![]() ![]() She told me of her business advice and relationship counseling, of love magic and break-up magic, and of training to control jinn and ordering hits on adversaries. As an anthropologist researching Iranians’ encounters with the supernatural, I was especially interested in these. Interspersed between the teachings were anecdotes of her own magical practice and reflections on her development as a fortune-teller and witch. Over the next hour of our lesson, Mersedeh explained, among other things, the numerological procedure for determining compatibility between two lovers, the effect of ingested prayers on dogs, and some historical accounts drawn from a Persian translation of Kurt Seligman’s 1948 The History of Magic. Then she texted him again to say she could not find them. She said she had not tried anything new, but she had teased the ex-beau about the possibility: A few days earlier, she had sent him a text message claiming she was digging around in the graveyard of a local saint’s shrine, about to unearth some locks she had buried to “bind” him. Last time, we had written one together on a piece of paper torn out of my field notebook, setting it aflame inside the bathroom of her suite. After she made a remark about the proper place of the bismillah (the Muslim incantation, “In the Name of God”) on magic squares, I asked if she had written any new spells to win back her boyfriend. Café management had changed, but she still liked to meet her customers there to read their coffee grounds, interpret their tarot cards, and perhaps schedule an appointment at her suite for further work. This was my second time meeting Mersedeh there in as many months. Then she edged her chair closer to mine, leaned forward with a pen in her hand, and we resumed discussing the symbols of Islamic talismanic magic. I peered over the pricey menu while she lit a candle and told me mournfully of her breakup with her boyfriend, a former national footballer and aspiring pop star. At a hole-in-the-wall café in Ariashahr, a young and populous district in western Tehran, my tutor, a 24-year-old woman named Mersedeh, sat with me at a table near the window, not far from two men smoking and playing backgammon. In November 2008, I received a lesson in witchcraft. The lover is symbolized here as a beast of burden.Īspiring for middle-class life in Tehran can become an occult pursuit A brass amulet to render its bearer more attractive and help her capture and subdue a lover. ![]()
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