The Haunt Beyond Belief Magic Set is a thrilling and captivating collection of magic tricks that will leave audiences spellbound. It is designed for both beginners and experienced magicians, providing a wide range of tricks and illusions to perform. With its high-quality props and detailed instructions, this magic set offers endless hours of entertainment and mysterious fun. The main idea of the Haunt Beyond Belief Magic Set is to provide a comprehensive collection of tricks that can bewitch and amaze audiences of all ages. Whether you are a novice magician looking to learn new tricks or a seasoned performer seeking to enhance your repertoire, this magic set has something for everyone. The set includes numerous props such as a deck of cards, coins, ropes, and even a specially designed magician's hat.
alright, I’m going back to work
In Raimondi s day, these buyers would have potentially understood witchcraft as superstition, fantasy, dream imagery, or as a mere metaphor for evil. Such allusions suggest the association of Raimondi s witch with ancient models like Hecate goddess of witchcraft, linked to Diana , Medea Jason s wife and murderer of her children , Canidia Horace s grotesque potion-making witch , and Apuleius s Meroe who changes lovers into animals.
The set includes numerous props such as a deck of cards, coins, ropes, and even a specially designed magician's hat. Each trick comes with step-by-step instructions, making it easy to learn and improve your magic skills. The Haunt Beyond Belief Magic Set is designed to help aspiring magicians develop their confidence and stage presence.
Haunted by History: The Context of Raimondi’s Witch
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, Linda maestra! [Pretty Teacher!], plate 68 from Los Caprichos, 1797-1999, Etching, burnished aquatint and drypoint, Gift of Jonathan Bober in honor of Julia and Stephen Wilkinson, 1993. Around Halloween, thoughts turn to jack-o-lanterns, costumes, trick-or-treating, and lighthearted frights. Originally, the holiday marked crossings and connections. It was a transition between the autumnal harvest and the desolate winter months to come, and it marked a proximity to the supernatural. Spirits, goblins, and ghosts drew closer to this world for a short while. Many of Halloween’s ambassadors, who persist in our visual culture today, possess histories dating back millennia. Black cats, devils, and witches have long occupied an important place in Western iconography. The witch’s history, especially, is fraught with issues of religion, metaphysics, power, and gender, casting some women as heretical and evil. In modern history, enlightened artists like Francisco de Goya depicted witches in order to satirize common superstition. Goya had learned to be afraid of the supernatural in childhood, he explained, but as an adult he had “no fears of witches, goblins, ghosts . . . nor any sort of body except human. . . .” During the Renaissance, however, artistic intentions were not always so clear. Interpreting the witches depicted by artists like Albrecht Dürer, Hans Beltung, Salvator Rosa, and Marcantonio Raimondi—artists living in the transition between Middle Ages and Enlightenment—presents challenges.
Marcantonio and Agostino de Musi called Agostino Veneziano Raimondi, Lo Stregozzo [The Witches’ Procession], after Raphael or Giulio Romano, 1520s, engraving, The Leo Steinberg Collection, 2002. Raimondi’s Lo Stregozzo (The Witches Procession) offers a useful case study in this history. The engraving is visually arresting, and its meaning and creation are mysterious. Scholars are divided regarding the identity of the printmaker—Marcantonio Raimondi or his student Agostino Veneziano—as well as the designer of the overall composition. Raimondi would have had commercial reasons for making the print himself. The subjects of witchcraft and the supernatural reflect a savvy business decision, since they would have appealed to both pious and humanist audiences alike.
Lo Stregozzo [The Witches’ Procession] (detail) The print’s iconography is cryptic. A retinue of bizarre creatures and ephebes [an ancient Greek term for young men undergoing military training] accompanies a witch, seated atop a huge dragon-like skeleton. Together, they traverse a marshy landscape. The witch holds a cauldron and grasps at a baby. Common belief held that witches murdered infants for making certain potions. Such superstitions were widespread among the public, but the Church’s views of witchcraft were complex. According to the canon Episcopi from 906 CE, the transformations attributed to witches and their “wild rides” to Black Masses in the dead of the night were products of imagination or mental illness rather than actual realities. Only the Creator could alter material things, and the nature of God informed future skepticisms as well. In 1475, theologian Johannes Nider protested that a loving God would never allow witches to murder unbaptized babies, damning them eternally. By contrast, in 1487 Dominican clergymen Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger published the Malleus Maleficarum, challenging the canon Episcopi and seeking to prove that witches’ interaction—and sexual congress—with demons was theological fact. Similarly in 1523, Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola’s Strix, sive de ludificatione daemonum recorded incidents of witches’ transformations, infanticide, and fraternization with demons.
Lo Stregozzo [The Witches’ Procession] (detail) In this climate, Raimondi’s print surely represented reality for the superstitious and some of the pious. Its sources, however, also reflect humanists’ interests in mysteries and antiquities. The work’s processional model was likely pagan, resembling a Dionysian retinue from Roman sarcophagi. Additionally, the flower at bottom left is asphodel, which Homer placed in underworld’s meadows. Such allusions suggest the association of Raimondi’s witch with ancient models like Hecate (goddess of witchcraft, linked to Diana), Medea (Jason’s wife and murderer of her children), Canidia (Horace’s grotesque potion-making witch), and Apuleius’s Meroe (who changes lovers into animals). These gendered classical portrayals of magic-using women were engrained in Renaissance culture (where a folk-healer might be accused of witchcraft by a slighted neighbor), even if most did not know the ancient sources of these archetypes.
Raimondi likely knew about classical themes such as the procession directly from antique sources and indirectly from the work of artists such as Andrea Mantegna. Notably, Mantegna’s depiction of Invidia in his Battle of the Sea Gods (c. 1480s) was the probable source for one of Dürer’s witches, which in turn informed Raimondi. Mantegna demonstrated rich invention and possessed a wealthy, learned, and humanist clientele who enjoyed puzzling through the master’s inventions. In Raimondi’s day, these buyers would have potentially understood witchcraft as superstition, fantasy, dream imagery, or as a mere metaphor for evil. For such persons, the follies in Lo Stregozzo would have been legible. Given the superstitious belief that witches used babies in producing flying potions, a problem emerges in this work. Despite the witch’s apparent use of infants and potions, her skeletal-ride is not so much flying as it is being lifted off the ground and pulled by her escort. This locomotion points to reliance upon natural laws rather than supernatural powers. Ultimately, Lo Stregozzo’s ambivalences allow for many readings. The work was a cipher and a potentially shrewd business decision. Today, we have largely reformed our view of witchcraft, yet we still harbor other unsubstantiated beliefs. Halloween’s witches are cartoonish rather than supernatural. They are also historical reminders to examine social tendencies that unjustly judge classes of people, forcing them to wear masks born of our own irrational fears.
Douglas Cushing
Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Prints and Drawings, and European Paintings at the Blanton
For further reading:
Albricci, Gioconda. “‘Lo Stregozzo’ Di Agostino Veneziano.” Arte veneta 36, no. 1982 (1982): 55-61.
Boorsch, Suzanne, Jane Martineau, Keither Christiansen, Ekserdjiian, Charles Hope, and Martin Landau. Andrea Mantegna. London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1992.
Bury, Michael. The Print in Italy, 1550-1620. Exh. cat., London: British Museum, 2001.
Davis, Bruce. Mannerist Prints: International Style in the Sixteenth Century. Exh. cat., Los Angeles, Calif.: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1988.
Emison, Patricia. “Truth and Bizzarria in an Engraving of Lo Stregozzo.” The Art Bulletin 81, no. 4 (1999): 623-36.
Hults, Linda. The Witch as Muse: Art, Gender, and Power in Early Modern Europe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005
Institoris, Heinrich, Jakob Sprenger, and Christopher S. Mackay. Malleus Maleficarum. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Landau, David, and Peter W. Parshall. The Renaissance Print, 1470-1550. Exh. cat., New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.
Rabinowitz, Jacob. The Rotting Goddess : The Origin of the Witch in Classical Antiquity’s Demonization of Fertility Religion. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 1998.
Russell, Jeffrey Burton. Witchcraft in the Middle Ages. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972.
Shoemaker, Innis H., and Elizabeth Brown. The Engravings of Marcantonio Raimondi. Exh. cat., Lawrence, Chapel Hill: Spencer Museum of Art, Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina, 1981.
Stephens, Walter. Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of Belief. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.
Symmons, Sarah. Goya: A Life in Letters. London: Pimlico, 2004.
Tietze-Conrat, E. “Der Stregozzo.” Die graphischen Künste N.F.1. (1936): 57-59.
I plan on using this blog in a casual way, to write about what I’m up to and to share tidbits about Haunted Chocolatier. I probably won’t stick to any defined schedule, but instead just post things when it feels right.
One of the key highlights of this magic set is its emphasis on storytelling and theatricality. The tricks are not just about pulling rabbits out of hats or making objects disappear – they are about creating a sense of wonder and mystery. The Haunt Beyond Belief Magic Set enables performers to take audiences on a journey through the unknown, leaving them astounded and eager for more. Another notable aspect of this magic set is its high production value. The props are made from durable materials that can withstand repeated use, ensuring that they will last for years. The detailed instructions are accompanied by illustrations and diagrams, making it easy to understand and perform each trick with precision. Whether you are performing for family and friends or taking your magic act to the stage, the Haunt Beyond Belief Magic Set is a comprehensive and exciting collection of tricks that will elevate your performance to new heights. It provides the tools and guidance needed to become a master of illusion, captivating your audience and leaving them believing in the impossible. So, get ready to enter a world of mystery and enchantment with the Haunt Beyond Belief Magic Set..
Reviews for "Master the Tricks of the Trade with the Haunt Beyond Belief Magic Set"
1. John - 1/5 - This magic set was a huge disappointment. The tricks were incredibly basic and easily figured out within minutes. The props provided were of such poor quality that they fell apart after just a few uses. I expected so much more from a set that claims to be "beyond belief." Save your money and invest in a different magic set if you're looking for a more advanced and impressive experience.
2. Sarah - 2/5 - I was really excited to try out the Haunt beyond belief magic set, but it failed to meet my expectations. The instructions provided were unclear and confusing, making it difficult to learn and perform the tricks effectively. The performance quality of the tricks was underwhelming, and some even felt outdated. Overall, I was left feeling disappointed and unimpressed with this magic set.
3. Emily - 2/5 - The Haunt beyond belief magic set promised a thrilling and mind-boggling experience, but unfortunately, it fell short. The tricks included were repetitive and lacked originality. The props provided were flimsy and easily breakable, making it difficult to perform the tricks without them falling apart. I was expecting a more sophisticated and engaging magic set, but this one left me feeling unsatisfied.
4. Mike - 1/5 - As an avid magic enthusiast, I was extremely disappointed with the Haunt beyond belief magic set. The tricks included were so basic that even a beginner would find them unimpressive. The props provided were poorly made and felt cheap. Additionally, the instructions were poorly written, making it difficult to understand how to perform the tricks correctly. Overall, this magic set was a waste of money and I would not recommend it to anyone who wants a truly awe-inspiring magical experience.
5. Lisa - 2/5 - The Haunt beyond belief magic set had great potential, but it failed to live up to my expectations. The tricks included were too simplistic and lacked the wow factor that I was hoping for. The instructions provided were confusing, making it hard to understand the proper techniques and execution of the tricks. The set also lacked variety, with many tricks feeling repetitive. Overall, I was left feeling unimpressed and regretful of my purchase.