PSYCHOLINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF ARCHETYPICAL IMAGES RELATED TO WITCHCRAFT

Abstract

The article is devoted to the psycholinguistic analysis of archetypal images associated with witchcraft. It was revealed that in the modern culture of various peoples of the world there are archetypal images that have similarities in their psychological characteristics: Grandma the witch and the evil grandfather (Ukraine); Baba Yaga and Koshchii (Russia); witch and wizard (Western Europe), etc. These folklore images are based on historical characters of magicians, magicians, priestesses, that is, ministers of pre-Christian religious cults who possessed extraordinary abilities, magical power, and special knowledge. Etymological and lexical analysis of archetypal images showed an ambivalent interpretation: on the one hand, she is a wise priestess who knows and possesses secret knowledge, has supernatural abilities, heals, can predict the future; on the other hand, it is an evil sorcerer who brings trouble, an enemy, knows how to taunt and cast spells. It has been established that a sorceress, sorcerer, sorcerer, witch, soothsayer, sorcerer, character, molfar, witch doctor, soothsayer, sorcerer, sorcerer, magus, priestess, magician, wonderworker, shaman – all these words have a similar semantic meaning: to practice magic, that is, to create charms and miracles, divination, healing and predicting the future, while the above functions are basically quite often did not carry a negative content. Cultural analysis provides grounds for asserting common features at the symbolic archetypal level. All of them possess a «magical power» that enables them to use their supernatural abilities for both good and evil purposes.