Dealing with Danger: The Practices of Keeping and Discarding Magical Letters
Journal: Incantatio An International Journal on Charms Charmers and Charming
Year: 2017

Disposing of a piece of paper with a textual apotropaios might be even more problematic than storing or sharing it. A perfect example is a type of amulet named “heavenly letters”, “luck letters” or “chain letters”. Such a letter is often framed by its owner as an object or sacred/magic artifact which can act and produce non-beneficial effect on its own, without any human agency: one does not necessarily need to read or otherwise handle a luck letter to receive bad luck, while to receive good luc