd-Christian Otto is Senior Research Fellow at the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities at the University of Erlangen-Nuremburg. His research focuses on the history of magic, where he combines different methodologies such as conceptual history, discourse analysis, social theory, and ritual studies.
Dirk Johannsen is Professor of Cultural History at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages (IKOS), University of Oslo. His research focuses on narrative cultures, literature and popular religion in the nineteenth century, cognitive approaches, and trolls.