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Greg Mele
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PostPosted: Fri 28 Oct, 2011 1:21 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Randall,

Brace yourself for this.....


...really....

...I agree with everything you just wrote.

Wink

It is important because we need to remember that medieval secular thought and experiment, and its relationship to ecclesiastic thought, ebbed and flowed throughout the period, and was impacted by the current pope, local bishops, and the politics of the day.

So whether we are devout Christians, Jews, pagans, atheists, agnostics, whatever, we need to understand that the 14th and 15th centuries were generally times of greater permissiveness and "heterodox" thought than we generalize in our perception of medieval Europe - largely because we tend to filter it through the lens of post Counter-Reformation pre-Vatican II understanding of Catholicism.

The lines of what is science vs faith vs mysticism vs magic simply interweave in a way different from ours, and actually at times differently at different points in the Middle Ages. And that is why a fighting text may have its dedications to St George and Mary, astrological charts, alchemical symbolism, and a little geomancy and be perfectly within the intellectual mainstream of the period, and remembering that helps keep us from turning things into the Dei Liberi Code or the Talhoffer Paradox! Wink

It occurred to me that the best answer to the OP may be: the fighting texts are a part of late medieval scholasticism and early humanism, and how much they participate in the rest of the topics of the same - from theology to occultism, varies by the author and his patron - while the actual martial arts themselves remain essentially pragmatic and mechanistic in their description.

Greg Mele
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Last edited by Greg Mele on Fri 28 Oct, 2011 1:54 pm; edited 3 times in total
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Nathan Robinson
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PostPosted: Fri 28 Oct, 2011 1:34 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Remember, people, that this topic is about "Mysticism in WMA". Also remember the stated target of this site as "A recourse for historic arms and armour collectors". Stay on topic and be certain to explicitly tie your points back to the topic at hand..
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Greg Mele
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PostPosted: Fri 28 Oct, 2011 1:49 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Hi Nathan,

I trimmed my last post so that the point I was trying to make was more central and clear. I hope that made it more germane.

Greg

Greg Mele
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Nathan Robinson
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PostPosted: Fri 28 Oct, 2011 1:51 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Greg Mele wrote:
I trimmed my last post so that the point I was trying to make was more central and clear. I hope that made it more germane.


Thanks, Greg. That helps.

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Craig Peters




PostPosted: Fri 28 Oct, 2011 10:16 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Hugh Knight wrote:
Like some of them, perhaps, but medieval people were not all that blind. Chaucer, for example, is well known for his detestation of alchemists, writing that they were con men. His "Canon's Yeoman's Tale" explores this, as do some of his other writings.


As Harold Bloom noted in his introduction on Geofferey Chaucer from his book Best Poems of the English Language:

"Chaucer, like Shakespeare after him, had a natural genius for comedy, and again like Shakespeare, Chaucer was skeptical that language can be made to express the truth. And just aas much as Shakespeare, Chaucer was wary of moral judgments. We may know how we feel about the Pardoner or Iago, but we will never know what Chaucer or Shakespeare felt in regard to them."
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Jean Thibodeau




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PostPosted: Sat 29 Oct, 2011 2:56 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Maybe this Topic has strayed too far from the practical and into a very broad interpretation of mysticism that would have existed in period i.e. mindset influencing the approach to swordplay ?

To focus it more on the question of " mysticism " and sword/weapon arts I would ask what exactly would be said or shown during training sessions in period that wouldn't be simply, move this way, when he does this, do that, or general tactical advice about basic principles of measure and timing etc ...... In other words technical and directly related to how one moves instruction.

The comparison to Eastern Martial Art would be things included in instructions that affect mindset or visualizations that help achieve effectiveness and grace in movement and improves the quality of one's fighting skills. Exclamation Question

Things equivalent to " Chi " or advice in emptying the mind of thoughts or how to handle fear, how to be aware of everything around one i.e. how to avoid tunnel vision, be in the zone etc......

Not so much mysticism in the religious sense but qualities of the mind ?

One could say jokingly the equivalent of " Use the Force Luke " in Medieval teachings of the sword. Wink Laughing Out Loud

From the early posts on this Topic I would tend to believe that the Western European teaching methods where more of the move this way, do this kind than any spiritual advice, and the question was: Are there European equivalents to " CHI " in Western martial arts training that we know about ?

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Christopher VaughnStrever




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PostPosted: Sat 29 Oct, 2011 7:14 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

This is from "Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe" page 47

Quote:
In fact, the knightly solution seems clear and characteristic: they largely appropriated religion; they absorbed such ideas as were broadly compatible with the virtual worship of prowess and with the high sense of their own divinley approved status and mission; they likewise downplayed or simply ignored most structures that were not compatible with their sense of honour and entitlement


Looking at many accounts of Knights and their deeds of prowess (one out of the bunch is from Jean Frossiart: John of Gaunt in Portugal, 1385) Two knights joust and compete with swords, axes, and daggers. Of that account One of the knights is jousting in a way that others don't agree the reply is thus

Quote:
"let him alone: in arms every one takes what advantage he can if Sir John thinks there is any advantage in thus fastening his helmet, he may do the same.....when we were at Elvas to oppose the King of Castile... but I never heard that his helmet was tighter laced then it is now"


I would have to agree with certain sentiments of Hugh Knight and Christian Tobler and Jean Thibodeau, The art of the sword and any other weapons used in medieval europe was taught simply as the art of combat was and that no "Mysticism" had any play in the combat at all. Even the first quote above goes to show that; while Knights observed religious beliefs; they ignored any conflicting religious notion that conflicted with their arms of prowess of being able to kill other men.

As of the second quotation, as this may be another topic entirely, it seems to me (and I may be wrong, however the many accounts I have read are in accord with this thought) that these fight manuals were available to advertise to the lesser knights or even commoners. we have many accounts of conflicts of business serfs and the other commoners of the time, of which few of them probably had warfare experience. If a knight was trained and a veteran in war, I don't see the need for him to go and learn a-new of how to fight with his weapons.

The idea as stated earlier in this thread is that these manuals that had religious connections and depictions were done so as a bit of enticement. Just as today there are many different avenues in which people add a religious wording in a song, or a religious idol on a book cover so as to entice the people whom want to feel more so religious in whatever right/or wrong habits they may wish to pursue. You can go back to the roman days and the medieval days as well when men of religious affiliation wanted one culture to convert to their religion, and thus converted religious ideas of their own with the ideas of the cultures of people they were trying to convert.

The point is simple appeal to your audience. And that wording and pictorial religious notions in these medieval fight manuals simply had nothing (as far as I have studied and been taught) apart of the art of thrusting a sword or spear into another mans body.

The ideas represented on the past few posts in this thread seem to simply explain that religion was a major part of medieval Europe and that is very much the truth. However, there is no proof of any medieval fight manual saying that "this guard/attack represents this deity or that idol or this saint"

When a new person is being taught wma they do not learn what religious notion of the medieval day translated into a particular attack or particular counter. They simply learn the attacks and the counters. I cannot say too much on EMA, however the fact remains that each form represents an animal of which was worshiped as a god or diety, and thus mysticism does relate and is apart of the EMA, however the names of guards and attacks in WMA do not represent any type of saint or diety, and thus there is no mysticism in the art.

Now if one wishes to learn of the religious ideals of the days of medieval Europe (whatever particular time period you are looking into) depending on the year, location/Country, and whether they were a serf, common peasant, men-at-arms, knight, duke, or king, the religious belief and religious way of each of those factors will change your religious perception. (Look at the first quote above for reference of this statement)

So the religious beliefs of the medieval day were simply that. And Warring efforts of killing and duels with various weapons were simply that. Did the wma of the medieval day influence church affairs - they certainly did through war. Did religon try to bank on the wma, they certainly did because we have accounts of the church approving war and thus the fighting arts of Medieval Europe. But there is no mysticism in wma itself - some may want to try to implement religious mysticism into wma and that is their own prerogative but mysticism has no evidence in connection with the form and art of wma

thats my .03 cents (seemed a bit more then 2 cents)

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Adam Bodorics
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PostPosted: Sun 30 Oct, 2011 6:52 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

With the wide array of things covered so far in this topic, I think that a few points need reiterating.

- WMA is a functional art by itself, learning/using it doesn't require any religious/magical system, and there aren't any clear and direct instructions for using any kind of inner power directly in combat in the fight-books.

- Several complex and overlapping religious/magical systems existed in the period in question, defining the mindset of those people. While there were charlatans, most people, regardless of wealth and social standing, believed in the reality of the parts of this system array that influenced them, killing and dying for them.

- WMA and religious/magical systems were taught separately, but in the lives of these people, they overlapped. Remember that there are several signs that the '59Thott is Talhoffer's personal book, not necessarily meant for advertising, and dei Liberi's book is rich in symbolism. Due to this overlap, either of these fields could be used to further the other one - that is, supposedly religious/magical objects and/or behavior used to increase martial efficiency, and martial prowess used to reach spiritual goals (or political ones masqueraded as spiritual ones). The existence of this overlap is obvious, but it doesn't mean that the study of either field must contain study of the other one, though if the aim is the understanding of the whole world and mindset of those people, then as many areas should be studied and integrated with each other as possible. As the combined study of all fields is a huge task, and evidence is scarce in several areas, there will always be a lot of things we can't know for sure.

- While atheism didn't exist in the modern sense, corruption and rules-lawyering certainly did.

ps.: I edited this about 4-5 times, as my head is killing me, and I repeatedly noticed that I left out stuff I wanted to write down.
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Patrick De Block




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PostPosted: Sun 30 Oct, 2011 10:01 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

The three stage process of internalization C. Tobler mentions, has a Japanese equivalent: shu-ha-ri. You can describe this process exactly in a more mundane way: to eat - to digest - to shit. So, it is practice, more practice and still more practice or in Japanese: keiko, keiko, keiko. And let me be clear, please: it is not my intention to offend someone. The words are different and you can discuss the finer shades of meaning which make all the difference but it is the same process.

The Western equivalent of Chi or Ki. Read Ringeck 19r and 19v, that's the basic explanation and if you want a bit more, read on till 22v and you have it all. Later on they called this 'le sentiment du fer'.
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Lafayette C Curtis




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PostPosted: Tue 01 Nov, 2011 4:41 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Christopher VaughnStrever wrote:
I cannot say too much on EMA, however the fact remains that each form represents an animal of which was worshiped as a god or diety, and thus mysticism does relate and is apart of the EMA,


Um. Er. I don't want to be offensive, but the notion that the animal-based forms in Eastern martial arts necessarily has some religious significance is just . . . well, silly. I can speak from personal experience that practically none of the various schools of silat in Indonesia regard the animals they emulate as any sort of deity. Something to imitate, perhaps, but only in martial situations--and definitely not something to worship! (In fact, many of the schools heavily incorporate Islamic teachings--often including Sufi mysticism--into their systems, and would be offended at the mere notion that they worshiped the animal(s) upon which their techniques are based.)

I wouldn't know the case for other animal-based styles throughout the East, but then, the "East" as seen through Western minds is huge, and I'd be surprised if more than a small fraction of the animal-based styles of Eastern martial arts actually treated their patron animals as any sort of deity.
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PostPosted: Wed 02 Nov, 2011 2:09 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Lafayette C Curtis wrote:
Christopher VaughnStrever wrote:
I cannot say too much on EMA, however the fact remains that each form represents an animal of which was worshiped as a god or diety, and thus mysticism does relate and is apart of the EMA,


Um. Er. I don't want to be offensive, but the notion that the animal-based forms in Eastern martial arts necessarily has some religious significance is just . . . well, silly. I can speak from personal experience that practically none of the various schools of silat in Indonesia regard the animals they emulate as any sort of deity. Something to imitate, perhaps, but only in martial situations--and definitely not something to worship! (In fact, many of the schools heavily incorporate Islamic teachings--often including Sufi mysticism--into their systems, and would be offended at the mere notion that they worshiped the animal(s) upon which their techniques are based.)

I wouldn't know the case for other animal-based styles throughout the East, but then, the "East" as seen through Western minds is huge, and I'd be surprised if more than a small fraction of the animal-based styles of Eastern martial arts actually treated their patron animals as any sort of deity.


I get the impression that most of the animal styles (that have survived into modern Chinese martial arts) are a teaching device. "Strike like a praying mantis / tiger / whatever" doesn't make anatomical sense, since humans just don't move like that. But it's a very compact and memorable way of described a lot of subtle body motion.

No magic, no mysticism, just teaching to a largely illiterate student body.

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Sam Gordon Campbell




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PostPosted: Wed 02 Nov, 2011 6:01 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I tell you what, if I had to be like an animal/totem/familiar/whatever, it would either be the Tasmanian Devil or more than likely the Honey Badger. Seriously, I wouldn't fight someone who had a mind set of a Honey Badger.

For what it's worth, I think Mysticism in anything is a combination of:
1) encrypting teachings so that the "outsiders" wouldn't understand them clearly.
2) Giving an attribute to which humans can relate and mimic such as a lion equals bravery, an elephant either Jesus or stability, the noble blobfish etc.
3) Just looking at any culture ever and one is bound to find some form of human figure with animal traits and visa-versa.
4) To help a student remember something by making it catchy, like very vauge poems for example.
5) And to be honest I must admit that it is cool to have some sort of mystery surrounding something, in other words Mysticism is just another word for Romanticism.
6) Curiosity and the drive that people have to discover and understand things basically means that if you give them the system, but hint at there being more then they'll seek it out.
7) I guess it's a chance to instill the teachers ideals and values upon the students (which, when done normally [and it is inevitable] is of no harm and merely gives a feeling of Oneness; that is not to say that seeking other views is wrong, in fact quite the contrary, it should be encouraged) and the ideals of being a better human being. Sort of a Virtruvian Man concept (something that I'd like to think that I, in time, will strive for).

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Len Parker





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PostPosted: Thu 03 Nov, 2011 5:16 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I remembered this mention of magic being forbidden in duels (5th paragraph) http://plantagenetdynasty.blogspot.com/2008/0...stock.html The duke's personal library at the bottom is interesting.
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Paul Hansen




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PostPosted: Fri 04 Nov, 2011 11:44 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Lafayette C Curtis wrote:
Um. Er. I don't want to be offensive, but the notion that the animal-based forms in Eastern martial arts necessarily has some religious significance is just . . . well, silly. I can speak from personal experience that practically none of the various schools of silat in Indonesia regard the animals they emulate as any sort of deity. Something to imitate, perhaps, but only in martial situations--and definitely not something to worship! (In fact, many of the schools heavily incorporate Islamic teachings--often including Sufi mysticism--into their systems, and would be offended at the mere notion that they worshiped the animal(s) upon which their techniques are based.)

I wouldn't know the case for other animal-based styles throughout the East, but then, the "East" as seen through Western minds is huge, and I'd be surprised if more than a small fraction of the animal-based styles of Eastern martial arts actually treated their patron animals as any sort of deity.


As the thread is about WMA in Europe and not about Pencak Silat in Indonesia, it's perhaps a bit off topic, but most Indonesians are hardly "hard-line" muslims, and many of the pre-muslim era animistic beliefs are still practiced. For instance, look at the keris lore, which includes offerings of flowers and food to the keris. So to say that "it's just moving like a tiger" is in my opinion not correct. The idea is to become a tiger in moves, but also in mindset. And, according to some, even in physical form, as absurd as that may sound to most Westerners. Of course, there are more hard-line muslim schools to which this is absolutely unacceptable.

How such a thing would be seen in WMA, I don't know. But there are many pre-Christian saga's and legends that tell stories of people physically changing into some animal as well.
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Christopher VaughnStrever




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PostPosted: Fri 04 Nov, 2011 12:14 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Quote:
How such a thing would be seen in WMA, I don't know. But there are many pre-Christian saga's and legends that tell stories of people physically changing into some animal as well.


Though, again there is no teachings of this in historical fighting manuals. At least that have been uncovered to anyones knowledge

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A. Elema





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PostPosted: Sat 05 Nov, 2011 4:41 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I'm a little late to the party, but I'll throw in a few references to chew on.

Richard Kaeuper, who wrote Chivalry and Violence, has a more recent book called Holy Warriors: The Religious Ideology of Chivalry, much of which you can read at Google Books beyond the link. He points out rather sensibly that medieval Christianity wasn't monolithic. Medieval knights had theological notions of their own about how to reconcile their profession with the pacifist messages in the New Testament. They tended to diverge quite a bit from official canon law.

Nevertheless, some ideas seem to have been fairly far outside the theological mainstream. The other day there was a good discussion over at the Schola Gladiatoria forum about a manual of necromancy from fifteenth-century Munich. While it doesn't mention fencing exactly, a lot of its rituals do involve swords.

There's also a fair bit of information out there about the relationship between the medieval church and the practice of trial by battle. If you want a good summary of the scholarship on the subject up to 1986, look up Robert Bartlett's book Trial by Fire and Water: The Medieval Judicial Ordeal. Medieval saints' lives are also a good source for the kind of stories medieval people told about miraculous events at judicial duels. (My personal favourite is the tale of Saint Wulfstan and the Miraculous Testicles.)
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Lafayette C Curtis




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PostPosted: Fri 11 Nov, 2011 8:51 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Paul Hansen wrote:
As the thread is about WMA in Europe and not about Pencak Silat in Indonesia, it's perhaps a bit off topic, but most Indonesians are hardly "hard-line" muslims, and many of the pre-muslim era animistic beliefs are still practiced. For instance, look at the keris lore, which includes offerings of flowers and food to the keris. So to say that "it's just moving like a tiger" is in my opinion not correct. The idea is to become a tiger in moves, but also in mindset. And, according to some, even in physical form, as absurd as that may sound to most Westerners. Of course, there are more hard-line muslim schools to which this is absolutely unacceptable.


You're confusing two different arguments. Achieving some sort of metaphysical "oneness" with the patron animal might be a bit heterodox by Islamic standards, but it doesn't clash head-on with the deep-rooted prohibitions against idolatry. Regarding the patron animal as some sort of god or deity, on the other hand, is an offense on an entirely different plane, and even the least "hard-line" Muslim in Indonesia would have been shocked at the notion. To make a long story short, even if your practice of Islam is heavily influenced by traditional beliefs, it doesn't meant that you don't take your religion seriously. It's also worth noting that many of the keris-related rituals are as heavily influenced by Islamic paradigms (filtered through local eyes) as by the pre-Islamic layers in the culture.

Sometimes I think Westerners who aren't immersed in the culture are easily misled into drawing false dichotomies between the survival of pre-Islamic influences and the serious adoption of Islam in Indonesian culture. But, more importantly to the topic, it brings up again the false dichotomy between religion (or superstition) and science in medieval Europe--knowing how far Islamic and pre-Islamic (and post-Islamic!) ideas can intertwine themselves in Indonesian (or at least Javanese) culture to the point of inseparability makes it easy to see how the Europeans of yore reconciled their budding sciences with the various artifacts of contemporary metaphysics and religion.
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Jess Rozek




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PostPosted: Fri 11 Nov, 2011 6:12 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Totally late to the party, but this is a fascinating topic.

What makes discussing this difficult is point of view. Since we live in a Western culture, which like it or not, is dominated by Christian ideals, what we see as ritual/mysticism and "eh, it's just part of the religion" can be very skewed from those not from a Christian society approaching this same topic. For instance, people wearing crosses as necklaces. From our POV, that's a simple way to show you're a Christian. To someone else, it could be an amulet representing an arbitrary minor deity/aspect of the deity.

Also, in pre-Renaissance times, Christianity meant different things. In the countryside, old pagan rituals constantly intertwined with Christian ceremonies. Also, people turned to priests and monks to actually perform better magic than they were used to seeing in their pagan rituals! Crazy, right? It was only during the Renaissance that people went witch crazy.

As for the original question of chi in WMA, I think that's just another way of saying that one can consciously control "being in the zone". For most, it happens as part of the fight-flight response. Picking (not that you have a conscious choice usually Big Grin) fight enables your body to go into an autonomic response including raising your adrenaline (better reflexes and senses), focusing on winning/surviving the fight at hand (e.g. the clarity of mind bit), and, if you're lucky (read: in serious danger) your perception of time changes - time seems to slow. Think time moving at Matrix speed - imagine what you could do if your attackers seemed slower! All these unconscious responses seem to echo the focusing of the chi/qi. As for why it doesn't seem to exist in WMA: religion (shocker, right?) The chi, as I understand it, is central to several oriental religions. So, in the same way knights had crosses on their shields and prayed, the chi appeared in EMA. It's similar to what someone else said (sorry, I can't find who) about knights cherry-picking what aspects of Christianity they liked. So the warriors and soldiers in EMA most likely did the exact same thing for similar reasons - it worked.
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Pierre T.




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PostPosted: Fri 11 Nov, 2011 11:25 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

A small piece of information:

When I was younger and a student at university, and wanted a break from my studies, I would sometimes look at the (French) Grimoires. I distinctively remember seeing a "spell" or charm that one could put on one's sword to "ensure victory". It involved wrapping a 7 (I think) pointed star made of tin (I think) around the handle (yes, this could affect mass distribution). There were other details but I unfortunately forget. I believe the Grimoire in question was the "GRIMOIRE DU
PAPE HONORIUS", but unfortunately I have not been able to find the text to confirm.

I'm not sure if this counts as "mysticism" or outright occultism.

Edit: I did find the text, and while it does not contain this charm (which must then be in another grimoire), it does have the following "spells"

Quote:
Contre un coup d'épée.

Avant d'aller vous battre, écrivez sur un ruban, de n'importe quelle couleur, les deux mots: Buoni jacum. Serrez-vous le poignet droit avec ce ruban; soyez sans crainte, défendez-vous, et l'épée de votre ennemi ne vous touchera point.


Basically, before fighting, write on a ribbon the magic words, tight it around your wrist, and fight without fear, your foe's sword will not touch you.

There are other ones.

Cheers,

Pierre
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Christopher VaughnStrever




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PostPosted: Sat 12 Nov, 2011 5:06 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

good citation Pierre

And I guess we all have a slightly different view of the word "mysticism" for me this would not fall into my definition of mysticism in fighting arts of the wma, though would fall into the category of "lucky charms" (forgive the unintended pun there)

As it has been mentioned previously about people in sports, many have their lucky notions that make them perform better, however a baseball pitcher is not taught to always wear the same socks so that he can pitch the ball correctly - that is not apart of learning how to perform his deeds, but rather a superstition (if you will) he has.

But others could view this as apart of the wma and if they do and don't start their students of with these views (in my opinion) would not be holding to their own standards of the mysticism they so believe. Do not get me wrong, I do not intend to offend anyone in what they believe or do. I am simply trying to make the point that I do not believe these mysticism aspects of everyday life was involved in what the fight-masters taught. Others have different views, but I have not heard anyone else make the comment that they teach it to their students starting of in wma (for the exception of the one group mentioned that does teach these values - for their select peers. might have been christian that made the comment I could be mistaken.)

but from all of that, did particular knights or man at arms believe god was acting through their bodies, or simply god giving them the ability to fight so well, of course. but a belief is a belief and where some used spells or lucky charms of medals or ribbons or any other items to give them an upper hand in the fight, these things were not at the core of a knights training in his weapons. These beliefs were in addition to the arts they trained in. And not every knight or soldier used these "additions" however records of select individuals using these additions are certainly around.

so when you look at the whole picture... since we don't fight wars with swords till the death any longer, the sparring and events where people compete in the wma is not exactly incorporating the idea of mysticism in the arts, yet people still use and have their beliefs that they can win a bought of accumulated points by wearing their cross around their neck as an addition to the art they have trained so hard in.

best regards,
Chris

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