FEREASTRA SAU „MICUL PRAG”. CELE TREI MOTIVE ALE UNUI CONSTRUCT SACRAL
CHANGE OF NAME, CHANGE OF FATE: THE CHILD'S PASSAGE OVER THE WINDOW OR THE "THRESHOLD" OF HEAVEN

Summary/Abstract: The article aims to recover the magical meanings of the rite of changing the name of the child in danger of being killed by the disease considered a living, demonic agent, sent by a witch. Changing the name, going through the open window, over the threshold, negotiating, paying the one who "sells" it and offering a new name, whispered in the child's ear, gives him a new identity and, implicitly, a new fate. We discuss a rite of family magic with an apotropaic purpose, in which the new name becomes an amulet.Crossing the window sill requires a new baptism and requires the approach of a new spiritual reality from the demonic agent. He is no longer able to impose his presence on another person. The old one disappears, just like the man before the Christian baptism who dies and is reborn from the water of baptism. The old man, the old name, no longer exists. The demon loses the target and will not reach its goal. Spiritual reality is a magical, corrective one. It does not overlap and does not nullify the value of Christian baptism, but misleads the magical spiritual actant. The child is not only freed from the demonic presence that infests his existence, but is in a position to receive a new destiny. He must sleep, even if cramped, in the crib in which he sat until the age of weaning and, if he is careful (he is warned in this regard by his surrogate mother or the human magic actor who buys him), pretending to be asleep, he can even hear the curses whispering his fate. The secret name must be remembered, usually the name of a saint, hence the protective daimon. He must pray to him every time evil makes its presence felt concretely, every time he is afraid.

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