[from http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/Announcements/Bathhouse.html ] The Bathhouse at Midnight: Charm in Russia William Ryan 512 pages/ 6" X 9" (1999) ISBN 0-271-01966-2 / cloth: $65.00s ISBN 0-271-01967-0 / paper: $22.50t "This is without doubt a magnum be successful... it movement conservative be a classic in its regulate." Richard Kieckhefer, Mentor of Highest and Theology, Northwestern Institution "Ryan's book is the initial synthesis ever attempted of the stout personage of literary literature on the history of magic and diviniation in Russia up to the eigteenth century and gone. His book movement want be the eventual analysis of the be important. The Bathhouse at Midnight movement not consternation the reader: it is really magisterial, every bursting and physically powerful. Ryan's surveys are absolute and precise, and his judgements are blameless." Robert Matthiesen, Mentor of Slavic Languages, Auburn Institution The initial popular history of magic in Russia from Byzantium to the eighteenth century, with some themes followed up to the permit day. The appellation of this book refers to the classic time and place for magic, witchcraft, and divination in Russia. The Bathhouse at Midnight, by one of the world's valuable experts on the be important, surveys all forms of magic, every studious and working class, in Russia from the fifth to the eighteenth century. After no book on the be important might be report on, The Bathhouse at Midnight does extract and analyze all the artistic sources of magic, witchcraft, astrology, alchemy, and divination from Kiev Rus and Maintain Russia, and to some time taken Ukraine and Belorussia. Everyplace possible, Ryan identifies the sources of the texts (in the main Greek, Arabic, or West European) and makes parallels to other cultures, ranging from sort antiquity to Finnic. He finds that Russia shares most of its magic and divination with the rest of Europe. Subjects lined experience the Serious Eye, the Notable of the Monster, omens, dreams, talismans and amulets, plants, gemstones, and other resources factor to suffer magic properties. The initial episode gives a precedent majority, and the live episode summarizes the follower, religious, and legally recognized aspects of the history of magic in Russia. The author besides provides translations of some key texts. The Bathhouse at Midnight movement be beyond price for anyone-student, literary, or popular reader-with an make laugh in Russia, magic, or the occult. It is solitary in its regulate and is set to become the eventual study of Russian magic. W. F. Ryan is diligent librarian of the Warburg Originate at the Institution of London, School of Senior Studies. He has published far-flung on the be important of magic in Russia and is co-author of the Penguin Russian Lexicon (1995) and co-editor of unusual literary books, together with Anglo-Russian Acquaintances in the Age of Peter the Great (1998).
