Powder of Sympathy
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Powder of Sympathy, a form of Sympathetic Magic popular if controversial in the 17th century whereby a remedy was applied to the weapon that had caused a wound in the hope of healing the injury it had made. The method was first proposed by Rudolf Goclenius, Jr. and later expanded upon by Sir Kenelm Digby, an abstract of Digby's theory is found in an address given before an assembly of learned men in Montpelier, France, and which is discussed in Pettigrew's Superstitions Connected with Medicine and Surgery. The recipe for the powder is: "take Roman vitriol [copper sulphate] six or eight ounces, beat it very small in a mortar, shift it through a fine sieve when the sun enters Leo; keep it in the heat of the sun and dry by night."[1]
The powder was applied to solve the Longitude Problem when it was suggested in an anonymous pamphlet of 1687 entitled "Curious Enquiries" that a wounded dog could be put aboard a ship leaving the animal's discarded bandage in the trust of a timekeeper on shore who would then dip the bandage into the powder at a predetermined time causing the creature to yelp, thus giving the captain of the ship an accurate knowledge of the time. There are no records of the effectiveness of this procedure.
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[edit] In Fiction
The concept of the Powder of Sympathy plays a significant role in the plot of Umberto Eco's novel The Island of the Day Before. In the novel, set in the 17th Century, the protagonist learns of the Powder, gives a lecture on it in a Salón, and is ordered by Cardinal Richelieu to investigate its usefulness for solving the Longitude Problem. The method of finding longitude involving a wounded dog is shown in the novel.
[edit] Notes
- [1]Lewis Spense, Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology 1920, vol. 2, p 725.
[edit] References
- Sir Kenelm Digby, A late discourse made in solemne assembly of nobles and learned men at Montpellier in France, touching the cure of wounds by the powder of sympathy. London, R. Lowdes 1658, 2nd edition.
- Sir William Osler, Sir Kenelm Digby's Powder of Sympathy. An unfinished essay, Plantin Press 1972.
- Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before. Milan, R.C.S. Libri & Grandi Opere SpA-Milano 1994
