Fetish
An object believed by certain primitive peoples to embody a spirit and exert magical powers; an object representing spirits that is used to create a bond between the human and supernatural world.
Fetishes are dolls, carved images, stones, or animal teeth, claws, or bones. They are often worn on the body to impart their magical powers, such as for protection, luck, love, curing, warding off evil, money, good hunting, gambling, or curses on enemies.
The term 'fetish' may derive from the Latin factitius, 'made by art', or the Portuguese feitiηo, 'charm' or 'sorcery'. Other terms associated with fetishes are 'juju' and 'gris-gris', both of which may have derived from a West African term, grou-grou, for sacred objects.
Early European traders commonly called the grou-grou they encountered juju, meaning dolls or playthings. The gris-gris evolved out of the African American slave culture in the American South, and refers to charm bags filled with magical powders, herbs, spices, roots, bones, stones, feathers, and so on.
Today the term is popularly used to refer to an object or idea that receives superstitious or unquestioning trust or reverence. The word is also used in psychiatry to refer to the inordinate or pathological fascination a person may have for an inanimate object.
Fetish can also be the centering of strong sexual emotion in objects, parts of the human body and unusual ways of sexual gratification.
See Witchcraft, Agrippa, Diviner, Divination, Wizard, Pythagoras, Witchcraft, Diviner, Witch, Warlock, Alchemy, Paracelsus, Devil, Kabbalism, Numerology, Alchemy, Magic, Satan, Evil Eye, Evil Eye in the Bible and Rabbinic Literature, Horror File Funfax: Evil Eye, How to Avoid the Evil Eye, Mal'Uocchiu: Ambiguity, Evil Eye and the Language of Distress, Melville, Shame, and the Evil Eye: A Psychoanalytic Reading, The Evil Eye: A Casebook, The Malevolent Eye: An Essay on the Evil Eye, Fertility and the Concept of Mana, Curses! Broiled Again!: The Hottest Urban Legends Going, Curses: What They Are and How to Break Them, Omens, Curses & Superstitions: How to Remove and Reverse Them, The Book of Spells, Hexes, and Curses: True Tales from Around the World, The Breaking of Curses, Unbroken Curses, Love Spells -- Use these powerful love spells to help you find and keep your true love, The Tarot Store, Divination & Scrying Tools and Supplies, Unique Amulets, Talismans, Good Luck Charms, and Love Tokens, Powerful Witch Doctor Spell Kits, Powerful Spells - Cast by Andreika the Witch, Webmasters Make $$$, AzureGreen - Celebrating All Paths to the Divine, ISIS - Tools for Your Soul's Journey, and The Pyramid Collection - Myth, Magick, Fantasy and Romance.
Sources: (1) Spence, Lewis, An Encyclopedia of Occultism, Carol Publishing Group; (2) Pickering, David, Cassell Dictionary of Witchcraft, Cassell Academic; (3) The Encyclopaedia Britannica Eleventh Edition Handy Volume Edition, Oxford University Press.
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