Talk:Familiar

message: Hey, I was wondering why the ground-breaking and highly acclaimed work of profs. Emma Wilby (Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic), Eva Pocs (Between the Living and the Dead), Georg Luck (Arcana Mundi), and Carmen Blacker ("Japanese Witchcraft" in V. Newall's [ed.] The Witch Figure)--among others--have not yet been broached in this article?  For the most part, these authorities show how extensive this belief in Familiars is, and that those beliefs are unequivocally wide-spread, almost certainly having their roots in shamanism.  The feedings of a Familiar (often with bread, milk, butter, or even blood), the housing of a Familiar in a vessel, often like a Cauldron or kettle; the Familiar's ability to find lost items, to be able to heal the sick, or even (more infrequently) cause harm are all highlighted in these specialist studies that examen Britain, Hungary, and even Japan, etc.  In Blacker's study of the Japanese Familiar, in particular, she shows not only these identical motives, but is able to trace the Familiar back thousands of years using I Ching documents to a form of shamanism known as Ku.
However, despite this unequivocal evidence, far more prosaic scholars, employing a psychological model in terms of pathology have speculated (which is a blatantly specious argument, in light of this evidence, I must add) that the Familiar is a psychological--indeed, it seems Freudian, to me--example identifying the individual libido of a repressive culture during the Early Modern period.  This rather emphatic declaration  is in his article, “Dangerous Spirits: Shapeshifting, Apparitions, and Fantasy in Lorraine Witchcraft Trials” printed in the collection of essays, Werewolves, Witches, and Wandering Spirits: Traditional Belief & Folklore in Early-Modern Europe, ed. by Kathryne A. Edwards.  Sixteenth-Century Essays & Studies, Vol. 62.  (Truman State University Press, 2002).  Personally, albeit's superfluous, I prefer prof. David Leder's article, in which he proves just how wide-spread the evidence for Pocs' and prof. Claude Lecouteux's (Witches, Werewolves, and Fairies: Shapeshifters and Astral Doubles in the Middle Ages) general scholarship and evidence really is!  But, that's just a brief digression on my behalf...
Haven't the time to write anything in this entry at the moment, but I may in the future.
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After reading this article about familiars, it has come to my attention that the person or persons who wrote the article may be a little too "familiar" with the line separarting enlightened knowledge and fanatical ranting.
Feel free to edit it. Wikipedia is designed so that people can change articles to make them better.
*
I will have my entry on the historiography finished very soon. I encourage and welcome any feedback or critisism and I would like to start a discussion on the concept of the Familiar and how it has changed throughout history. - Davidal
Heh. I created the article on Jhereg, followed it to the Vlad Taltos article, added a note on how Vlad's familiar is Loiosh, then thought "hm, I wonder what's in the article on familiars?" - and lo and behold, the article on familiars already mentions Loiosh. So cool. DS 14:04, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I had to figure out what you wrote in your mess of poor grammar only to find it less than enlightening while failing to discern fact and fiction. In addition, there are footnote links with no destinations, as a reference section seems not to exist. This article is in need of a serious rewriting. 69.141.159.252 03:07, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Specifically, for the "further information" thing at the top of the familiar spirit page.72.137.112.139 20:56, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Counter-Sources & The "Familiar" in Context... 

message: Curious, do we need the 'in modern fiction' section, when we have the 'Familiars in art, music, and literature' and the mention of most of it is covered in the art, music and literature section already? Also, there's repeated mention of Runescape, where the mention of RPGs such as Dungeons and Dragons covers that, as well as a double posting of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Honestly, if the mention of Runescape isn't taken out, we might as well add GURPS, nearly every Final Fantasy game, and quite a few other RPGs should we add them too? Same for mention of Riviera, Azure Dreams, GODS, Kingdom of Loathing,Ragnarok Online, Warhammer 40k,Super Robot Wars, and Summon Night. All needless clutter, by the mention of roleplaying games as a generalization, don't you think?Mysticwarloc (talk) 06:31, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redundancy 

message: Given we have appearances from ancient folklore and witchcraft etc. through to modern in popular legend of this fictional creatures, this was a needless and arbitrary split in the first place. Regardless of validity of content, I think the material in not distinct or notable enough to warrant a separate page. 
===Support===
:# Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:51, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: # Strong Support, GenQuest (talk) 23:57, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

text: # Mintrick (talk) 14:08, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

text: Anyone noticed this article? Familiar animal Seems like a clear merge case. FunkMonk (talk) 13:22, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger proposal: [[Familiar spirits in popular culture]] and [[Familiar spirit]]  

message: :# Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:51, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: # Strong Support, GenQuest (talk) 23:57, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Support

message: :# Mintrick (talk) 14:08, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Oppose

message: Same old song and dance. Familiar spirits are an essential part of witchcraft in its early forms, and this article does a solid job of covering what that means. The list, however, is utterly uninformative, and consists of obvious allusions to this well known myth. The list has far more in common in structure and content with the articles in :Category:In popular culture than the article Familiar spirit. Mintrick (talk) 14:08, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Anyone noticed this article? Familiar animal Seems like a clear merge case. FunkMonk (talk) 13:22, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: I do advise anyone before reverting this that we need some reliable sourcing. I will find some sometime. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:41, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Post mortem 

message: Hi all! :) I think that the Agathion (a specific type of a familiar spirit) article be merged into this article (Familiar spirit). I think that the content in the Agathion article can easily be explained in the context of this article, and nothing would become too big, as this page is short and Agathion is a one-sentence stub. If everyone agrees, could someone who knows how to merge articles do that?JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 20:22, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger proposal 

message: Fylgja 
Can the Norse Fylgja be considered familiars? Or are they more like guardian angels?--92.114.148.141 (talk) 17:37, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: This article talk page is for discussing improvements to the article, not for general discussion of the article's topic. - SummerPhDv2.0 01:04, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Off-topic chat 

message: Familiars are overal benevolent for the holder. View are the cases where a familiar spirit is malevolent against the holder itself, when it is, it isn't considered a familiar as per the term.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.73.124.93 (talk) 11:36, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Malevelent versus Benevolent 

message: What's the difference to Lares Familiares? Yotwen (talk) 07:04, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: @User:Yotwen. No relation, despite the close etymologies. Haploidavey (talk) 12:06, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duplicate