amulets talismans and pantacles

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by SIMON LIBERATI

artwork by TALI LENNOX

French writer and journalist Simon Liberati blends autobiographical elements with historical and fictional narratives. His works reflect a fascination with
the decadent and the extraordinary. His latest novel, La Hyène du Capitole, was published by Stock in 2024.

In the seventh arrondissement of Paris, at 140 rue du Bac, near the luxury department store Le Bon Marché, you’ll find a Catholic chapel dedicated to the cult of the Virgin Mary that has been attracting worshippers for two centuries. A reputedly miraculous medal is sold there for around €30. Its history dates back to the night of July 18-19, 1830. In this chapel, then dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a Marian apparition took place: the Virgin Mary sat in a Charles X-style armchair, now covered in blue velvet, and requested the young Catherine Labouré, a novice in the Company of the Daughters of Charity, to create a medal in her image, engraved with the inscription: “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you.” The back of the medal features a monogram with a capital “M” surmounted by a cross. Two hearts in the form of shields represent Mary and Jesus, and 12 stars encircle the whole. The extraordinary dissemination of this medal — accompanied by conversions, protections, and miracles — led Pope Pius IX in 1854 to define the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, exempting the Virgin, and the Virgin alone, from original sin.

This small religious object is still sold today, and the key to its longevity lies in the name “miraculous medal.” Across the street from the chapel, Le Bon Marché’s windows display other talismans encased in precious cases, belonging to the world of fashion and also adorned with symbols and signs. The worldwide diffusion of monograms is not just a matter of luxury and free trade — it is deeply rooted in beliefs dating back to the Neolithic era. Wearing a particular brand or identifiable mark is not only a distinctive sign but also a protection, a fluid shield against evil and possession. It is not certain that the monograms so revered today will one day prevail over the timeless little trinket in humble silver-plated metal. The two businesses coexist, each occupying its own sidewalk.

“Amulet” is an erudite term derived from the Latin amuletum, of unknown etymology, which the naturalist Pliny used to refer to an object that protects against diseases, substances, or objects, and that acts either directly or indirectly. For ancient humans, happiness was essentially the absence of suffering. Evil was always the result of bewitchment or an external attack. The amulet thus initially served a role of magical protection.

“Talisman” is a term with Semitic connotations but of uncertain origin: it exists among the Arabs in the form of tillasm, plural tillassama or talasmin. The Arabs found it among the Greeks: telesma, which means “initiation into the mysteries.” The origin is probably Hebrew, from tselem, meaning “image.” This is a symbolic object, the result of reasoning by analogy, often linked to astrology. It is therefore an artificial object, even if made of natural materials. Its virtues not only are protective but also enhance the vitality of the wearer.

The pentacle (or more precisely, the pantacle — the word is derived not from the pentagram, a five-pointed star often used in pantacles, but from the Greek pan, meaning an object that contains “all”) is a more sophisticated, more elaborate, and even more active object than a talisman, which relies on a single analogy. A true fluidic emitter, it requires craftsmanship, material fabrication conditions, and moral conditions. It is no longer operative magic but theurgy.

It seems that the earliest talismans represented harmful animals from which one sought protection. The most famous remains the brazen serpent of the Old Testament (Numbers 21:8), made by Moses. I own a bronze mouse bought from an Indian antiquarian; placing it in my countryside kitchen led, after a few months, to the disappearance of the field mice that had been ravaging my cupboards and devouring my garbage bags. This talisman’s effectiveness was much greater and less brutal than the small mousetraps branded “Lucifer” that I had purchased from the hardware store… similia similibus curentur. It’s a propitiation rite studied by James George Frazer in The Golden Bough.

We know that Egypt was the land of magic (hekau). We recognize the influence of Egyptian itinerant merchants on the Canaanites, the indigenous people of Babylonian Palestine. In Judah, Babylonian was the official language of the Canaanite chancelleries around 1400 BC, and Egyptian merchants mainly brought amulets, of which prodigious quantities have been found in Israeli excavations, notably at Megiddo in ancient Canaan: scarabs made of serpentine, bones pierced with a hole, small perforated white or black stones, shell necklaces similar to those worn in Arabia, crescents and rings in the shape of pendants, eyes of Horus, etc.

The Mosaic religion and other major monotheistic religions reject magical practices while allowing certain superstitions: one only needs to stroll down the Rue du Bac in Paris to see the constant influx of visitors from around the world. The presence of Le Bon Marché in this neighborhood steeped in Catholic superstitions inevitably evokes the proximity of mosques and temples in Benares or the souks surrounding the holy sites and ancient stones of Jerusalem. Similar crowds, the same multitude of races, the same beggars, the same wonders. Here, the spirit breathes. The opening of Le Bon Marché on Sundays (the day of worship in Catholicism, so deeply rooted here) has only accentuated the phenomenon.

The comparison goes beyond merely coexisting in the same urban space. The relationship between the luxury business and magic is defined by fetishism, an enigmatic aspect of capitalist liberal society, operating at two levels. Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud jointly rethought the notion of “fetish” to describe relationships with the world similar to those established by practical magic: surplus value (Marx) and perverse desire (Freud). In both cases, the fetishistic process involves an overvaluation of the object. The word “fetish” appeared in French in the 17th century, derived from the Portuguese feitiço, meaning “artificial” or “manufactured,” from the Latin factitius, which gave rise to the French adjective factice. What Portuguese missionaries — and later colonial ethnologists — regarded as crude objects of superstition, with little value, regained their magical significance through two of the main secular churches of the 20th century: dialectical materialism (Marx) and psychoanalysis (Freud).

“The phantasmagorical form of a relationship between things” is the succinct and beautiful official definition of “fetishism” in orthodox Marxism. In the first volume of Capital, Marx famously states: “The value form and the value relationship of the products of labor have absolutely nothing to do with their physical nature. It is only a social relationship determined by men among themselves, which assumes for them the phantasmagorical form of a relationship between things. To find an analogy for this phenomenon, one must search in the nebulous region of the religious world.” Every desire for an object is always and inevitably fetishistic. Fetishism has never been more pervasive than today, as evidenced by the absurd, dizzying prices reached by luxury goods and fashion items,

Tali Lennox, The Little Death, 2022, oil on linen, 17 3/4 x 14 5/8 inches

as well as those of art. We are always obsessively seeking amulets of all kinds and at any price. This desire of the subject refers to a force, to a supernatural property of the object, and therefore to its magical potential through (quoting Jean Baudrillard) “the schemes of projection and capture, of alienation and reappropriation.”

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