this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
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The perception may come from old writings for medical tinctures and the like including the instruction to "say three Hail Marys". This wasnt a magic incantation; it was a way to measure time for people who did not have watches.
A few years ago I heard about some folks who found a very ancient recipe to cure MRSA. The strain evolved away from being affected by that recipe in the past and it was abandoned, but this much later that recipe worked on modern strains. Included were the instructions to say five(?) Hail Marys, which translated to "wait five minutes".
My grandma was a matron and used tricks like those when I was a kid.
You guys keep giving me anecdotes about how the anglosphere mistook common latinsphere practices for mystical ancient spells as a response to my post about how the anglosphere mistakes common latinsphere practices for mystical ancient spells.
I get how it would have become fancy-sounding shorthand to them, I'm saying that using it as pop-culture shorthand for mysticism feels ethnocentric and silly to me.
Oh, it definitely is. As I said elsewhere, for some reason it's only Catholics who see demons and actually invented ways to deal with them.