Demeter's Dark Ride - an Attraction
Glossary
Glossary
Aleuromancy
D ivination by flour; popular with the ancient Greeks. Sentences were
composed that were written on very small pieces of paper and rolled up
into balls of flour. The balls were then mixed up nine times and given
to those seeking information on their future. This form of divination
was presided over by Apollo.
Antediluvian (as in Royal Antediluvian Order
of Buffaloes)
Of or relating to the period before the Biblical flood.
Baubo
According to Greek mythology, Baubo amused
the goddess Demeter by painting a face on her belly, pulling up her dress
over her head and dancing.
Phantasmechanics
http://www.phantasmechanics.com/
Prestidigitator
n. juggler; conjuror. prestidigitate,
v.i. perform juggling or conjuring tricks. prestidigitation.
Thaumaturgy
The performance of miracles; magic.
Of all the words in English that refer to the making of magic, this is
perhaps the most resonant. It doesn’t have the negative associations
of words such as sorcery or necromancy because it referred originally
to the production of wonders for positive ends rather than any intent
to cause someone harm. The origin is the Greek word thaumatourgos, miracle
working (from thauma, marvel, plus ergos, work). Though it’s not
that common a word, it seems to have generated a surprisingly large set
of derivatives since it first appeared in English in 1727. There are several
words for a practitioner of thaumaturgy, including thaumaturge and thaumaturgist;
another is thaumaturgus, which has been given to a number of Christian
saints and others who are said to have performed wonders. The verb is
thaumaturgise. The thaumatrope was a Victorian toy, a card with two different
pictures on its back and front that magically combined into one when the
card was rapidly spun. And aficionados of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld
novels will know that the wizards of Unseen University invented a device
with which to measure the intensity of a magic field—what would
you call that but a thaumometer?