AMULET. - A word of uncertain etymology (from Latin amoliri "to remove"?; from Arabic himālah "pendant, hanging ornament"?) that refers to objects believed, wrongly, to be capable of averting evils of every kind from whoever wears them. In current usage "amulet" is taken as a synonym of talisman, owing to the fact that both procure an advantage for whoever uses them; the difference consists in this: that the amulet serves to protect against possible snares, whereas the talisman guarantees its possessor the attainment of given goods. Amulets and talismans constitute a very rich section of the theory and technique of magic (v.).
1. THE AMULET IN NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS
The use of amulets is documented from prehistoric times. The material of which amulets are made can be drawn from all three kingdoms of nature; and the form is very varied; form and material, generally, are related to what they are to procure or avert by virtue of the impersonal force (mana) believed to be released from them in things. Gold (incorruptible); branches of coral and in general pointed objects or branches capable of piercing and thus immobilizing the evil influence; amber for its capacity to become electrified; reproductions of genitals, crescent moons ("lunulae"), etc.; certain species of herbs: rue, against envy, cyclamen favorable to women in childbirth, verbena used in Rome by the fetiales setting out into enemy territory, objects of iron (nails, horseshoes, etc.) are the most common examples of amulets.
2. THE AMULET IN CHRISTIANITY
The early Christians naturally inherited from the pagans the practice of this superstition and also the use of many amulets in particular. But one must beware of defining outright as amulets practices that had nothing superstitious about them. For example, carrying on one's person little crosses, monograms or other forms of the name of Christ, relics of martyrs and also the eucharistic species and medals with the image of this or that saint, passages of the Gospels (all widely documented uses) imported no superstition, because such objects had an intrinsic or really attached power of preserving from evils of nature or from diabolical molestations, through the protection of God and the Saints that was conciliated by that reverence and honor. Therefore they are wrongly defined as Christian amulets by Protestant and rationalist writers.
Instead, unfortunately, the early Christians continued to use many various amulets of pagan origin such as fascini, gorgoneia, horseshoes, little bells, precious stones, nails, which are found even in tombs, and others often deplored by the holy Fathers who rise up against the use of the diabolical ligaturae, of the phylacteria non angelorum sed daemonum nominibus consecrata (Decretum Gelasianum, 10), of the signs of the planets and similar superstitions. Often, moreover, they contaminated pagan uses together with the Christian religion, as is seen in the frequent conjurations (preserved for us on sheets of lead, marble, etc.) crammed with strange names of angels, with complications of alphabetic letters and of scriptural phrases, in the numerous abraxas (v.), in the mixture of pagan figures with Christian signs (figure of Alexander the Great with the monogram). Perhaps the character of a simple amulet was sometimes attributed by ignorant Christians to the chrismon, the wheel, the swastika, the fish and similar signs that recur so often engraved on tombstones, on houses and on every kind of object of household use.
The use of amulets grew extraordinarily during the Middle Ages, favored by growing ignorance. An attempt was also made to give it a rational basis that would eliminate the magical and superstitious character and not conflict with the postulates of the Christian religion, by recourse to the mysterious virtues proper to the planets and from these transfused into certain bodies, such as precious stones, certain rare minerals, plants and singular animals. Thus an entire theory was created about the planets, the bestiaries, the lapidaries. At the same time there vegetated among the common people the belief in the evil eye and in the many means of guarding against it, and the practice of numerous amulets against illnesses, enchantments and witchcrafts, and even against natural accidents. Moreover, even at present many people, including cultivated ones, seriously practice the use of the mascot, believe in horseshoes and their virtues, in the touching of iron, etc., and generally the more religious ignorance grows, the more superstition increases as its substitute. Antonio Ferrea
3. DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
Although, as was already mentioned (n. 2), one must beware of confusing together the use of amulets among the pagans and the use of objects of devotion among Catholics, it nevertheless remains true that on the part of the latter deviations from the doctrine of the Church have been noted and are noted. To formulate a moral judgment on this conduct, it is necessary to distinguish: whoever wears the amulet and intends by this to have recourse to the devil for assistance or defense, sins of "magic," which is always a mortal sin, insofar as it is an explicit invocation of the devil; whoever instead does not intend to bind himself to the devil, indeed does not even think of it, but uses the amulet to obtain effects evidently disproportionate to the means employed, sins of "vain observance," which is by its nature a mortal sin, insofar as the recourse to the devil is implicit in it; because, the object not being capable of producing that effect by itself, a preternatural intervention is required. However, in practice one will have to take account of the subjective conscience of individuals; because very often the faithful do not realize this implicit invocation of the devil, but act out of ignorance and do not think they are performing an irreligious act, as easily happens when it is a question of mascots, of lucky objects, and then there can be only venial sin, and sometimes even no fault at all (cf. St. Alphonsus, Theol. moralis, I. III, n. 15). Nevertheless the necessity of instructing the faithful well and clearly so that they emerge entirely from this state of ignorance, so deplorable, remains always of primary evidence.
The ecclesiastical authority has not failed to issue numerous condemnations against the use of amulets (cf. J.-B. Thiers, Traité des superstitions, Paris 1741, p. 329 ff.); it suffices to cite the Council of Constantinople, called "Quinisext" or in Trullo, of 692, at can. 61: "Let those who interrogate the clouds, practice sorcery, sell amulets be excommunicated for six years. And if they persist in their fault, let them be driven forever from the Church, as the sacred canons ordain" (Hardouin, Acta conciliorum, III, Paris 1714, col. 1689; Hefele-Leclercq, III, 1, p. 570).
Celestino Testore
(Ist. Soprint. Antichità, Naples)
4. THE AMULET IN MEDICINE
The use of amulets is to be considered among the oldest remedies adopted by man to free himself from diseases. Among the specimens of the earliest times, note should be taken of bone discs, cut from skulls belonging to persons who had suffered from those diseases (particularly epilepsy) from which the wearer of the amulet wished to remain immune. Even today there is found, in certain popular traditions, the habit of carrying about with oneself a fragment of skull bone of a person who was already epileptic, in order to be cured of that disease. The designation of the amulet is governed by those same general principles that have guided men in the search for and the choice of medicines. Thus, by similia similibus, those objects, plants, animals become amulets which by color, shape or other characteristics of resemblance can be connected to a principle of signature; thus by the principle contraria contraria amuletic virtue is attributed to the hangman's rope, to the skull, to the blood of the guillotined, to the number 13, etc. Particular alexiteric and alexipharmic virtues are attributed to gems, on which there exists a very vast literature ranging from the most ancient Indian, Chinese and Greek texts down to modern popular literature. Parts or reproductions of parts of the human body also have the value of amulets (eyes against the "evil eye", phalli as emblems of generation and therefore of fertility and abundance).
Adalberto Pazzini
5. THE AMULET IN ART
The developed ornamental sense of the ancients, especially of the Greeks, gave amulets an artistic appearance, which changed through the ages but always remained elevated. Since amulets, from their origins down to today, have served as ornaments of the person, and since as such they have followed their owner into the tomb, those of the ancients have come down to us in great number, both of the Egyptians and of the Greeks and Romans. Already in the 2nd millennium B.C. we find in tombs tiny axes of polished green stone, which were worn around the neck: the lithic weapon, characteristic of the preceding era but no longer in use, was already surrounded by an irrational fascination that recommended its use as an amulet. The "bulla", which the boys of patrician families of Rome wore hanging from the neck until their eighteenth year, evidently contained an amulet and was perhaps an amulet itself. From Greek vases we learn that women used to tie to the thigh a very thin thread, which they never untied, whose function as an amulet is evident.
