Talk about your sourdough

I quite enjoyed this article, which I found via Bluesky:

Why "manifesting" is far more irrational than using a medieval service magician

In the medieval past, people would routinely employ "cunning folk" or "service magicians" to help them. They were much more effective, rational, and ethical than many spiritual practices today.

This part, about love magic, I found pretty amusing:

Before there was Tinder, there was seduction magic. It was deemed so powerful that a thirteenth century Christian theologian named William de Montibus felt it necessary to warn his fellow believers about the perils of consuming food prepared with a love spell, infused with the essence of a courting woman in, well, rather unique ways.

The first worry was that one might consume a loaf of bread kneaded not by hand, but by buttocks. Bread, a staple of a medieval diet also used in religious rites, could be a vector for an irresistibly magical feminine essence embedded in the dough, particularly if the cunning woman had sat on it and wriggled around in her natural state to prepare the loaf.